Pass the cake, please, Miss Jessie
* The following article appeared in the Sunday, June 27th edition of
The Palm Beach Post and is used with the permission of the publisher.
"I don't beleive Ernest Hemingway Was called 'Papa" by the world until after
World War II. His sons John (Bumby), Patrick and Gregory of course called him
Papa. As a child I always felt he was a great father and very good to all of us
children." - Jeane Porter,
from the story "I Remember Papa" in her book,
Conch Smiles
By Jan Tuckwood, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 27, 2004
KEY WEST -- We are professional eavesdroppers, my friends and I.
Courteous but curious. We just can't help ourselves.
So, when we sat down for dinner at The Grand Cafe in Key West -- a restaurant in
a renovated Victorian mansion on Duval Street -- we simply could not help
noticing the entourage seated next to us, particularly the imposing,
white-haired woman holding court at the head of the table.
She had a stylish younger man with her, who appeared to be her caretaker. He
treated her like a queen, and she looked like one -- hair done, makeup just so,
with expressive, large eyes and a deep, commanding voice. She looked like a
somebody.
Then we heard her say: "We used to put the Christmas tree over there."
As she chatted, it became clear that this grand woman had once lived in this
grand house at 314 Duval St.
Her family history -- indeed, much of the history of Key West itself -- had
unfolded in this one square block.
Her memories included vivid personal tales of Key West's most famous residents:
Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, Gloria Swanson. What's more,
her life's mission was to share those memories.
She didn't mind me butting in: Forgive me, but I couldn't help but overhear....
"My name is Jeane Porter," she stated directly. "I live around the corner,
behind the Heritage House Museum. Come and see me."
My friends and I had gone to Grand Cafe because we had a coupon for a free slice
of Key lime pie. What we got, thanks to coincidence and kismet, was an
introduction to one of Key West's most fascinating families and one of Florida's
most delightful and undiscovered museums.
We got the free pie and the cake Jeane's mother, Jessie Porter, promised when
she once said: "History can be served up as a dry soda cracker or like a moist
piece of chocolate cake. Which do you prefer?"
Thank you, Miss Jessie, we prefer our history sweet and tantalizing -- two
adjectives that describe Jessie Porter herself.
On an island filled with outsized personalities, hers may have been the biggest.
We discovered that when we visited Jessie's home, now the Key West Heritage House Museum,
the next day. And when we knocked on the door of Jeane's house, right next to
her mother's garden.
Jeane's house was eclectically cluttered with mementos from her world travels
with her husband and three children -- and she kept a notebook handy to record
any humorous quips her visitor might make.
Like Miss Jessie, Jeane attracted interesting, quippy people.
But, then, she grew up with some of the most eloquent people in the world. Her
childhood friends were the Hemingway boys. As a teen, she would listen to Robert
Frost recite poetry he had just written. She kiddingly called him "Massa
Robert," because his whole name was Robert E. Lee Frost. She didn't think of him
as a famous poet, just a kind soul who had a little crush on her mother and
wanted to build a writer's colony.
Even today, because her home is across the garden from Frost's old cottage, she
hears his voice reading poems, now via tape: "Something there is that doesn't
like a wall... "
Frost was one of Jessie's dear friends, as were Hemingway and Tallulah Bankhead
and Sally Rand and Thornton Wilder and just about anyone famous who came through
Key West. Her home at 410 Caroline became their literary salon.
"She cultivated people," Jeane said. "She was not traditionally beautiful, but
her animation and her love of life made her beautiful."
When Jessie died in 1979 (she was 80 but never admitted it because "age puts you
in a cage"), Jeane created the Heritage House Museum to celebrate not just her
mother's life but Key West's place in cultural history.
"Key West is one of the great loves of my life," she said. Perhaps because her
roots here are so deep.
Her great-great-great grandfather, Thomas Mann Randolph, was the first commander
of the Coast Guard. Her
great-great-grandfather, William Curry, made millions in ship salvage and
storage. Her great-grandfather, Dr. Joseph Yates Porter (1847-1927), was
Florida's first state board of health director. As a child, he lost every member
of his family except his grandmother to yellow fever. As a doctor, he was
credited with eradicating it. He was born and died in his home at Caroline and
Duval streets, which the famous Conch Train tour points out to tourists. Her
grandfather, William Porter, ran the Key West bank and helped the island from
going belly-up during the Depression. Her mother, Jessie, launched the historic
preservation movement in Key West as well as its literary reputation.
Because Jessie traveled the globe, Jeane spent much of her youth in her
grandparents' home at 314 Duval, now The Grand Cafe. It is one of the old homes
renovated into restaurants by actress Kelly McGillis' husband, Fred Tillman. The
other, Kelly's, is also on Porter land, next to the Heritage House Museum.
Jeane talked with me for more than an hour, showed me her paintings, told me how
she believed in past lives -- and in living the present one.
" 'Live while you're alive,' my mother always said.
"She was a larger-than-life person with enormous energies... Energies in the
plural because she had at least three extra auxiliary motors, one would kick in
when the last had given out."
Her daughter, too, was larger than life.
Jeane Porter died April 18, two months after she held me spellbound with her
stories. Perhaps our accidental acquaintance was no accident at all, but
serendipity. Perhaps Jeane, like Miss Jessie, had one extra auxiliary motor, and
it kicked in just in time to share one more memory.
Jeane entrusted the care of Heritage House Museum to her youngest daughter,
Suzanne Campbell, who will "carry on the matriarchal lineage of my family.... My
grandmother was a banker's daughter, a socialite, a storyteller and historian.
My mother was an artist and writer. My task will be growing what they started.
The common thread in all of us is the excitement of our cultural history, the
creativity of Key West and what makes it special."
Even if you don't believe in past lives, you'd be a fool not to believe that
Miss Jeane and Miss Jessie live on at the
Key West Heritage House Museum.
If you eavesdrop, maybe you can still hear them.
jan_tuckwood@pbpost.com
Jeane Porter's fascinating accounts of the history and people of Key West can be read in Key West: Conch Smiles available at the Key West Heritage House Museum, 410 Caroline Street.