The Old Woman of East Broad

Cory Hott and I, Joanna Albert, present Mrs. Monique Armstrong, and open another window to the complexity of East Broad Street through her life and story.

There is a lot to be learned about a city from the people that inhabit it. We started our project with many available options for what to do this ethnographic article about. As long as we were working on East Broad Street in Savannah, Georgia we had free reign to interview people and come up with our own theme. After hitting a roadblock in one of our original plans weeks into the quarter, we found what we thought to be a bed and breakfast and walked in. We soon realized the building did not house guests, but was the hub of a few bed and breakfast properties and home to the owners, William and Monique Armstrong.

Monique Armstrong has been one of the most delightful, inspiring surprises for us to ever come across as students. We’ve had quite a few educational, heartfelt, and hysterical (to say the least) moments with her. Here, Cory Hott and I present Mrs.Armstrong, and open another window to the complexity of East Broad Street through her life and story

Binders containing cherished, old photographs of Monique Armstrong and her gardens in New Jersey.

Since her years as a young woman, Monique Armstrong has faced her share of trials and tribulations, and despite it all she takes life head on and maintains a sparkling disposition. Throughout her life she has also experienced a plethora of blessings, and although having comfort and material possessions at her fingertips she chose to relocate herself from Canada, to New York City, and ultimately East Broad Street Savannah, Georgia, a place where majority of Savannah inhabitants didn’t typically venture to.

Monique showing us photographs of herself as a teenager.

When Monique was nineteen she had her first child and got married. She then briefly moved to France with her baby, and then returned to Canada. When she was twenty-one she had her second child. She attended college for international relations, and took classes relating to psychology and “whatever is related to the human and the population.” Monique worked for the surgeon’s office in Montreal until she was thirty-three where her boss was the director of the whole cardio vascular department. They had no computers, so she was the person who talked to all the guests and patients and did the research.

Monique met her current husband William while on vacation in the States. She gave him a voided blank check for her number and in return he gave her his signed business card. They proceeded to write to each other and visit. Eventually, William convinced Monique, who was in the midst of a breakdown, to move to New York with him. He took care of her emotionally after she moved there. In 1982 she got a job with the United Nations, and she stayed there for seventeen years. In 2000, William asked her to look for houses in Savannah. She reluctantly did research online only to find a house which she fell in love with. After much confusion on the phone with the realtor, she came down to Savannah to view the house, which ended up being a “shell.” They found a second house, and closed on both. They stayed in the second house while they renovated the shell. Monique was in charge of redesigning the shell into a new home, including the fireplace and mantle, stairs, windows, etc. After completion of the shell, they decided to move into it. Unfortunately, they could not sell the second home because nobody was buying, so they turned it into a bed and breakfast. She says, “It’s all about magic,” and that she has really grown up a lot while in Savannah. She has learned not to let the fear get to you. She’s also learned to go with the flow, “No panicking! Like, oh my God this is not done! No.”

Monique is well known to many people throughout Savannah, including the higher-ups, but despite her charming personality she doesn’t interact with a lot of people who reside on the street. She knows them, but she says they stay away from her because she’s different. Her and William both shared with us that they appreciate diversity having lived in New York, but Monique seemed to be the one on the outside here on this side of Savannah. Only children and those who have grown past stereotypes and old clichés are friendly to her. Most people on East Broad keep to themselves.

“The children come and talk to me. I am the old woman of East Broad.”

https://soundcloud.com/joannapauline/rec2

Monique in her bedroom in front of the same Italian vanity she’s been sitting at for decades, on a stool she’s been meaning to finish upholstering for years.

The life: Monique had an incredible life in New York. She had two houses in New Jersey, six blocks away from the ocean, and her loft in NYC. Sometimes she would leave work with one of her friends for a few hours and have frivolous lunches at high class hotels. She talked about her life with glistening eyes, coming closer to us as she spoke. Often we’d be trying to make our way out so she could get back to work and her excitement would consistently keep us longer. She gushed, “Really a very, very pleasant life wearing $1,000 suits and having hundreds of silk scarves. I was like having fun!”. I spent an afternoon with her while Cory was in class and I hadn’t planned on officially documenting much, I just wanted to spend more time with her and get to know her, and in the middle of making a dip, she took me upstairs and showed me one of her expensive, timeless suits, still in perfect condition. She also told me, “I love going out by myself. I go out to the Pink House and sit on the big couch and sing with the singers… But I don’t drink.” She knows a lot of the singers who perform there and sometimes they sing in French for her so she can sing with them. When she told me this she started singing a part of one of her favorite songs in French and told me it’s all very nostalgic for her.

https://soundcloud.com/joannapauline/rec1

The gardens: Besides her exciting and fanciful life in the city, from early on she revealed to us her love of gardening and the beautiful work she left behind. Not only were the gardens something she was personally proud of, but they also provided her a spiritual fulfillment. In Savannah she has tried to have as much garden space as possible, surrounding not only her property in delicate foliage, but all five of her and William’s bed and breakfasts. Pictured here are her gardens in New Jersey and since leaving them she has strived to find something to refill her spirit. While she was making the spinach dip for the guests at the inns she said, “I missed my gardens. I missed the spiritual part of myself that would come alive when I was in my garden. There was that..” she paused and made a thoughtful noise, “and I went, ‘oh well the only place I could see or maybe grab that was a church. So I did that. One day I found a church with the perfect architecture and mood. I didn’t understand a word of the liturgy because it was all new, but I felt good there. I found that feeling.” It took her about two years to get comfortable with the wording of the sermons because at thirty-three years old she only knew English well enough for typical interactions. Finding a spiritual place was important for her because throughout her life she has experienced depression, and continues to fight her battles today. She says, “You have to be courageous to live. You have to be very, very persistent.”

The appearance: Monique has always been a beautiful woman. These are pictures of photographs taken by one of her old friends. She used to model her hands and legs because she said she, “just couldn’t make faces,” but these were just for their own fun. When she was sitting at her vanity (pictured previously) she picked up a Dior bottle and said, “I love Dior!” and then a Kroger, grocery store brand, moisturizer and said, “But I only use the cheap brands of moisturizer.” She explained how when she was younger she would try to “preserve” as she patted her neck and cheeks gently, but that her mother was a very simple woman. She says now she simply uses Kroger lotion and has all the wrinkles she was trying to prevent anyway. I told her I think what she used to use might have worked because she still looked so good, and she replied with, “It’s the face of the heart that shows.”

The business: Now, Monique runs the Armstrong Inns bed and breakfast business constantly getting reminders and memos from her well treated staff; checking in guests mid-day, and taking multiple phone calls. Her loving husband William also continues to care for her and help manage the business. Gone are the days of her lavish city life, but she speaks of her life now so highly and with new wisdom. At the end of one of our last visits with her she told us, “You see it’s all about life. Art of Living. That’s my art.” She is pictured here in her “cooking outfit” doing all three mentioned jobs as we made a dip that consisted of spinach, artichokes, love, and a few hours worth of interruptions.

“It is scary, a new life, but it is a life. It’s wonderful. Here in Savannah I am in the right place. I just know it.”

“I have come a long way.”

-Monique Armstrong