An Officer And A Gentleman & His White-dress Bride
Vincent Peter Fagan, Jr. 1942-1981 ~Note: this page is to share and to respect the marvels that generated it. It is, as many of them, for our grown children, so that they can be enriched by the legacy, access it when and as they are able, and not be overwhelmed by the remeniscence. It is to express appreciation to our parents and others, who gifted us to find one another and to make fine lives, together and apart.
A Favorite photo, of our Christamastime wedding day, nine days after he received his officer's commission, Lieutenant, United States Army, Corps of Engineers, Fort Belvoir Virginia. My chin is softer, his was stronger, than the picture shows, but it is a favorite because the love shows, and a very 'eye-to-eye' personhood.
A girl in the fifties and sixties was likely to be, like everyone else on earth, busy living today, remembering yesterday, and preparing for tomorrow. And yet, the experience of each was unique.
I used to get ideas about
my future sometimes in my room, but as often, outdoors, while learning about nature and enjoying a day, or painting
some scene that caught my interest enough to motivate the hard work of making a painting of it.
On afternoons, earlier than puberty, I'd daydream about love and marriage, and feel happy and inspired,
and was a bit surprized, wondering one day about it all, to begin to "see" in my heart, and my 'mind's eye' the man
with whom my life would be tied, lifelong. From that moment on, it was a sure path, and the day I met him, it was
simply a hazy image coming, finally, into clear focus.
I loved a book in Mother's collection, of stories of Knights and fair ladies, and the image at its beginning,
remains clear in my mind's eye till this moment. He is armored and brave and mounted on his horse, reaching down to
his lady, in medieval dressing of pink with navyblack trim and bejewelled, as she reaches lovingly, intensely up to him.
Are they saying "farewell" or "welcome home"? I could never be sure, but if the story of it was the thing, then both
might be true.
"That doesn't really happen", warned Mother, "at least not very often." Mother loved my romantic Father,
and wrote poetry sometimes, so, even so young, I disbelieved her comment completely, and did not believe she really felt so, but wished to be wise in her duties to me.
We talked aobut it - the many times we ran to rescue another, even in the simplest ways in our days, and how
such moments were hero moments.
Still, I worked hard and loved it, to learn all I might need to know to make
a great work/love balance of a good life with my Handsome Prince should he arrive!
And the day came - I was seventeen, and doing fine in all ways, and getting very edgy about it all, in my prayers. He'd better show up soon.
I prayed he'd be good and a true heart , above all. It would a complete failure and waste if I prepared so well,
only to be paired with one who did not need my skills, or who needed to undermine them.
It was more than that: my parents were annulling after their fine romance disintegrated due to health issues,
that ruined their honeymoon, and their ability to work as a normal happy team. I had kept my seat at the front of the
class, in my Catholic Schools, and knew there would be good work for me, and maybe honor, and this would be an asset to my husband one day.
But the annulment ended my consideration for the college path I'd kept so perfectly all those years. It was the
sixties, and things a bit less hopeless for someone in my position, but there would be a temporary loss of it all, in any event, due to the annulment and divorce.
However, my days were good and full of good work and studies went well, because I liked them. I was chosen, while still in High School, to work at the arts helping tasks at the local college, a honored Jesuit college, getting ready to admit women students, but still all-male at that time. We were young and joked that I was a 'fancy import',
and it was while helping there, and attending a dance, invited as one od those involved in campus arts/events, that I met Peter.
He did not let me down - he rode a white charger - or close to it. A white Plymouth Valiant, like the famous
Prince valiant in the comics. His appearance in my life, saved it, intrinsically. My eurphoria lifted me above much
of the upset over my parent's split, and later helped my parents to be good friends and reconstruct the happy path they'd worked so hard to invent and develop, till health its money woes upset it temporarily.
somehow, Peter and I were blessed: If he needed something, I just happened to have some and extra.
If I needed a thing, it was just what he'd been doing anyway and so happy and easy for him.
Day after day , it just kept getting better - and soon his college was done and because it was Viet Nam,
he was also off to do his miilitary duties.
On a leave between military assignments, he proposed and I accepted.
And when he graduated from Officers Training USACE, we were married!
VietNam service was still ahead for him, and the photo, above, at least shows a love stronger than fear for his life. Many of the photos , that day,show me blanched, till my skin matched my gown; tense and a little horrified and tearful.
Of all my days, so far, the day he strode through the airport arrival, home from war, safe and sound, is to my memory, the happiest I have known. Not the night we met, not wedding day dream, not the days we heard our newborns cry, and those were radiant days! But "home safe from war, and with honors!" ...that meant we finally had a life...good to go! Until that day at LaGuardia Airport, I had no idea I could experience such pure jubilation! Love and pride, for God, Country and one another, exceeded the bounds....In the previous five years, we had been together thru personal tests and passed with flying colors, but without this day of triumph, its value would have been dashed. Until that day at La Guardia, all was uncertain.
It"s good that our social path and understanding of marriage and its importance was a good strong part of our upbringing, because it empowered us, with war and possible death ahead, on our wedding day, in the face of it, to desire and achieve a spirit of carefree youth! Oh , la!
The playclothes image on the right taken many years later, tired but happy after a summer vacation day at the amusement parks with widowed Mother and children, it was taken the day before he fell and never regained consciousness, from a ruptured intracranial aneurysm.
With both our chldren in early teens and not quite twenty years as a pair, we often marvelled and celebrated our happiness together. Good news! Sorrow falls to the better lights and powers of good work and good love, given half a chance. Memory is much more than a word, and empowers in the moment when we are brought low.
Memory of success and delight in the past is a powerful motivator for re-creating more of the same, even along new and different paths, not of our making. When the love songs talk about love being stronger than death, it is not entirely amorous exaggeration. Each smile, each fine day, done well, turns into healing and restorative energy that empowers and rewards.
Most of us know a bad day can come, but I was so astounded to experience the value of the ordinary good we had created together, that I thought to "pass it on" to give the miracle its documentation. It seemed like a duty to share its message.
There is a place, in the path in things, when a person can write it , and share it. The first notes find paper at that place when the spirit is still deeply impacted, and yet enough along to be possessed of enough perspective and objectivity to make it a story.
Looking , in my mind's eye, from the kitchen window in our home, in those days, we were not extraordinary. Most of our neighbors looked like us, and we shared fine work and social with many of them, and thought it the usual thing. And when telling our stories, I realize they all have stories of their own...and possibly, many of them more to tell than ours. I believe that, in telling our stories, I grow in appreciation of my neighbors and their stories, most of which I will never know.
My late husband, Vincent Peter Fagan, Jr., was very special to me, of course,
and we were blessed in so many ways in our 17 years together! Although it
ended abruptly and much too soon, those days were so full of the best of life and learning and much fun,
that I have been promising to write about some of it for a while, now. I felt, that by sharing the life, I was fighting and winning agains death , itself......"recouping" the good of it all, from the devastation of loss.
After "walkng in the shadda' " and fighting it with today's tools and good motives, it was when it all tired me and I gave it truy to god, that the good lights returned, and I have
loved again.
It is time for me to get serious about a long-term relationship, and
possible remarriage, so I want to share the delight in life I knew with my late husband, and develop a lovely path to my new lovelife. I do not compare, but
I do believe in the continuum of the loving paths in a person's life. The good work and love we make in ways, large and small, certainly makes it easier to find
new love and handle it well.
I am a happy soul, and it troubles me, not
at all, to think of my late husband as a consultant in the matter of re-mating. In spite of my ordinariness, I have been sought by overzealous suitors of the oddest types, and so have been happy of my consultant-spirit spouse.
Our marriage took place just at his graduation from Officers'
Candidate School, and so the title of this page.
Our children are grown and doing well, and I wanted to be sure to write lots of what it was about with us, so as not to tire them with unsought reminiscence, but when they wonder, the data will be here to enjoy. It makes a nice life light for them and for me, and I hope, any others who read these notes. Like our children, we braved it all, in war days, found our work and love, dreamed and followed like law, paths of our own to connect with destiny in best ways.
I stepped outdoors this evening for a moment..... a "shooting star" ! I found myself immediately thanking the angels, for the sweet surprize and wondered when I saw one last....
many years ago, at least....the time around the appearance of my late husband in my life, in my late teens, there were several shooting star incidents, and I thought how fine and lucky...how special....magic was sure to happen of the very most blessed kind. My bed was next to the open window in warm weather in those days...so easy to plump the pillows into the windowsill, and rest my head, sing or dream ... pray that HE would soon appear, and that we would be a worthy pair. I think we were.
I am used to being on my own, for twenty years almost now, and so not likely to pair up fro mfear , intimidation or loneliness...and that gives me peace , poise and
a very nice feeling of anticipation. After such painful loss, it is nice to have earned healing regained the good lights and feelings, and feel very happy about it all, whatever God's will.
General Military Data
Department of the Amy
HQ 20th Engieer Brigade
APO SF 96491
The following received the Bronze Star Medal 1November 1968
For Meritorious service Republic of Vietnam
All were 20th Engineer Brigade
Fagan, Vincent P. Jr. 05243064 (470-50-4669)
First Lieutenant Corps of Engineers USA 41st Engineer Co.,
86th Engr Bde, APO 96491
February 68 to November 1968
Smolenski, Richard D. 05023729 (151-34-9859)
Thomas, Clarence RA14274848 (472-42-1504)
Breed, Dale D. 05243148 (474-50-4669)
Huber, Joseph G. 05233866 (152-30-1448) Captain Corps of Engineers USA CoD ,
86th Engineer Batallion, 20th Engineer Brigade APO 96491
April 1968 to November 1968
Peter's Timeline
- Born July 23, 1942 to Vincent Peter Fagan, Sr. and Helen Connoly Fagan, third of six, and eldest son
- 40'sStarts Schools in West Hartford, moves to Wethersfield,Scouts,Baseball, Dog-"Taffy",prizes in all
- 50'sFreshman Class President at Wethersfield High, he makes probably the only error ever..fastcars...handled privately, but not as happy in high school after that
- 60'sHis two older sisters marry, but mother dies of cancer a few months after he begins college as a Chemistry Major, and he is grieved.
- 65-70Meets Ellen May Bernadine Smith, gets over the loss of his Mother, graduates with a B.S. but opts for Army Engineers as a disbeliever in Chem.Warfare of Any kind. Wins bride and Bronze Star and a Son, Peter John
- 70-Takes work with Wellcome Pharmaceuticals, daughter Amanda Smith Fagan is born with a childbirthcoach Father, and family transplants with the company to North Carolina
- '71-81Success in all work and love things, and achievements and maturity, but sudden death from aneurysm on July 24, 1981
A golden, like his boyhood "Taffy"... and maybe Texas...but plenty for fun and singing at home.
In September, Peter flew up from Greenville, with the plant underway, and housing
arranged, and we sent the moving van on ahead, tucked the babies into the new
blue beetle with white interior....like our little state's flag....and farewell parties
and visits having been done, we drove to Greenville. I did want to relocate South
on a permanent or semi-permanent basis, at first. Our son was two and a half and
our daughter six months old. I like living near family with the babies so small.
I feared North/South prejudices, cultural and otherwise, and list of other things.
Six months later, "couldn't drag me back North with a towtruck".
The first company dinner in Greenville was very fancy, but committed to motherhood,
I seemed to notice, almost psychicly, the row of glasses running up and down the
table...."So much liquor at this one!".......our social was not very well developed
yet, and seemed to require a lot.......I made a note to myself about it, and watched
that it did not get into the house. With nine of the twelve units on our block
company people, we formed a quick club, making mommyrules for the children's
well-being, and the husbands seemed to fall into line happily on it....the club
style of setting up house saved a lot of private hassle, and we moved quick.
The prime directive was setting up the life things for a good life, and success
of the company. At twenty-three I experienced it as a passion for several months.
Still, always having lived in a privately owned home, the condo company stressed
me at first....I was on burnout and didn't realize it. It was our seventh move in four
years....with war, weddings babies and the usual adjustements to go with it,
let alone the just plain work.
The worst from the sixties was coming up in the news. Each day seemed to
destroy another hero....that one was a crook, that one unfaithful, that one on
substances enough to kill himself........the bodybag counts all those years of
the Viet Nam War had dwindled, and I was hoping for a plateau, at least a
temporary one. This was too much! I tucked the children down for their nap,
and began tidying the den/playroom, with still one more expose announcing
on the tv...."I am not a "...______" fan any more.....I quit! We are through....don't
ask me to vote for them anymore....they are no good to idolize...." I worked
with myself furiously that afternoon, shaking off childhood....my own....and
growing up....I put myself through a range of headgames....making new rules
for myself and burning out those that had mislead me.....I went through this
with myself on several afternoons that Spring.....childhood's end.....in retrospect,
it seems a very melodramatic performance....but probably necessary to act out
one way or another......I got to the bottom of the list on of those afternoons,
and, on one occasion, either fell asleep faster than I ever had in my life, or fainted.....
but it was two hours later before awareness returned.
The all-american housewife scurried to check to see if the children were ok,
through this odd afternoon.....they were fine.....Peter came in from work,
and "my other self" pricked his ears up instantly....something was different,
and looked at me the way husband's do when they feel they should interrogate....
but then didn't .....I never mentioned it to him, but we were definintely relocated
after that day. I never let him see it, if I could help it, but I was emotionally
exhausted and my soul infantile in this new life.
Then one morning, on the way out with the children to the daycare center we
were working at.....and exciting new concept.....I found a silver Saint Anthony
medal just lying on the sidewalk near the car.....my Grammar school patron
the patron of lost and stolen articles, had come to my rescue....I really
felt I had a special angel, and smiled in my heart and soul for the time in a while!
"I'm going to be fine here, after all!"
The work was important and we were happy in it, the people were warm and friendly,
there was no air pollution, very little trouble with drugs and violence, and it
was a town without a bar! The children thrived, and the days became a happy celebration. Whatever we planted grew effortlessly, and earlier than
in Connecticut. I loved gardenias, and lamented and fussed over mine in Connecticut,
tiny fragile things that browned in the wrong way from cold. In Greenville,
we eventually had them planted outside our bedroom window, and they grew to
the size of a peony and the frangrance was heaven! I shared them, delivered in
baskets with the neighbors, till they could not take any more of them.
One of my childhood agonies was bicycling up and down the steep hills...I was fit and
slender, but somehow not jointed right for bicycling in general and the monstrous
heavy thing my parents found for me to ride made it worse...green and cumbersome,
I hated it. But Greenville is on the Piedmont Plateau, and there was one hill in the
entire town. We laughed and made a point of it, since otherwise our children would
know nothing of their famous hilly Connecticut, the hill concept, we called it the " wheeeeee! hill" , and made an expedition
of routing a car trip up and down it.
So we bought a pair of green bicycles, of a lighter and easier construction, popped
childsafe seats on the backs, and had fun riding around in a town that was "on the level".
The condo we got was not complete, so we stayed in another unit till it was....but
Christmas in the condo at Tar River Estates was lovely! Life got normal...
The Theme from the Famous film,
HIGH NOON
"DO NOT FORSAKE ME"
His Favorite Song at the time of our weddding, I thought it odd, later, that his death meant that he forsook me, then realized that he would be with me, always, in all the good ways, because of the fine life we made together and the learning and growing up we developed as a team. Some our work was
so exciting, that we could exchange the look, and he was Will Kane,Rhett Butler and John Steed and I was his lady in all the roles.
DO NOT FORSAKE ME, OH MY DARLIN',
ON THIS, OUR WEDDING DAY,
DO NOT FORSAKE ME, OH MY DARLIN',
WAIT............, WAIT ALONG!
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT FATE AWAITS ME,
I ONLY KNOW I MUST BE BRAVE,
AND I MUST FACE A MAN WHO HATES ME,
OR LIE A COWARD,
A CRAVEN COWARD,
OR LIE A COWARD IN MY GRAVE,
OH, TO BE TORN 'TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY,
'SPOSIN' I LOSE MY FAIR-HAIRED BEAUTY,
LOOK AT THAT BIG HAND MOVE ALONG,
NEARING HIGH NOON,
HE MADE A VOW WHILE IN STATE'S PRISON,
VOWED IT WOULD BE MY LIFE OR HIS'N,
I'M NOT AFRAID OF DEATH, BUT, OH,
WHAT WILL I DO IF YOU LEAVE ME?
DO NOT FORSAKE ME, OH MY DARLIN',
YOU MADE THAT PROMISE AS A BRIDE,
DO NOT FORSAKE ME, OH MY DARLIN',
ALTHOUGH YOU'RE GRIEVIN', DON'T THINK OF LEAVIN'
NOW THAT I NEED YOU BY MY SIDE!
WAIT ALONG.........,
WAIT ALONG...........,
WAIT ALONG.........,
WAIT ALONG...........,
WAIT ALONG!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin
Lyric by Ned Washington
Originally made famous by: Tex Ritter 1952
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The silliest things help, sometimes. The first few weeks after his sudden death I experienced halucinatory behaviors...I'd hear and feel his presence, smell his cologne, and dream of him constantly, and wake up upset. The children, too ....so we bunked in together...Amy on the other side of out kingsize and Peter on a campout on the floor beside the bed, for a few days, and it helped. When I dreamed of him later, it more normal and even pleasant, though I missed him so badly, I'd pray not to dream of him and lose interest in waking,
with there was to do. The film "Ghost" helped, of all things. Our doctors and groups were the best, and we used them correctly, but the message in the film brought it to the common mind, I got to be the wise lady, when friends spoke of it and quote my statistic: in 90% of shock-grief scenarios, hallucinations for a bit are considered normal. If they last too long or become dangerous, take it to the doctor right away. The film was also helpful in that the androgeny of several of its concepts enabled my teenagers to relate to it. The shining message of love at the end was helpful, too....and very true......elle
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My Personal Patriot Primer
Little Miss Memorial Day, blythe spirit, firstborn of idealists, gifted and afflicted, my life had been
Arts and caregiving, but always an occasional rescue, and a sense that it would get challenging,
through some of it, before it was done. My late husband's family were very wealthy and diplomats before the crash of'29, and his Father had been a Federal Agent for the
Treasury Department, and his Mother, Catholic Silver Spoon, worked for Saint Francis Hospital for twenty-five years as dietician. Half their six chidren were caregiving personalities, and the other half natural "Feds", whatever their actual occupations. My Late Mother-in-Law was a mighty mite, her four-foot-ten frame never stopped, and she delivered all six children a little prematurely.
Did she know that half of them would die too young, like she did? I'll never know. I never met her. Her second son was an accountant, and on her deathbed, she asked him to refrain from "taking it into law enforcement",in his Father's footsteps, to minimize the health threats. However, when the entire USA "hit the bricks" in jogging shoes, my brother-in-law broke his promise to his Mother, and became a
Federal Agent, too.
My husband, his Big Brother, simply said to me, " I won't be as long-lived"
I blanched...his motives were the highest, personally and professionally, I adored him helplessly and saluted him, felt brave and " in harness", our son on one hip, and daughter on the other...I'd loved my Nancy Drew, as well as my art, and thought we were Emma Peele and Steed....cool, delicious secrets,and I got to do it in heels, and feel so smart,
dedicated and loving. Home-making no bore, with this added demand.... to make the perfect home and family circle, anyway, and moreso...i.e., I loved it!
My own husband was no slacker, had served in VietNam and honorably,
and come home intact, and both of us outrageousy happy to have been able to weather it,
and with his new work, on our own in another part of the country, it was a sunshiny day.
My husband's team had finished building the plant, and were manufacturing digitalis and unguents, and our children were in the best stage for fun and travel after work, so we had a finer-than-average time of it during the Bi-centennial.
But there was a fee. Our offstage habits were cocoa and Lord Of The Rings hobbits around the fireplace with our pets and good readers, so I was shocked and
lost at what it could be, when ,on a ladyvisit to my married but childless sister back home,
her husband served the pot, after the pots and pans. I said nothing, but found myself giving the nod to my husband, pointedly, upon my return. Another visit was arranged with my sister, without
her husband, at the home of her boss. She was house-sitting, as a favor, while her Boss' family,
Reuger firearms family, were off on vacation.
The greetings done, and fun supper and tour of the estate and horses, and we settled in to the den. I will never forget it, because I almost laughed aloud...the room was shady and shuttered, like a spy scene in "Casablanca"...I looked around,
expecting Sydney Greenstreet, but when he did not appear, I settled into the comfyden sofa with
coffee, and beside my Sister, and looked at her just once.
"I'm scared.",she said.
"They are vacationing too far...she brings home lots of copper pots. On my last business trip with _________, he kept looking over his shoulder. When I finally asked him what it was about,
he said that the Middle Easterners were pestering him to sell them weapons, and when he refused, they put out a contract on him."
I shared a room, in childhood, with my sister.
I expected pretty much what she had to say, so did not faint. I returned to home and husband,
told him...he told his people, and the situation was corrected. My sister, and accidental double-agent, left the position, divorced the husband, and remarried a "mid-lifed-up" handsome
sea captain,who had been happy in youth to extinguish fires on offshore oil rigs. With all at peace again, the story of the problem reached newspapers, which meant that most of my security duties in it were done.
"That was fun, and cool ! Let's do it again sometime !"
and my Handsome Prince and I did dinner at Rive Gauche and took the children on an outing.
Unfortunately, he took me up on my suggestion......(to be continued).
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