Burt and Gwen, A 20th Century Love Story

By TRB

Burt and Gwen were good people who would partake in the occasional drink. They would admit that. In many respects the entire decade of the 1950's can be viewed as one, giant never-ending cocktail party. The 40s had been such a nightmare. So many dead over there. Those involved in the actual battle, who had somehow survived it to get back home were living on Lucky Street and knew it. Burton came home to Weymouth, Massachusetts and almost immediately met Gwen. Marriage was something you did as soon as you could back then before they dropped the next big one - maybe on us this time.

You could drive drunk in the fifties. You could smoke in crowded movie theaters. It was maybe just a decade or so before good sense was even invented.

Gwen was my aunt. My father's sister. She was so pretty it could make your eyes hurt. That's what Burt said.

Even today it is hard to describe Gwen, except to say she was child-like and very kind and polite with everyone she met. She was always dressed well, which in those days meant furs. When I was a little boy she was an angel, buying me toys and candy. I looked forward to spending time with Gwen driving around in that truck-size Cadillac of their's. She had this giggle that was endearing but not quite right. Years later I would learn that she was "probably a manic depressive, maybe self-medicating with alcohol."

To me she was like the mother you would have if you could draw her right there on the spot. I have memories of her, but they are few I am afraid. There are some though, that sit right in the front row. Once I was in her parlor and I noticed she had what looked like a fortune teller's ball only it sat on its own platform and was filled with what looked like water. Also inside the glass ball were two beautiful red roses.

I asked her about them. How could they live in a sealed glass ball? Wouldn't they drown in so much water?

She told me they were glass. It was only an illusion. The "water" probably wasn't water. Perhaps it was alcohol, something that wouldn't evaporate. For me, a little boy, it was a pretty impressive trick. I told her that it had me convinced. She said that many things in life were like that - not always what they seemed.

Everyone knew my Uncle Burton. He owned a bar just a short walk from the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. They were always building or repairing ships. And when they were finished they would go to my uncle's bar. Burt was black Irish, very big, very tough and he knew a lot of characters, I guess you could say. He was also unfaithful to my aunt.

I was probably six or seven when Gwen discovered she was pregnant. She was so happy. Burt too. But it never came to pass; a miscarriage. Gwen was devastated. Within weeks all those affairs of Burts' caught up with him. Gwen had known all along and she wanted him out of her life. But somehow he managed to talk himself back in.

He really fell in love with her then. He was either home or at work. He bought one of those ancient Volvos that look like a miniature 1934 Ford sedan and he began to rebuild the engine. He taught me a lot about car engines, well, foreign car engines. He would have been a great father. He was non-judgmental and didn't laugh when I made mistake. For the first time I began to see this large man as gentle and concerned about other people. I loved him.

Then the impossible happened. My Dad's younger brother asked Gwen and Burt to take care of one of their dozen children. Even back then, that was a large family. My young uncle was a tug boat captain in the East River in New York City. The family lived in a house that wasn't large enough for all the kids. He asked if Burt and Gwen would bring up their son Scotty, who was seven, until they could save up some money.

Well Gwen was just ecstatic. Scotty was a handsome young man, looked like my Dad, but with blond hair. He was polite. He was smart. He was generous. I liked my cousin a lot within a day of meeting him. But Gwen. Gwen loved him. And Burt couldn't do enough for the kid.The miscarriage was suddenly way in the background. They were building their lives around Scotty.

Three years later my uncle came to take him back. It was horrible. He didn't want to leave. Gwen and Burt didn't want him to leave. His father wanted his son back, and that was that.

Suddenly Scotty was gone. This was worse than the miscarriage. Gwen went to her bedroom and didn't come out. Burt went back to his old ways. I can remember one night my father pulled up in front of a bar room in Weymouth called the Alamo. It was winter and I had my pajamas on. He left the car's engine going and ran inside.

After a few minutes he emerged with Burt, who was crying. They talked a short distance from the car before my father took him home. He looked like an old man now, although he was probably nearing forty. He had lost weight. And he wasn't in his eyes. Something else was. Fear maybe.

I was 20 the next time I saw Burt and Gwen. Gwen was in a nursing home dying of stomach cancer. She was only in her early 50s. She was heavily drugged. She called me "sweetie" and told me that she felt like a "hippie" taking all the drugs they were giving her. She was still like a little girl, innocent, giggling, moving closer to the end.

She passed away three days later.

I was right at the age when you realize that the people in your family are your people. You have to help them when they are in need. I went to see my Uncle Burt, who I had been told, would not open the door for anyone. Their house sat on a hill surrounded by the sea. I stood in the front yard and remembered playing there. I felt like a no-nothing teenager. Burt came out.

He was holding the ball with the roses in it. He handed it to me telling me Gwen wanted me to have it. We went inside and he served me some shredded wheat with peaches. I asked him what he was going to do. Some members of his family were apparently telling him to move to Florida. But to me, he just looked lost. He asked me about my last visit with Gwen. I told him. We cried for a while and I left.

I made many attempts to get in touch with him over the next year. Sometimes he would talk to me. Sometime he wouldn't. The depression was always thick in his voice. It was not a call I looked forward to making.

Then I got a call, exactly one year after Gwen's death. It was my sister. Burt had taken his own life. He had shot himself in the head. I guess it was something he knew he was going to do for a long time. He had purchased the gun just three months before. He had taken an arm chair from the house outside to the porch. He had placed towels all around it because he didn't want to make too big a mess. In the house, his will, his insurance, all of his papers were lined up in the center of the kitchen table where they couldn't be missed.

And there was a suicide note. It began with an apology. He said he would miss us. Life had been too hard . . .

We could never be sure, but my mother could remember Burt telling her that if he took his life one year to the day that Gwen passed and at approximately the same time (the coroner confirmed Burt's time of death as being the approximate time of day that Gwen had died a year earlier) then maybe he could catch up with her. Maybe he would see her again. Maybe it really wasn't over.

It was just crazy stuff; the kind of thing your brain does to manufacture false hope.

My mother told him how hurt we would all be if Burt ever took his life.

But Burt was too in love with Gwen to stay.