Epay Stories - Mink Jacket of Marilyn Monroe Read online

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  As usual the package was left with my neighbor. The packaging was all intact and clean, again as usual. Well managed delivery companies have learned how to protect their goods from the effects of weather, be it sun, precipitation or temperature extremes. I put the package on a table and carefully cut the container open with a box cutter. I like to save the packaging for a while depending upon the warranty and the source. Frequently, items are wrapped in newspaper. This indicates the location and date that the packing took place. There were no surprises in this packaging as it was clean, soft wrapping paper around the jacket in the clean cardboard box.. There were no strange smells. In fact there was a pleasant fragrance not so much of perfume but of a natural preservative. Like a mild room air freshener. I hung the jacket on a broad shouldered wooden hanger in the open to let it breathe. The jacket matched the many pictures from the Epay ad. What pleased me most was the fact that the hair on the coat was very dense and glistened with a healthy sheen. Maybe there are sprays which can impart this type of finish. It was very effective. The fur had a soft but strong feel as a healthy fur should have. There were still some of the original tags sewn into the coat. This was impressive as it was apparent that the satin lining had been replaced. The new lining showed no signs of wear or age.

  I had bought a new white box and wrapping paper that was large enough to hold the jacket without crushing it. I would place a large silver ribbon around this and finish it with a seasonal green decoration. After stashing the original packaging I moved the hanging jacket to my second bedroom to stay in the open air but away from any sources of odors and away from my curious dog Bear. He is generally well-behaved but a dog is a dog so it is better not to tempt him. At least he is mature enough to have overcome the desires of many younger animals to test new articles brought into the house. A few days later I repackaged the jacket in the paper and gift box. I inserted a small confection of anti-pest preservative. Hopefully Laurie would place the coat in cold storage for the warm weather but if she didn't, she might at least leave it in my box with the preservative.

  A week before Christmas I took the coat and the other gifts to their house and put them under the tree with the other gifts. Since they had invited me over for Christmas dinner I would see the reaction soon after the gifts were opened. We open the presents about 11 am so it does not interfere with the preparation of the meal. It only takes a quarter hour and makes a good topic for the meal. Laurie was most impressed with the jacket. She gave me a big hug and kiss. I thought she would wear the jacket while she was preparing the food so I warned her to keep it away from heat and strong odors. She put it in a hall closet with other coats. That seemed safe enough. Bear had come along with me and was happily curled up in a corner chewing on the rawhide bone he had received. At the meal Laurie asked me more questions about the coat than I had answers for. I told her what the ad had said about the coat having been in a studio wardrobe and having been worn by Monroe amongst other actresses. Laurie insisted she wanted to know more about the provenance of the coat and tasked me with tracking the information down. Since this is the kind of work I enjoy, I agreed to dig the details up but also warned that it might take a good while. She said this was fine and gave me a year to prepare the biography of the coat.

  In mid January when life settled down to normal again I began the search. The labels proved to be a good place to start. The manufacturer was still in business. It was a prominent label with a good website. I wrote a very polite enquiry to the customer service department and included good photos of all the labels.. A few days later I received an email reply which gave me a lot of hope. Not only did the labels enable them to identify the original seller of the coat, it also let them access their historical data. The rep explained that in order to add value to their coats, they maintained records on the more expensive coats so that when there was a service enquiry made, they could readily track the coat and advise on proper care, including regional firms which could repair and maintain their furs. The jacket had gone to a furrier in the Los Angeles area. From there it was sold to the studio where Monroe was under contract at the time. The rep said there was a sequence of notes in the file identifying the actresses and films in which the jacket was featured. She included the list. Then gradually the style of jacket went out of fashion. The coat was placed in cold storage at the studio. After a long hibernation there it was sold off in a lot with a number of other furs. A furrier in Denver had bought the lot. In the mid 70's an enquiry was made about the lining of the coat by a furrier in Colorado Springs. The furrier was identified but not the owner. The Colorado furrier had been sold to a larger furrier, again in Denver. This business still existed so I wrote an email to their support desk. I made it clear that there was no problem with the fur. I told them my sister-in-law was wearing the jacket very happily. I received a pleasant reply saying that due to privacy concerns they could not identify the buyer but that the coat had been prominently worn by a local celebrity. I could scan the local newspaper society archives and probably identify the jacket by the small crescent moon shaped diamond pin which the local celebrity chose to place on the lapel. of the coat. I thanked the agent and began a search of the newspaper archives. Fortunately, the newspaper had not yet begun requiring a subscription to search their archives. After several hours of searching I found a picture of the coat with pin being worn by an attractive thirtyish woman attending a charity ball. This is when I got my first shock.

  I searched for the woman identified wearing the coat. Then I found a notice of her death by suicide two years later.

  She had left a husband and two grown daughters. The oldest daughter was married so I had her married name but it was thirty years old. Fortunately it was not Smith or Jones but Johannsen. I located her along with a phone number. I called her from my house on my lunch break .

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, my name is Fred Lessing. Are you Sonja Johannsen?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Ms. Johannsen, I am not selling or promoting anything. I recently bought a mink coat which was once owned by your mother. I gave it to my sister-in-law as a Christmas gift and since the coat was very old, she asked me to find out the history of it. I do not mean to pry into your family's history so if you don't wish to talk to me, I understand. If you do tell me anything, it will go no further than my sister-in-law. It will never appear in any tabloid."

  There was a pause while she absorbed what I had said.

  "I understand, Mr. Lesson, is it?"

  "Close but no prize. L-e-s-s-i-n-g, lessing."

  "OK, Mr. Lessing. I haven't talked to anyone about this except my sister in a long time. There is no longer any pain associated with my mother's death. In fact, I sometimes review her past in my mind to see what we have in common. I don't want to end up like her."

  "I understand. I am really looking for her relationship to the jacket."

  "Yes, I see. But to see how the jacket fits in I need to tell you more about my mother."

  "That's fine, tell me as much or as little as you like."

  "My mother was always beautiful. She became a little withdrawn, shy I guess you would call it, because people were always telling her how beautiful she was. She went to a state college and received a degree in sociology. She met my father in college and they married about two years after they graduated. By then my father had a good job and felt he could start a family. My mother worked for a state social services agency. She went out and called on people who were having problems with work or their family. She said it was really more a job for a psychologist who would have enjoyed hearing about the problems the people had. But Mother was only there to gather information from them and try to arrange for further help, like finding a job or a better place to live. After my parents had been married five years they were established in a house in a good neighborhood and decided to start a family. Enter me, stage left. Mother quit her job to
raise me. After three years they were so pleased with how well I behaved they had my sister. She cured them of any desires for more children."

  "Haha, I know the story. It was the same with my brother and I. Dad said I was more destructive than a wolf cub. But I've grown out of that now. I am well house broken and never chew on the furniture, unless is has been soaked in alcohol."

  "I'll have to remember not to invite you to our house. There has been so much alcohol spilled on our furniture that I think the flies go in circles because they are tipsy."

  "As we grew up Dad said Mom became more self confident and less shy. She associated with other parents and my parents began to socialize more. Dad had become pretty successful in business. We moved to a larger, more elegant house. When Dad was not traveling, my folks would frequently invite friends and business associates over for dinners or barbeques. Mom seemed to enjoy these although it was a lot of work for her. She had to dress more elegantly. By the time I went off to college they had begun participating in social events both in town and in larger cities where Dad had business. Mom began buying more elegant clothes. She had kept her shape and was more beautiful than ever. She came out of her shell. I noticed it when I came home from college for the holidays. One Christmas Dad bought her the mink jacket. The one that you have now. He told her it had worn by Marilyn Monroe in a film. She loved the coat. Who wouldn't, it was a beautiful coat. But I don't think it was good for her state of mind. She told me one time that maybe she should have done something other than just be a wife and mother. I told her she was sounding foolish. She had raised two daughters. One of them was even a good daughter. That was me. My sister was a pain until she reached fifty, I think. She still is a problem sometimes."

  "Anyway, each time I came home Mother seemed to be a little more anxious, stressed. I don't know why. I noticed she seemed to drink more now. Not at meals, but in the evening. I found a bottle of prescription sleeping pills on the counter in the bathroom. She said she had more social obligations now and it made it difficult for her to fall asleep naturally. Dad said she seemed a little over-concerned about creating a good impression. She wore the Monroe jacket even when the weather was too warm for it. She really looked great in it."

  "Then I got the call from Dad and went home for the funeral. He stored all her clothes for a couple years. The furs went into cold storage. My sister and I took the things we liked but most of the clothes went to Goodwill. I asked Dad about the furs. He said he thought they were worth more as a lot so he sold them to a furrier and gave the money to charity."

  "That's the whole story. You can tell as much of it as you like to your sister-in-law. Is the coat still in good condition?"

  "Yes, it has been very well maintained. I won't take any more of your time. I appreciate your assistance. Do you know where your father might have sold the furs?"

  "There is one store here in town that dealt in furs then. It's called Winter's. You might call them."

  "I'll do that. Do you or your sister wear furs?"

  "No, we both limit ourselves to leather coats. Furs have lost a lot of their attraction in this area."

  "I see. Thank you again, Ms. Johannsen."

  "Your most welcome, Mr. Lessing. Goodbye."

  The following week I called Winter's Department store to locate the appropriate person to write. The person I spoke to in the customer service department told me the most likely person to know about the coat was a Mrs. Norma Henderson who had retired a couple years before. She said she did not wish to give out Henderson's phone number but would give her my email address. I explained the background of the coat to her. She said she would contact Henderson to explain who I was. I thanked her.

  I received a short email from Henderson with just her email address. My email to her sketched the history of my research. A few days later I received a pleasant reply from Henderson.

  "Mr. Lessing, I will tell you as much as I can recall after all these years.

  You are aware that the demand for real fur coats has been in decline for a number of years. There are so many good imitations that have the advantage of not being associated with the killing of small creatures. Having lived in the country as a youngster where we raised chickens, I can guarantee you that many of these small furry critters are just as vicious with their prey as the fur raisers are with the minks. Most city folk and animalists seem to ignore that. I do agree that there are some fur raisers who are more humane with the animals than others just as there are some cattle and pig raisers who treat their livestock better than others.

  We gradually reduced our stock of natural furs choosing to leave that market to specialists shops. I was aware of the background of the Monroe coat. I enjoyed marketing and tried to bring a good profit to our store. Consequently, I decided to find the best buyer for the coat by selling it in early December by placing a distinct ad in the classified sections of large newspapers around the country. I linked the coat to Monroe and mentioned the film in which she wore it. The response was better than I expected. My boss even gave me a bonus based upon the good price we received for the coat. It was bought by a prominent oil man named Salter in Dallas. Maybe for his wife. I don't know who wore it but if you look for pictures of him with a woman in the Dallas papers in the late 90's I would imagine you will recognize it.

  Sincerely,

  Norma Henderson"