Column: On my Watch
By Anne W Semmes
For the last fourteen years Bea Crumbine has served the Town of Greenwich as Ambassador-at-Large, so she was surprised when this reporter recently asked her just what is that title all about and how did she come to have it. Credit Bea with curiosity, a desire to serve others, a love of history, and arriving at a time with three grown children allowing her free time, with her husband Peter long serving as Selectman, and Peter Tesei as First Selectman.
Bea had found herself “spending a considerable amount of time” at Town Hall. She reflects, “I was observing, listening, watching how Peter Tesei ran the operation very successfully and seeing what I could do to help.” So much time “that everybody was sort of joking that they elected one [First Selectman] and they got two!”
Surely Bea’s earliest efforts to transform how Greenwich celebrates Independence Day were impressive. “I realized,” recalls Bea, “that while Peter was in office that there was nothing done in this town for the 4th of July except fireworks.” Where was the history? And didn’t Greenwich have street names traceable to the original history of the town? She wanted Greenwich youth to recognize July 4th as not “just picnics and barbecues.” What was needed she told Tesei was an Independence Day Committee to create an historic celebration. “He said, sure, go right ahead.”
Bea saw the need for a proper ceremony to have a colonial flag raising, followed by prominent speakers addressing that historic day. Bea thus presided over that celebration in historical costume beginning in 2008. (She still attends but passed on that presiding torch in 2018).
Bea’s ambassadorial skills were surely being recognized by First Selectman Tesei with his appointing Bea as the Town’s Ambassador-at-Large in 2010. “What you’re doing is exceptional and it should have been done a long time ago,” Tesei had told her. “It was just such a natural flow,” shares Bea. “I was telling him what I was learning and how interesting it was. I was pulling things together.”
A big part of that learning was so often hearing those Italian names around Town Hall:
Tesei, Camillo, Carmella. And Bea loved Italy. She and husband Peter had lived in Rome for three and a half years of their 14 years living abroad. She spoke Italian. So, whenever she met up with those Italian names, she began asking where their families came from? “I was learning that everybody I was talking to in Town Hall only came from one of two little towns in Italy, Rose in Calabria (count Peter Tesei), and Morra de Sanctis in Campania. Rose was the bigger of the two with 7,000 and Marra with 700.”
Bea’s love of sharing Greenwich history would soon connect her to the mayors of those two towns. “I literally cold-emailed and then spoke to the mayors on the phone and told them that we in the United States had not done very well saying thank you to these courageous immigrants. It was time for Greenwich to say thank you to these courageous Italian immigrant families who came with nothing.”
That Sister Cities celebratory idea would become partnered with the Greenwich Historical Society with a town-wide effort in 2013 to document the history and contributions of Greenwich’s Italian community resulting in a months-long exhibition, “From Italy to America,” with the mayors of those towns coming to Greenwich. And Bea would then be invited by the mayors to visit those two towns.
An extension of Bea’s homage to Italian immigrants is seen today in her part she’s proud to play in the St. Roch Church Procession in Chickahominy that follows the St. Roch Feast. “Saint Rocco is the patron saint of the little town of Morra de Sanctis,” tells Bea. So, on this (recent) Saint Rocco Procession Day, where Bea served as Grand Marshall, “They do something that is truly remarkable that I have seen all over Italy… a gathering time for the parishioners. They walk the streets around the Church, and the priest knows which houses contain families who are struggling, who are suffering with illness, who’ve had a recent death. And there’s a band – Gilbert and Sullivan said there always must be a band. And they are leading the people to come out of their houses when they hear the band.”
“The Procession also carries the statue of the Saint,” says Bea, “And when people come out of the houses, they pin money bills onto the sash wrapped around the saint’s neck. And that’s their donation to the church. And it’s a very sacred moment.” She adds, “They made me Grand Marshall a number of years ago, the first woman, the first non-Catholic. They were so loving and kind. It is something that I do out of deep love.”
Another memorable moment in Bea’s Ambassadorship was in her rescue of those six mammoth marble monoliths from the famed Cos Cob Greek Amphitheater created by the late Horton O’Neil. When the new owner of that hallowed property was to bring destruction of that amphitheater, two angels stepped up. Josie Merck of Cos Cob paid to have the amphitheater relocated to her alma mater Sarah Lawrence College, all but those too over large monoliths.
So, why not, thought Bea, move those monoliths to the Montgomery Pinetum and have them frame a green sward to serve as “a gathering place for music, small theater presentations, and quiet reflection.” “It all began,” tells Bea, “When the Connecticut Preservation Trust was notified… that the new owner was giving a very finite amount of time to find something to do with it all before he would chop up into gravel anything that remains.” “You take what you want,” said the owner, and “I will not pay for you to take it.” Those monoliths found a new home with Bea’s help. “And I’m thrilled that Sarah Lawrence has the amphitheater in an abbreviated context,” she says. “And I’m very thrilled that our beautiful monoliths are standing.”
Finally, add Bea’s love of music – she is an opera singer, having sung with the Resident Chorus of the Connecticut Grand Opera and New York Grand Opera Chorus and at other high-level venues. And she’s been a longtime supporter of the Young Artists Philharmonic. When news came of a 2019 Stamford visit of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with its attending chairman Lady Victoria Robey [daughter of Greenwich’s Mary Hull], Bea, who co-chaired the concert, arranged to have a portion of ticket proceeds benefit the Young Artists Philharmonic.
And now, those at the Edgehill retirement home in Stamford have become beneficiaries of Bea’s passion for music. Bea, who turned a young 80 on August 14, now resides at Edgehill where her ailing husband Peter has since passed. But Bea is far from retired and remains Ambassador-at-Large. Bea quickly joined a committee there that brings opera programming to Edgehill. An opera professor Bea had studied with at UConn-Stamford lectures every two weeks on an opera the group has chosen. “So, for people who love going into The Met, who can’t do it as regularly anymore, or who find the hours are challenging, this is a lovely way to keep up that joy in the music,” she says.
But it’s not likely her Edgehill entertainment schedule will swell, as the Fall season is arriving in Greenwich, putting her into full swing with meaningful Ambassador-at-Large commitments across Town.
