An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew(54)
Fresh air streamed into the Blue Room through the high windows and the open balcony doors. The faded curtains swayed in the sea wind. The fabric was blown upward, and with it, all of Allene’s dreams, pain, and memories flowed out across the sea and into the wide world.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It was there in that world that I discovered parts of the marvelous adventures of Allene Tew. My treasure hunt took me to all kinds of places, such as New York City, Paris, Jamestown, Pittsburgh, and Newport; to many libraries and newspaper archives; to all kind of historians and other people I never would have met otherwise.
But it all began on the terrace of Allene’s seaside house in Cap d’Ail, which in the summer of 2009—still writing my dissertation on the young Prince Bernhard—I visited for the first time. That very afternoon I thought: I’m going to write a book about this woman. The billion-dollar question is why? Why do you decide to dedicate years of your own life to someone you never knew, whom at that moment you know very little about, and of whom you’ve never even seen a good photograph?
In retrospect, I think that in the first instance, it was mainly a romantic notion. For years I’d had the idea of writing a book about an old woman in a coastal house, looking back over her life. When the current owner of Castel Mare told me that Allene had been forced to spend the last six months of her life in this house, I immediately sensed that I’d found my protagonist. There was also the fact that Allene was an American. After covering mainly Dutch and German history in my previous books, I felt like taking on something bigger, in particular America.
The latter had to do with something I’d often said in interviews—which was that I look for the answers to life’s questions through my books. It was the same this time. I had long been fascinated by the fact that some people allow their past to determine their lives—frequently as victims—while others are inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead. I’d been saving a 2011 interview with Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Frank Koerselman for years. It was about what he called “the pampered society.” He wrote that modern man suffered from too much vanity and a lack of self-reflection and had forgotten how to deal with frustrations and setbacks in a healthy way. As an illustration, he cited a study of a group of schoolboys who were followed far into their adult lives. He concluded:
From this study, it becomes clear that . . . good luck accumulates, as does bad luck. People are in poor health and are poverty-stricken and get let down, and vice versa. It is totally unfair. And the only real predictor of good or bad luck is the ability to deal with setbacks. Those who can best cope with setbacks have the greatest chance of fortune.
My conclusion was that it’s clearly worth looking into the way you deal with bad luck. And where better than in America, the country that has traditionally put a high value on “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”? My unknown old lady at the coast seemed like a suitable case study, since although I knew little about her, I did know that in her life she had experienced things I couldn’t possibly imagine being able to overcome.
In that sense, Allene was my American dream. In the end, there are three books in An American Princess. It’s an amazing life story, so full of twists and turns it almost feels like an adventure novel. It can also be read as a brief history of America. And, finally, it is my personal investigation into the question of how to deal with loss.
When it comes to Allene, I think the answer is provided by biologist Charles Darwin, who is purported to have said: “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, neither is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the most adaptable to change.”
Naturally you might ask yourself, Is the adaptability Allene exhibits with so much conviction the consequence of her perseverance or a learned mentality? Or was it simply a question of character, which not everyone is born with, so you can’t expect it from everyone? I don’t know the answer. I do think that her story has taught me something about the circumstances in which that kind of survival mentality can arise and the different ways in which misfortune can be faced.
What I also realized is the extent to which culture determines the ways matters of life and death are handled. For me, a child of the 1970s, it was only natural that talking and “letting things out” was paired with “processing” disappointments and grief. But while I was working on this book, certain aspects of the Victorian mental legacy began to seem rather refreshing to me. To my surprise, nineteenth-century folk, always presented as Puritan and narrow-minded, turned out also to be energetic, tough, and sociable. It made me realize that there are major social and personal advantages to be had if people are capable of controlling themselves, being disciplined, and, if necessary, sacrificing themselves for the greater good. In that respect, we people of today might be able to learn more from the Victorians than we think.
“Misery loves company.” This project taught me that happiness is just as likely to seek company. In all the years since I stood in Allene’s Blue Room for the first time, I never for a moment regretted my decision to tackle her life story. Her life was turbulent and eventful, sometimes overwhelming. The same goes for writing this book. But just as she herself never seemed to have lost pleasure in her life, I never lost pleasure in piecing together the parts of this story—if only because it filled me with something I never would have expected or looked for previously, something you can never have too much of: hope and courage.