Carl Ostertag – II

After Carl Ostertag left Gump’s for his State Department contract, I lost touch with him. Our conversations had been principally at that wonderful old store, and it never occurred to me that I might become any closer .

It was approximately 1978 when we encountered each other, thanks to the Joffrey Ballet’s June season at the San Francisco Opera House. It also was the year the Joffrey included Agnes de Mille’s Conversation on the Dance in its San Francisco program. De Mille had sustained a massive stroke in 1975 which required her learning to write with her left hand; the stroke was the raison d’etre for Reprieve, her memoir of the ordeal and her tribute to her physician and the staff at the hospital. [I don’t have the copy handy so the details are hazardous, as also the exact date of that stellar Joffrey season.]

I got a call from my sister Edme, recently divorced from her husband. She was involved in some effective low-key public relations as with almost everything else she undertook. In this instance it was Friends of the Public Library and it seems the Friends wanted to utilize de Mille’s presence to provide a luncheon for her as well as to honor her grandfather Henry George, one of San Francisco Public Library’s founders.

Edme was assigned to arrange the luncheon, inviting the guests, and she enlisted me to provide names of dance-related individuals who should be invited, in addition to Library supporters. High on the list was Jocelyn Vollmar whose name was almost synonymous with San Francisco Ballet, with comparatively brief sojourns with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Grand Ballet de Marquis de Cuevas and the Borovansky Ballet of Australia providing paid performing experience before returning to San Francisco. De Mille had accepted the invitation, but also had specified she was not going to make any comments.

The venue was the Veterans Building’s fourth floor, then occupied by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with a small oblong room on the Van Ness side of the building; it subsequently has become part of the Wilsey Center of the San Francisco Opera. There was a small café in the northeast corner of the fourth floor contracted to provide the luncheon. Edme arrived with perhaps a dozen green plastic squares of red blooming plants, variety unknown to me; she placed them down the center of the table as decor. The results were effective; their size permitted visibility; the cost was negligible. It was one of those apt surprises I sporadically experienced with my sister.

Robert Joffrey could not attend. As I remember, this was the time of year he held contract renewal interviews with the dancers. Gerald Arpino was to attend, but he specifically stated he would not introduce Agnes de Mille. I was deputized to make the introduction, and I guess, as consolation prize, was seated to her left. When de Mille arrived, her placement in the middle of the table facing the door required some maneuvering to seat her, thanks to the narrowness of the room.

My memory of the menu is zero as well as most of the guests present, but I do remember seeing Carl Ostertag almost directly across from de Mille and me, and if I didn’t know much about their history, I made the connection. We both smiled our recognition. I also have no memory of my conversing with de Mille beyond its being amiable.

When the time came for me to introduce de Mille, I prefaced my praise by relating the portion from In Promenade Home, the time she spent in a San Joaquin Valley town with rose bushes in the city’s square while her husband Walter Prude was stationed in a nearby air base. Via her publisher, I wrote de Mille to ask whether that town was Hanford, California, King’s County seat. Bless her, she responded, confirming the identification. At the time, I was just beginning to be enthralled by dance and knew about Oklahoma’s success because we received the Sunday New York Times in our country mail box every Thursday. I was devastated by the tardy knowledge that this fabulous woman had been so near by when I periodically visited my grandmother; I walked across that square to the City’s main post office to retrieve my grandmother’s mail. Stating what an inspiration she was and had continued to be, I ended my comments.

There was a stirring to my right; I turned and saw de Mille was getting up to
respond. Sitting down quickly, I was thrilled that de Mille went back on her invitational proviso. In that wonderful, slightly husky voice, she launched her comments with, “When ever I get up to speak, there is always the fear I might find myself accused of libel.” I noticed across the table several smiles and a grin or two.

I remember her speaking of her grandfather Henry George, “ By the time he was 24, he had been around the world four times. They did not loiter in those days.” In my memory’s ear I can still hear the tones clustered around the word “loiter.” Absolutely minted.

I don’t remember much else, lost as I was in the success my comments had provided, a cog in an historical chain not too unlike my father’s family, though ours was not a twentieth of such significance.

The luncheon was over and I helped my sister pile the green plastic squares back into the box she had brought. Edme smiled at me and said, “I was hoping she would do that and your words made it possible.” We made out way down one of the deliberately-paced elevators in the Veterans Building and parted. She was headed to her car, I to the Opera House stage door, for I had been told I was welcome.