Ms Semmes-
I want to thank you for the wonderful article you wrote in the Greenwich Sentinel dated May 28 of this year “Finding the Lost – and Found – to Honor on Memorial Day”. Among other subjects of the article, you told a bit of the story of my grandmother Alexandra Clark Spann.
I had been visiting my sisters and my dad, who celebrated his 91st birthday on July 4 at their home in Stamford. On a bookshelf I found Oral History Project interview, which I had never seen before, and read with fascination the things I never knew about her or my dad or his sister, or my grandfather, who I hardly knew. Having had my curiosity piqued, I googled Alexandra and found your recent article referring to the very book I had just read!
I remember Grandma Dee, as she was known to me and my sisters, mostly from my grade school days. She was an odd duck by most family accounts, but I found her to be delightful, interesting, and a font of information and history that I retain to this day. Walks around Tod’s Point and the Holly Grove identifying flora and fauna. Making charcoal rubbings on newsprint of ancient gravestones. Tales of her ancestors who helped settle the town. Many tours of the Bush Holley House. I remember all that fondly but I wish I had thought to ask more questions of her.
Alas, there’s only so much a school kid can absorb. But as I got older, much older, I found myself appreciating history a lot more. Probably because I AM history now. Alexandra may have been a geek or a nerd, and I certainly have proudly inherited that gene. I hope I can delve into the Oral History Project to see what other gems I can unearth.
It’s been decades, and I don’t get back to Connecticut very often. When I do, it is so different now that my GPS doesn’t even know where we are. I am a stranger there now, but here and there I can recognize bits and pieces of what I once knew well. I am glad I was able to talk about this book and article with my dad, who is still very viable and has pretty much all of the marbles he was born with. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane for both of us and I’m sure for him it was a nice light to shine in his twilight years.
Thank you!
