One rainy day in April of 1966, my grandfather — and presumably my grandmother too — drove from Stamford to nearby New Canaan to watch a movie about Robert Frost. Both rain and movie made it onto his calendar that day.
April 20, 1966.
(I’m making a semi-educated guess that the film in question was the Oscar-winning 1963 documentary “Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel With The World.”)
Now, my grandfather never had any deep-seated love of poetry, as far as I ever knew. He enjoyed a well-turned phrase, a groanworthy pun, and creative doggerel of the Burma-Shave variety; but I never knew him to pore over volumes of fine verse.
No, he would have had an altogether different reason to go see the movie: It was about a member of the family.
The Blumenau bloodline, which was pretty thoroughly researched by my grandma, is not rich in star power. But one relative we can claim — albeit distantly, and through marriage — is perhaps the finest New England poet of the 20th century.*
Francis C. LaBatt’s headstone, Vermont. The lichens will have us all.
The story starts with my great-great-grandfather, Francis Cruger LaBatt. That’s his lichen-encrusted headstone at left. He was born in Massachusetts, died in Vermont, and lived a while in New York state just west of the Vermont line.
Frank LaBatt’s first wife died young, and he was married twice. One of his three children by his first wife was named Maude Adelia LaBatt, who was my great-grandmother. Maude’s daughter was my paternal grandmother — in other words, the woman who married the guy who kept this calendar.
One of Frank LaBatt’s children by his second wife was named Lillian LaBatt. She married Carol Frost, Robert’s son, not long before her 18th birthday in 1923.
(Carol, unfortunately, committed suicide in 1940. Lillian, who outlived him by more than a half-century, is buried with him and other family members in the Frost family grave in Bennington, Vermont.)
That makes Robert Frost my great-grand-half-aunt’s father-in-law.
That might sound like a pretty slim link, but there were actually personal connections among my grandpa’s generation to tie it all together.
I’m fairly sure my grandmother met Robert Frost in person when she was young — I remember her saying so. And Lillian LaBatt Frost was a regular Christmas-card correspondent and occasional houseguest of my grandparents in Connecticut. My dad, growing up, knew her as “Aunt Lillian.”
So, while I can’t claim any writing talent inherited from the great poet (or anywhere else), I can say that the connection is more than just abstract lines on a family tree.
I have never seen the Robert Frost documentary that inspired the calendar entry (and this blog post.) Although my grandfather did not rate the movie for posterity, it sounds like something worth watching, one of these days.
* Coda: Honesty forces me to confess that, while I like Frost, I give Robert Lowell a tiny edge in the competition to be “the finest New England poet of the 20th century.” Both men were geniuses — Lowell would not have written “Fire and Ice;” Frost would not have written “For The Union Dead;” and the world of letters is richer for both. Robert Lowell, however, is not part of my family tree. If he were, I would not be blogging; I would be speaking only to the Cabots.
Hope Street 
This stuff is really great. I’m glad you’re doing this.
Robert Frost was a big deal in the household. I never saw the movie but I think I will now. Lots of interesting personal and factual history woven into the blog.
Kurt-
Your grandmother, Corine, talked of visiting “The Poet” in Vermont when quite young. She said he patted her on the head.
Your Father
So interesting. Truly a pleasure to read. I look forward to next week!
Thank you kindly. Just a forewarning — next week’s going to go off-topic a bit. Still, there’s much more family history to come.
I am trying track down information on Lillian Labatt Frost. She was the subject of a portrait by the artist Rockwell Kent in 1920, when he lived in Arlington, VT, a stone’s throw up the road from Shaftsbury, where Frost lived in the Stone House. I am curating an exhibition of Kent’s Vermont-period work and am trying to forge a connection between Kent and Frost. They certainly knew of each other, as they had a close mutual friend in Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I think Lillian may be the link, but don’t know much about her, other than the little that is to be found in the Frost bios.
Any and all help is appreciated.
Let me see what I can find. I’ll drop you an e-mail.
[…] readers might have the impression by now that the Blumenau bloodline consists entirely of poets, Revolutionary War soldiers, plucky immigrants, and upright, industrious everymen who lived long […]
[…] Robert Frost’s poem “A Drumlin Woodchuck” artfully uses the groundhog as a metaphor for human social discomfort. (I had no idea until I wrote this post that woodchucks and groundhogs were the same animal. Whaddya know.) […]
This is exactly the fourth article, of yours I personally read.
However I love this particular 1, “April 20, 1966: A poet in the family.
Hope Street” the very best. Thank you -Harlan
I have been reading your genealogy with interest because my Aunt Margie Thompson was raised in Arlington, Vermont and I recall her telling me that after her mom passed away when she was 8 years old her best friend’s mom, Maude Labatt, was like a second mother to her. I don’t remember her friend’s name, but I don’t think it was Corine. Did your grandmother have another sister? I wish I had written things down that my aunt told me. She has been gone for over a decade now.
I think the Labatt’s lived on or near the corner of Route 7 and East Arlington Road. My aunt and my dad lived on School Street, a short walk away. My Grandfather was co-owner of the local general store and also a friend of Dorothy Canfield Fisher. She wrote a short story about him called “Let the Bridges Fall”.
The only thing I remember my aunt telling me about Robert Frost was that he were “not an easy person to live with”.
My grandma did have a sister named Eleanor. I can’t remember whether they grew up in Vermont; I believe they moved to Springfield, Mass., at some point. So I don’t know whether my great-aunt and your Aunt Margie would have crossed paths.
I was looking for information for a close friend of mine and came across this blog.
Her name is Barbara Ryan, birth name…Barbara Porter LaBatt. She was born May 13, 1922, the year her grandfather died. He was Francis Cruger LaBatt. She is grandchild of he and his second wife.
At 93 she doesn’t quite understand how the internet works, so I’ve been challenged to bring her something tonight when I go to visit. She’s going to be quite surprised!