'Who are you, Mrs. Semans?"

Steven Petrow, a journalist and author of seven books, is a Duke graduate and an A.B. Duke Memorial Scholar. He offers this remembrance of Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, an heiress of the family that founded Duke University who died last Wednesday.

"Who are you, Mrs. Semans?" Remembering an “heiress” 
 
By Steven Petrow 
 
The first time Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans came to our house for dinner in Chapel Hill, there were a lot of hushed whispers along the lines of, “Mrs. Semans is here” or “That’s Mrs. Semans!” A recent friend of ours from New Jersey was puzzled by this regal woman in her late 80s, short in stature but hair piled high, wearing a riot of color. In a friendly way she approached, asking point blank: “Who are you, Mrs. Semans?” Said the “heiress to a vast Gilded Age fortune” (as the AP referred to her last week), “I’m Mary.”

AP: www.newsobserver.com/2012/01/25/1806627/heiress-mary-duke-biddle-trent.html#storylink=misearch 
 
That was the Mary Semans  I had come to know and love, too. Plain “Mary.” OK, 
not so plain — she loved her bangles and was known to wear short skirts that 
Emily Post might have decreed "inappropriate" for a woman her age. This was the same outspoken woman who boasted at a dinner last year “that the best thing about North Carolina was UNC” (not her namesake Duke University) because it had brought higher education to one and all. Sacrilege!

If  you’ve read any of the obituaries about Mrs. Semans in the past week, you know she was a “Who’s Who” unto herself. Still before we fast track Mrs. Semans to sainthood, I’d like to remember the Mary Semans who was known for her humility, her courage and, yes, her emotional intelligence — attributes you might not normally associate with an “heiress.”

Who’s Who: www.unctv.org/biocon/msemans/timeline.html 
 
Despite Mrs. Semans' wealth and lineage, I stopped growing surprised when I bumped into her shopping with her Vic card at Harris Teeter. Nor on those Friday nights when you might find her at Nana’s. She certainly didn’t stand on ceremony, often calling at the last minute to invite my partner and me to join them. “It’s Mary,” she would jump in with, never “Mrs. Semans,” and certainly not the “woman-with-five-names.”

She was the real deal. Years ago Mrs. Semans had spoken openly about her parents’ divorce, at a time when divorce carried much stigma. She also addressed her mother's nervous breakdown soon thereafter and the suffering she endured for decades to come. Others might have tried to whitewash the family history, but Mary Semans wore it as a badge of courage, as though encouraging the rest us with mental health issues to let go of the shame and seek treatment. 
 
Two years ago, one of Mrs. Semans’ 29 grandchildren took a husband. Not a big deal in such a large family, but path breaking because it was daughter Sally Harris's son, Matt, who was marrying his boyfriend. Mrs. Semans’ excitement about the event was infectious as she prepared to lead the family delegation from the Triangle to San Diego. That Christmas season, the family holiday card showcased these same-sex newlyweds, leaving no question that she embraced them completely.

 
Just last year when my book on gay life was published, she became my private 
champion, implicitly understanding the importance of marriage equality, aghast at the proposed constitutional amendment in North Carolina that would prohibit same-sex unions. “You are doing such important work,” she told me, as I imagined she had told so many others over the years fighting for civil and human rights.

My book on gay life: www.amazon.com/Steven-Petrows-Complete-Lesbian-Manners/dp/0761156704/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1299435124&sr=1-1 
 
On Monday, Mary Semans was remembered at a funeral at Duke Chapel. Among the 1,800 diverse guests were Gov. Bev Perdue and Adam Sobsey, a longtime server from Nana’s restaurant. The honorary pallbearers included CBS News’ Charlie Rose (a lifelong friend) and Gary Wein, the family’s chef for so many years. Black, white and Latino. Christian, Jew, Muslim. Red staters and blue staters. It was a world one could only imagine. But, then, Mary Semans had made it happen — again and again. And, in saying goodbye to her, we were now her heirs — one family under a watchful and loving eye.