Chapter Five: Leaving Georgia

After he left the Army, Jack returned to Georgia. He probably spent time between Athens and Boston as he did before. He probably reconnected with Dodd and his old friends at UGA. A still life painting by Ezra Sellers, a student of Dodd’s and later faculty member in the art department after World War II, was given to Jack. Jack was most likely introduced to Sellers through Dodd.

According to Penelope, around this time Jack was dating a young girl by the name of Mary McGregor. Jack may have met Miss McGregor while he was in New Orleans serving in the Army. She may have been the woman that Griffin mentioned in his letters to Jack. Photographs show Jack and a woman posing in the backyard of Roy and Dean’s house. Unfortunately, their relationship did not last.

According to Penelope, “As I told you, he was engaged to Mary McGregor. Then there was the terrible automobile accident in which she was grievously injured. Jack somehow felt responsible, although he was not the one driving. I think she was driving, but nonetheless. I’m pretty sure she didn’t die in that accident, but she was paralyzed, amputated or something terrible. I remember in my nightly prayers I would pray for all my family. Right in the middle would be Jack and Mary McGregor. But, I never knew her. I was a little girl.”

After the war, Jack’s half-sister, Evelyn and her husband, Thomas, moved to Athens so that Thomas could go to Law School at UGA. Thomas served in the Army during the war and had been severely wounded. Penelope, their eldest daughter, had just been born. Much of this time, Penelope lived with them in the Henrietta Apartments. For some unknown reason and amount of time, Jack also lived with them, sleeping on a Murphy bed. It is unclear whether Jack was working, going to school or saving his money to move to New York. This may have been after the accident he was involved in with Mary McGregor.

There are a few of Jack’s paintings that survived from this time period. Unlike the mature handling of his earlier drawings and paintings, his style from this time had a child-like crudeness. It was as if he was trying to paint in a completely new way from his earlier, more regionalist work. While they are playful in subject matter and character, the paintings lack a level of sophistication and resolution that was evident in his earlier work. Perhaps after being away from the easel for so long, Jack lost his instinct. Whatever the case, there are no surviving examples of Jack’s work dated later than 1948. It is also interesting to note that after the war he signed his paintings, “Denzil R. Adams, Jr.” rather than “Jack Adams.”

My hand does not remember

How to draw like a child

I work to let go, to improvise

To return to that moment

When my hand was like water

During those few years when her father was in school, Penelope was passed back and forth between Athens and Boston. She was partly raised by her grandparents. Some of Penelope’s fondest memories from the time she lived with her “Papa” and “Ba’Dean” were when their housekeeper, Idella, cooked breakfast. Every morning the smells of fresh biscuits and sausage or ham bellowed out of the kitchen and filled the house. 

Sometime after the war, Jack owned a cocker spaniel named Sinrab. During his early years, Sinrab lived with Jack in Athens. After Jack moved away, he lived much of his life at Roy and Dean’s house. Penelope remembered that Sinrad would grab her by the diaper and try to pull it off of her.  Sinrab’s food dish was a large white ceramic bowl. His ears were so long that the tips of them fell into the bowl when he was eating. Roy and Dean used to clip them together with a clothespin so they wouldn’t get caked with food. Penelope said that one time she decided to stick her face in the food bowl to see, for herself, what Sinrab was eating. It is clear she was a precocious little girl. 

Penelope and Mary Ann were only two years apart in age. They both lived in Thomas County during their early childhood. When Penelope was twelve years old, she moved with her family to Atlanta. It seems they did not get along or have much in common as they were growing up. As Mary Ann said, “Penny was the smart one; I was the athlete, the cheerleader.”

Sometime around 1950, Jack moved to New York City for good. This move was not made lightly. On the one hand, he was very attached to his family. On the other hand, he had suffered a series of losses and heartbreaks, over and over, beginning with the death of his mother. This was part of Jack’s lifelong struggle.  His move to New York was partly an escape, partly a search for happiness and a new beginning, but his family back in Boston saw it as though Jack was abandoning them.

Another reason Jack probably left was due to his coming to terms with his sexuality. It must have been obvious to Jack from a young age that he was gay. Growing up in his time and place, he likely tried to conceal and deny that part of himself.  Penelope remembers Jack telling her, “I tried not to be this way.” He must have had ongoing conflicting feelings about it. He had obviously tried to lead a heterosexual lifestyle for a number of years. 

Family really meant a lot to Jack. If he could have been himself and stayed close to his family geographically, he might well have done that. He probably thought it was impossible. It was an untenable situation, living in Boston, Georgia, with his particular family at that time. Roy and Jack were never able to work out a healthy relationship. In some ways Jack always felt like nobody’s child. This feeling would be justified later in his life.

Sometime in the mid-1950s, when Redden retired, JC Adams and Sons Drugstore closed its doors. The building then became home to the post office. Dean was probably responsible for the long-term lease of the building by the post office. She was also the postmaster for 26 years. On April 29, 1961, Dean retired and Mr. James Groover was sworn in has Postmaster. Mary Adams was deeded the property as inheritance from the estate of her father, Redden Whittaker Adams, On July 23, 1974.  She owned the building until she passed away in 2000.

Adams, Rountree and Co. lasted until shortly before Roy’s death in 1970. Earl Mayo had managed the hardware store for some years. He was apparently not very well respected by the Adams side of the family. There was reportedly some altercation between Roy and Earl. The details are unknown, but it probably had to do with some aspect of the business. The building has since been demolished.

After Jack moved to New York he would come back home a couple times a year to see the family. By then, Penelope was living in Boston, Georgia with the rest of the family. When Jack would come home he would go out to eat with the family and visit.

Penelope remembered one time when Jack came up to her room with a stack of cards with Impressionist paintings on them. He walked into Penelope’s room and gave her a single card, then stepped back into the hallway outside her door. After a moment, he came back in and gave her another card. He repeated this until he’d given her all the cards, one at a time.

Penelope credits Jack with instilling in her a love of the arts. Jack painted and decorated his Army footlocker and turned it into a toy chest for Penelope. He painted nursery rhymes and figures all the way around it with lines going up to the top connecting the words and figures. Nursery rhymes like Jack and Jill covered the outside. She loved the chest and used it until it completely fell apart.

In a later phone conversation with Mary Ann, I asked her what she recalled about Jack’s visits. She replied, “I grew up across the street from my grandparents, Redden and Lily, who still lived in the big house. I lived in Boston until 1958 when our family moved to Valdosta. During that time Jack would come home about once a year to see the family. He would bring my mother lots of interesting fabrics because she liked to sew. As I remember him, he was always kind and gentle. One time, our family took a trip to Washington, D.C. And we made the trip up to New York to visit Jack. All I recall is how small his apartment was and how noisy the city was. After we moved to Valdosta, I think I only saw Jack one or two more times. I got married in 1966 and moved to Jacksonville. I never saw Jack again after that.”

Jack had money from his mother’s family. His father, Roy, managed the trust that had been set up in Jack’s name. Jack was sent a check every month, which was likely a source of resentment for Jack, as well as ongoing conflict between him and his father, but it probably helped to make ends meet while Jack was living in New York.

Aside from the trust, Jack had inherited some property including a house built by Mr. Forster. Jack never lived in the house, to anyone’s knowledge, and he later sold the property to Mr. Walter Bruce. Bruce was a native of Boston who had retired to Boca Raton, Florida. He also never lived in the house. Mr. Bruce, in turn, sold the house to Ann and Michael McCrickard. According to Thomas County Deed Records, Jack also had other property around Boston. In 1965 and 1966 Jack sold three tracts of land to various buyers.

Jack had a job for many years at Macy’s Department Store. According to Penelope, he probably began as a window dresser and worked with the design team. This may have provided some creative outlet for Jack. At some point he became a buyer, or assistant buyer, probably in the women’s fashion department. He worked at Macy’s until he retired, sometime in the early 1980s.

Penelope graduated from Briarcliff High School in 1963. She attended Agnes Scott College, where she studied to become a teacher. After school she taught for a year in Tucker, Georgia, where she had completed her student teaching. 

At the time Penelope was dating Gary Gibbs, her high school sweetheart and college boyfriend. They got married on June 15, 1968 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina where Gary was receiving Army Ranger training. The ceremony was held in a Unitarian Universalist Church to the chagrin of Penelope’s family. Evelyn and Thomas thought the Methodist Church would have been more appropriate. After training, Penelope and Gary moved to Germany on January 1, 1969.

Penelope remembered well her time in Germany. “Gary and I lived on the economy, off the base. That was a deliberate choice. So, I got more and more involved in a European lifestyle, even though I was teaching on the base and married to a captain in the Army. It was an interesting time to say the least.”

Approximately six months after moving to Germany, Penelope traveled back to the states to be in her sister Deanna’s wedding.  On the way, she stopped in New York to visit Jack. While she was there visiting, she and Jack went out to see the play Hair on Broadway. Penelope recalled, “That was the Full Monty version. Everyone was in a state of, ‘oh, my goodness.’ But I loved the music, loved everything about it. I’m an Aquarian, so ‘The Age of Aquarius’ really spoke to me. The ‘60s really were a heavy impact on me. But, when I saw Hair, it changed my life. At that time I had a super-short haircut. I decided I was not going to cut my hair ever again. As you can see, I’ve never gone back.”

Richard was in the Army at the time he married Deanna. As it turned out, they were also stationed in Germany only a few hours from Gary and Penelope. However, the two couples saw each other a few times. By that time, Penelope and Gary were having marital issues. It was not long before they would split.

After her divorce from Gary, Penelope re-established herself in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a doctorate in psychology from Boston University and began a career as a therapist. During this time Penelope made frequent trips to New York to visit Jack.

The apartment where Jack always lived in New York was at 310 E 65^th Street. By New York standards it was a spacious flat, well appointed with carpeted floors, art on the walls and stylish, contemporary furnishings.

Jack met his partner Henry A. Messemer shortly after moving to New York. Penelope said, “Henry had a strong attachment to Jack. I think he really loved my uncle. I think my uncle was a pretty cool attachment figure.” Jack was not overtly effeminate. He simply had a kind of elegance about him. Henry, a small, waifish man, was flamboyant and outgoing.

Jack was more reserved, almost stoic.  He would say about Henry, “Oh, he’s a nice little fellow. Well, we have a nice life together.” Jack was, in many ways, distant to everyone around him. The emotional baggage he so desperately tried to leave behind in Georgia followed him to New York. Perhaps his own unsettled feelings about his sexuality also caused a barrier that prevented him from experiencing the love he craved.

Penelope spoke of the times she visited Jack. She said, “We had lots of fun when I’d go down and visit. I’d just go do whatever they wanted to do, hang out and meet their friends. And it was great. I remember going out with Jack and a few others to some place like the Brassarie or Twenty-one or something. It was very ‘New York’, a lot of the neighborhood hangouts and bars. I remember also going to MoMA one time. And we’d always go to some theater or other. He loved the theater. So, we did some of that.  And sometimes we’d just go for long walks through the city, or go out for lunch.”

It seems as if when Jack went to New York, he left his artist self behind. Perhaps he was just leaving a lot of things behind, or trying to. Penelope stated, “I think Jack was as happy in New York as he could find a place to be. But, I think he was also very sad, in a state of unresolved grief about a lot of things. I think that’s what a lot of the drinking was connected to. He didn’t so much talk about art. He never had a studio that I know of. I never saw him with a sketchpad or brush. It was all sort of like, ‘that’s what I used to do.’ I just wish his life had gone differently.”

Jack and Henry were heavy smokers and drinkers. Jack likely smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes like his stepmother did. Penelope remembered, “They smoked like crazy. Their apartment in New York, I mean you could have peeled the brown air off the walls because they lived there forever and ever, smoking in that closed space.”

Scotch was their drink of choice. They would have what they called ‘halfies’. This was a running joke among Jack, Henry and their friends. They would say, “Oh, I’ll just have a half a drink of Scotch.” Then, of course, they would have another then another and so on. There would be ‘halfies’ all night long. Penelope said, “I don’t necessarily remember people eating too much, but I sure do remember a lot of ‘halfies’. They would sit around drinking and smoking. I don’t know how I breathed the air.”

Jack was fanatical about the theater. He collected playbills from every play he had ever seen since he moved to New York. In the apartment there were stacks and racks and library shelves full of them. He loved to go to Broadway shows as well as other theaters. Jack, Henry and their friends had a lot of fun in that world. Jack knew Ann Roth, the award winning costume designer for films and Broadway theatre. He likely met her either through Henry or his work at Macy’s. However Jack met her, he was proud of his association with Roth.

Henry and Jack had a social circle of other gay men. It seems they mostly socialized and found comfort in each other’s company. One such friend of theirs was Harry Larimer.  Jack probably knew Harry through his work at Macy’s. Many times Jack and Harry would go out to dinners and socialize together.

Henry also kept a country house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. According to Penelope there was a friend of Henry’s who lived in the house. Some weekends Henry would go alone to his country house to visit this other man. And then he would be in the apartment in New York and be with Jack. Other times Jack would accompany him out to the country.  This was their life together.

To find contentedness

Is to thrive and grow

To stretch open yourself

Until you are a membrane

That envelopes the world

In 1970, Jack’s father Roy died. At that point the Adams family estate passed to Dean. By then, Jack must have assumed responsibility for the trust that had been left to him. Penelope continued to visit Jack and Henry. Jack continued to pay occasional visits to Georgia to see the family. Life carried on.

For Jack there must have been a mixture of emotions that came with the passing of his father: burdens lifted, resentments unsettled, quietude disturbed, almost closure. It was not clean or tidy.

Then, in the spring of 1983, Jack’s stepmother, Dean passed away.  Evelyn and Jack stood to inherit the Adams estate. In the years leading up to Dean’s death, there had been many discussions regarding the family estate. One plan was to split the inheritance equally between Evelyn and Jack, as is customary for siblings. Another plan was to divide the estate four ways, with Jack, Evelyn, Penelope and Deanna each receiving equal share. The logic of this was that, in their formative years, Penelope and Deanna were raised as much by Roy and Dean as by their parents. Unfortunately, neither of these plans was executed.

When the will was read, the entire estate passed to Evelyn. Penelope remembered, “Jack was crushed. I was shocked, and I tried to intervene on Jack’s behalf.  Sitting at the kitchen table, I tried to persuade my mother to give Jack half of everything, or some version of what had been agreed upon, but my mother kept saying, ‘This is what Mama wanted.’ I kept saying, ‘She was not just your mother! You were the executrix of the will. You knew what was going to happen. It doesn’t look good. And how can you say you love your brother and behave this way.’ But, I did not prevail.” Jack was visibly heartbroken. He paced for hours around the living room, smoking furiously. Shortly thereafter, Jack returned to New York vowing never to set foot in Georgia again. He cut all ties with the family, except for Penelope.

Perhaps the justification was that Jack had been set up with a trust from the Forster estate. Maybe there were old hostilities or disapproval of his lifestyle. Unfortunately, none of that was said.

Five years passed without any communication between Jack and what was left of his family in Georgia. Jack and Evelyn were terribly estranged. Penelope continued to come for visits. She and Jack had grown closer over the years, but something had changed in him.

Then, in 1988, Evelyn was dying of chronic granulocytic leukemia. Penelope and Jack discussed whether he should go back to Georgia for one last visit. Penelope remembered him saying, “If you’ll go with me, I will go.”

Penelope and Jack agreed to fly down and meet in Tallahassee. From there they rented a car together and drove the hour north to Archbold Hospital in Thomasville, where Evelyn was staying. One last time, Jack saw his sister and said goodbye.

Unfortunately, there was no gesture on Evelyn’s part to make amends or repair any sense of family. In the face of all the hurt and resentment, Jack managed calmly to make some peace with his sister. That was the last he ever saw of Georgia or his family. Only two years later, Jack would also pass away.

I found a letter among the materials in Jack’s old toiletry bag. It was written on faded pink paper and stuffed inside a small envelope, signed “Old Rose”, Poughkeepsie, NY, March 4, 1989. The following is from the conclusion of the letter:

Of course I have almost forgotten what it was like to drink or smoke. How I miss my vices. The only vice I have left is evil thoughts for those who refuse to indulge me and an abiding resentment toward my child for mother-napping me from God’s Country, Manhattan, the place where everything is that made life worth living. My, how I hate and despise the entire area of “upstate” NY. I hate the scenery (rural), I dislike the people (hayseeds, uneducated, unattractive) and I loathe the bloody Hudson Valley mentality (backward, stupid and boring). Marjorie Morningstar may have found romance here but after all it was her Riviera.

The last line is a reference to an earlier comment she made that the Hudson Valley was the Jewish Riviera. Marjorie Morningstar was a 1958 film starring Natalie Wood, based on the 1955 novel by Herman Wouk.

Two years after he said his final goodbyes to his family, Jack and Henry were dying. Jack had been diagnosed with lung and prostate cancer, and cirrhosis of the liver. Henry was dying of similar causes. Jack and Henry were in the hospital at the same time.

Penelope was there for her uncle’s last days. She cleaned out the apartment and collected his personal effects. Jack was 73 years old. He was pronounced dead at 6:05, on the morning of May 27, 1990. 

Meanwhile, Henry, his partner of many years, had been taken out to the hospital and moved to his country house in Bucks County. He was kept alive on respirators and intravenous drugs, and tended to by round-the-clock nurses. The man who lived in Henry’s country house took care of him and kept him alive for three weeks after Jack passed away.

It turns out that Jack had disinherited his entire family after what had happened to him in 1983. He had even cut Penelope out of his will, and she was the executor. Instead, as per his wishes, Jack’s estate was passed to his partner, Henry. Interestingly, Henry’s will was written such that if he died after Jack, by some amount of time (perhaps three weeks) all of his money would pass to his other partner, the man who lived in Henry’s house in Bucks County.  Henry inherited Jack’s estate. Then, he passed it on, along with his own, to the man who lived in his country house.

As Penelope stated, “We’re not talking millions, but it is never really about the money or the amount. It’s about affection and love and approval and crime and punishment. People express through estates and legacies the things they can’t bear to put into words. So, messages get sent. And you’re not always entirely clear what the message is. But, it was all about as sad and messed up as you can imagine.”

Penelope’s final thoughts on her uncle were, “It’s too bad he didn’t have more support and encouragement from the world and from his family. Who knows what he might have become.”