Fay & Tom Gieschi of Sprigfield work on a crossword for publication in The New York Times
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles, "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said very gravely, "and go on 'til you come to the end, then stop."
-- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 12
-- Lewis Carroll
In 1956 soon after moving to Boston, Diana and Ted (Puffer) befriended their new neighbor down the hall from their apartment near Symphony Hall. Fay Brewster was a copy editor for Jordan Marsh & Co. which, years later, was absorbed into Macy's.
Fay was a two-time divorcee when she and Diana first met. Her first marriage was to Tom Gieschi. They married briefly in the mid-1940s but could not tell his mother because -- in "true Italian histrionic mode" -- the old lady would feign a massive heart attack. The prospect of "killing" his mother by marrying someone she did not approve of (especially a non-Italian) was one Tom could never forgive himself for so, after only a few weeks, they divorced.
Fay's second marriage, to John D. Jones, lasted a number of years. They had a daughter, Reiden, born in 1954 who remained in touch with Diana into the late 1990s.
By 1960, when Ted and Diana went on tour throughout the United States with the Boston Opera Group’s production of Voyage to the Moon, Fay was probably Diana’s sole “link to the real world” and relief from the absurdities of life in the hotels, on the tour bus and backstage. Diana recounted telling Fay how she never liked the taste of lamb because it was “too muttony.” (She’d add, “What did I expect? Too fishy?”) Diana acknowledged that Fay’s use of mint and other spices indeed made the lamb delicious.
One other figure who loomed large upon the local landscape in those years was Inge Thornton, the building super. Diana said Inge bore a strong resemblance to Richard Burton and, by the time she’d met him, had amassed and squandered several fortunes. Diana said that, when his activities fell outside of the law, he could usually sidestep most penalties by saying, “If you lock me up I can’t repay you. Give me just a little more time and I’ll soon be able to make good on …”
Inge was the one person almost everyone turned to when things went awry. His typical response was, “Don’t worry, Mother, I’ll take care of it.” Diana said many of his solutions were almost as bad and sometimes worse than the original problem; somewhat a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice-type” of fix. Still …
Before Diana met Tom Beveridge, Inge was the person who she and others relied upon to locate Ted who, while in the Boston area, would flit about from bar to bar. Fay never had much use for Inge so, by 1961 when Diana and Tom were newlyweds, Diana was astonished to learn that Inge and Fay had gotten married and moved to Gloucester, Mass.
Soon after when they spoke by phone, Fay told Diana that Inge was really nowhere as bad as she’d previously thought and, once things calmed down, she and Tom should visit them. By the time they did, Inge had all sorts of excuses as to why Fay was unexpectedly gone. Diana learned excessive alcohol intake was the cause and, not too long after, Fay and Inge had divorced.
By utter happenstance — being in the right place at the right time — Diana found out that “Giesch” (as Fay wistfully referred to him over the years) was also, finally, no longer married and, in 1967 they finally remarried.
The above were the essential details Diana told me in 1975, as near as my sieve-like memory can now recall. Over the next 15 years Diana and Fay would trade notes in their Christmas cards and we’d hear about their post-retirement routine and enjoyment of life at a more relaxed pace.
In September of 1986 shortly after we moved to Sunnyvale, someone had left a copy of the New York Times Sunday magazine in a restaurant and Diana saw, on the last page, the crossword puzzle starting an “addiction to filling in blank squares” that lasted nearly three decades. She commented, “You know, Fay and Tom have constructed a number of these and sold them to NY Times so I must try my hand at solving them.”
In April 1990, Diana had already planned a visit to Sleeze who was living in Vancouver, Washington. Our fifteenth anniversary fell on a Monday and, several weeks earlier, the thought occurred that perhaps Diana would enjoy solving a thematic crossword puzzle; especially if i could construct one as a small surprise gift.
She already had a copy of Eugene Maleska’s book A Pleasure in Words. We had both already read the chapter on how to construct puzzles and her collection of unabridged dictionaries were all on the shelf nearest her desk.
Until my actual attempt at constructing stymied me, my figuring was, “How tough can that be? It should be like a game of Scrabble except no restrictions arise from luck as far as which tiles you draw.” Yes, i knew that the blacked-in squares must be placed diagonally in mirror image but a Monday (15 × 15) puzzle should be easy.
After several hours unable to set up a workable grid, i finally realized the task was beyond me. Fortunately the idea struck to phone Fay and Tom from the office. At that time i had never even written to them and Diana had not spoken to them by phone for decades.
Fay answered and, immediately, Diana’s description of her “New-Englander voice mannerisms” being like those of Katherine Hepburn came to mind. Knowing that NY Times did not pay much to constructors and that the motivation was, more than anything else, bragging rights — “Oh yes, the Times published another of our puzzles last Sunday …” — i asked if i could please pay them triple the going rate for a Monday puzzle.
Fay’s response is still as vivid 27 years after the fact. She insisted i could not pay them and that she and “Giesch” would mail their puzzle with answers to my office. The only thing she wanted was for Diana to phone as soon as she figured out that they had constructed the surprise puzzle.
In those days Diana would have me photocopy the daily puzzles as well as those from the Sunday magazine, enlarging them so she wouldn’t need her glasses for the small numbers in the boxes. Once the surprise puzzle arrived, a friend with an “ancient Macintosh” retyped the clues in Arial and the puzzle masthead in Times New Roman so the resulting composite looked just like any other daily puzzle. Once Diana packed, the puzzle was placed on the bottom of the stack.
Thus as we were almost done eating breakfast on Monday, 16 April, as Sleeze got done asking Diana if he could bring her anything else and she told him that she was doing well, on cue he said, “You know, I was thinking of you the other day on a flight back home.” He continued, “There was an attractive gal in first class trying to work a NY Times puzzle and neither of us could make head or tail of most of the clues.”
As anticipated, Diana took the bait saying, “They’re not that tough” whereupon Sleeze countered, “No, this was a Saturday puzzle.” Again, almost as if planned, Diana said, “Richard, bring one of my puzzles from the suitcase.”
With “the” puzzle in front of her she began explaining how easy these were. 1 Across was a four letter word (i no longer remember what it was) and 5 Across was a five letter word with the clue “Hunter.” Sleeze suggested, “Would that be Orion?” Diana said, “Not so fast. You musn’t jump to conclusions too soon.” She said, “Let’s check 5 Down.” The clue was, “She comes out in Spring.”
Diana said, “That would be deb, as in debutant … ah, that gives us ‘Diana’ for 5 Across, hey, my name.”
Things began to fall into place quickly. A clue for another five letter word was, “Pieces of Italy.” As Diana already had one of the Zs from another word, she said, “Hey, Pezzi … my maiden name.” Throughout all this Sleeze managed to keep a straight face and only a few minutes later Diana had the long fifteen-letter sequence (7 Down) from the middle A of “Diana”: “a happy fifteenth” and, soon after that the 11 letter center across, “anniversary.”
At that point Diana turned to me and asked, “Did you write to Maleska???”
Sleeze, no longer able to contain himself said, “Fay and Tom want you to call them. It’s on speed-dial.” He handed Diana the phone and, for the first time in nearly 20 years, two old friend spoke. Diana started, “I hope this isn’t bad timing.” Fay replied, “It’s excellent timing. I was just finishing inking in our tax returns, a chore I hate.”
They spoke for a few minutes and decided that the next time Fay and Tom could travel west or we could fly east, we’d get together. A little over six months later, for Diana’s sixty-eighth birthday, we flew to Springfield, Mass, Rochester (and then Tav drove us to his barn and, the following day, to Bethlehem, PA,) before we completed our extended visits in Washington, DC.