There are now condominiums on a 4 and a half acre plot in Basking Ridge, NJ. Behind the condos, there is a flat top school with smooth, tar streets good for bike riding, leading up to its paved driveway. I remember the school, but I have never seen the condominiums. As a kid, when I used to visit Basking Ridge, there was a big, early 20th Century white, wooden colonial sitting majestic, far back from the public thoroughfare, on that green, manicured property. The house was occupied by family friends, Clarice and Don Olinger, and their children. My parents and Clarice and Don met sometime in the 1940’s, when my mother was employed as a social worker in Baltimore, helping displaced European refugees who survived the Second World War.
Once the Olingers sold the relic big white house, it was razed. Private developers used the acreage to build multiple family dwellings.
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Entering the back door of the house, directly to the right, you’d come in to a cavernous, eat-in kitchen. Off the far edge of the kitchen where a table for eight lived, was the door to a dark library with an easy chair, a convertible couch and a colored tv. If you exited the square, paneled room through a second door to the left, you’d walk into the dining area. Clarice kept a box of chocolate covered cherries in the top drawer of a polished sideboard, which I would rummage through and search for the foil wrapped candies, eating at least one, hoping no one would notice.
Beyond the dining area was an enormous living room, horizontal and wide, sheep wool white carpet throughout, with a fire place opposite a large picture window. At its far end, were French doors leading out to a screened in porch the width of the house. Beyond the fireplace was a carpeted staircase leading to the bedrooms. Behind the kitchen wall, there was also a steep and narrow set of steps, presumably for servants back when the property was practically a northern plantation. Though not the size of a mansion, the house felt palatial to me. I was wide eyed by the deep property’s two winding stone driveways that joined to form a single gravel path that continued beyond the rear of the house, past the back door entrance, across from a cement koi pond under a shady tree, finishing at a detached, three car garage. One space contained their 17 foot sloop, a blood red Thistle, named Bromo, resting on a trailer. A second housed a Lotus Elan (also red) whose engine Don always seemed to be tinkering with.
I relate to my memories of that house almost as significantly as I do to the home in which I grew up. A few times a year when on vacation from school, I would catch the Erie Lackawanna train, with its wicker seats and no air conditioning, traveling from Mountain Station in South Orange, to the depot in Lyons, 45 minutes away, where Clarice, long, dark hair braided and clipped high on her head, would pick me up in her Ford station wagon.
Being very fortunate, I had more than one mother figure looking after me. Mine and two aunts, had homes within a couple of miles of each other, all in the same school system for the 10 collective children the three sisters raised, that completed that branch of our family tree. The lower grade schools separated the cousins by district, but we all attended Columbia High School, in Maplewood, NJ.
Though I thought of her as another parent, I always called Clarice by her first name. On many of our family vacations, we tended to share time and locations with the Olingers. From winter ski trips in Vermont, to summer days on Chappaquiddick. God help restaurant staff when we went out in force.
Of that generation of friends, Clarice is now the sole survivor. A decade ago, she and my Aunt Mimi were living in the same retirement home in West Orange, NJ, until my aunt passed away. And though Aunt Mimi was indeed another parental figure for me during my formative years, my spending almost as much time in her home as in mine, I didn’t remain close to her as an adult. I feel differently about Clarice.
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Clarice and her husband, Don, who was a dentist, had five children. Don died from cancer at 56 years of age. Though we all knew he passed too soon, at the time I probably thought that living into your 50s meant you made it to old age. I’m sure I even thought 30 was over the hill.
Clarice had a certain, unmistakeable cadence like no one else’s when she spoke, some of which I’ve consciously adopted. Toward the end of my mother’s days, I can remember Clarice walking into Mom’s condo like she believed she was the most anticipated guest you could imagine. Bright smile on her face, she would sweep in like a Jewish Auntie Mame, arms wide open, dramatically making the pronouncement, “there they are. Two of my favorite people!”
My most savored memories of her aren’t from our shared vacations. They were when I would go for the overnight visits to the house in Basking Ridge. Her son Jim, who was two years younger than I, was paired with me. And from then until adulthood, I think Jim was more mature than his years, so ironically, though our friendship was forced due to circumstance, I have a true affection for him and only good memories. When I hit my teen years, I am guessing Clarice was not thrilled that her youngest son was spending time with a boy who would eventually act on his homosexuality. And the fact that when we were small, we played not only with Jimmy’s G.I. Joes, but with one of his sister’s Barbie dolls probably instilled parental insecurities. To her credit, Clarice never stopped us from playing with toys meant for little girls. Whatever concerns she may have had, she kept to herself at the time. Though many years later, she did make it clear to my mother that she was relieved that Jim didn’t turn out to be like me. She literally said something about Jim being “a real man.” It hurt Mom’s feelings yet, for some reason, I am forgiving of Clarice verbalizing her concern. For that generation, I found it pretty common for left wing persons (like my mother and Clarice) to take a liberal minded stance, unless and until it applied to their own children.
Clarice and I have never discussed this. But I did tell one of her daughters. I didn’t do it to be cruel or to gauge a reaction. But I wanted to point out that Clarice had pronounced prejudices that didn’t align with her publicly social views. She is human, faults and all.
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For all the pictures crowded in my memory of the years I had with her, what I appreciate more than anything was Clarice’s devotion to my mother toward the end of Mom’s life. As my mother’s cognitive abilities faltered, all of Ma’s friends abandoned her, except for her two sisters and her longtime friend, Clarice. I’m grateful for that.
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The last time I saw Clarice she said to me, “we’ve had a long friendship, you and I.”
Except for relatives, there are not a lot of people I have known and loved from birth without interruption.
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If you remember the animated Christmas special shown annually on tv called “Rudolf, the Red Nosed Reindeer,” you will see that Rudolf’s girlfriend is named Clarice, and one of Santa’s elves wanted to be a dentist. The creative spark for those characters was Clarice and Don. In my life, they were great role models. It was a gift I took for granted. Flawed but generous, literally and in spirit. All in the name of unquestionable love.
*Clarice passed away peacefully at the age 98, on July 7, 2024, at 5:45 in the afternoon in West Orange, NJ. Though I didn’t know she had died, clearly she had been on my mind when I wrote this story.