Freddy, c. 1960s

Freddy Medora Espy Plimpton died Sunday. She was my Uncle Willard’s second child (by four minutes or was it seven?). She was petite, blond, blue-eyed, with a rapier wit and a wonderful spirit. My cousin, Freddy.

And no, “Freddy” wasn’t short for Frederika or anything at all. She was named for Fred Waring for whom her mother Hilda was working as publicity agent when she and Willard met. Willard’s college friend Lumpy Brannon introduced them and I used to think Freddy was lucky that her name hadn’t turned out to be Lumpy instead. Lumpy, at that time was the bass player for Fred Waring’s band, “Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians” and would later become a kids’ favorite as Mr. Green Jeans on the popular TV series “Captain Kangaroo.”

In Oysterville. 1947 – Great Aunt Dora Espy Wilson, Mom Hilda Cole Espy, and ( l to r) Mona, Joey, Freddy with Cassy in front

Freddy was six years younger than I and we grew up on opposite sides of the continent – she in New York, I in California. As youngsters we shared the attention of our beloved grandparents during summers in Oysterville. I remember Freddy as independent and somewhat willful and sometimes I thought she was bossy. But then, I didn’t have siblings and had no idea what it would be like to have a twin and two other sisters all within three years of my own age.

In 1947, the year of my grandparents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary, the girls and Hilda stayed ‘out west’ through November for the grand celebration which took place at the Moby Dick Hotel. Freddy was the only one of Willard’s four who could attend; the others were all down with chicken pox, or maybe it was measles. In any case, Freddy and I were the granddaughters of honor. She sat next to Papa and I next to Granny.

I don’t know if that was their last trip to Oysterville as children. Later that year my folks and I visited them at their home in Mt. Kisco and about ten years after that I spent a few days with them in Truro on Cape Cod. Freddy was a teenager then and beautiful. They all were.

George and Freddy Plimpton

She went on to lead a glamorous, fairytale life – or so it seemed from my distant perspective out here on the West Coast. Her obituary in the Burlington Free Press mentioned some of the highlights:

She graduated from Fox Lane High School in 1959, and then attended Parsons School of Design. She moved to New York in the early sixties, where she worked at Random House writing book jacket copy, and later became a photographer’s assistant. Considered one of the great beauties of the times, she married author and editor, George Ames Plimpton, in 1968, with whom she later had two children, Medora Ames Plimpton and Taylor Ames Plimpton. Freddy traveled with George on the campaign trail as an integral part of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 run for the presidency, and was present to witness the great tragedy at the Ambassador Hotel when Kennedy was shot and killed. Freddy was a talented editor and a trusted reader of some of George Plimpton’s finest work, including his bestseller “Paper Lion.”

Freddy – Vogue Magazine, 1970

Freddy visited Oysterville several times during the years Willard and Louise owned the Red Cottage across the road and, of course, she was here for her father’s memorial service in 1999. I saw her once after that when Nyel and I visited New York in 2002. I was struck by her beauty and her wit on all those occasions – they only increased, never faded.

It’s hard to say you’ll miss someone you saw so seldom and knew so slightly. But I will surely miss knowing that she ‘is there’ and I will always have a nagging regret that we didn’t know one another better – one of those realities of life for which there probably isn’t a solution.