She was fortunate to be raised in a home that wasn’t affected by the Great Depression, as her father was the economics editor for Hearst’s New York Sun, which would later merge with the New York Times. She loved telling the story about how he got to put Standard Oil on “the big board” of the New York Stock Exchange. Her upbringing afforded her both refinement and a position that few women of her time could hold–a professional career.
She was a Vice President at the Bank of the Manhattan Company, which would later become Chase Manhattan Bank, and what we now know as JPMorgan Chase Bank. She never failed to draw out the irony that, as a woman, she wouldn't have been allowed to hold an account at the bank that employed her without her husband’s permission if she didn't live in New York.
She was a bright woman who ran circles around the men in the company, who lined up to buy her lunch each day. She never lost the impish grin on her face, no matter how many times she proffered that in her entire career, she never had to pay for a single lunch. “One of the perks,” she would say.
But the perks were not without the challenges that many women of the time then and still do face in the workplace. Well before the Me Too movement, Nanny was always sure to mention that men knew their place around her, and the classic New Yorker didn’t have to come out very often after she told off the first junior manager who got a few ideas.
This was the era of the three-martini lunch, but Nanny far preferred a good Manhattan. Her Manhattans and the parties that surrounded them were famous among family and friends. Frequently at her side was her sister Margie. The two were very close and regularly enjoyed a Manhattan or a glass of dry red together. They talked almost daily if they didn’t see each other for a meal.
As the two aged, their minds stayed sharp as ever, but their bodies began to fail them. They became more frail and navigated with a walker. Those who witnessed the pair together jested that a light gust might topple them over. And yet, despite their meek appearances, they still managed to mix, shake, and pour without so much as a tremble or spilled drop.
Nanny’s wardrobe and jewelry were exquisite. She and members of the family regularly told stories about how Harry, her first husband, who died in his mid-forties, relished the chance to have something taken out of the window of a Fifth Avenue Department Store to buy and take home. Her second husband and the grandfather that I knew, Eddie, was equally kind and loving, but with a little less flair than Harry.
They dated for many years, and for the better part of a decade, Eddie would propose with a beautiful diamond. Nanny would politely decline, saying it wasn’t time yet. But that didn’t stop her from thanking him for the beautiful diamond. By the time they married in 1989, she had a few dozen carats of diamonds that she had tastefully reset into a ring, earrings, bracelet, and necklace. She loved dressing up and going out, but I rarely saw her wear the entire set during the time I knew her. But she brought it out again for Eddie’s funeral to go along with her Little Black Dress that would have made Chanel pause to take a second glance.
Accompanying her personal style was her exquisite hair. Pure white for as long as I knew her, she went to the beauty parlor once a week to have it washed and trimmed. Long after the tradition of weekly beauty parlor visits ended for most, she kept going because she loved the conversation, and it made her feel special.
Along with those weekly beauty parlor visits, she and her friends went to one of three local diners every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. Each diner had its own day, and they always sat in the same spot.
On a particular trip during college, I had some schoolwork to do and needed internet access. Nanny barely knew that the internet existed, let alone had it, so I mentioned I would head down the block to do it before breakfast that morning. As I sat there working away, one of the baristas came around calling, “Is there a John Jones here?” I called her over with a surprised look on my face.
“Your grandmother called,” she said, “she said to let you know that they were heading over to the diner and that you should meet them there.”
I had been to that shop multiple times before, but never with my grandmother, and had no clue that they had a phone. To this day, I am still bewildered at how Nanny worked her magic to find that shop and the number.
What’s even more remarkable is that—much like the way she lived her entire life, never once thinking to alter her weekly beautician visits or ritual diner days—she never thought to call the cell phone sitting in my pocket. The same phone she would have used every other week of the year. She simply found another way, on her own terms, the way she always had.
Every time I walk into a coffee shop, I remember that day. And reflecting back, given the choice between Spring Break in Miami or a cross-country road trip with friends, I would choose visiting Nanny one thousand times over. Some habits—the rituals that make us feel grounded, loved, and like ourselves—are worth keeping until the very end.