Bob & Jean on Mother's Day

This Mother’s Day my thoughts of my mom, Jean Mckenzie, were even richer, having spent the previous year writing about her love affair with my father in a new play, BOB & JEAN, A Love Story. I had learned a lot.

A proud daughter of the South, self-described as a “small town girl with sand in her shoes,” Jean was an astonishingly modern woman. Growing up in West Palm Beach, the only child of a highly decorated WWI veteran and a High School music teacher, Jean lived a modest life, full of family, art, and music. Summers, she worked at her Uncle’s orphanage. An only child, she loved this time with all these young kids but it was also a sharp reminder of Depression era life. She often talked of a small boy sitting at the dinner table for the first time and watching with enormous eyes as everyone was served a baked sweet potato. “Goodness gracious, one for ever’ body?!” Gratitude for one’s blessings, however small, was a lesson she took with her all her life. These were some of the things I always knew about Jean.

But there were surprises, too. I hadn’t realized the extent of her professional ambitions! Determined to be a professional actress, she studied at the UNC, working with the Playmakers during the school year and at the outdoor drama, THE LOST COLONY, during the summers. Always patriotic, when war broke out. Jean joined a USO touring company of the play, Arsenic and Old Lace, performing for soldiers and sailors all over the country.

But just before the tour left, she and my father met at a Broadway show and fell madly in love! And then the Navy shipped Bob to the Pacific and Jean started touring. Thousands of miles apart, they kept up a continuous stream of correspondence, trying not just to maintain their relationship but to really understand each other. And themselves. Bob was ready to get married but Jean was slow to warm to the idea. She’d never lacked for boyfriends but she’d never really seen herself getting married either. She was going to be a professional actress.

The tour was grueling but when it finished, Jean returned to New York, determined to pursue her career. In a business famous for its misogyny, she had more than her share of challenges. And as her funds dwindled, she moved into smaller and smaller apartments. Years later, when I first moved to New York as a young writer, my own experience was painfully similar. At one point, Jean and Bob offered to help me with the downpayment on an apartment, an offer I gratefully accepted. Only years later would I realize how this generous offer was inspired by Jean’s own travails!

Discouraged in New York by what she called this, “frantic seeking, the gross selfishness and ugliness,” and longing for a way to “contribute something,” Jean took another USO tour, this time to the Aleutian Islands! She loved bringing a little light to “the doughboys” as she called them but the Army world was even more cock-eyed than New York. Jean took stock of her life and realized that what really brought her joy and gave her meaning was my father. They were married two months later.

Jean never really talked much about any of this to me, the one son who followed in her footsteps. She was proud of what she had done but in her characteristic thoughtfulness, didn’t want to burden me with her expectations or her disappointments.

This Mother’s Day I will be giving special thanks for Jean as we celebrate her life and love with the play she inspired, BOB & JEAN, A Love Story! Come join us. And bring your mom!

BOB & JEAN, A Love Story, will run from May 27 to June 15, at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.