I have a secret addiction. I find I am fascinated by The New York Times obituary page. Amazing people die every day ... yet outside of their particular field of expertise, their lives go mostly unnoticed. Some of these individuals whose names are not known to us, have, nonetheless, had a lasting effect on our own lives due to their medical or scientific research.
One recent obituary concerned a doctor whose early research while he was in the Army led to the development of the type of film used to distinguish cancerous from noncancerous tissue. His discovery made possible my early breast cancer detection and treatment, yet I was never able to thank him or even be aware of his work and his name.
Recently, Mark Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Jewish revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April, 1949, passed away. Despite having only homemade weapons and faced with overwhelming odds, the rebels fought for three weeks; knowing they would not win, but determined to cheat the Germans of the ability to pick the time and place of their death. Edelman and a handful of others escaped through the sewers, and he eventually became a cardiologist in Poland after the war. How many of us could show such bravery and how many other heroic acts go unnoticed and unheralded?
Another interesting life that ended recently was that of Donald McLaughlin, a Yale graduate who helped design the interior of Tiffany’s new flagship store in New York. The work of which he was most proud, however, was the official logo he created for the United Nations. “I believe that the U.N. is our best hope for world peace,” he said.
Perhaps the end of an elegant era, as well as the end of a man who caught the spirit of that era in his photographs of models posed stylishly in haute couture, left us with the recent death of the photographer, Irving Penn. He worked for Vogue longer than any other photographer and his camera caught the images of celebrities as well as strikingly beautiful models. One of the most beautiful, Lisa Fonssagrives, became his wife.
Like many of my friends, when I want to add something classic and well made to my wardrobe, I head to the nearest Talbots. Although now owned by General Mills, the woman who started Talbots with one shop in an antique house in Massachusetts, Nancy Talbot, died in September of Alzheimer’s disease. Nancy’s classic look and enthusiasm for bright colors grew that one small shop into a 586-outlet empire. She painted the door of her first store a bright red, a trademark of all Talbots, to this day.
Other obituaries finally reveal the secret love affairs or little known facts about famous people; stories that couldn’t be printed while they were still alive, but I much prefer the stories of interesting lives, well lived, even though I have never heard their names before and will probably forget their names as soon as I put the paper away.
Where else, but in the obituaries could you become acquainted with a society matron who led a double life as a stripper, or a boy raised in poverty who left millions to his hometown library?
Of the many who have recently left us, the one I would most liked to have known was Mimi Wedell, who died at age 94 after starting a modeling and acting career when she was in her 60s.
Although she had only small roles in low-budget films, in her mind they ranked as major motion pictures and she therefore developed the aura of a “star.” She had a positive, upbeat attitude about everything and loved glamour and illusion. She appeared in print ads for Burberry when she was in her 90s and was known for her eccentric ways and her flamboyant hats.
She could have been a mascot for the Red Hat society as she was fond of saying, “Hats give you a frame. However dreary you feel, if you put on a hat, by golly, you’ve changed everything.” She sounded to me like the kind of delightfully off-center, unsinkable, go-for-it kind of gal who would enrich all who knew her.
I guess I appreciate a well written obituary because in a few paragraphs it sums up what we are losing when a particular person dies. As Jim Nicholson of the Philadelphia Daily News once remarked, “A little life well lived is worth talking about.”
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