Frank's Niece!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it. SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens. --Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

Cathy,

The fuss would be because of your charges of Ayn and Frank turning a blind eye to child abuse.

I'd like to get clearer on chronology myself.

When were you sent to live with your father and step-mother?

You've said something about a stint in Arizona in 1966.

What was that about, and who were you with then?

If it was after '66 that you were sent to live with father and step-mother, I'm not surprised if Ayn and Frank lost touch with the situation.

Late '67 to '69 was, first, the acceleration to the blow-up between Ayn and Nathaniel. She was plenty preoccupied, as her diary notes make apparent, with upset over her relationship with Nathaniel.

After the break (which happened in late August, 1968), there was a period of enormous turmoil, with Rand trying to get caught up with the badly behind-schedule publication, with subsidiary schisms and commotions going on.

By about the time that phase had pretty much settled down, Frank was into a decline which worsened over the remainder of his life, with him ultimately hardly recognizing people (such as the Blumenthals) he'd known for years.

As awful as this would seem to you, as one of the forgotten children in the circumstance, I can understand how they would have lost sight of you and your sister, especially if Agnes wasn't pushing them for financial help.

I think you said that after the 70-71 argument you and Conny overheard, Agnes and your father didn't talk to each other any longer. Is that right?

About Peikoff, Ayn and Frank didn't "take him in." He had money in his family; his father was a successful doctor, and he did manage to get academic positions for some years, first at Denver, then at Brooklyn Poly. After Rand's death, he had her estate.

Ellen

[caroljane]

Anyone want to place bets on whether the Objectivist Orthodoxy will reject Cathy's entire version of events and possibly even refuse to acknowledge who she really is if these unflattering implications about Rand's turning a blind eye to this sort of dysfunctionalism and abuse in her own (extended) family are substantiated?

It wouldn't surprise me if, within a very short period of time, she begins getting called a fraud, sock, and every other name in the book.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that she gets accused of "gratuitous smears against Ayn Rand's character" by many of the self-appointed guardians of her image.

I think they will just ignore it. Only the PARC veterans have been interested so far, and I think poor old Valliant is sick of the whole mess. His book was an assignment that he fulfilled, and whatever else exra he may have expected from it, I don't think he got.

[caroljane]

Further to last, the Milgrim biography is being written now and maybe she will have to examine these new facts.

[Cathy]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it. SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens. --Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

Cathy,

The fuss would be because of your charges of Ayn and Frank turning a blind eye to child abuse.

I'd like to get clearer on chronology myself.

When were you sent to live with your father and step-mother?

You've said something about a stint in Arizona in 1966.

What was that about, and who were you with then?

If it was after '66 that you were sent to live with father and step-mother, I'm not surprised if Ayn and Frank lost touch with the situation.

Late '67 to '69 was, first, the acceleration to the blow-up between Ayn and Nathaniel. She was plenty preoccupied, as her diary notes make apparent, with upset over her relationship with Nathaniel.

After the break (which happened in late August, 1968), there was a period of enormous turmoil, with Rand trying to get caught up with the badly behind-schedule publication, with subsidiary schisms and commotions going on.

By about the time that phase had pretty much settled down, Frank was into a decline which worsened over the remainder of his life, with him ultimately hardly recognizing people (such as the Blumenthals) he'd known for years.

As awful as this would seem to you, as one of the forgotten children in the circumstance, I can understand how they would have lost sight of you and your sister, especially if Agnes wasn't pushing them for financial help.

I think you said that after the 70-71 argument you and Conny overheard, Agnes and your father didn't talk to each other any longer. Is that right?

About Peikoff, Ayn and Frank didn't "take him in." He had money in his family; his father was a successful doctor, and he did manage to get academic positions for some years, first at Denver, then at Brooklyn Poly. After Rand's death, he had her estate.

Ellen

we went to Arizona with my mom for her health, we came back the same year. My mother got sick right after we came back, so when lived with my dad started in 66 and ended in the beginning of 71. My Aunt and my step mother got into the argument at the end of 70, my mother died in Feb 71 and we started running away. I do understand that they were old and Uncle Frank was sick. But they just forgot about us. Uncle Frank didn't die until 1979 and Aunt Alice didn't until 82/83. That still doesn't explain why they didn't tell us Aunt Alice was really Ayn Rand. But regardless, sometime between 66-68 maybe 69, they came to my fathers house 3x for sure. The other 3x must have been at my mothers before 66 or twice my mother traveled to see them. I remember she always seemed busy. Do you know how many visits they made to Aunt Agnes after 66? My dad was still sharp in his mind at 77, he went down just before he died. If uncle Frank was 6 years older he was 82 when he died. I was 21 when my dad died, so I am pretty sure Uncle Frank was with it when I was thirteen. I don't even know what kind of help I expected from them...but I sure know this...I expected more than I got. ~Cathy~

[PDS]

Perhaps some people here never had anything from which to recover.

PDS can speak for himself. He cannot possibly speak for everybody here (as he starts by doing), or "virtually" everybody (as he ends by doing) either.

Though if MSK allows these sorts of statements to stand uncontested they’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only recovering alcoholics need apply.

I swear there is something about the topic and substance of this thread that is making some people a little loopy.

That's right, Mark, you pegged it: my comment may actually be the straw that breaks the back of this website, if not Objectivism as a whole. It is like poison arrow, aimed directly at the heart of Galt's speech, nay Galt's Gulch.

In fact, without MSK taking a bold stand in response to my statement, I could easily see the lights going out on Western Civilization, because, as you have so thoughtfully elucidated, there can only be one meaning to my statement, i.e., that we are all drunks, or recovering drunks, and nobody else could possibly see it otherwise. Imagine the ripple effects if this statement is allowed to stand! Actually, don't.

Dude, you need to get out and mingle with other humans a little more.

[caroljane]

Perhaps some people here never had anything from which to recover.

PDS can speak for himself. He cannot possibly speak for everybody here (as he starts by doing), or "virtually" everybody (as he ends by doing) either.

Though if MSK allows these sorts of statements to stand uncontested they’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only recovering alcoholics need apply.

I swear there is something about the topic and substance of this thread that is making some people a little loopy.

That's right, Mark, you pegged it: my comment may actually be the straw that breaks the back of this website, if not Objectivism as a whole. It is like poison arrow, aimed directly at the heart of Galt's speech, nay Galt's Gulch.

In fact, without MSK taking a bold stand in response to my statement, I could easily see the lights going on Western Civilization, because, as you have so thoughtfully elucidated, there can only be one meaning to my statement, i.e., that we are all drunks, or recovering drunks, and nobody else could possibly see it otherwise. Imagine the ripple effects if this statement is allowed to stand! Actually, don't.

Dude, you need to get out and mingle with other humans a little more.

Who wants to recover anyway?

-Cleo

[Cathy]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it.

SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens.

--Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

If you knew more about "Peikoof"--love your typo--you'd know he was completely out of the loop on this. As for Ayn, it was always no time for children, really, respecting her life choices. Regardless, they couldn't have busted you and your sister out of foster care without assuming custody and there is no way they'd have done that. These were already elderly people and it could have easily been no better than foster care for you girls. (I'm assuming foster care was X while you may not remember X but Y instead.) They couldn't even have found out what was going on with you in foster care. You are obviously a normal, maternal woman, with your kids and all. Barbara Branden once said, "There was nothing maternal about Ayn Rand." Ayn and Frank were more like she the man he the woman rather than the common idea of a married couple--in a way more like two men living together. With Nathaniel Ayn got to be more the woman than she could with Frank.

Anyway, it's appear that you and your sister are "the last of the O'Connors" because they ran out of testosterone, which seems to explain a lot about Frank and his not rescuing you. Nathaniel Branden used to say to his therapy groups, "No one is coming to rescue you." Some wag replied, "But that's not true, Nathaniel, you came." "Yes, but I came to tell you no one is coming." You need to pat yourself on the back more for getting on with your life and being so strong. Here's an inexpensive little exercise he once taught me: Stand in front of the bathroom or large mirror, breathe deeply, and say "My name is _________ ___________ and I am enough." Repeat ten times, a deep breath each. It works because it's true--usually painfully true. (Some people might change or modify their names.)

--Brant

I found out I was too much

ha ha ha and I bet that's true! I just wonder, why now, I have older grandchildren and didn't care to dig into the past. I am fifty five years old, probably on the last chapter of my life. I didn't think it would lead to all this. I didn't know about Aunt Alice's "real life". In ways my sister may have been right when she said I shouldn't open a can of worms, I may regret it. I loved the Aunt Alice I knew...not so crazy yet about Ayn Rand. They were the only family we had left, and they just threw us away. I'm just going to have to except that. The mirror thing is a good idea, except I know who I am...they were the ones who forgot who I was. ~Cathy~

[caroljane]

Mark, to paraphrase PDS in another context, it is statements like yours that give addicts a bad rap. No, I am not going to look up the dictionary definitions. Dependence on something, a continuing need for it, to maintain one's life and psychological balance, is not necessarily self-destructuve. Philosophy, bottle gardens, gossip, novels (someone said they were the same thing), even golf are not in themselves toxic as alcohol and drugs are. Nor are love and friendship, or debate and conversation.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Aw, come on folks.

Everyone knows the last name of PDS is really Touhey.

Michael

[PDS]

Aw, come on folks.

Everyone knows the last name of PDS is really Touhey.

Michael

Some of this zaniness may drive me to drink. But, as Christopher Hitchens used to say, it doesn't take much.

[caroljane]

Aw, come on folks.

Everyone knows the last name of PDS is really Touhey.

Michael

Why Michael! If your misspelling is of Toews I am glad to see a Chicagoan enter into the spirit of the playoffs!

[Cathy]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it. SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens. --Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

Cathy,

The fuss would be because of your charges of Ayn and Frank turning a blind eye to child abuse.

I'd like to get clearer on chronology myself.

When were you sent to live with your father and step-mother?

You've said something about a stint in Arizona in 1966.

What was that about, and who were you with then?

If it was after '66 that you were sent to live with father and step-mother, I'm not surprised if Ayn and Frank lost touch with the situation.

Late '67 to '69 was, first, the acceleration to the blow-up between Ayn and Nathaniel. She was plenty preoccupied, as her diary notes make apparent, with upset over her relationship with Nathaniel.

After the break (which happened in late August, 1968), there was a period of enormous turmoil, with Rand trying to get caught up with the badly behind-schedule publication, with subsidiary schisms and commotions going on.

By about the time that phase had pretty much settled down, Frank was into a decline which worsened over the remainder of his life, with him ultimately hardly recognizing people (such as the Blumenthals) he'd known for years.

As awful as this would seem to you, as one of the forgotten children in the circumstance, I can understand how they would have lost sight of you and your sister, especially if Agnes wasn't pushing them for financial help.

I think you said that after the 70-71 argument you and Conny overheard, Agnes and your father didn't talk to each other any longer. Is that right?

About Peikoff, Ayn and Frank didn't "take him in." He had money in his family; his father was a successful doctor, and he did manage to get academic positions for some years, first at Denver, then at Brooklyn Poly. After Rand's death, he had her estate.

Ellen

we went to Arizona with my mom for her health, we came back the same year. My mother got sick right after we came back, so when lived with my dad started in 66 and ended in the beginning of 71. My Aunt and my step mother got into the argument at the end of 70, my mother died in Feb 71 and we started running away. I do understand that they were old and Uncle Frank was sick. But they just forgot about us. Uncle Frank didn't die until 1979 and Aunt Alice didn't until 82/83. That still doesn't explain why they didn't tell us Aunt Alice was really Ayn Rand. But regardless, sometime between 66-68 maybe 69, they came to my fathers house 3x for sure. The other 3x must have been at my mothers before 66 or twice my mother traveled to see them. I remember she always seemed busy. Do you know how many visits they made to Aunt Agnes after 66? My dad was still sharp in his mind at 77, he went down just before he died. If uncle Frank was 6 years older he was 82 when he died. I was 21 when my dad died, so I am pretty sure Uncle Frank was with it when I was thirteen. I don't even know what kind of help I expected from them...but I sure know this...I expected more than I got. ~Cathy~

Let me re-state the 3x they came to my father's house...I seen them 3 different days at my father's house.

[Serapis Bey]

Mark, to paraphrase PDS in another context, it is statements like yours that give addicts a bad rap. No, I am not going to look up the dictionary definitions. Dependence on something, a continuing need for it, to maintain one's life and psychological balance, is not necessarily self-destructuve. Philosophy, bottle gardens, gossip, novels (someone said they were the same thing), even golf are not in themselves toxic as alcohol and drugs are. Nor are love and friendship, or debate and conversation.

Self-sacrifice is an addiction. Self-sacrificers are often closet- or ex-morphine addicts. I can't begin to tell you how many addictions are prevented and/or "cured" through substitution. The number would certainly be startling to most people. - C.S. Hyatt

All of us (the human race, that is) find ourselves thrown into this world at birth like a fish yanked out of water and left to flounder on dry land. Like the fish writhing, it's fishlips puckering in and out in a desperate attempt to take in sustenance, we too seek to soothe our souls with something...anything...to stave off the existential void which looms just around the corner when our basic survival needs are met.

The horror, the horror...

A society is nothing more than a prescription for the human condition known as existential presence. The prescription is nowhere to be filled. There is no pharmacist. All we have are fictions to keep us safe. We have our humble beliefs and fantasies, our four walls and the sound of traffic.

We strive day to day for the fulfillment of our hopes, each day evaluating our success -- often by the fact we have survived. But the fictions go on! Quietly we work, age and die. In between we have our few pleasures, a feeling of strength from time to time. Most often we have the simple things to soothe our soul.

Our skin gets older, our belly fatter, our frame shorter, but we have our fictions to keep us warm. Every once in a while, we have fiction wars, battles paid for in blood to "prove" whose fictions are correct. But we do not have to wait for war -- death is all around us everywhere. One thing a society does know for sure is to remove "the dead" as quickly as possible. Appearance is everything for fiction addicts.

Today, in our modern world, we have introduced the fiction of addiction. Everything is addictive, including society. (one fiction upon another fiction.) What is not addictive? Living a normal life. What is that? Never substitute one need for another, always over-centralize, cope in constructive ways...............These fictions seem to get heavier and heavier. Every lie requires more lies. And society is the greatest lie.

A normal life is satisfied with fictions and anonymity. It means saying one thing and doing another. It means that you are satisfied with very little. So normal people have a house, a partner who never dies (then they become a widow(ER)), children who are never a problem, a job they go to everyday even though they hate it, a partner they sleep with even though they bore them. However, with all this "chosen" normality, more and more researchers are finding more and more people who are addicts or victims or perpetrators -- or?

As we go deeper and deeper into normality we find adulteries, drug fiends, alcoholics, bulimics, gamblers, criminals, sex fiends, child abusers, child sex abusers, pornography, nicotine and coffee addiction: sweet addictions, TV, music, relationship, family addictions, sports, animal addicts, human rights addicts, work addicts, food addicts, computer addicts, prescription drug addicts, religion addicts, sleepwalking addicts, shoppers, credit card junkies, etc. Most everyone is an addict and everything is an addiction. Most everyone is a victim, a perpetrator, or all of the above. If you do not have an addiction you are pathological. If you are not a victim you are left out. If you are not a perpetrator you must not be male. Well, let's be serious. What I am saying is that we are all being slowly discovered -- but the system and the Moolah still hold on to their fictions -- their history books -- and of course the book of bad deeds -- the bible. It is comforting to have something in your hand. I much prefer my...

BECOME WHO YOU ARE

THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES

-- C.S. Hyatt

[Ellen Stuttle]

Cathy,

Realizing that I'd mistaken an endnote citing Marna for one citing Mimi,I went searching to see if all the direct quotes from Mimi herself came from Barbara's interviews of Mimi in early 1983. Looks like they did. And looks like Mimi was dead before Heller started interviewing about 2004.

Among the material pertaining to Mimi which Heller references as coming from Barbara is this about Mimi's and Ayn's first meeting:

[Mimi] had first met and idolized [Rand] while visiting her uncle Nick in December 1934.

I haven't so far found a death date for Mimi.

However, I did find a death date for your grandfather Dennis:

pg. 461, endnote to pg. 124

Dennis O'Connor died on December 21, 1938, State of Ohio death certificate for Dennis O'Connor, Archives of the Lorain, Ohio, City Health Department.

Ellen

[caroljane]

Mark, to paraphrase PDS in another context, it is statements like yours that give addicts a bad rap. No, I am not going to look up the dictionary definitions. Dependence on something, a continuing need for it, to maintain one's life and psychological balance, is not necessarily self-destructuve. Philosophy, bottle gardens, gossip, novels (someone said they were the same thing), even golf are not in themselves toxic as alcohol and drugs are. Nor are love and friendship, or debate and conversation.

Self-sacrifice is an addiction. Self-sacrificers are often closet- or ex-morphine addicts. I can't begin to tell you how many addictions are prevented and/or "cured" through substitution. The number would certainly be startling to most people. - C.S. Hyatt

All of us (the human race, that is) find ourselves thrown into this world at birth like a fish yanked out of water and left to flounder on dry land. Like the fish writhing, it's fishlips puckering in and out in a desperate attempt to take in sustenance, we too seek to soothe our souls with something...anything...to stave off the existential void which looms just around the corner when our basic survival needs are met.

The horror, the horror.

Yummy bait metaphor, thanks.

And all time we are mourning our lost gills, the H and the O are combining themselves to supply our lungs for the sighs.

- Lorelei

[Cathy]

Cathy,

Realizing that I'd mistaken an endnote citing Marna for one citing Mimi,I went searching to see if all the direct quotes from Mimi herself came from Barbara's interviews of Mimi in early 1983. Looks like they did. And looks like Mimi was dead before Heller started interviewing about 2004.

Among the material pertaining to Mimi which Heller references as coming from Barbara is this about Mimi's and Ayn's first meeting:

[Mimi] had first met and idolized [Rand] while visiting her uncle Nick in December 1934.

I haven't so far found a death date for Mimi.

However, I did find a death date for your grandfather Dennis:

pg. 461, endnote to pg. 124

Dennis O'Connor died on December 21, 1938, State of Ohio death certificate for Dennis O'Connor, Archives of the Lorain, Ohio, City Health Department.

Ellen

Ellen, from what I remember MiMi was old enough to be my mother. She was the oldest child of Aunt Agnes and in 1934, MiMi would have been a very young child. When I was younger I could hardly understand Aunt Alice, and she had been in this country for many years by then...something isn't right in Heller's account on that sentence. How old was MiMi then? If my grandfather died Dec 21, then what I am remembering about him being buried on Christmas eve is correct!! I am remembering right!!!! So if you read back, the only thing I have been wrong about...which was hardly wrong...was Ellen. I thought she was a grand daughter instead of a niece. I ve been right about everything else...why is it so hard for people to believe me about the visits??? Did you find out what MiMi called her, was it Aunt Alice? You have been very helpful for me Ellen, I hope I have help in some ways to ~Cathy~

[caroljane]

MSK, Isn't it time to remove the question mark from the topic title here?

[Cathy]

MSK, Isn't it time to remove the question mark from the topic title here?

LOL! thanks Danouce!

[Brant Gaede]

MSK, Isn't it time to remove the question mark from the topic title here?

Let's not rush into things. Wait until the interrogation team gets back from Indiana.

--Brant

[PDS]

Cathy,

Realizing that I'd mistaken an endnote citing Marna for one citing Mimi,I went searching to see if all the direct quotes from Mimi herself came from Barbara's interviews of Mimi in early 1983. Looks like they did. And looks like Mimi was dead before Heller started interviewing about 2004.

Among the material pertaining to Mimi which Heller references as coming from Barbara is this about Mimi's and Ayn's first meeting:

[Mimi] had first met and idolized [Rand] while visiting her uncle Nick in December 1934.

I haven't so far found a death date for Mimi.

However, I did find a death date for your grandfather Dennis:

pg. 461, endnote to pg. 124

Dennis O'Connor died on December 21, 1938, State of Ohio death certificate for Dennis O'Connor, Archives of the Lorain, Ohio, City Health Depar

tment.

Ellen

Ellen, from what I remember MiMi was old enough to be my mother. She was the oldest child of Aunt Agnes and in 1934, MiMi would have been a very young child. When I was younger I could hardly understand Aunt Alice, and she had been in this country for many years by then...something isn't right in Heller's account on that sentence. How old was MiMi then? If my grandfather died Dec 21, then what I am remembering about him being buried on Christmas eve is correct!! I am remembering right!!!! So if you read back, the only thing I have been wrong about...which was hardly wrong...was Ellen. I thought she was a grand daughter instead of a niece. I ve been right about everything else...why is it so hard for people to believe me about the visits??? Did you find out what MiMi called her, was it Aunt Alice? You have been very helpful for me Ellen, I hope I have help in some ways to ~Cathy~

Sometimes, I have trouble understanding your former Aunt Alice as well, but for reasons other than her accent...

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

I noticed a recent post - here - from Marc, who I think is the person who bought Barbara's research archives.

I recall his saying early in OL history that he was planning to make copies of the interview tapes for preservation purposes, the tapes being old and brittle.

Do you know if he ever did that?

I suppose you can guess my drift. I'm wondering if there are copies in easily copyable form of the two interviews with Mimi Sutton. I figure there's lots on those tapes which didn't find its way into the biographies.

Ellen

[Cathy]

On page 333, Heller says that Rand never saw her American cousins again after the Chicago, 1963 meeting. At that event, some members of the O'Connor family were there as well. She writes that Rand's family was upset that Rand didn't come to the funeral of Burt Stone n 65 and after that "all communications ceased." She also discusses some other breaks. But she doesn't say anything one way or the other about the O'Connor family, which you would expect if Frank and Ayn never saw them again.

So I wouldn't discount the possibility of a later visit or two to Ohio and frequent phone conversations. On the other hand it is very unlikely that there were yearly visits to Ohio for a substantial period in the 50s and 60s.

-Neil Parille If this is the cousin my Aunt told me about, there is more to it than the funeral. Aunt Alice promised her something and didn't follow through with that promise...the funeral was just to justify her argument with her cousin, but really it was over not giving that cousin something. Ill try and remember what it was, but I am remembering it was something silly to fight about. And this would be Aunt Alice's cousin Right? ~Cathy~

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, from what I remember MiMi was old enough to be my mother. She was the oldest child of Aunt Agnes and in 1934, MiMi would have been a very young child.

Uh-uh, not a very young child. She would have been 15 or 16 in December 1934, depending on when in the year her birthday was.

Barbara and Marna, as cited by Heller, agree in saying that Mimi was 20 when she was staying with Ayn and Frank in the summer of 1939.

Depending on whether she'd already had her birthday by summer of that year or whether she turned 21 later that year, she was born in 1918 or 1919.

She was old enough to be my mother. (My mother was born in March, 1919.)

If my grandfather died Dec 21, then what I am remembering about him being buried on Christmas eve is correct!! I am remembering right!!!! So if you read back, the only thing I have been wrong about...which was hardly wrong...was Ellen. I thought she was a grand daughter instead of a niece. I ve been right about everything else...why is it so hard for people to believe me about the visits???

The problem remains about visits to your father's house between late 66 and 69, when could they have happened?

The thing is that a whole lot is known about what Rand was doing during that time frame. I'm still trying to dig up some unaccounted-for time slots. I'm expecting one or two plausible times to turn up. (I doubt there'd have been as many as three, but, as you say, there might have been an occasion when she and Frank were at your father's house more than once during a particular trip).

One thing I wonder is if there might have been another funeral in those years. For instance, Margaret, although you don't recall anything about her.

Did you find out what MiMi called her, was it Aunt Alice?

I haven't seen any reference to what Mimi called her.

You have been very helpful for me Ellen, I hope I have help in some ways to ~Cathy~

You are certainly giving me an interesting puzzle. Plus, I'm really curious to learn more about Frank's family. I liked Frank - as did everyone else I've ever heard say.

-

A couple further questions (the chronology you gave earlier was helpful to give me a clear idea of when you were where).

Did your step-mother have children of her own?

Also, what was her "thing"? Was she a religious fanatic, punishing you and your sister for supposed sins? Or was it just personal nastiness?

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

MSK, Isn't it time to remove the question mark from the topic title here?

Carol,

That's a great suggestion.

Done.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael,

I noticed a recent post - here - from Marc, who I think is the person who bought Barbara's research archives.

I recall his saying early in OL history that he was planning to make copies of the interview tapes for preservation purposes, the tapes being old and brittle.

Do you know if he ever did that?

I suppose you can guess my drift. I'm wondering if there are copies in easily copyable form of the two interviews with Mimi Sutton. I figure there's lots on those tapes which didn't find its way into the biographies.

Ellen

Ellen,

I don't know if he ever made copies.

That's an intriguing idea.

Michael