Eugenia
woke up every morning with a great
desire to live joyfully.* At least that’s the impression she
conveyed to me.
I met Eugenia Burney Christensen (1913-2012) on her 83rd
birthday, July 4, 1996 in the tiny mountain town of Dubois, Wyoming. Much of
her life had passed but she wasn’t one bit ready to slow down.
On the day we met, a local artist/tanner had dressed Eugenia
in buffalo hides and a long black wig with a bone tied to her head and situated
her on one of the home-made floats for the town’s Fourth of July parade. She waved
gaily and laughed until tears streamed her cheeks. “It was a hoot,” Eugenia told us later that
day. A phrase I would hear for years to come. To say Eugenia enjoyed life is an
understatement. She was always happy even when she barely had a pot to piss in.
We didn’t know about Eugenia’s illustrious past but we got a
glimpse when we had to side-step through a tiny subsidized apartment overfilled
with antique furniture, paintings, sculptures, books, a stack of papers, and a
typewriter balancing on an ottoman. Eugenia was a writer and we could already
tell just how enthusiastic she was about it. We were immediately drawn to her as
she graciously both welcomed and accepted us. We toasted our budding friendship
with cheap champagne in Dollar Store glass flutes.
Eugenia was born in South Carolina and even though she lived
in Idaho, New York, Wyoming, and California she never lost her refined Southern
accent. Perhaps that’s what drew her to me—I’d been raised in the south and that
great accent offered me a bit of Southern hospitality that I’d found missing in
Dubois. She pulled Bud and me into her life and we spent the next ten years
captivated by the wondrous tales of her past. She had to be a writer because
she was a fascinating storyteller.
Gardell was an artist as well as a writer. After working at the American Museum of
Natural History in NYC for seven years (in the 50s), he was asked to represent
the museum on expeditions to Africa and Alaska to collect animals for building
dioramas in the museum to “tell the world of faraway places”.
Gardell set out to fulfill his dreams and
spent a lifetime living them. A former student, Nan (Morgan) Smith, said, “Over the years the Christensens continually
invited friends and pupils into their home and into their hearts. Together they
made the people and
places around them sing with the beauty of art.”
It seems that everyone who knew Eugenia and Gardell knew an
endearing story about them. A local plumber told us that when they first moved
to Dubois, Gardell bought a plot of land and built a house mostly with materials
he’d scavenged from the landfill. Sometime after they’d moved in the plumbing
went haywire. When the plumber arrived on a rainy morning, he found Gardell and
Eugenia sitting at the table eating cereal while the rain dripped on them
through holes in the roof. That was their life. It was a good life even when
the roof leaked.
Eugenia often boasted that she’d written more books in her
retirement than in her career which included an editorial position at one of
the big five New York publishing companies. Most of her later writings were
biographies of colorful and influential people who shared their life stories as
she typed and edited. The most notable being Fremont Miller, a WWII war hero
(who had spent 76 hours in the frigid North Sea after his P-47 Thunderbolt
caught fire over Diepholz, West Germany) and a retired legislator of the
Wyoming House of Representatives. Together they published, Growing Up With Wyoming, a fascinating story of a man who loved Wyoming.
Eugenia is listed in the World Who’s Who of Women. No wonder. She was as comfortable mingling with dignitaries
as she was with cowboys.
The next fall Eugenia convinced a local outfitter to
photograph her upon a horse for her Christmas cards. She wanted to show her
family and friends that she lived in cowboy country. The outfitter had to have
been very brave and must have had an old calm horse to be talked into posing an
eighty-five-year-old unsteady woman horseback. But he did and it was, yes, a
hoot!
Bud and I moved to Eureka, California in 1997 and the next
year Eugenia followed because she had gotten tired of the small town that
rolled up the sidewalks at nine p.m. Eureka had a few bright lights, but I
honestly think she longed for not only the bright lights but big city as well.
She applied to a five story senior assisted living complex and could have moved
in that same day but she wanted a room on the top floor! What she lacked
financially she made up for grandly. After all, the top floor was the best and
Eugenia wanted nothing less.
Eugenia dreamed big, just like Gardell had. Every single
time she saw a convertible she’d stop and stare. “Oh, I want one of those,”
she’d say dreamily, “except I want a red one!”
In early December 2002, when Eugenia was 89 and frail she
called Bud and asked if he’d photograph her on the beach at sunset for her next
Christmas Card. She wanted her friends to know that she’s moved back to
California. “I have an old bathing suit that I still look pretty good in,” she
said. On the next sunny day we headed to Samoa Beach even though the
temperature measured just 45 degrees. The sunset was glorious…just as Eugenia
had ordered and Bud shot photos until the sun gloriously sank into the ink-blue ocean. Unfortunately the camera didn’t
cooperate and the shoot failed to give us even one acceptable shot. If Eugenia
was upset, it didn’t show. We fixed the problem and headed back to the beach
several days later. This time the temperature measured in the 30s and while we
waited for the sun and sky to burst into orange, peach, and lavender, I wrapped
Eugenia in warm blankets. This time the sun and sky refused to cooperate. Instead
of setting like a big red ball the sun turned completely white before sinking into
a bank of gray clouds. I wanted to cry when I saw the photos. But Eugenia, always
positive, was thrilled beyond measure.
She was always thrilled beyond measure…even when she went
through cancer and surgery and especially when she decided to move to Santa
Rosa for even brighter lights and bigger city.
The last Christmas card we received before she died had been
taken in her brand new red convertible…a mobility scooter. And she had a smile
on her face.
We miss her terribly, our wonderful friend of ten years.
Eugenia taught us that we didn’t have to be wealthy to be rich and she showed
us how to live joyfully every day of our lives.
*From a quote by Alexandra Stoddard
