Capturing Beauty
Chapter Three ‘Scarlett Mundi’
by Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
Above is a photograph of my mother, Rosemary. She and Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor are found in the Rosamond family genealogy. The movie poster is make believe.
“Vivien Leigh was my heroine,” Elizabeth once said. “She was innocence on the verge of decadence, always there to be saved.”
On our first date, Marilyn Godfrey and I went to see ‘Withering Heights’ in an auditorium on the grounds of the University of California at Los Angeles. Not having any money, and our mothers being poor, this love story was chosen because it being shown for free. Our father’s were absent from the home. We got no help from them in launching our fifty-five year friendship that began with the deep consideration as to how this agreement between two teenagers was going to go. Would I make it to first base, or, will we make excuses as to why we have to hurry home?
“My mother just got another calling from God. I feel it in my bones. I must rush home to be by her side.”
“My mother has just finished off a gallon of Pisano and his pulling my sister;s hair out by the root. I can feel her pain. I must rush home to protect her. See ya sometime!”
I was fifteen. I had never been on a date, and thus did not know what a bad date looked or felt like. I was at the mercy of Marilyn who had gone on several dates. She had kissed – how many of them? I kissed my childhood friend Nancy when we were both twelve. I assumed she was a good kisser. I had not kissed a girl hence. This kiss was waiting in the wing, as Heathcliffe made his famous haunted pledge. I include most of his commitment to love, because, at the end of our long bond, I receive a death threat from Marilyn’s black husband, and, a Cease and Desist from the black Director of the Gospel Choir Marilyn is the President of. For the moment, we are studying how White Folks love, in Merry Ol England made famous for this tale of woe.
‘May she wake in torment!‘ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!’
Wow! So this is – love! You can’t even share anything that resembles this in a AA meeting without being accused of being selfish, and on a dry drunk. But, at fifteen Marilyn and I would give it a go. However, this was not our only blue print. M had a master plan that I still have not seen the whole of! Women are Secret Lovers. They play their cards very close to their vest, to their most Secret Heart. So, on our second date she took me to see Black Orpheus. She paid our way. From that day on, I was her puppet on a string.
At the Rialto on Santa Monica here is another death scene up on the silver screen. I am trying to relate because these lovers are black people, surrounded by black people. There is not a white face in the bunch, accept on the face of Mr. Death dressed in a skeleton costume. Here is Evil Whitey that has come between these two beautiful souls that just want to dance to happy music. He is after this beauty. He is stalking her. He is trying to capture her and take her to The Underworld.
When we left the theatre, M studied me – very carefully. Would I now kiss her? I was too nervous and terribly shy after seeing the horrific look on Catherine and Heathcliff’s faces as they looked out on their crag, their heap of rocks that marked the loss of their childhood – when she pursued that handsome negro, Ashley Wilkes? Did I sense a trap? I felt I was way over my head. I was…….confused!
I didn’t know it then, but Marilyn was white on the outside, but black on the inside. Sensing I was clueless to this truth, she paid my way on the No.3 bus, and away we go into the Hollywood to see M’s good friend, Les McCann who is black. Halfway there, a young hoodlum hopped on the bus and drooled over M right in front of me from a sideways seat. He could not take his eyes off my date. He had a pompadour, and looked about twenty. I wanted to kick his ass. I wanted to do a paroxysm – on his face. I was studying whether I could knock this older guy out. I was willing to fight to the death – for my love!
paroxysm
a sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity.
Two months ago, Marilyn suggested I was in a Racist Rage – all the way to MacCann’s house, I furious that she was taking me to see a Negro.
“Didn’t you see that guy on the bus? He was undressing you, totally oblivious I existed. He wanted to fuck you.”
“A lot of guys wanted to fuck me. I was a hot fifteen year old. Do you think I paid attention to each one. I just know you were pissed at going to see Les.”
This was said shortly after Marilyn asked about copyrights, because, her sister wanted to author a book after attending the African Drum, and Orpheus Dance of Death Duet at, Hult Center. I am looking at Mr. Death as a Lustful Punk on the No.3 bus. I suspected I was now the Bad Guy, the Phantom of the African Hoot and Annie Grand Ol Opera Ditty. The audience was practically all white. Everyone had white hair. It looked like a Santa Claus convention!
“Yeeeeeeehaw!”
Safely at Les’s house, I listened to this famous Jazz Artist sing fifteen year old Marilyn, a song on his baby grand while I am looking down on the city lights. I wish I could recall the tune. When he is done, when he has stopped giving Marilyn big brown goo-goo eyes, he turns to me, and with a scowl on his face, says;
“You better take good care of my little girl here, or, you’ll have to answer to me!”
M and Les waited for a response from me. You could hear a pin drop. I was a loss for words. This was a do or die moment. Then they came to me in a brilliant flash;
“I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!’
Les looked shocked. He gave me a sideways glance, then gave me a big smile.
“Hey! This guys got soul, Marilyn. I approve of your choice. Do you play the piano?”
“I sure do! Let me at then eighty-eights. This is called Kay’s Theme. I composed this the other day. That’s Marilyn’s middle name. Did you know that?”
“Why no! I’m very impressed with you young man, even though you are as white as snow. I know my Marilyn, I mean, Kay, is in good hands, now!”
After striking three chords, Les picked up his violin. Our soul harmony played sweet chords over the mean streets of Hollyweird. This was a sign of great things to come. From that day foreword, anyone who tried to come between Marilyn and I, were in danger of losing their life………and their soul.
Marilyn’s husband called me last week, in a rage!
“Do you know how much damage you have done?”
Kenny Reed asked me if I owned a gun. If dueling was legal in Lane County, serious shots would have been fired. Would we be wearing costumes of the period, we down in the Antebellum South intent on killing one another, while in the background, Atlanta burned? Sherman was on his way – to the sea! Tara was spared. The O’Hara family had come from Ireland, in a fictional sort of way, while my Rosamond family did it for real. Shots were fired. I Catholic thug lay dead. The Rosamond brothers claimed they were protecting their mother. Now, they must be hanged. Rosamond comes from the name Rougemont, which means “red earth”. Tara means “earth”. The Rosamond family owned plantations all over the South. We owned – slaves! Kenny’s kindred – were slaves! Adam means – RED EARTH! Down South, Gone With the Wind is bigger than the Bible. The Jews were once slaves. Then, Moses cried;
“Let my people go!”
And, the Irish Folk, came!
“In 1825, in the village of Fenagh in county Leitrim in Ireland, a gang of Catholic youths attacked the Rosamond home. The Rosamonds were staunch Protestants. James, aged 20 (born 1805) and his brother Edward, aged 15, attempted to protect their mother. A shot was fired by Edward and a youth was dead. The boys fled to Canada. James went to Merrickville where he worked for James Merrick as a weaver. Edward, still fearing arrest, worked his way eventually to Tenneesee.”
“
When Selznic was casting for ‘Gone With the Wind’ Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor’s thespian mother, Sara Southern was campaigning to get Liz the role of Bonnie Blue Butler. If she was cast in this role as Scarlett’s daughter, then, my Rosy Family Tree would be forever linked to the most famous movie of all time! As it is, we are the Real Scarlett Family. My mother, born Rosemary Rosamond, to Royal, and Mary Magdalene Rosamond, viewed ‘Gone With the Wind’ as a religious experience her four children were requited to attend. Whenever it was scheduled for Television, we began to make preparations. We Presco Children had only one request, being, Rosemary would not curse our father during the last quarter of this epic tale.
“No calling Vic a ‘Son of a Bitch’! Agreed?”
We never got a verbal agreement. Rosemary just could not bring herself to do it. So, during those insipid scenes of abandonment, our mother would clench her fists, then bite her knuckles as tears came flowing down her rosy cheeks. As one, we turned to her, to behold her biting her lip. Is that blood? Then, she let out a paroxysm of deep anguish that ended with a growl from deep inside her battered womb as if she was Mike Tyson in the ring with Holyfield – tearing off a big chunk of his ear! This was Red Rosemary’s High Mass!
“Take that you son of a bitch. How could you make me fall in love with you, get me pregnant with your four children, and leave me all alone to die…..a thousand deaths!”
“You’re not alone, Mom! Please, don’t cry. You got us. We love you!”
That’s when she raised her glass of wine to her face, to hide her utter disgust. We didn’t get it. Rosemary didn’t love us. Not then. Not ever. She only loved the Son of a Bitch. Come next season we were quite proud of ourselves, that we had figured it out. Rosemary chose not to love us to spite the SOB. Our consolation prize did not last long, and we soon went insane, one Presco Child at a time. One of Christine’s therapist came close to the truth, when he asked his famous client;
“Perchance, is you mother a big fan of Gone With The Wind – and Wuthering Heights?”
“Oh Vic! You SOB! I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!’
If he had only followed up this line of questioning, Christine would be alive. I suspect an author is using Marilyn as a Trojan Horse to get to MY rosy family drama. The Mission Pledge of Holy Revenge, was sent to me in order to protect Marilyn from a lawsuit. The Friends wanted to trick me into agreeing to not write anything about my first love until I got their permission. I believe they wandered into Dead Rosamond territory.
“Oh heck! Let’s raise Rosamond from the dead on the way to the Second Coming of the Grand African Finale! Let’s go on down to Hades, and see what’s cooking there!”
Marilyn began to abuse me before I lay eyes on her. She stalked me – for real! She heard I was doing a clay bust of her rival since the second grade – who lived on the good side of the tracks. She had to take me away from Cindy. Thanks to her radical sister, who knew Black Panthers in Paris, Marilyn is determined to have the Black Race come out on top. Shauna brainwashed M since she was a child. Soon after we met she quoted me this;
“He drew a circle that shut me out, a thing to scorn and spout. But, love and I had the will to win, we drew a circle that brought him in.”
This quote came from Shauna who was engaged to marry a very white son of a famous preacher man. His racist father forbid this union when he discovered Shauna was half Filipino. She was a Jesus-freak turned Black Radical. She put a radical crucifix in M’s hands. At fifteen, I was drafted into THEIR racial melodrama. I was kept in the dark for fifty-five years so alas these sisters can get restitution. They do not get my story. Over my dead body! From my cold dead hands!
Now that we are getting REAL after all these years, I think the reason Shauna’s fiance dumped her, was, a pretty woman caught his eye, and captured his heart. Race had nothing to do with it. I suffered as a teen due to Shauna looking squat and un-beautiful!
Marilyn looked like Marilyn Munster around her mixed-race kinfolk. I am sure it irked Shauna that M was so beautiful, especially when they were at an event and was asked;
“Is this your maid?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Munster
The following people are now immortalized;
Marilyn Reed. Kenny Reed, Kathy and Jerry Vrzak, Shauna, and the inspirational Gospel Choir of Eugene.
All of my enemies, and those who unfriended me, will forever be associated with the movie ‘Gone With the Wind’ . Oh, and I really can play the piano like that. I go into a trance. I did not play with Les, nor ever let M hear me, because, she took lessons, and is not that good. Hit is maestro!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
The Rosamond family, of which Mrs. Morris is a member, trace their lineage back to the early Norman families that settled in England and were members of the nobility, there being among them “Fair Rosamond,” whose life has been written as one of the “Immortal love stories” of history. In this country the family first settled in South Carolina before the first United States census was taken. Captain Samuel Rosamond’s name is in the first census taken in the United States and won honors in the Revolutionary War. He was the great-great-grandfather of Mrs. D .C. Morris. Lerona (Rosamond) Morris, herself, is a gifted lady with decided talent for writing, which she has used to good advantage. She has completed one literary work, “Tulsa, the City Beautiful,” and is now busy with the preparation of another which will be entitled “Oklahoma, Yesterday, To-day, Tomorrow,” and is to be the history of Oklahoma told in story form. She has already won thirty-six prizes for writing in different contests. Mrs. Morris took up magazine subscription work to earn her church pledge toward the Baptists’ $75,000,000 campaign. She has ever used originality in her unique way of securing subscriptions and has made of it an interesting as well as profitable business. Since moving to Tulsa six years ago, she has built up a substantial clientele, who have remained on her list through the years, many of them calling her……
Elizabeth’s mother, Sara, was supposedly stopped on the street by perfect strangers during this time telling her how much her daughter resembled a young Vivien Leigh, and saying that she was perfect for the role of Bonnie Blue Butler, Leigh and Clark Gable’s daughter in the film. But according to Elizabeth Taylor biographer William J. Mann, Sara had actively campaigned for the role for her daughter, including enlisting the help of her acquaintance, gossip queen Hedda Hopper:
Back in 1939, when Elizabeth was just seven, Hedda had suggested that David O. Salznick cast her as Vivien Leigh’s daughter in Gone With the Wind. It still rankled Hedda how disingenuous Sara could be about that whole experience, insisting that she’d never had any thought of putting her daughter in pictures. Sara claimed that it was only after ‘people on the street’ had told her how much Elizabeth resembled Leigh that she had even given it a thought. Hedda scoffed at such baloney. At that point in time, no one had any idea what Vivien Leigh looked like! Of course the entire enterprise had been Sara’s, right from the moment she’d showed up at Hedda’s office with her daughter in tow, obsessed with the idea of getting her into the film.
Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh are two of film’s most enduring icons. Both are celebrated for their raven hair, porcelain skin, and delicate features, but the two have more in common than their physical appearance.
“Vivien Leigh was my heroine,” Elizabeth once said. “She was innocence on the verge of decadence, always there to be saved.”
I am looking for descendants of Philip Rosemond and Moses Morton Rosemond
who lived in Guernsey County, OH in the mid-1800s. This family descended
from a James Rosemond who lived in County Leitrim, Ireland in the early
1700s. Other members of this same family settled in Lanark, Ontario, Canada.
The southern Rosamond family is also said to be descended from this same
family, as are the Rosamond families in Australia and New Zealand. I am
trying to tie all the branches of the family together. The information on
the family in Guernsey County, OH is shown below. I’d appreciate hearing
from anyone who has any information regarding this family.
The reference for the earlier generations of this family is the booklet “The
History of the Rosemond Family” by Leland Eugene Rosemond, 1939.
On January 6, 1903, Dan Curtis Morris married Lerona Rosamond, daughter of William James and Martha (Cooke) Rosamond. Mr. Rosamond was a native of Mississippi, and his wife a native of Texas. They were the parents of ten children, of which family Mrs. Morris is the fifth child. Mr. and Mrs. Morris have five children: 1. Evelyn Rosamond. 2. James Harold. 3. Jack Gordon. 4. Robert Cecil. 5. Margaret Ruth.
The Rosamond family, of which Mrs. Morris is a member, trace their lineage back to the early Norman families that settled in England and were members of the nobility, there being among them “Fair Rosamond,” whose life has been written as one of the “Immortal love stories” of history. In this country the family first settled in South Carolina before the first United States census was taken. Captain Samuel Rosamond’s name is in the first census taken in the United States and won honors in the Revolutionary War. He was the great-great-grandfather of Mrs. D .C. Morris. Lerona (Rosamond) Morris, herself, is a gifted lady with decided talent for writing, which she has used to good advantage. She has completed one literary work, “Tulsa, the City Beautiful,” and is now busy with the preparation of another which will be entitled “Oklahoma, Yesterday, To-day, Tomorrow,” and is to be the history of Oklahoma told in story form. She has already won thirty-six prizes for writing in different contests. Mrs. Morris took up magazine subscription work to earn her church pledge toward the Baptists’ $75,000,000 campaign. She has ever used originality in her unique way of securing subscriptions and has made of it an interesting as well as profitable business. Since moving to Tulsa six years ago, she has built up a substantial clientele, who have remained on her list through the years, many of them calling her, whe
In Gone with the Wind[edit]
In Gone with the Wind, Tara was founded by Irish immigrant Gerald O’Hara after he won 640 acres (2.6 km2) or 1 square mile of land from its absentee owner during an all-night poker game. Very much an Irish peasant farmer rather than the merchant his elder brothers (whose emigrations to Savannah had brought him to Georgia) wanted him to be, Gerald relished the thought of becoming a planter and gave his mostly wilderness and uncultivated new lands the grandiose name of Tara after theHill of Tara, once the capital of the High King of ancient Ireland. He borrowed money from his brothers and bankers to buy slaves and turned the farm into a very successful cotton plantation. Gerald realized that the manor house needed a feminine touch and domestic servants. Consulting with his valet, Pork, whom he had won in a card game, he was told, “whut you needs is a wife, and a wife whut has got plen’y of house niggers.”[1] So Gerald set off to Savannah to look for a wife meeting this qualification.
At 43, Gerald married the 15-year-old Ellen Robillard, a wealthy Savannah-born girl of French descent, receiving as dowry twenty slaves (including Mammy, Ellen’s nurse, who became nurse to Ellen’s daughters and grandchildren as well). His young bride took a very real interest in the management of the plantation, being in some ways a more hands-on manager than her husband. With the injection of her dowry money and the rise of cotton prices, Tara grew to a plantation of more than 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) and more than 100 slaves by the dawn of the Civil War.
In the first quarter of the novel, the O’Haras are enthusiastically partisan in support of the Confederacy. Nevertheless, even before the tide has turned irreversibly against the Confederacy following Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the plantation (along with the other great land-holdings in the county) has already suffered major deprivation because of the war and has descended into disrepair. Shortages caused by the Union blockade and the Confederate requisitioning of supplies and slaves have turned the home from a house of plenty to one of mere subsistence, while the inability to sell their cotton to England has also greatly diminished the family’s once-lavish income and lifestyle. The arrival of Sherman’s troops in Clayton County terrifies those slaves who have not already departed or been conscripted into the labor force by the Confederacy. By the time Union troops arrive at Tara, only the house slaves remain.
Unlike the homes of most of the O’Haras’ neighbors, Tara is spared the torch during the Union’s Scorched Earth Policy. The life-threatening illness, from typhoid, of Ellen O’Hara and her younger daughters, Suellen and Carreen, causes Gerald to stand firm in the doorway of his house, “as if he had an army behind him rather than before him”, and earns the sympathy of a Union officer who orders his surgeon to treat the O’Hara women with laudanum and quinine. The officer commandeers the house for use as a Union field headquarters, but as a courtesy, it is spared. However, movable items of value (including Ellen’s rosary, pictures, and china) are confiscated (or stolen), and larger items are vandalized by the withdrawing Union troops. Mammy hides the family silver in the well.
The army also chops down the trees surrounding the home, destroys the outbuildings, uses much of the fencing for firewood, slaughters the livestock, and pillages the vegetable gardens and fruit orchards for its own use. Soldiers even destroy what is not yet ripe and unearth graves in the family and slave cemeteries to search for valuables buried under false headstones. The most expensive blow comes when the troops torch more than $158,331 worth of baled cotton (in 2014 currency [2]). (The O’Haras had been unable to sell the cotton to English merchants, owing to the blockade, and thus it was still awaiting transport.) Upon the army’s withdrawal, the family and their loyal remaining slaves are left with a looted and dilapidated house, a ruined farm with no stock, work animals, or farm equipment, no food and no means to produce food. They are indigent and soon starving.
Ellen O’Hara dies soon after the Union evacuation, and her widowed oldest daughter Scarlett returns a day later, initial delight at finding the house still standing soon turning to despair at its ruination. The loss of his wife, combined with hopelessness, poverty, age, and an increasing reliance on whiskey (when it is available) is destroying Gerald O’Hara’s sanity, leaving him a demented echo of his former self. The plantation and house continue to be visited by both rebel and Union troops throughout the war, both sides taking any remnants of food and items of value left to the family.
O’Hara is the oldest living child of Gerald and Ellen O’Hara. She was born on her family’s plantation Tara in Georgia. She was named Katie Scarlett, after her father’s mother, but is always called Scarlett, except by her father, who refers to her as “Katie Scarlett.”[3] She is from a Catholic family of Irish and French ancestry, and a descendent of an aristocratic Savannah family on her mother’s side (the Robillards). O’Hara has black hair, green eyes, and pale skin. She is famous for her fashionably small waist.[4] Scarlett has two younger sisters, Susan Elinor (“Suellen”) O’Hara and Caroline Irene (“Carreen”) O’Hara, and three little brothers who died in infancy. Her baby brothers are buried in the family burying ground at Tara, and each was named Gerald O’Hara, Jr.
From the Irish Ó hEaghra, which means “descendant of Eaghra”, Eaghra being a given name of uncertain origin. Supposedly, the founder of the clan was Eaghra, a 10th-century lord of Luighne. A famous fictional bearer of this surname is Scarlett O’Hara, a character in Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1936).
Scarlet is a brilliant red color with a tinge of orange.[3][4][5] In the spectrum of visible light, and on the traditional color wheel, it is one-quarter of the way between red and orange, slightly less orange than vermilion.[6]
According to surveys in Europe and the United States, scarlet and other bright shades of red are the colors most associated with courage, force, passion, heat, and joy.[7] In the Roman Catholic Church, scarlet is the color worn by acardinal, and is associated with the blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs, and with sacrifice.
Scarlet is also often associated with immorality and sin, particularly prostitution or adultery, largely because of a passage referring to “The Great Harlot“, “dressed in purple and scarlet”, in the Bible (Revelation 17: 1-6).[8]
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/08/09/marilyn-reed-is-copyrighted/
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