Shortly after Diana and i were married the process began of learning the names and relationships of family and friends — in many cases, people she’d known before my birth. As stated elsewhere in these Grace Notes, the fierce loyalty displayed by Diana and Tav was one of their most admirable traits.
A few weeks after we moved from Washington, DC, to southern California, Tav and i finally met for the first time. Almost immediately he began his “charm offensive” replete with resumption of sibling rivalry. For the next four decades he and Diana would kid, chide and cajole each other with both playfulness and mutual respect.
That morning when we met his flight at LAX, Diana asked how some long-time friend was doing and, in what i would learn was typical dead-pan OV-ese, he said, “Not too good.” When she followed up with, “Really?” he countered, “He died a few years ago. Guess I forgot to mention it.”
Soon after that Tav asked Diana, “Have you contacted Winnie yet?”
Edwina Jane Banigan was born on 4 March 1923 in Philadelphia, PA., the middle of three children and the only daughter. Winnie’s father was a chemist who, among other things, invented an early synthetic sponge for DuPont.
As mentioned in the “Sunset Express” essay, Winnie met Tav and, soon after, Diana in 1946. As he would explain a few days before his retirement in 1984, “I began my career in the airline industry as an Operations Agent (baggage smasher) at $ 130 a month. Winnie was my first boss and yet, despite that dubious start, I managed to succeed.”
In those days Winnie thought the name “Edwina” sounded too old-fashioned so she avoided it. Also never mentioned at the time, in her youth she studied harp.
By the time she and Diana had their own reunion in 1975, they both marveled at how the nearly three decades since they last saw each other seemed to fade into nothingness as they picked up immediately where they’d left off. Diana said that Winnie was “like the younger sister” she never had.
Not too long before that meeting Winnie saw Ted Puffer at the university (they both still worked in the music department) and said to him, “You’ll never guess what’s new with Diana.” Without missing a beat Ted said, “She dumped Tom and married a 25-year-old.” Winnie corrected him, “21-year-old, but how did you know?” Ted countered, “Hey, I was married to her for nearly ten years.”
Not quite two decades later when we were visiting Winnie and Vincent in Carmel, Winnie told Diana how she regretted her youthful dislike of her name and asked that Diana please call her Edwina as it was her mother’s name. Finding that far too pretentious, Diana countered, “Okay, but you must now call me Diana.”
Within a matter of minutes as we were heading into our favorite restaurant in Monterey, Rosine’s, something caught Winnie’s attention and she exclaimed, “Oh, Di …” whereupon Diana countered, “Yes, Winnie?” Both laughed and the “Winnie / Di” equilibrium was restored.
In the late 1980s Diana brought Dame Edna Everage to my attention. This clip was one of her favorites as she said it reminded her of Winnie. Diana often used the line from Joan Rivers, “For me wedding bells are like an alarm clock” and, until Winnie and Vincenzo were married, follow up with the quintessentially Diana-esque, “Always a bride; never a bridesmaid!”
One other facet of our association with Winnie must be noted: Her son Pete.
As of this writing (December 2017) Winnie’s only surviving sister-in-law, Dorothy Baningan, still keeps in touch mostly via e-mail. (She as born a few months before Diana.)
Note: On occasion Diana and Richard enjoyed the humor of Dame Edna (Australian comedian; Barry Humphries – Female Impersonator ) and Diana brought to Richard’s attention back in the late 1980s this clip as it was one of Diana’s favorites.