chapter 16 Settling Years

Becky was born Rebecca Lambert Swanson to Harold Elvin Swanson and Elizabeth Lisle Hathaway Swanson. She has one sibling, David Lisle Swanson. Harold Swanson had roots in Orleans, Nebraska. His parents, David Verner Swanson and Ethel Davenport Swanson, were farmers and had three children: Harold Elvin, Hugh Verner, and Verla Mae. Harold received his undergraduate degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University and studied physics as a graduate student at Columbia University, where he received a master’s degree. He completed the coursework for a doctoral degree. However, he did not write the required thesis because there was friction between him and his supervising professor. While at Columbia, he taught at Cooper Union. After graduating from Columbia, he worked on the Manhattan Project at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, laboratory, where plutonium was produced to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. The Manhattan Project was shrouded in such secrecy that Page 202 →Harold found out that the bomb had been dropped on Tuesday, August 7, 1945, while listening to the radio at the barbershop.¹ He later worked as a geophysicist with the New Jersey Zinc Company and the Newmont Company until his untimely death. He was hit by a car while riding a bicycle.

Elizabeth Swanson, called Betty-Lisle, was born in Goshen, New York. Her parents, Thomas H. M. Hathaway and Harriet Cummings Hathaway, had two children, Betty-Lisle and John, called Jack. Betty-Lisle was educated at Vassar College, where her mother had gone before. Harriet’s mother was Susan Ogden Cummins. Her father, Colonel Francis Markoe Cummins, fought for the Union cause at Gettysburg. Thomas Hathaway was president of a bank in Hudson, New York until it was closed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Thomas Hathaway suffered a stroke after a robbery at his bank and never recovered.

Becky’s grandmother, Harriet, was a fascinating woman who loved her exquisite antique possessions. She relished her fine furniture, including possessions from the historic Lambert House in Wilton, Connecticut. During Becky’s and my courtship, I had an animated conversation with Harriet about who owned the apples that fell onto her yard from the next-door neighbor’s tree. She disclosed that she had dated a renowned professor at Harvard Law School, Henry Hart, whose book I used in a course I took on the Legal Process.

Becky’s middle name, “Lambert,” came from maternal ancestors who lived in the David Lambert House. The Lambert House is a two-and-a-half-story clapboard colonial-era house with federal and colonial revival alterations. It was built around 1726 by David Lambert (1700–1784), one of Wilton’s early wealthy settlers. The house was called Lilacstead because of the lilac bushes that framed the front doorway. Harriet Cummins Hathaway summered at Lilacstead as a child with her aunt, Eva Ogden Lambert. The house survives to this Page 203 →day; it is listed on the National Register of Historical Places and is owned by the Wilton Historical Society.

Wilton was a well-known route on the Underground Railroad, and the Lambert House was a station. The house had a secret stairway leading to a cellar where a tunnel led to a nearby saltbox house used to hide fugitive slaves.² In 1897, the house was the scene of the sensational robbery and murder of Professor David S. R. Lambert (1852–97), great grandson of David Lambert and husband of Eva Ogden Lambert, by one of his former students.³

Becky and I got married at the American University Chapel on January 21, 1978. The wedding day followed a record blizzard that dumped mounds of snow in the mid-Atlantic region and the northeast. The storm paralyzed communities throughout New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, and upstate New York, dumping up to twenty inches of snow in suburban areas stretching from Washington, DC, to New England.⁴ Fortunately, our parents, Becky’s brother, and my two brothers arrived before the storm got too bad. However, many family members could not make it. Becky’s family from Massachusetts and New York could not get to the wedding because the highways north of Washington were closed. Many flights were cancelled. My family from South Carolina fared better, because the storm did not affect the southeastern United States. One of Becky’s bridesmaids from New York City could not leave the city because the New York metropolitan region was buried under more than thirteen inches of snow. But a last-minute bridesmaid substitution by Becky’s American University roommate came to the rescue. Other than the absence of many family members, the wedding went off without a hitch.

After the wedding, we lived in a house in McLean, Virginia. We loved the location because it assured a reasonable commute to my work at the SEC on Capitol Hill and provided easy access to Page 204 →outdoor activities in Virginia and Maryland. Becky and I often hiked the Billy Goat trail off the path along the C&O Canal in Potomac, Maryland. We often stopped by the Old Anglar’s Inn along the trail to have a drink by the fireplace. The ambiance of the old restaurant was most enjoyable. Rumor had it that US Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, one of my heroes, frequented that place.

A year later, we moved to West Hartford, Connecticut, and purchased a house built in 1810 or so. The house had originally been a creamery (called Highland Creamery) that bought cream from 22 local farmers to be churned by steam power into 700 pounds of butter weekly and sold to local grocers. An office in the Highland Creamery building was used as a branch of the US Post Office. James W. Pine, an African American born in Danbury, Connecticut, who helped to organize Black troops (called Sherman Guards) during the Civil War, was the mail carrier between the creamery and West Hartford Center. Mr. Pine had many other callings, including poet, preacher, and cemetery sexton/grave digger.⁵

After we moved to West Hartford, Becky enrolled at the University of Connecticut School of Law. She chose that career path after exploring the limited opportunities for employment in the international field in the Hartford area. Shortly following graduation from law school, she realized after the birth of our son that it was difficult to pursue any full-time employment opportunities. She pivoted to part-time law practice until it became impractical to sustain with her increased family responsibilities. However, she has participated in many meaningful volunteer activities, including serving on the West Hartford Conservation and Environment Commission.

We celebrated the birth of our son, Neville Swanson Bowers, in 1983. Fifteen months later, another son, Oliver Swanson Bowers, was born. The two boys are our pride and joy. While you cannot precisely plan these things, we had hoped that our children close in age would grow up to be close friends. That was the case with Becky and her Page 205 →younger brother, Lisle, and with my two brothers, Wally and Roy. I was the middle child and had a close relationship with both.

From the very beginning, our kids were overachievers but not sibling competitors; they supported one another in all endeavors. Neville visited the hospital and saw Oliver the day he was born. When he awoke two days later to discover Oliver in the kitchen, he was a little confused as to why Oliver was there. After Neville got his breakfast, he accepted Oliver fully. By the time Oliver was 1 year old, they were best friends and playmates, despite their very different personalities and interests.

Oliver followed Neville in lockstep through elementary and high school. They both attended Renbrook School and Loomis Chaffee School. Renbrook provided a private and nurturing environment where both received individual attention. Both were on the tennis and soccer teams. At Loomis Chaffee School, both did well academically and joined the swim and water polo teams. Neville graduated first in his class at Loomis and later matriculated at Harvard University. Oliver graduated with honors and matriculated at Brown University.

Although both kids had the same educational exposure, Neville was drawn to science, mathematics, and computers. By 8 months, Neville was fiddling with the buttons on the dishwasher. At 18 months, he took parts out of the inside of the dishwasher. The problem was he didn’t put them back in their proper place. When Becky tried to wash the dishes, no water flowed into the dishwasher. It took us two hours to figure out how to get the dishwasher to work again. In kindergarten, Neville began designing simple electrical circuits using batteries and lights. Once, he decided we needed a better antenna on our short-wave radio. He rigged up one and sent me up on the roof to attach it to the chimney. It worked. He tore apart a computer and put it back together at an early age to see how it worked. He designed a website while in grammar school.

Page 206 →Oliver was interested in the humanities: literature, sketching, and music. He is a creative person. While his method of solving problems is often different (at times even unorthodox), he has a knack for exploring different pathways to learning. He can visualize abstractions and articulate them in coherent thought. His written expression is vivid and communicative; the imagery in his sentences conveys volumes to the thoughtful reader. Oliver has a rare gift for memorizing literature and music. He can recall what he had read or heard verbatim. At age eleven, he recited for memory the eighteen stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven before a large Renbrook audience to the amazement of his teachers and others. Oliver excelled in art because he possesses an enhanced visual depth perception. As a fourth grader, one of his sketches was selected by Renbrook as the cover for its holiday card. In music, Oliver would hear a song sung or played once and then proceed to sing it or play it verbatim on the piano.

Oliver’s mind finds expression in his musical compositions. Ever since he was a small boy, he would analyze sounds and synthesize the vast input into a melodious opus. His compositions, like his writings, convey deep emotion and introspection. His music teachers have marveled at his compositions, comparing them favorably with works of professional quality.

In 1988, we took Neville (age five-and-a-half years) and Oliver (age four-and-a-half years) to their first ballet: The Nutcracker Suite. Both enjoyed it, but for different reasons. Neville was intrigued by the technicalities of the set and lighting. In rapid-fire succession, he asked a million questions: How do they make the impression of a moving star and snow falling? How do they create smoke vapors that crawled along the floor? How many curtains do they have? How do they get one scene to fade into another? How do they create the lighting effect of the Kingdom of the Sweets?

Oliver was choreographing his own dance interpretation to the music. I was so absorbed in Oliver’s dance that I was neglecting the Page 207 →performance. To me, Oliver’s interpretations were far more interesting than the professionals. I didn’t realize that he had developed some sophisticated ballet movements. He had wonderful arm interpretations, and he turned and leaped to the beat of the music. He even memorized the ballet score from playing the Nutcracker record repeatedly before the performance.

After experiencing the magical world of the Nutcracker, we stepped outside to an amazing light snowfall. What a nice way to end the performance. It was difficult to tell whether we had just experienced fantasy or reality. Kids are great for allowing adults to dream and pretend with them. I hadn’t felt that wonderful in a long time.

Oliver was always the more sensitive of the two boys. Neville would cut to the chase by analyzing the problem. Oliver would contemplate the problem and might never reach a conclusion. At age ten, before settling down to bed, Oliver asked: “What’s the point of life?” I knew that he contemplated larger issues, but I was not expecting this question. I responded: “The point of life is to leave the world a better place than the one we found. It is not necessary to accomplish significant things if what we do is positive, like planting a tree or just being kind and helpful to someone.” I think that response satisfied him, for he moved on to the less serious topic of Willy the Whale. Oliver and I had many conversations before bedtime.

Bedtime stories were the primary vehicle through which I related to the children. The kids looked forward to nightly stories that I would narrate. Becky was excluded because I felt she would inhibit the creativity by disapprovingly raising her eyebrows over some of my language. My bedtime stories ran the gamut. Sometimes, I would read a well-known book (Young Indiana Jones). At other times, I would improvise upon a book to create a totally different story, based upon events that I had experienced either alone or with the kids. The Indiana Jones books were very educational, because they introduced Page 208 →the kids to adventures connected with familiar places (Stonehenge) or world customs (the whirling dervishes of Istanbul).

Our two favorite stories were the exploits of Fanky and TK, and Herr Bergsteig. The Fanky and TK stories were very fanciful and would ramble all over the place. The recurring theme was that Fanky and TK would always get in trouble in every situation. Herr Bergsteig was derived from our trips to Bavaria, where we did a lot of mountain climbing (Die Bergsteigen). The Herr Bergsteig stories were all about situations happening on a mountain climb.

Our family has matured over the years. Neville and Oliver are now young men. Neville married Janette Fong in 2013. They live in San Francisco and both work in the technology industry. They have an eleven-year-old daughter, Azalea, and a five-year-old son, Amari.

After Harvard, Neville went to work at Microsoft in Seattle, but after two years, finding the company too corporate, he moved to Silicon Valley and joined Facebook. Neville joined the company at Page 209 →a time when it was in its infancy. While at Harvard, Neville lodged at Kirkland House. Mark Zuckerberg also lived at Kirkland House, although Neville did not hang out with him then. Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to develop Facebook, which he started as a student. Neville finished Harvard two years after Zuckerberg left. Neville spent nine productive years at Facebook. When he departed, he teamed up with two friends to launch a startup, Rimeto. Neville has always intended to start his own business. The company was so successful that it was acquired by Slack, a larger technology company, which was in turn purchased by Salesforce.

Oliver got off to a slower start. After his freshman year, he took a year off. Upon his return to Brown, he excelled academically, quickly becoming fluent in German and receiving recognition by his induction into Delta Phi Alpha, a national German honors society. After finishing Brown with honors in English literature, he entered the University of Connecticut School of Law. Becky and I both have law degrees; we were surprised at his decision to study law because he had never showed any interest in the field. We thought he would teach at a prep school that gave latitude to his expansive thinking.

Oliver has a natural facility for languages, which took him to Jesus College, Cambridge, England during the summer of 2001 to study Latin poetry and rhetoric. A more suitable setting for studying Ovid and Virgil cannot be found. Book in hand and head bowed in reverent reflection, one strolls amid the monastic architecture that once was the twelfth century Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary and St. Radegund. If you pause long enough, the walls give up the secrets of the past, and you can almost hear the voice of young Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at age nineteen in 1791) reciting verse while seated in the refectory, fixated on the five-hundred-year-old ceiling carved in Spanish chestnut.

Jesus College is steeped in history and tradition, taking its name from its twelfth century chapel (previously a nun’s church), the oldest college building in Cambridge. When only two nuns remained in Page 210 →the nunnery, John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, founded the college in its place in 1496. According to the institutional legend, the nuns were forced to leave because one of them was senile and the other was pregnant.

Oliver studied German in prep school and college, Japanese at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and is teaching himself Mandarin. In addition, he took music composition courses at the University of Hartford Hartt School of Music and received instructions in painting, which he has always been good at. He seems to have found his niche. He is fluent in many languages and has settled down to painting and composing music.