MARY STEPHENS EATON Mother of Cyrus, John, Cathy, and Elizabeth Grandmother of Nathaniel, Charlie, Matt, Chris, Colin, Devon, Shantin, Isaiah, & Sarah
Childhood Mary Margaret Stephens, born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1922, was fourth of six surviving children. Her mother was Helen Carolyn Settles from Hannibal, Missouri. Her father, Frank Monroe Stephens, worked for the telephone company. Mary had five siblings: Helen Carolyn who first married Charles Wood and then married Morrey Booth; Catherine (Sissy) who married Harvey Newton Barrett; Robert Stephens who married Barbara; Elizabeth Ann Stephens who married and divorced Austin Tobin, Jr. Susan who married Jack Morley. Frank’s promotions in the telephone company moved the family from St. Louis, to Hyde Park in Cleveland, then Columbus, Ohio, back to Cleveland, and finally to Milwaukie, Wisconsin.
Mary attended St. Mary’s of the Spring Catholic School in Columbus from first grade to eighth grade. Mary said she never fit with her classmates. She called herself “an awful tomboy” playing capture the fly and kick the can in a ravine, swimming and diving all summer at the pool. Mary remembered riding ponies at the State Fairground, trick-or-treating, and a family trip to Niagara Falls. She described herself as being a smart aleck. She was very devout until her religious fervor was disillusioned because the nuns insisted her father would go to hell because he wasn’t Catholic. Her close companions tended to be her siblings. She loved tagging along with her best friend, her brother, Bob. She was traumatized when her beloved sister Sissy had psychotic incidents. She always wished she could make her sister better. Sissy died of an overdose, leaving a hole in Mary’s life. Mary got to know Sue when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and stayed in a sanatorium. She became close to her oldest sister, Helen, when Helen was taking care of their mother in her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Mary and Dibbie became best friends during the years Dibbie and her kids stayed at the house next door in Northfield in the early 60s. Dibbie’s colon cancer and early death broke Mary’s heart.
In an interview with her brother Bob, Mary talked about her mother baking delicious desserts, especially coconut cakes, and being an attentive, compassionate listener. She described her mother as a lady who was very private, never gossiping. Mary wrote in her memoirs, “A strong heritage from mother for all her children is our love for flowers. The flowers I’ve loved through the years are the ones remembered from her gardens: delphinium, nasturtiums, zinnias, coral bells, bleeding heart, daisies, and roses. Mary was very close to her father. She remembered her dad gardening in the backyard and keeping a Victory Garden. His death of lung cancer in 1946 when Mary was twenty-four hit her hard.
School and Courtship In 1937, the Stephens family moved to a brick house at 2721 Chesterton Road in Shaker Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. As a teen, she loved taking the street car downtown and going to movies for twenty-five cents. She recalled that family dinners were great fun. She enjoyed playing badminton at the Ides, their neighbors. Mary walked to Hathaway Brown School, an all girls’ school for eleventh and twelfth grade, when she was elected class president and drama club president. Mary volunteered as a candy striper at a local hospital. As an eleventh grader, she walked across her street, and met a shy young man named Cyrus S. Eaton, Jr. Smitten, she invited him to a school dance despite the five-year age difference. Her parents even gave Mary permission to visit him at Colgate University in New York for a frat party. Mary wrote, “I was crazy about my daredevil, imaginative and courageous beau; traits demonstrated as time went by.” “Getting married in my parents’ garden was a sanctuary for me.” Mary left Smith College after two years to marry Cy on July 11, 1942 when she was nineteen. Due to a serious illness, he spent their wedding night in the hospital. The newlyweds moved to flight training school first in Arkansas, then Florida and Texas.
The War Years Cy, a hotshot lieutenant pilot, left her behind to serve at a base in Colchester, England, while Mary moved back to her family home on Chesterton Road, learned typing and shorthand and worked as a secretary in an advertising agency. On the morning of July 30, 1943, Cy’s B 26 was shot down on his first mission, every one of his crewmates perishing as the plane spiraled into the frigid sea off the coast of Holland. Riddled with shrapnel and bullets, he was rescued by a Dutch fishermen, but no one from the other planes in the formation saw his escape parachute, so he was reported missing in action and then dead. However, in his last letter to Mary, Cy had assured her that if he went down, he would find a way to return to her. Believing his promise, she refused to have a funeral for him, wear mourning, or ever accept that he was dead. Not dead but gravely injured, he was imprisoned in a prison camp after the Germans saved his life by removing many of the bullets and pieces of shrapnel. Finally, one of his letters reached his young wife. The two years he was in prison camp required courage and faith from the couple during these tense years of separation, never knowing if he would survive. Cy’s love for Mary, his commitment to returning to her and raising a family at Arrow Cottage sustained him. She wrote him frequently during those lonely days.
With her sister, Mary traveled to Washington DC to visit their father who told her that there had been no word of Cy for six months and that she had to accept he wasn’t coming home. After her return to Shaker Heights, the phone rang in the middle of the night, and Cy, barely arrived in Washington, spoke to her for the first time in over twenty-four months. He had escaped Germany and had kept his promise to return to her. She flew to meet him the next day at the Pentagon. After some months at a military rehabilitation camp, the reunited couple lived at the guesthouse at Acadia Farms before moving to Cy’s mother’s former home at 626 Houghton Road in Northfield, Ohio. Mary’s sister, Sissy, and husband, Harvey Barrett lived next door, and the young couples raised their first children together.
Arrow Cottage, Children, and Careers Mary and the family lived very isolated while Cy dedicated himself to beginning a career. She enjoyed having lunch at Stouffers once a week with her mom. Mary helped her father-in-law Cyrus Eaton by acting as his hostess when he entertained international guests. Their children (Cyrus born March 20, 1946, John born August 16, 1948, Cathy born July 23, 1950, and Elizabeth born December 20, 1953) were raised on the farm, attended private schools, rode horses, skied, and played tennis and swam at their home.
Cy was partially deaf, and Mary’s teaching career began by teaching him first to speak. This training catapulted her into teaching at Hawken School in Lyndhurst, Ohio, collaborating with the headmaster’s wife teaching reading in the elementary school. She taught at Hawken School for over thirty years as a reading and study skills specialist in the middle school. She mentored many teachers, helping them apply thinking skills to their science, English, and study skills curriculum. Continuing her education at Case Western Reserve University, she graduated in 1976 and majored in English, where she put her heart into writing insightful essays. At her memorial service, school colleagues chuckled about how she nudged their teaching skills with informative articles on which she had written comments and attached sticky notes. Each year with her friend Martha Brown, she helped chaperon an eighth-grade trip to Williamsburg.
She and Cy hosted many family gatherings and opened their hearts to numerous family members, including an eightieth birthday party for her mother. All Helen Stephen’s children, their spouses, and grandchildren attended the event at Arrow Cottage. Troubled teens like Rusty Lincoln, Julie North, and Jim Fawcett found refuge at their home. Mary, always interested in food, prepared nutritious meals, and it was a nightly ritual for the family to eat around the dining room table. With help from Eva Boley and Willie Charron, Mary kept the five-bedroom sprawling eighteenth century farm house, the guest house next door, and the Chalet pool house orderly. Over the years, other people helped at Arrow Cottage, like Lieb Blanche, Kuntza, the Yos, Katie and Glenn Sawyer. While Cy traveled extensively to Eastern Europe, Russia, and China, Mary balanced parenting the children, maintaining the house, and building her teaching career. She taught young Cy to speak and worked nightly with him to do his homework. She spent hours helping Cathy with French and spelling. Favorite outings were to the Bedford library. The family attended St. Mary’s Church and then St. Barnabus Church until 1963 when they chose to leave the church. Mary’s mom, Helen Stephens, often stayed with the family. Mary oversaw the care of her mother at Hamlet Hills in Chagrin Falls.
When the children were growing up, the family played with their cousins, the Barretts and Tobins. Later, they enjoyed time with the Carmichaels. Never a fan of the horse shows, Mary attended many of the local events. Her best friend was Joan Nordstrom. A life-long learner, Mary took courses in Japanese floral arranging, tree identification, and other things that enriched her life. She planted a large vegetable garden and enjoyed planning landscapes additions. She organized the outdoor weddings for Cy and Toni Dolan as well as Cathy and Michael Murphy. She always remained close to her mother and siblings. She and Cy loved visiting their four children and nine grandchildren, in North Carolina, Maryland, New Hampshire, California, Oregon, and Alaska. They took them to the zoo, played poker with them, raked leaves with them, treated them to ice cream, and found delight in their inquisitive minds. They were very proud of each of them.
Travel, Moving, and Bankruptcy She and Cy traveled extensively. For one month, they journeyed around Italy and then another month a different year around Spain with their German friends, Herman and Nani Brandi, and Eric and Ruth Kemna. They took a trip around the world in 1965, traveling to India, Mexico, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, Germany, and Israel. They took the children to Greece, Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Turkey, The Gambia, Egypt, and on ski trips to Vail and Aspen in Colorado, Loc Beau Port and Mont Gabriel in Canada, and Ellicottville in New York.
In 1978, She and Cy moved to a lovely rural piece of land on County Line Road in Gates Mills, Ohio, where they lived next to Harvey and Connie Barrett in a home that had at one point been a barn belonging to the Knight family. They loved cross-country skiing and walking in the country with their dogs, Zamoya and Cricket. During those years, Cy’s financial situation and business deals were in crisis. The couple endured bankruptcy, and during that time tension-filled period, their marriage almost ended. In 1987, Cyrus asked for a divorce so he could marry Margaret Eaton, a distant relative. Through journaling, tears, constant talking with each other, and the support of family and friends, the couple worked through these traumatizing months, remaining best friends always. Mary once said, that their marriage was really a series of different marriages: the war years, the years of raising young children, then raising teen age children, the empty nest years busy with careers, the years of the stroke and cancer, and finally the retirement years.
Retirement, Cy’s Stroke, and Cancer After filing for bankruptcy, they moved to Apartment 10 E3 in Moreland Courts on 13415 Shaker Blvd, where Mary purchased a two-bedroom condominium in the elegant tutor style building adjacent to Shaker Square. Mary loved finally living near her friends and being able to walk to the market, book stores, and nearby Shaker Lakes. She and Cy continued their cross-country skiing and often strolled around the neighborhood. Mary’s teaching income supported them. After Mary retired from Hawken School around 1994 at age seventy-two, she continued tutoring students at Hathaway Brown School and at home.
On Valentine’s Day in 1998, Cy suffered a massive stroke. Much of their energy was consumed with Cy’s rehabilitation. Then a year later, Mary had emergency surgery and began chemo for colon cancer which the doctor had not diagnosed despite Mary’s belief that, like her sister Dibbie, she had colon cancer. Mary researched treatments, shared long emails with the family, and was an amazing advocate for Cy as she attended every therapy session, and as a team they worked on the exercises at home.
Final Years at Kendal In 2001, Mary and Cy moved to Kendal Retirement/Nursing home in Oberlin, Ohio, where they regained their independence and flourished. Cy had an electric scooter and drove himself to therapy, to get the mail, and to pick up meals they ate in their cottage. Mary, joining the floral group and drama group, made many friends. Mary considered these years at Kendal some of the happiest of their life.
When her cancer returned, she withdrew into a smaller life revolving around the numerous visits of family and friends and staying in the homey cottage that overlooked a pond. Walking daily around the beautiful grounds gave them great joy. Mary decided not to do any more chemo or try other kinds of experimental treatment. Hospice care helped Mary stay in their home. She retained her wry sense of humor and love of learning. She taught us all how to let go of life and to die with dignity and grace, always retaining her humor. She died on December 15, 2003, with husband Cy, and children Cyrus, John, Cathy, and Elizabeth at her side. At her death, Elizabeth opened a window; a single Canada goose flew to join five others flying away.
At the first memorial service, many friends and family spoke of how she had mentored, encouraged, and loved them. At the second one in June, all the family gathered and celebrated what a remarkable wife, mother, and grandmother she was. Jim Fawcett fashioned a wood urn with hooks around the edges. Family members attached mementoes to the urn that reminded them of Mary: a high heel, a chocolate truffle, a feather, a swoon bottle of vodka. She would have loved the family gathering of all her children, their spouses, and her eleven grandchildren.