CHAPTER 2: BRYN MAWR
Grace Farrell was raised in Bryn Mawr, PA. Her father, John, was a business owner, her mother, Elizabeth, was a music teacher and harpist for their local Episcopal
Church. She taught Grace at an early age about music, the piano, the harp and exposed her to the arts. After Grace completed college, she worked with her father for
a time. Grace decided to spend time there because not only did she really love her father, and she also really loved cars and trucks. She was captivated by the raw
energy of the business, the grit, and the challenge of learning to drive – not only a stick shift of any form, but a large truck. She was secretly giddy about the
prospect of being a woman and learning the art of big machinery. It was a transport business, or what would now be called "logistics". Her father and his business
partner started their business with a singular horse and cart a couple of decades earlier. Their business had expanded to include a fleet of trucks, and a modest
warehouse.
Where she grew up, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, there was a lot of old wealth. The people in her town were mostly old-stock, old wealth, people who had never really
lived anywhere else, and did not want to. Why in heaven's name ever leave Bryn Mawr? People at society events would scoff at the very idea. Everyone knew
everyone in her world. If they didn't know a family personally, they knew about them by reputation. Grace was raised in the Episcopal Church, she was expected to
focus on her education, her music, her ballet and church. She was given love and freedom to an extent, but she was to be a proper and educated young lady, settle
down with some nice connected boy, and keep house. Little did Grace's parents know that Grace was talented in math. She had always done very well and found
mathematical concepts easy and interesting. In her 8th grade year, she was taught about Algebra. She had come home from school that September afternoon and
told her mother about it nonstop. She was still excited about it at dinner and told her father all about it. She was enthralled in mathematics and had genuine talent.
She excelled through high school, and when she decided what she wanted to do in college, she chose math and business. In her mind, that was a good career choice
it had not yet occurred to Grace that her parents had other ideas. In high school and college, Grace had been considered a "debutante", she was set up with
and had dated all the wealthy and connected boys that her parents had found for her. They conspired with other wealthy parents, putting their daughter "out there"
for her future. Grace found the whole experience akin to being a head of cattle. She went on these dates, met these boys – these boys raised in wealth with soft
hands and some with absolutely no skills – none of them made her heart leap the way Oliver Warbucks did. It wasn't his enormous wealth that she cared about either.
It was his everything – the way he spoke, the sound of his voice, the way he moved, the shape of his lips, his eyes. One afternoon, she had looked at the men's
fragrance counter in Macy's and tried to determine which scent it was that he wore. She had never been able to figure his scent out. She wondered whether he got his
fragrance from Europe or some other more exotic land. Wherever he got it, she was addicted to it. The truth was that he was absolutely delicious and sensual to her,
he awakened feelings she knew she had never felt for any other man. So, no, it was not his vast empire or money she wanted. Grace Farrell was worth a few dollars
herself, when accounts were made of her interests, trust funds and inheritances that she would have. She had also been gainfully employed since getting out of
college, a few years earlier. She was the 50/50 beneficiary of all of her parents' properties and accounts. She had one brother, John. He was still in residency to be a
physician. Her brother, "Johnny" was five years younger than Grace, and when he had come along, she was absolutely thrilled to have a baby brother. They had
always gotten along, and were very close as adults.
Grace did not want for money – not even during the Great Depression – she was insulated by her own shrewdness, and her family's holdings and positions in
business. Her father's industry was transportation, it survived and thrived post-1929. She was very fortunate and she was very grateful for that. She had accepted the
job at the Warbucks estate because she was looking for a new challenge, a new diversion, and as a way to try to get through a difficult period in her life. She had
been out of college and working at her father's logistics business, finding that his shop was largely in the red. She worked tirelessly to get them back on track. It was
a long two years before she and her father, and her father's business partner could see black in the majority of accounts. Grace had had 'baptism by fire' in the live
world of logistics in the late 1920s, and she cut her teeth in a trucking business, putting her math and business degree to use. She loved doing what she did, but
there were other factors that made her seek a new adventure in New York. Boredom. Needing to move out of her parents' home - they would have had her there
forever, but Grace felt she had to leave the nest. She wanted to try her wings. During her college years, she had a steady beau, who, during the very early days of
their courtship, seemed like a great match for Grace. He could be charming and funny; he was known to be a gadabout and a party boy. He was from a wealthy family
from within the friends and society circles of her parents – they were all thrilled – his parents especially, they wanted him to 'settle down'. This party boy with a
penchant for infidelity, her 'steady beau' from college, and her expected future husband was Andrew Richards. He "had connections to important people", her mother
told her. Everyone expected that they would 'just get married', and he had indeed asked her to marry him – but she was far from being 'in love' with him. He had hurt
her one too many times, had proven himself time and time again that he was unfaithful to her, tried to blame her for his dalliances, was a nasty drunk with a mean
streak. During the fall of her Senior year at Swarthmore, she had decided that she was going to break it off with completely after the New Year. She did not get the
chance, because he had chosen a very public, very impulsive and unexpected place to propose to her: at her own parents' New Year's Eve party in their home in Bryn
Mawr. He had waited until everyone had counted down, kissed and sung "Auld Lang Syne", then he climbed up on a dining room chair and shouted: "Everyone! I
have an announcement, or, rather, I have a question, to be posed to a certain young lady who is very special to me. Grace. Grace Farrell." He looked around the room
expectantly, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement. As she stood near the back of the room, bewildered at his display, she suddenly snapped back to reality the
moment she heard her own name uttered. "Oh, God, NO!" she thought. She knew what was coming and was filled with dread. Her well-meaning friends and family
nudged her to the front of the crowd in front of Andrew, where he was still standing with his shoes on her mother's fine, antique dining room chair, like a cad. As she
approached, he looked at her, then around the room, raised his solo glass of champagne, and asked loudly, projecting toward the ceiling: "Grace Farrell, will you
marry me?" Grace stood there for a moment, not quite believing that this was the way he had chosen to conduct a proposal, and quietly said:
"Andrew, can we talk about this? ….privately?" A hush fell over the room. Andrew, looking and feeling very silly, Grace absolutely horrified at this public display, stared
at him with a look of bewilderment, fear, and disgust in her eyes. Andrew followed up, annoyed now:
"We can talk about it right here. Do you want to get married? Or not?" At this point, Grace's father had walked up next to Andrew and was quietly urging him to get
down off the chair. The chatter of the party was slowly resuming, filling the room with hushed gossip and suppressed laughter about "Drunk Andrew". Grace was still
in a state of surprise and was deeply embarrassed at the display, Andrew's lack of respect or love for her, his anger and obnoxiousness in making it all about himself.
He hadn't even gotten a ring or offered her a glass of champagne to match his own. Grace did her best to maintain decorum and did not speak to Andrew as her
mother led her away toward the kitchen. Andrew quickly gulped down his champagne, hopped down from his perch, and walked after Grace and her mother. Andrew's
pace was quickly matched by Grace's father, who urged him to stop and had put a hand on his shoulder. Andrew shoved Grace's father away, throwing his empty glass
at a nearby table and breaking it and several others in the process. John Farrell had put up with quite enough. He regained his composure and sprinted after Andrew,
catching him as he was entering the kitchen. Grace and her mother were standing together, trying to de-escalate the situation by staying out of the party. They had
heard the breaking glass and were terrified when Andrew came bursting into the kitchen, John Farrell right behind him. He got in front of Andrew and said firmly: "I
think it would be best if you leave, Andrew. I will walk you out. Please get your coat. You are going." Andrew glared at him. Nobody had ever told Andrew Richards
"no" before, nor had they publicly humiliated him like this. Andrew talked past John Farrell's shoulder and looked directly at Grace as he said: "This is the last time
ANYONE will ever ask you to marry them. Nobody will EVER love you. You're damaged goods." Grace's mother gasped at this, uttering "My God, Andrew." Grace was
hurt by the obscenity of the incident, his words, how he had asked her in such a terribly tasteless and thoughtless way. She was so worn out by his lies, his
drunkenness, and to her, this public circus followed by his angry self-destruction, his childish temper tantrum, her mind and heart had just been pushed to the land of
no return. She took a moment to carefully choose her words and replied to him: "I am nobody's 'damaged goods', Andrew, least of all yours. How dare you imply such
a thing? We are through. Hear this: I do not want to marry you, and I do not want to see you anymore. We are through. Now, get your coat and leave." Her mother
hushed her, "dear, be nice…!" Grace felt her anger rise. "Mother, we are all in this moment because I have been 'nice'. I have been 'nice' in putting up with this
cheating, lying, spoiled, drunken, terrible example of a "boyfriend" for the sake of everyone but me. I am done being 'nice' – especially to this….this….damn it…."not
so nice" man. Looking at Andrew, her hurt and anger and disgust undeniable, she said: "Just go, Andrew. Get your coat and go." By this time, their hired bartender
was coming into the kitchen with broken glass pieces. Grace's father was now flanked by two of his household staff. Together, they walked Andrew to the door, and
made sure his driver had him and was headed away from their property. Mr. Farrell posted an active watch to alert him if Andrew should try to return. He never did
that night, but he did harass Grace every time he had a chance from then on. As she was working on building her father's business back, her ex boyfriend was still in
her hometown. She avoided him at all costs.