Elaine Coffin: Lady Pam of Mt. Vernon

LADY PAM OF MT. VERNON

by Elaine Coffin

Her kitchen was disorganized chaos. Clearing a spot, I sat down at the kitchen table to have morning coffee with her on many Maine mornings. She was an artist. Her medium of choice was an array of colored pencils. Not oils or even watercolors but simple colored pencils like I bought my children. Pam Jones wasn’t simple, but extraordinarily honest. She made art with what she had.

She wrote wonderful, wordy letters. Her letters were full of every detail about happenings in the village. When I read those happy letters, I laugh aloud. They featured the best of village characters – the Blooms, Bad Boy David Hilton, and certainly Helen Caldwell Cushman. When Elizabeth Enright moved to Rockport on the coast of Massachusetts, she took a packet of Pam’s letters to read the novel of the village.

In the midst of creative chaos, Pam raised six children. Five beautiful girls: Allison, Courtney, Caitlin, Megan, and Caragh. And one son, Johnny, who flouted authority with verve but grew into a responsible man who ran a successful plumbing business to serve not only Mt. Vernon, but Vienna, Fayette, Readfield, and even Farmington. Courtney was the smart one and went to a private school due to some sacrifice by her mother. Caitlin was the pretty one and Megan the athlete. Caragh had spunk and challenged Walter Seifert about smoking pot around young persons. She also appeared at our dinner table, crying that her father had promised to umpire her softball game but backed out. My husband got up from the table and went to the game as umpire.

That story is the stuff of Jones family legend, and Courtney mentioned it in a letter to me a year or so ago. She also shared with me several samples of Pam’s art that I cherish. I looked over those pieces wondering about the talent buried in a life unnoticed.

Her husband was a Mensa member and reminded most of us from time to time. Think now of the vulgar words one might use to describe someone totally

obnoxious and undeserving. Are you thinking? If I wrote any of the descriptive terms floating about me, this story would not be publishable.

John Jones left his family and went to live with another woman, I heard. When Pam drove there to ask him for some child support, he slammed the door in her face. Pam just continued to make art with what she had.

Courtney wrote that her mother died at 92 in a nursing home surrounded by love. Pam Jones was a saint. She was a tender soul that did not let the ugliness of others smudge her. A saint is someone who holds to the beauty of life and creates it with colored pencils. Pam Jones was a saint. Dear Lady Pam.