One family's values

[Mimi Gallandt]

One family's values
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/153/living/One_family_s_values+.shtml
Bill Saltonstill, a private man, writes 'The Letter' that
embraces his daughter and rejects the GOP
By Bella English,
6/1/2000

It was William Lawrence Saltonstall who introduced George Bush to Boston
voters in 1979, when Bush was making his ill-fated run against Ronald
Reagan in the Republican presidential primary. Saltonstall, a former
state senator whose blood is Republican blue, worked on Bush's
subsequent Massachusetts campaigns. In 1990, when Barbara Bush was the
controversial graduation speaker at Wellesley College, Bill Saltonstall,
a school trustee, was at her side. So it was all the more surprising
when, last month, Saltonstall wrote a letter published on the editorial
page of the Globe that said he would not be supporting the Republican
national ticket, sure to be topped by Bush's son. ''I'm facing a major
change,'' he wrote. ''I've been a Republican, solidly, since I can
remember and have actively served the party in office and out.''It isn't
so much that he differs with George W. on the economy, or education, or
foreign affairs. It's much more personal than that. It's about his
daughter. In what he calls the most difficult letter he has ever
written, Saltonstall stated: ''I have a lesbian daughter who, with her
partner, has adopted three children into a loving family. The national
leadership of the Republican Party takes the position that no gay people
should adopt children, and, if they do, the child might be taken away
from them to be placed elsewhere. ''I regard this as a direct attack on
my family. My daughter wants to keep these children. They are my
grandchildren, and I want to keep them. While I will continue to support
local Republicans, as long as the Republican national leadership feels
this way, I cannot support it." It was vintage Saltonstall: short and
direct. But the fact that he wrote it at all was a revelation.
Saltonstalls are private people, taciturn Yankees. Their type doesn't go
around talking about family matters; that's considered tacky. In fact,
after reluctantly agreeing to an interview (''I'm boring''), Bill
Saltonstall calls back to switch the venue from his downtown office to
the impersonal environment of the New England Medical Center, where he
serves as chairman emeritus. ''If you want to see what I spend most of
my time doing since I got out of the State House, meet me at the
hospital,'' he says. The interview proceeds as originally planned at his
Congress Street office. Still, he won't allow a photographer to shoot
his father-in-law's rolltop desk, where he works on his family's
business and charitable interests. In fact, he doesn't want to talk
about his family firm, Saltonstall and Co., at all. But, ever polite, he
settles into a conference room, seated beneath a picture of ''Pa,'' his
father, Leverett Saltonstall, who served four terms as speaker of the
Massachusetts House, three terms as governor, and 22 years in the US
Senate. He speaks easily about his forebears, whose moderate Republican
politics he embraces. He speaks proudly, too, about his progeny, son
Will and daughter Abigail. He knows that Abigail's children are likely
to be his only descendants; Will, 45, lives with an older woman doctor
who has grown children from a previous marriage. A second daughter,
Claire, died at age 16. A son, Thomas, died in infancy. Will is an
itinerant doctor in Alaska, shuttling among native American clinics and
outposts. Home, when he's there, is a hand-hewn cabin a 45-minute hike
off the highway, near Denali National Park. His father helped him build
it, as did Abigail, who went to visit him after college and came home
only to pack her things and move to Alaska herself. ''Building that
house was one of the great moments of my life,'' says Saltonstall, 73,
who wears a bow tie and suit to work every day, and usually takes
the train from his home in Manchester-by-the-Sea. ''It was clearly
hernia city. We hired a helicopter for an hour, and got all the pieces
in where they belong,'' he says. ''In every family, there are days of
magnificent memories. This was one of them.'' He isn't quite as
comfortable talking about The Letter, as it has come to be known in his
family. It began to take shape last winter, during a visit with Abigail,
her partner, Chris Blankenship, and their children. ''We talked about it
for a whole day,'' says Saltonstall. ''She felt, as I do, that the
suggestion that gay people should not adopt kids is a direct attack on
her and her partner. She asked me to write The Letter.'' In a telephone
interview from Alaska, where she has lived for 15 years, Abigail
Saltonstall picks up the conversation. ''I think the real motivation
came from his 10-year-old grandson,'' she says. ''With the presidential
campaign, Peter is extremely fascinated with the civil rights movement.
What's important to me is freedom of choice and equal protection under
the law. That's my focus for my children.'' George W. Bush has made gay
and lesbian rights - or lack thereof - a major issue in the campaign,
she says, so she raised the subject with her dad. ''It's difficult,
because Father has been a longtime Bush supporter,'' she says. ''So
that's very painful for me. He's a longtime Republican; that's
completely part of his identity.'' Meanwhile, her older son has been
''on fire'' to end oppression and to defend his parents. Recently, the
four of them - Abigail and Chris, Peter, and Harry, 7 - participated in
a gay rights march in Washington. ''I think my father's love for his
grandchildren has really motivated him,'' says Abigail. Across the
country, in his Boston office, Bill Saltonstall believes he supported
most gay rights legislation during his 12 years in the state Senate,
from 1967 to 1979, before his daughter came out as a lesbian. ''But
I'm not sure I supported all of it,'' he concedes. When the state Senate
voted down a gay rights bill, 29-6, in 1973, Saltonstall's name was not
among the six supporters (five of them Democrats) listed in the Globe.
Abigail Saltonstall, 38, also has an adoptive daughter, 32-year-old
Christian, whom Chris had adopted before she met Abigail. ''For a
while,'' Abigail jokes, ''I was the wicked stepmother.'' Christian has
two children of her own, a 3-year-old daughter and year-old son. The
three of them live with Abigail and Chris and the boys, which Abigail
describes as ''a joy for all of us.'' Last summer, the entire family
came to Boston to seek medical treatment for the little girl, who has
ulcerative colitis. They stayed for several weeks in the Saltonstalls'
downtown apartment, which allowed Bill and his wife, Jane, to really
spend time with all four of the children: grands and great-grands. `Just
like any family' ''I'm Grandpa Salty,'' says Bill Saltonstall,
displaying the Saltonstall gap-toothed smile. Though his face brightens
at the mention of the little ones, he acknowledges that his relationship
with Abigail has at times been strained. He will only say, ''I wish we
were closer.'' Jane Saltonstall says: ''We've had hard times just like
any family.'' Abigail is more forthcoming: ''This letter has been the
happy culmination of an ongoing discussion with my parents. It's been a
really long process, but we all get there when we get there. I hope this
marks a new stage in our relationship.'' She adds: ''I'd rather focus on
the positive.'' When she revealed to her parents that she was a lesbian,
upon graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in
1983, her parents weren't happy about it. ''I had been out for several
years, but I hadn't discussed it with them,'' she says. ''They had a
really hard time. I think it's really a desire for sameness, for your
child to fit your expectations of how the world should look. My parents
are very traditional, and letting go of that is extremely painful. It
requires a tremendous amount of self-evaluation and that is difficult.''
Though they have been estranged at times, she says that both sides have
''plugged away,'' and that their relationship remains ''a work in
progress.'' She gives her father much credit for going public himself.
''It was brave of him,'' she says. ''He is very old school.'' Jane
Saltonstall had a hand in it, too: She edited the letter and calls it
''extraordinary.'' ''Well,'' she says, ''we've been married for almost
50 years. Of course, I supported him. And it meant a lot to Abigail.''
At 71, Jane Saltonstall teaches English and mentors low-income women at
Wellspring House, a nonprofit program in Gloucester. ''I feel very lucky
to be doing something in my 70s that I love so much,'' she says. ''I
tell you, I've learned from the women.'' She has also learned from her
daughter. ''It hasn't been smooth,'' she acknowledges. ''My biggest
lesson is not to assume you know what will bring happiness to your
children. That's the thing you have to let go of. There's so much I need
to know and learn and understand. Life is a continuing journey.'' As
stunned as she was by Abigail's revelation, she says she was equally
unprepared for her Harvard-educated son's decision to become a traveling
doctor in Alaska. ''But it just suits him,'' she says. ''He loves the
outdoors, and he feels he's doing medicine where it's really needed.''
There is a lilt in her voice when she talks about her grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. ''Oh, the little boys! They're so different from
each other. And we have these two great-grandchildren, too. So we had
grandchildren and instant great-grandchildren. They are wonderful, just
fabulous children.'' As parents, Bill and Jane Saltonstall have suffered
deep heartaches. Their son Thomas died of an infection when he was just
6 weeks old. Their middle child, Claire, was killed in 1974, when a car
struck her bicycle in Wareham. Letting her ride from Boston to Woods
Hole with a friend was their 16th-birthday present to her. ''I never
feel it's right to say we have two children,'' says Jane Saltonstall.
''Claire is just forever 16. She and I had the same whimsical sense of
humor. I think of things Claire Bear would have loved.'' Adds her
husband: ''Whenever we're doing something Claire would have liked, she's
around ... baking cookies, being outdoors, being with young children.''
Following her death, her parents worked on bike safety issues, and there
have been various programs established in her name, including an outdoor
children's program on Martha's Vineyard, where she was headed on her
fateful trip.

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L'Chaim
Mimi

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