Evelyn Ortner Memorial Service
9-23-06 by Dexter Guerrieri
Many of you knew Evelyn as a fabulous hostess, a charming conversationalist, a sartorial genius, and as indefatigable an activist as her husband, Everett. She was also a loyal friend to many. My wife Jane and I and our children Olivia and Julian feel privileged to have counted her as a friend.
I first met Evelyn and Everett 14 years ago when I joined the monthly meetings of the Brownstone Revival Coalition board of Directors, which they had helped found 20 years earlier. I loved brownstones, often known these days as townhouses, and Evelyn was an expert in identifying all the styles, from Romanesque to Elizabethan to all the variations in between.
Then eight years ago, when Evelyn was 74 years old, it was time for a new challenge.
To quote Everett: “A 13th century French Chateau, its inner courtyard strewn with the stone blocks which seven centuries earlier had formed its walls and towers, was the inspiration for the founding of Preservation Volunteers. It was winter, 1978. Two Americans, whose first names both begin with an E, traveling in Normandy, were intrigued by the fact that it was crawling with workers, perhaps twenty or more: French volunteers, the Americans were told. In 1998, twenty years later, the Ortners returned to see an amazing transformation: the guard tower and fortifications had been resurrected. The loose stones had all been put back where they had been centuries before. Displays in the huge lower vaults showed drawings and photographs by the organization that had been responsible for the magnificent reincarnation of the ancient chateau.”
Fast forward to the present, about 96 Preservation Volunteers meetings later, and 6 years of successfully linking volunteers to historic sites in the United States; Evelyn, along with Everett, myself and several others here today have thrilled in the life-changing role we have had for volunteers, whole communities, and most importantly, the revitalization of historic structures. Projects ranged from a community center in Gunnison, Colorado, which was once a one-room schoolhouse to the painting of historic Leffert’s Homestead in Prospect Park to restoring mausoleums right here in Greenwood Cemetery.
Evelyn, I will miss your wry wit at board meetings, your observant and incisive comments, and your indomitable will. You were brave when you took a stand, and you inspired me to be brave too. You were a big-picture thinker, and yet you were not averse to rolling up your sleeves and doing the truly thankless work as well. As a matter of fact, I can only have one complaint: when there were matters of dispute, you took Everett’s side more frequently than you took mine… but I suppose that’s understandable.
Evelyn and Everett were famous for their formal dinner parties, both large and intimate, bringing together an eclectic mix of intellectual, civic minded and artistic personalities. The resulting conversations were jovial and warm, sometimes fiery, and always stimulating. These evenings were set in the warm atmosphere of their immaculately-restored townhouse, filled with mementos from their world travels.
From the nineteen sixties onward, she welcomed new members to the Brownstone Brooklyn community and made them feel that they were part of a cultural renaissance. She helped make lasting ties, which she maintained with a dizzying social schedule, part of what it meant to join the townhouse community.
She also guided walking tours of historic Brooklyn, and years ago, she and Everett gave a personal tour for my wife Jane and me before we moved here. Then, one year ago, when we bought a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, Evelyn was immediately helpful, offering guidance on layout and color schemes, and the benefit of her many years of experience as a very successful interior designer. The Ortners were our first dinner guests, eating takeout with plastic utensils in the back yard, amidst the paint buckets. It reminded Evelyn of forty years earlier when she and other new townhouse owners helped each other as they pioneered proud ownership of these old buildings that were being ripped down in the name of Urban Renewal.
I’ll miss Evelyn as a friend. The day before she died, I stopped by to pick up boxes of Preservation Volunteers files. Everett was thrilled, of course, to have two newly-empty filing cabinets for his ever-pressing new projects. Evelyn soon joined us and smoothly, imperceptibly, flawlessly transitioned the queries about her health into conversations about whether my children were studying Egypt, and how she had some books to show them. Egyptology, of course, was one of her fields of expertise, based on her volunteer work at the Brooklyn Museum. It was a nice moment.
These are my memories, yet I’m sure each of you has your own. Please add to this page by sharing your anecdotes and commenting on the thoughts of others.
