October PrepMo 2015

Freestyle Brainstorm

The Life and Times of Francis Danbury


Francis Danbury was born to William and Hilda Danbury of Providence, Rhode Island in 1832. William Danbury had owned a manufacturing plant which proved to be a gold mine to him during the civil war. Before then though, William Danbury was one of the most successful and rich people living in Providence at the time. Francis was the first of seven children that William and Hilda had. Unfortunately, Francis got to see three of his siblings die due to the Cholera Pandemic before they had even hit their teens.

Francis excelled in his studies, but was a shy boy. He seemed to lack the strength and confidence that his father had, which was a frustrating point for his father, especially since it was known that Francis would take over the manufacturing company once his father died. Francis’ other siblings: Julia, Douglas, and Margaret, also excelled in their studies (and would also go on to Yale, Harvard, and Brown), but definitely took after their father in personality.

Francis’ mother often stood up for her son when necessary as she noticed he took much after her in personality and knew that he didn’t need to project to get what he wanted. She also knew, once Francis left for Harvard in 1850, that there was something deep and dark hidden in her son. Unfortunately for her, her husband didn’t believe in psychiatrists as he believed they were only for crazy people and no child of his was crazy, plus they were one of the pillar families of Providence and it would be bad for the people to see one of his children off to see one. Fortunately for her, Francis eventually went on to major in Psychology.

While Francis was at Harvard, he was known as quiet and didn’t make many friends, except one, a Jasper Reynolds, who hailed from Charlotte, North Carolina. To Francis, the South seemed as if it was a totally different world, even though he knew of slavery and even his father owned a few farms in the south in which slaves were the primary work force. Francis had never been down there though, none of his family had. Even his father had only been down there once, to a small town called Blue, about twenty miles outside of Goose Creek, South Carolina. His father would continue to make enormous profits from the large farm he owned until 1865 when it would be one of the many farms burned to ruins by William Tecumseh Sherman.

However, Jasper was, at the time, the closest person Francis had to a friend. He was a fellow Psychology major and very much the same personality that Francis had. They did eventually drift apart, mostly due to moving past graduate school where Francis would meet up with the men who he would create Pleasantgate Point with and found he connected with them on many more levels than he did with Jasper. Jasper would move to a suburb outside Baltimore and start his own practice there.

Francis moved onto Dartmouth and went on to get his Doctorate; it was here that he would meet Daniel Craig, Arthur Johnson, and Thomas McAntry. It would also be at this point where Francis would focus on that dark mass of energy and anger that his mother had noticed in him as a child and he would use it, along with the other three. It seemed though that the four of them seemed to bring out both the good and bad out in each of them simultaneously and a point could even be made that they became as successful as they did in their respective fields because of this.

The four of them worked exceptionally hard in their studies and then on Sundays they would get together to unwind from their strenuous schedules. From the outside, these men would look normal and inoffensive and it was the reason they found the wonderful wives they did. With the exception of Daniel, who didn’t marry until he was forty years old, the three others all found their wives during their time at Dartmouth; all respectable, upper-middle class women with respectable families and reputations. Not only this, but their wives were intelligent and strong willed as it was during a time when women barely graduated high school, much less went to college and even much less went to Dartmouth College.

Thomas McAntry was the first to marry. He fell hard for Charlotte DeAndrew, who was just four years younger than him and had graduated with a major of English. They married in 1860, when Charlotte was twenty-four and Thomas was 28. Thomas (and the others) had just freshly graduated with their Doctorates. Arthur Johnson had been enraptured by Amelia Schweiss, who at the time of his graduation was a junior at Dartmouth. She majored in nursing and graduated at the top of her class the following year. Arthur had wanted to propose then, but Amelia’s mother died suddenly and a couple of years passed before he proposed and she accepted. Francis Danbury was the next to marry at this time to Yvette Louis, who Francis had become obsessed with. There was a nine year difference between them and when Francis had graduated, Yvette still had two more years to go before she graduated and she told him under no circumstances was she to be married until then. It was another three years before he proposed as Yvette had majored in English and decided she wanted to teach and went for her Master’s in Education. It was then he proposed and they married in 1865.

The four men and their wives moved into New York, working in and around Cornell University and other Universities in the area. It was shortly after this, they all moved north to where they would establish Pleasantgate Point in 1867. It was late that year when Yvette found out she was pregnant. Pleaseantgate Point was incredibly small at this time, but there was a school where Yvette would teach at, along with Charlotte. There was a medical office, a post office, a grocery and feed store and there was Francis’ psychiatry office. They had brought a small gathering of people, around 200 and it was from here that Pleasantgate Point grew.

In September of 1868, Franklin Theodore Danbury was born and Francis felt as if he was on top of the world. They had also finished the building of his estate outside of town on top of the hill that would become to be known as 13 Curves. The following spring, Yvette was pregnant a second time and actually had to take leave from teaching due to extreme morning sickness. They already had a nanny for Franklin and they brought in a nurse to tend to Yvette as Francis was terrified he would lose Yvette. Fortunately, once Yvette went into her third trimester, all of her ills seemed to disappear. That January of 1870, Yvette gave birth to Suzette Francine Danbury at 2:34 in the morning at the height of one of the worst snow storms the area had seen in decades.

A few months later, Yvette discovered she was pregnant for the third time and was terrified her pregnancy would be as bad as or worse than her pregnancy with Suzette. It wasn’t and went as smoothly as her pregnancy with Franklin had been. That following year Franklin was three years old then and incredibly intelligent for his age. He often had a tutor at home to go over his lessons and even a linguist that would come to teach him French and Italian a few days of the week. February 14, 1871, Yvette went through two days of labor to deliver Adelaide Olivia Danbury at 12:46 in the afternoon.

Francis and Yvette wanted more children, but after Adelaide pregnancy seemed to become more difficult. In 1874, Yvette found out she was pregnant but in only a couple of months she miscarried. The following year, Yvette became pregnant again and this time nearly went full term before delivering a stillborn son, which they named Peter Howard and buried him in the town Cemetery. It was two years later when Yvette became pregnant again and went full term to deliver Seth Michael Danbury in April of 1877.

It was also around this time that Francis and his brothers as he often called them to his wife (and of course with each other), they began their plan. They built their laboratories in their basements and often spent most of their free time there. Yvette hardly saw Francis after this point and she began to blame it on the miscarriage and stillbirth of their children. She knew he had taken it hard during these times and saw he had changed after them. After the birth of Seth, Yvette retired from teaching and fired their long-term nanny, to stay at home and be a mother.

When Franklin was twelve years old in 1880, Francis sent him off to a boarding school in France. Franklin was fluent in French and did remarkably well there. It would be here that he would meet his future wife (Rosalie Davis) and they would marry after graduating in Paris in 1887. Also in 1880, Francis’ father died of a heart attack and Francis was heir to the manufacturing business he owned, plus a slew of small businesses. Francis would hire a few men to take care of that aspect of business so that he could entirely focus on his laboratory work.

Francis’ free time was entirely spent in his laboratory, even to the point where he was considering selling off his practice in town to spend more time on his project. It had often frightened Yvette with whatever project he was working on, as he wouldn’t talk to her about it at all and often to seem more gruff and angry when he would come to bed. There wasn’t much for her to do or say about the situation as Francis pulled all of the strings. Her own father wouldn’t forgive her if she so much as inclined towards wanting to leave Francis. So, she kept quiet and tended to the children.

In 1885, just two years before Franklin would graduate from his private boarding school and get married (both Yvette and Francis knew of the nuptials and approved accordingly), Suzette was turning 15, Adelaide was 14 and little Seth was 8. Francis had gotten it into his mind to begin looking for suitable husbands for his daughters. Yvette was furious at this and tried to plead with Francis to deter from this. Yvette had wanted her daughters to be modern women and to go to college just as she had, but Francis didn’t seem to mind any of this. Yvette knew there was some kind of fear in him for this, just as shortly after this he wanted to send Seth off to France as well to the same boarding school.

He wanted his children out of Pleasantgate Point, but he wouldn’t tell her why. He eventually got his wish as he married Suzette to a Jefferson Danleavy the following year in 1886. They would go on to have twelve children, mostly due to the fact that Jefferson wanted six sons to carry the Danleavy name (Jefferson was the youngest of eight children and the only son). It was said by friends of Suzette’s that she fell in love with Jefferson the day her son Deacon was born as she saw the love he had not just for Deacon, but for her as well. The following year there was two weddings to attend, as Franklin married Rosalie in the summer of 1887, Adelaide was married to Francis Oliviar in the spring of 1887. Unfortunately, they were married only a few years before he was to get pancreatic cancer and die, leaving Adelaide with two year old son, Lewis, and six months pregnant with their soon-to-be daughter, Gwyneth. Not even six weeks after the death of her husband, her father set her up with Charles Frank and they were married before Gwyneth was even born. Charles treated Lewis and Gwyneth as if they were his own and loved Adelaide more so. They would go on to have six kids of their own.

Franklin and Rosalie would go to have four kids, one of which would begin to spark the dark cloud that would forever hang over the Danbury name and cause all of their descendants to flee Pleasantgate Point. That will be told later. Seth was indeed shipped off to the same French boarding school that Franklin attended and also did remarkably well there. He would also marry a French woman by the name of Angélique Paquin, who lived in Paris and went to school there. They would marry in 1900 and Seth stayed in France for the rest of his life. The reason for this was the death of his father only three years prior.
1897 was a big year for the Danbury family, as Seth graduated from the boarding school only to stay on in France to be with his fiancée, who he would marry three years later. Yvette had decided at this point that she would go back to teaching part time as she hated having an empty house. None of her children lived in Pleasantgate Point, but in surrounding areas and it was difficult terrain to take so visits were very far in-between. Francis was still busy with his project, but his outlook was happier than it had been in decades and so was his relationship with his family. It would of course end with the unfortunate disappearance of Francis in November of that year. Yvette had to legally declare him dead after two years just to be able to pay bills and not become destitute.

She would go to France to see her son’s wedding and eventually moved all of her belongings there as she fell in love with the country and with a wealthy French man by the name of Jean-Marc De Saint-Pierre, who was 70 years old. They had met by chance at an event for Seth’s wife and became inseparable. They only married on the day he died, 19 years later, so that all of his assets would belong to her. Unfortunately, Yvette didn’t last much longer after Jean-Marc died, many saying she had died of a broken heart as Jean-Marc was the man she had longed for her whole life. As Jean-Marc had no children, the millions he had were left to her children and it was split amicably.