MADISON PARK

Part 1 - For You I Will Start at the Beginning

As an adult entrenched in the 21st century I am conscious of people speaking of all the things they can't live without; their smartphones, wifi, HBO, lip balm, Mexican food, air conditioning, their son's acceptance at a certain prestigious boarding school, Christmas, California Zinfandel, and the music of The Beatles. They speak with such sincerity it's all I can do not to interject I couldn't live without running water or a functioning spinal cord. I don't, but only because my social skills are functioning. And I know such a statement would be to throw a bucket of ice water on what is most often a lighthearted conversation.

Kenneth once said his only true criticism of me is I at times forget to have a sense of humor and take everything literally and personally. This I don't deny, but it would be his mistake not to hear the absurdity of the statement "I can't live without," unless you are talking about oxygen or insulin. We can live without cable or Mexican food, billions of people do. Billions also live without clean water, electricity, or enough food. Not in the UK but in other places. I had to travel to India and parts of Africa to witness firsthand what being poor really means. And I've noticed that people speak mostly of inanimate objects, their babysitter and The Beatles notwithstanding.

They find it easy to lament the discontinuation of their favorite brand of shampoo or the loss of their local pub but scary to talk about our real fears. After all, the worst that can happen to you? You could develop MS and lose the ability to walk? Be convicted of a crime you didn't comment and end up losing your freedom? What if your spouse got brain cancer or your child was killed by a drunk driver? Could you live without them? Of course you could. You do, as these are tragedies people survive every day. Life still goes on, albeit unhappier, at least in the beginning. Only your death is final and irreversible. So like most people I've learn to live with tragedy. I had too. Either you live, or you die. What other choice could I make?

For you, I will start at the beginning.

My great grandfather, William Eaton was born before the turn of the twentieth century. When I joined the world he was still and spry. Girls were rare in the Eaton family and its current patriarch outlived his not only his first and second wives, but his only daughter. He also sired three boys with his second wife, but my mother was the only girl born to the next generation as well. Her three uncles produced only sons, ten of them all together.

His first wife, my great grandmother, Elizabeth, was born and raised in Africa. Her father settled there after the Boer War, buying a plantation in the Sudan with his salary and a small settlement  from his family. Both he, his wife and young son died in a typhoid epidemic in 1911. Elizabeth wanted to stay and manage the property herself, but it was indebted and the creditors had no faith in an inexperience girl turning it into a prosperous enterprise. After it was sold she was left with a little money, enough to pay her passage to England.

When she arrived she was surprised to find her mother's half brother there, an American born to his father's first wife. He wanted to take Elizabeth back to Washington D.C., but instead he bought a factory on Elizabeth's recommendation and made a fortune during the war.

Elizabeth's paternal uncle was a Baron, but not a prosperous one, the reason her father joined the army in the first place when his allowance ceased. He offered his niece a place in his house, not trusting the pompous Yankee to find her a suitable husband. According to her diaries, this was not something Elizabeth was interested in and she only spent short stretches of time with them.

There are extensive diaries about her time in Africa and those first years in England, now archived at the Eaton family estate, Madison Park. When I read the first one I felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity reading about her life. It's comforting to know she finds an ally in not only her uncle, who trusts her business instincts, but also her cousin Grahame Clifton. He must have been madly in love with her to treat her as an equal, something no other man did. Her writing speaks with hope of a possible marriage with him, how she could find happiness with him. This man who doesn't think it's foolish for a women to read the newspaper or believe she has the right to vote. It won't be a marriage of wealth. Like her father, Grahame is the youngest son and will inherit little, but it would be a partnership rather than indentured servitude.