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Meet Anne Fleming Brooke
by Dorothy West

She has a cool elegance that becomes her and complements her candor. The interviewer's eye is rewarded but no entangled. It is what she says that matters. She presents herself in an absolutely straightforward manner. You do not know, the proud look communicates. The look holds firm. This is who I am. 

She is the new Mrs. Edward Brooke, born Anne Fleming on the island of St. Martin in the French West Indies. Her father, who was mayor of St. Martin for 25 years, died before she was born and left her a legacy of self-assurance. Her mother, Mrs. L.C. Fleming, is an entrepreneur, a woman of style and substance who is generally referred to as the grand lady of the island. Anne's older brother is his mother's associate in their business enterprises.

St. Martin's population is equally divided between French and Dutch descendants, but English is the language spoken in all daily contacts. Anne's English has the faintest trace of the lilting West Indian accent, which her listener hears and she does not. Though her charming English is to her own liking, her husband is occasionally disturbed by her syntax and offers her a gratuitious but well-intentioned lesson on grammatical construction.

French was her mother tongue, English came close on its heels and was regularly spoke at home, Many other languages have followed. Though she was born on the French side of St. Martin, her pre-college schooling was on the Dutch side, which had the only convent school on the island. Though English was not spoke in class, the students spoke English after school. Her college years were spent at the University of Montreal, where French was the language of instruction, and where, as her mother wished, her French would be perfected and spoken with the grace it deserved. She earned a bachelor's degree in languages.

It was during her college years that Edward Brooke met her mother and brother in St. Martin. But he was not to met Anne until some few years later. She was Mrs. Laflamme then, on a visit home from Canada, where she and her husband were living. It was 1971, and Edward Brooke owned a lovely retreat in St. Martin. His invitations were out for a party for his mother, Mrs. Helen Brooke, who was his house guest from Washington. When he learned that Mrs. Flemings' daughter Anne was a new arrival, he included her in his invitation to her family.

At the party each undoubtedly thought the other attractive, but there were many people and many impressions, and as host Edward was everywhere, and as a returning member of a well-known family, Anne too was swept from group to group. They did not meet again until 1975, and again in St. Martin, Anne's three-year old daughter, Melanie, was with her. But her marriage had not been successful, and she had come home to examine her feelings about herself and to assess her faults and virtues.

Her marriage had had fragile roots that could not search out common ground to settle in. She and Mr. Laflamme were two unlike people, never reaching agreement in the things that make for a permanent bonding.

With Edward, as their friendship expanded and strengthened, each saw his private self reflected in the other. In their ways and in their words there was a startling identity. Anne discovered that she and Edward were both Scorpios, their October birthdays only two days apart. That is, she believes, what makes their relationship work.

Courtesy of Vineyard Gazette

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