Everyone else called her “Liz” or “Elizabeth”, and formally, she was known as Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Benoist, the widowed wife of Louis Lannan Benoist, Uncle Lannon. She and her sister, and two brothers were born to Dr. Elsworth Striker Smith, a prominent physician, and Grace Platt, a noted muscian, and she a direct descendant of Madame Chouteau and Pierre Laclede, founding families of St. Louis. To us grand nieces and nephews, we knew her as “Aunt E” and she was a presence at all family gatherings and a strong influence on my life.
To me, Aunt E was always a special and facinating person. She had a presence (and an unforgettable, nearly reeking and wafting floral perfumed powdered scent) about her whenever she entered, and departed, a room. She was an expert at engaging everyone around her, and somehow, she did not need exterior beauty to draw people to her, because extertior beauty always fades with age and living a rich and full life, but her inner beauty beamed through, like a lighthouse beacon!
She always had a some-what crooked smile, and she always wore the same black dress to every family gathering, completed with her diamond debutante Veiled Prophet brooch pinned over her heart, and her black and gold embellished slippers covering her tiny, arthritic feet. And a small hat perched on her wigged head. That is the image I carry with me. See photo below.
Back in the mid-1970s when I was about 11 or 12, Aunt E published her first book, The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon, when she was approaching her 70’s, which made her a bit of a St. Louis celebrity at the time, in the family and in the community at the time. It combined a cookbook and lore stories about her youth and St. Louis, and was a local hit, that presented her with photographs, newspaper and magazine interviews.
I remember singing a song to her at her 70th birthday celebration, accompanied by of a quintet band, comprised of piano, drum set, horn and reed, and base players (and after a couple of rehearsals with the pianist and the lyrics written on paper in my hands as I attempted to sing)… my step-grandmother had rewritten the lyrics to “There’s No Business Like Show Business” to “There’s No Business Like Liz Business”, to have Aunt E’s critique of my performance…”Brava, my child, Brava!”.
After I got a driver’s license and was old enough to share a glass of champagne with her, (or two, or three, or…) , we would spend time conversing with her in her apartment and the restaurant, both conveniently located in the Chase Park Plaza. I would listen to her stories about her beaus and the handsome men that flirted with her (and she with them), including the one about Charles Lindbergh, threatening, taunting and teasing her about taking her barnstorming in his plane.
She made it easy to imagine and catch glimpses into her experiences in the prime time of life, with a youthful zeal for life, against the backdrops of St. Louis, New York and passages to and from Europe in the 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s. She spoke fluent french, was an excellent cook with a french palette for fine foods, and was deeply and totally in love with her husband, and with love itself. She travelled in high society social circles, and lived a life I often dreamed of in the books I read, and the romance movies of those decades… I grew up learning about romance and “grown up love” on that stuff, and her stories brought the possibilty and tangability into my naive, ignorant life.
I remember one particular conversation about writing that I had with her and I seized the opportunity to asked her about her writing and how she wrote her stories. She explained to me that ‘reality is perception, but perception might not be reality, and everything in between is a story’ or something like that, and it stuck with me. She went on to explain that “the beginning of writing starts with paper, ink, and 26 letters of the alphabet”… “that form words, then sentences, and paragraphs. And all those words, sentences, and paragraphs can form stories of fantasy or fiction, report and record history, and can calm or incite the masses…”.
When she “wrote”, she would dictate her stories to her private secretary, who using an ancient form of writing called stenography, would write down in ink in her specially designed stenography spiral notebook, Aunt E’s stories, and then would type up the words, sentences, and paragraphs of Aunt E’s tales and stories.
In my teens and early 20’s, I could not afford a private secretary to assist me, so I wrote on my typewriter (the grandfather of the keyboard today), hoping to write something that might make any kind of logical sense, yet alone, even have a chance of being considered for publication. I would occasionally bounce and swap with my friend, Maggie, who shared my passion for writing, and who helped me improve and find solutions to problems I would type myself into, and would introduce me to opening my imagination further and beyond the general genres of the writings I had been reading before.
When I was single and living in Colorado Springs, I wrote a whole bunch of stories. Some of my stories needed a lot of perfection, but a couple of them only needed a little more perfection, and I was hopeful to attempt to send them out for reviews, and see if I got any nibbles.
My ink notebook writings and typewritten pages were set aside when I got married and carried away in a baseless relationship, that I mistook for romance and love…and like that relationship, my notebooks and early writings were sacrificed to the writing gods and into ashes.
Aunt E eventually had to be moved into a nursing facility – she could not take care of herself any longer. The last of her writings, typed on quality paper typed by her last private secretary, sits in a leather briefcase, made sometime in the 1940’s from the looks of it, safely in storage in my house. I had a beautiful photo book that I gave to the St. Louis Historical Society.
Writing is a tad different than they were in my early days…nowdays, I can dictate to my computer (typewriter) and the words, sentences, and paragraph all magically appear on a monitor screen, and when completed to my satisfaction, can be printed on paper and social media, all at the touch of one key stroke. I no longer have to rely to be accepted by a publishing house- I can self-publish my own books, and represent myself in negotiating sales of my books.
My urge to write again has been sneaking up on me. I started writing a story back in March of 2009, and slowly, but surely, I’ve been hacking away at the storyline. However, that is not enough now, and I have so many ideas and stories bouncing in my head. So, for now, I am appeasing my artistic urges, starting here, with this blog. It’s not paper or ink, and it can be printed on paper in ink, but I still need 26 letters to form words, sentences, and paragraphs.
Elizabeth S. Benoist, April 8, 1901-January 21, 1999
Doomsday Clock (1978) “…a passel of disparate characters takes refuge from nuclear Holocost in a very deep and luxurious underground bomb shelter, where they tell each other tales and prepare, in all likelihood, to die.”
Saint Louis Silhouettes (1977) “Being an extraordinary compendium of historical fact and hitherto unrecorded vignettes of our fair city.”
Swift as a Shadow (1980) From the dust jacket: “Elizabeth Smith Benoit was born in St. Louis and, with the exception as a young married woman, has always lived here. She is the direct descendant of Madame Chouteau and Pierre Laclede, and the widow of Louis Lannan Benoit. Mr. Benoist’s grandfather, Louis A Benoit, was the most prominent banker in both the upper and lower Mississippi valleys in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Mrs. Benoist’s father wa Dr. Elsworth Striker Smith, a well-know physician. Her mother was Grace Platt, a noted musician at the turn of the century. Mrs. Benoist was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis, and graduated from Eden Hall in Torresdale, Pennsylvania. In her youth and young married life, she traveled extensively in Europe and America, but now she is content to explore her native city which, she says, “never ceases to surprise me with its infinite variety.” Two other books have been published; one, The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon, contains old french recipes along with St. Louis lore. The writing of St. Louis Silhouettes has given her great satisfaction, a satisfaction she wishes her readers to share.”
How did I do, Aunt E?
Gone With the Fin 