[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 58 (Thursday, May 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
HEAVEN JUST GOT LIVELIER
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the passing of
a most decent and beloved Washingtonian, Elizabeth Cleland Acosta.
In the May 10, 1994 edition of the Washington Post, my friend Mary
McGrory wrote a kind memorial to this uncommon woman. Mr. President, at
this time I ask that the following article be included in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:
[From the Washington Post, May 10, 1994]
Heaven Just Got Livelier
My best friend, Elizabeth Cleland Acosta, who died on
Saturday, was probably the worst enemy ennui ever had.
She did not know how to be boring. She fought boredom
wherever she found it. She was party insurance. When she
arrived at your house, you could put her in the parlor and go
off on other business, knowing your guests would be entirely
diverted. She did monologues about life as a suburban
housewife and made hilarity from such unpromising subjects as
beach vacations or the hopelessness of finding happiness on
New Year's Eve: ``I've gone to other people's parties, too,
including parties . . . where the host and hostess decided to
get a divorce; parties where someone's secretary threw a
Christmas tree through the window.'' Sometimes she told
stories about her father, a labor man from Chicago with a
robust sense of humor.
And she sang. Oh, how she sang in her forty-fathoms deep
contralto. Sometimes she and her pal Gertrude Cleary did a
killing duet of ``Sonny Boy.'' She soloed most memorably in
``Lucky Charlie Lindbergh.'' Another showstopper was ``Aunt
Clara,'' whose picture was turned to the wall.
Liz was not only my friend--the kind who came right away
when there was a death in the family and set out with your
cousin for the supermarket to get supplies for the funeral
lunch. She was my helper for almost 20 years. We got on well
from the moment we met decades ago. We shared much: bad hair
and bad feet and a love of poetry. We were uncertain if we
could work together. I'm absent-minded and she could be
touchy, and, like many great comedians, subject to gloom. But
she came to the dear, departed Washington Star and never
looked back. My forgetfulness was no problem: The mother used
to keeping tabs on clothes, toys and books for five, had me
in hand in no time.
She was a treat on the telephone. With irate subscribers,
distraught readers or pushy flaks, she was masterly. She
would listen awhile, then slash through the fog and the
nattering and bring them to heel with a crisp ``And you wish
me to . . .''
The atmosphere at the Star suited her. The air was full of
encouragement and laughter. Liz flowered. She became a kind
of den mother to the young bloods in the back of the newsroom
and gave them copious counsel. She was surrounded by jesters
and gabbers and others who, like herself, felt they had to
make people laugh. And like everyone else around, she took a
hand at writing. She wrote book reviews. An addicted reader,
she found books ``absolutely essential.'' Her reviews were
like herself, blunt, fair and witty. She also wrote familiar
essays, calling herself ``a professional housewife and an
amateur writer.''
She was wrong; she was a natural writer. She sat down at
the typewriter, rolled the paper in, typed without
hesitation, stopping only when the page was filled or she was
done. I was jealous, being slow myself, and of the product.
She used to preach about the necessity of hard-shell realism.
But she had a romantic nature, and an eye out for true love
and rainbows. She had a total reverence for the English
language and those who used it well. Of E.B. White's letters,
she wrote, ``Your average reviewer--and I am averager than
most--must fight the urge to take the typewriter out to the
garden and bury it and take up another line of work.''
On a blowzy novel called ``The Pretenders,'' she rendered a
succinct verdict: ``I am going to pretend I never read it,''
Her greatest literary adventure came in 1958 when she wrote a
love letter to James Thurber, which, she liked to say,
changed her life. She told him: ``I am getting old and fat,
my last permanent didn't take, my five children have been
throwing up for days, singly and in pairs, my husband is at a
convention at some posh hotel, and I'M SORRY FOR MYSELF,
SEE?'' She told him that she loved him because his latest
book had made her laugh. He wrote back! It turned out that as
a child he had lived in the house next door to hers in Falls
Church. They corresponded. Publication of their letters in
the Saturday Evening Post was a triumph for her. When Maple
Avenue was transformed into a double row of town houses, the
new street was called James Thurber Court.
Like many parents in the '60s, Liz and her husband, Frank,
a paragon of patience and kindness, found bringing up
children rather taxing. But if she didn't like the process,
she loved the children--and they loved her. When she was
diagnosed with a brain tumor, they flocked to her. Her three
sons fetched and carried, made her laugh. She who had been so
morbid did not talk of death, only remarked to daughter
Elizabeth that ``Heaven is a place with air-conditioning
where my feet will never hurt again.''
She was touched as never before. She told daughter Jo,
``I'm a lucky old lady.'' We were lucky, too.
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