[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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