My family came from Westfordshire City.
When I was a boy, saying that was a good way to get accused of trolling for sympathy. The post-industrial, postwar economy had been particularly unkind to the city nestled between the hills, and for a few decades its once-beautiful downtown was a wasteland of empty storefronts and abandoned buildings.
Nowadays, of course, it's a badge of honour to say you're from Westfordshire City: thanks to an intrepid artists' community, a well-funded urban renewal programme from the government and a handful of plucky local activists, the city has seen a renaissance that is nothing short of miraculous. Of course, the high street that was once lined with quaint boutiques of every sort is now choked with the likes of H&M and Banana Republic, just like so many yuppified shopping districts all across the Continent, and in America too. But I must admit, that is certainly preferable to the way the street looked thirty years ago when I was a little boy.
But even when Westfordshire was down among the ranks of Liverpool and Detroit, I was proud to call it my ancestral home thanks to my great grandmother. A teacher for decades (and eventually the headmistress) at Yarmouth, a prestigious boarding school that somehow kept its reputation intact even as the environs crumbled just beyond its walls, she had a knack for inspiring the love of life and learning in all sorts of people, and she inspired generations of girls and, after the school merged with its brother school, boys as well. As the bottom began to drop out of the city not long after the war, she fought long and hard in favour of educational programmes for the growing population of disadvantaged children, as well as lobbying for aid for the city and its underclass alike. No one begrudged her when she finally retired to the coast well into her eighties, for she had fought longer and harder than anyone against the city's long slide into disrepair. To this very day, her portrait smiles down at the young women and men who pass through the assembly hall where she held court for so many years.
I was only eight or nine when Great Grandma passed, so my memories of her are fleeting and fuzzy. But one thing is crystal clear to me: to the very end, she was feisty yet cheerful, always encouraging us youngsters to embrace our dreams and stay true to ourselves. My father once confessed to me that he had once had the impertinence to ask his grandmother just why she had held on for so long in Westfordshire City during its worst years. "She said, 'Because it is home to the most wonderful memories of my life, and that is always worth fighting for,'" he told me. That, coupled with my lifelong admiration for all that she accomplished (and tried to accomplish), infused me with a longstanding desire to learn all I could about my great grandmother's youth.
So when my research for my doctoral thesis brought me to spend a few weeks combing the archives of the Westfordshire City Historical Society, I leapt at the chance to also learn what I could about Great Grandma. After a bit of cajoling, my parents allowed me to bring a box of old papers and photographs of hers along on the trip. For the first couple of weeks, that box was to remain nothing but a temptation in the corner of the room I'd rented: I had promised myself that my thesis would come first, and by God, it did.
It was - of course - on a beautiful sunny morning that I decided I had earned a break. When I stepped out onto the high street, I opted to turn left instead of right and take the day off. Remembering the box in my room, I soon decided a visit to the local stately home was in order. It would have still been occupied when Great Grandma was a young woman who frequented those very same streets, so it seemed a good place to begin my exploration of her youth.
I could not - and this is an understatement - have imagined just how right I was.
The mansion on the edge of town was beautiful, as they always are, although the tour guide did advise us that it had fallen into disrepair for a while just like most of Westfordshire City. "The family who lived here were named Marlston, and the last generation of the Marlstons to live here full time moved to London after the war," he explained. "They had three children, but none of the three cared to stay in Westfordshire City as it started to fall apart. They weren't able to sell the home, and so it stood empty for a few decades. What you see now is a restoration to the way it looked during its last years of occupation."
The downstairs was opulent and beautifully restored, with period furniture and a beautiful view of the surrounding meadows. But it was the upstairs where this story really begins. The tour guide led us into a small, rather nondescript bedroom. "Toward the end of their residency," he explained, "the Marlstons had some cash flow problems, like a lot of aristocratic families did, so they took in boarders. This room was home to one of them, who later became famous as an international correspondent during the Great War: their niece, Agnes Marlston. The park across from the city bathhouse is named after her, as you may know, because in her days here she was a very frequent guest at the baths." He picked up a black and white photograph from the bedside table. "Here, we have a photograph of her with some of her friends from the time she lived here, several years before the war. Rumour has it they led a very racy lifestyle for their time..."
He said something about just how racy their lifestyle was, and whatever he said must have been quite funny, as I was aware of the other tourists laughing. I was not aware of just what he had said, though, because I was gazing in amazement at the photograph. Five young faces smiled back at me across the decades: two men, three women, one of whom was evidently Agnes Marlston. I knew of her, as her journalism during the war was somewhat tangentially related to my thesis; she was even the subject of a footnote or two. But that was not what had taken me by surprise. No, what surprised me was that I had a copy of the very same photograph in that box back in my room. While I knew of Agnes Marlston, I had never seen a photograph of her that I knew of, and so I had never recognized her in that photograph. But I did recognize one of the other women.
I recovered from the shock just in time as the guide set the photo back down. Raising my hand, I asked, "Excuse me, do you know when that photo was taken roughly?"
"Probably five to ten years before the war, based on what the family could recall," he told me. "The Marlstons' eldest daughter had it in her collection for many years, and she left it to us in her will. All we know is what her children thought they remembered of her stories about her cousin and her friends. We do know where it was taken: at the historical society up at the other end of town. Back then that building was the biggest department store in the city, called Miles. The café on the top floor there was very popular among young adults like they were then. Incidentally, the young lady on the other side of the table from Ms. Marlston, over here, she is a legend in Westfordshire City today -"
"I know," I interrupted. "She's my great grandmother."
"Irene Wright was your great grandmother!" the guide looked as impressed as I had felt over the photograph. "Marvellous! Could we have a chat after the tour?"
"I insist upon it," I said.
"Did you ever meet her?" he asked me twenty minutes later, handing me a cup of coffee in the home's business office, which had once been Mr. Marlston's study and still had a vague scent of old cigars and brandy to show for it.
