Tribute to Evelyn Ortner

From Amanda Gersh

I had been living in a filthy pit in Williamsburg, where the rent went up as the ceiling came down. I despaired entirely of finding a better Brooklyn digs until my friend Kavita called to tell me that a room had opened up in the spectacular brownstone where she lived. Arriving for my interview with the Ortners, I walked up the steps of 272, and was greeted at the door by this fabulous vision of a woman in a silk kimono with the trademark silver hair…Ushered into the house — a giant jewelry box — I knew I’d be lucky if I got to live in it. The real luck, of course, far outlasted the privilege of living in an exquisite house. It was in finding a home with the Ortners, something that has stayed with me long after I left 272.

I spent two years in Broccoli Place and moved out only because of the BP curse — marriage and/or children, not necessarily in that order, seems to claim all of us who left. (Why else leave?) But leaving the house didn’t break my bond with the Ortners. Evelyn and Everett are people who only increase the number of their friends. All of which makes it even more remarkable that they are so able to pay attention to the many Broccolians and ex-Broccs like me, as well as all the extended entourage that comprises the Ortner circle, around the globe. Thus, when I moved from Park Slope and had baby Astrid, home extended itself across Prospect Park and into Kensington, with Evelyn and Everett making drop-offs of homemade soup and beef stew. When my parents and brothers and sisters came to stay, they stayed in Hotel 272. And no matter that I eventually moved to Wyoming, the love and generosity continued with emails, clipped out newspaper articles, invitations to functions, the perfect raincoat for Astrid, her first magazine subscription, Chinese slippers from Pearl River… Astrid turned two shortly after Evelyn died, and in true Evelyn fashion she made sure even that event didn’t prevent her from being the organized generous person that she was. Card and books, complete with dedications, came in the mail regardless.

In thinking of Evelyn and reading these tributes, it astonishes me that she was able to be so many things to so many people…and their children…and their children’s children. Like all brilliant people, Evelyn was fascinatingly complex: modern and Victorian, mother hen and glamorous doyenne; brusque and patient, she dispensed dry wit and warm thoughtfulness in equal measure. But perhaps her most extraordinary quality was her ability to actually DO so much for so many people, seemingly at the same time. Was there really only one of her?

When I last spoke to Evelyn shortly before she died, she deflected any concern or sympathy and her only complaint was that she would not be allowed whiskey for two weeks. Everything else, she said, was “wonderful.” Wonderful was a word she often used and it so accurately captured who she was and how she felt about her life with Everett.

I will miss the vertical chicken, beef bourg-onion, fruit compote, silly puns and spot-on advice.(Evelyn, I am still trying not to let spousal arguments send one of us to the couch for the night.) I will miss seeing the lady of the manor in her red shoes, darting off to do an Egypt tour or to meet Monica Sweeney or one of her many other great friends. I am sure I’m not the only one who can still hear Evelyn’s singular voice (extra deep when one called before 10am). I hope never to forget it.