Mary Blossom Turner

Mary Turner was the first baby born in Port Chester, NY in 1932, to Mary Drummond and Earl Blossom. She had a pony and a dog growing up in Westport, CT where her father’s home studio smelled like turpentine. Her elder brother, David, put whiskey in the dog bowl and the dog got drunk. Mary tended to the dog while David joined the Coast Guard before becoming a commercial illustrator like their father. The dog recovered and Mary went off to Bennington College, where she learned proper grammar.

Mary met Jack Turner of Wilton CT at a party, and since they both liked cats, they decided to marry. Jack would become Mary’s lifelong hero. He joined the Marines after graduating from Colgate, but the two managed to see each other enough to produce two children, Mariette and John, one of whom turned out perfectly.

The young family moved to an apartment in Bloomfield. Mary ran shotgun while Jack and friends distilled vodka from potatoes and conceived Soundings at the dining room table. Children were to be seen and not heard, but Mary saw them as hers to sculpt—by instilling the Golden Rule and correcting grammar.

After moving to Wethersfield as Jack grew Soundings, Mary kept a successful portrait business, sold real estate, made wicked Halloween costumes, practiced yoga, shopped and prepped for Jack’s cooking, and briefly owned a bakery where she produced healthy donuts.

Frostbite sailing on Wethersfield Cove was a family affair and a social immersion—with racing and cocktails for the adults and racing to grow up for the kids. Mary kept her children grounded in an alluring, challenging world.

Block Island vacations exaggerated regular life without the work, and while packs of young cousins ran wild, Mary sojourned to paint watercolors. The children felt important and grown-up as she always took time to explain just why, or what, we might do, or to patiently describe what would be proper, or to make a sardine sandwich.

Jack and Mary gardened, cooked, leisured, and worked to assure a wholesome family atmosphere while Mariette and John tackled high school and college. Ever supporting her husband and children, Mary endured fiberglass boatbuilding in the driveway, amplified rock-n-roll, polyester fumes, milk and butter tasting of plastic, orange juice re-purposed as bong-water and rolling cohorts of teenagers, dogs, and cats in the house. As surrogate second but present authority, Mary anchored existence in Jack’s absence—rising each day to exemplify cheer, vigor, empathy, and purpose.

When Soundings moved to Essex and the family to Old Lyme, Mary continued painting portraits, working in real-estate, taking walks, and absorbing what she sensed best in life. Jack left Soundings, built another boat, and started Lymeline.

The children married and moved away to grow the tree—with three grandchildren, (Marilee Root, Brittany Figueroa and John Paul Turner IV) and five great-grandchildren, all stars in no small part due to Mary’s examples of excellent grammar, adherence to the Golden Rule, and casual parenting.

Jack died in 2005. Mary forged on without him, walking daily to the Chocolate Shell for a fix with Molly, the last of the many dogs and cats. She pursued her artwork until advancing years betrayed her capacity.

None would envy her long experience with Alzheimer’s.

We remember Mary smiling as she hummed, “Happy Days are Here Again,” or shrieking what she called the “Cry of the Happy Housewife.” If we transgressed in right and wrong, she would say: “You wouldn’t want someone to do that to you, would you?”

With a name like Mary Blossom Turner, we would expect to learn from her.

Mary leaves two children (Mariette and John); three grandchildren (Marilee Root, Brittany Figueroa, and John Turner IV), four great-grandchildren, (Tyler Root, Annabelle, Damien, and their soon-to-be little sister Figueroa), and five nephews and their families. She joins—eternally—her partner, hero and husband, Jack; her brother David; her granddaughter, Halle Root; and her eldest nephew, David Blossom.

We all miss her dearly.