FrozenLVFan
Joined: 08 Jul 2014 Posts: 3518
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Posted: 06/08/21 5:13 pm ::: |
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Ann's Catholicism was as uncompromising as it was deep. She and her husband, Dick, both refused to meet the spouses of three of their children who married outside the church -- and would not acknowledge those grandchildren. When Donna asked her father why her brother Dick's second wife was not welcome at the family retreat, he said, "We feel the woman he married the first time is his wife."
Ann set up a commission of three daughters to administer her trust that allowed them to continue banning spouses from non-Catholic marriages. In a letter to son Mark in 1990, his mother wrote, "While all our children and grandchildren were and are always welcome in our house and at the Island, what we consider to be their adulterous relationships were and are NOT." The carrying out of these wishes caused a lot of anguish for the children, some of whom did not speak to one another for years. Donna refused to serve on the commission.
Their mother had been a huge presence in all their lives -- Mark remembers freezing at the sound of her whistle -- which she blew when she came into the house. Ann's strict interpretation of Catholicism had given them strong values and made them into high achievers, Mark acknowledges, but the friendly face she showed to her friends was not the one her children saw. "She was very demanding, not really of our time, just demanding of our perfection," he said. He said his mother threw him out of the house when he was 18 because he was seeing a woman older than he was and refused to stop. He had 20 minutes to pack and did not see his mother again for years.
When their mother said she was entering a convent, the children had mixed reactions, but even the most supportive ones didn't try to talk her out of going. "We're all a lot better off with her gone, and I think everybody would admit to that," Mark said. |
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