Carter Roy (13:17)
In the fall of 1953, 23 year old Joan Risch went to a Harvard football game with her friend Ann Ellsworth. Ann was dating a law student there and invited Joan along. It was supposed to be a casual day out, a chance to get away from New York for a bit, maybe meet a few people. But Ann also had something else in mind. She wanted to set Joan up on a blind date. Ann's boyfriend knew someone who might Be a good match for Joan. 24 year old Martin Risch, a student at Harvard Business School. The four of them met up and went to the game together. Before they even found their seats, Joan was already smitten. Soon after meeting Martin, Joan wrote her aunt a letter saying she wanted to go back to Harvard and see him again. She said she'd met the man she wanted to marry. Luckily, the feeling was mutual. Just a few weeks later, Martin asked her to visit him at school. This second trip seemed sealed the deal. Afterwards, neither of them wanted to see anyone else. They were focused on each other and making their new relationship work. But that didn't mean things were easy. Martin still had to finish school in Boston and Joan was working full time in New York. For nearly two years they did long distance. When Joan had a free weekend, she went back to Harvard. And if Martin was able to get away from his studies, he came to the city to see Joan. They wrote each other letters in between. Keeping the spark alive. Sometimes Martin would surprise Joan at her office, showing up at the end of the day to take her to dinner. They spent long evenings talking about politics and religion. Other nights they sat together quietly reading side by side in comfortable silence. They truly seemed like a perfect match. Joan was thoughtful and reserved, while Martin was ambitious and steady. Together, they just made sense. Their friends and family couldn't have been more supportive and they couldn't wait to see what the couple did next. In 1955, 25 year old Martin graduated from Harvard and accepted a position as a sales executive in New York. Meanwhile, 25 year old Joan continued to climb the corporate ladder at Harcourt, Brayson World. She'd proven herself over the last few years and her boss spoke very highly of her. He said Joan was industrious and very bright and that she had a knack for managing people. Now that she and Martin were living in the same city and their careers were on the right track, they decided it was time to take the next step. At the end of 1955, they found an apartment in Brooklyn Heights and signed a lease. A few weeks later, the day after Christmas, the couple got married on Long Island. In January of 1956, they moved into their new apartment and settled into married life. By then, Martin had taken a new sales job at another New York company and Joan's career was moving forward too. Later that summer, her boss left Harcourt for a different publishing company called Thomas Y. Crowell Company. He asked Joan to come with him and she accepted a role as the editorial assistant to the director of the College Book Division. Joan was exactly where she wanted to be. Working in publishing, surrounded by books, well respected and only gaining more responsibility. But less than a year later, everything changed. In 1957, 27 year old Joan gave birth to a daughter named Lilly. After her arrival, Joan decided to leave her job and become a stay at home mom. Joan was thrilled to have a child, but it was also a major shift. Suddenly she was changing diapers instead of making book deals. And it wasn't the only big change she experienced that year. Around the same time, Joan and Martin decided to move out of the city. They settled in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where they'd have more space for their growing family. Martin's commute to work was manageable, less than an hour each way. And it just felt like being in Ridgefield was the logical next step. Especially because a year later, in 1959, they welcomed their second child, a son named David. It seemed like Joan was adapting well to motherhood, and she was attentive, organized and deeply involved in her children's lives, all while keeping up her own hobbies and interests. She still read constantly, mostly a mix of romantic early English, history and mystery novels, and even did some writing herself. She also liked going to museums when she could, and developed an interest in bird watching. Most of the people who knew her thought Joan had fully embraced her role as a homemaker. She made friends with neighbors. She was warm, thoughtful and well liked. But some of her older friends were skeptical. They had a feeling that Joan missed her career more than she let on and thought she might have been restless or even possibly resentful that she'd given it up. Joan herself seemed to think the situation didn't have to be permanent. She talked about returning to work someday, once her children were older. Maybe she would become an English teacher, sharing her love of reading with the next generation. But for now, she was focused on raising Lillian and David. Then, just as she was starting to feel settled, Martin got a promotion. With that came a transfer to the Massachusetts office 50 miles outside of Boston. Joan had only just begun to feel anchored in Connecticut. Now she was being asked to leave a place she loved and a network of friends and family she relied on. In April 1961, Joan and Martin packed up their lives and moved to Lincoln, Massachusetts, an affluent suburb of of Boston. They found a two story home on Old Bedford Road, a narrow winding street that branched off from a nearby two lane highway. They bought the house for $27,500 and the equivalent of just under 300,000 today. It was a really nice home, perfect for a Young family, Joan Martin began the slow process of settling in. They unpacked boxes, learned the rhythms of the new place, and introduced themselves to some of their neighbors. William and Barbara Barker lived across the street and also had young children, three kids under the age of six. Almost immediately, Lillian formed a bond with the Barker son, Douglas, who was also four years old. The two became fast friends, friends playing together in backyards and living rooms. As a result, the families were friendly. Joan and Barbara started helping each other out, with the kids watching them while the other ran errands or took some much needed alone time. But they weren't close per se. But luckily, Joan did have someone she felt she could truly confide in. One of Joan's old college friends, Sabra Morton, had also recently moved to the Boston area, and the two reconnected. The reunion was a comfort Joan hadn't realized she needed. Although their lives had changed a lot since college, they still had plenty in common. Both Sabra and Joan were now married with kids. Their conversations ranged from pregnancy and parenting to books, religion, and their shared love of bird watching. For Joan, Sabra was a godsend. Joan was friendly and kind, but she wasn't someone who made new friends easily. She was still that introverted girl inside, cautious and reserved. People loved her once they got to know her, but she didn't open up quickly. With Sabra, that wasn't an issue. Joan told Sabra about the things that were bothering her. She struggled with sleep. She worried constantly about whether she was doing enough as a mother. She held herself to incredibly high standards and felt anxious when she fell short. None of this was necessarily alarming. It sounded like the concerns of a young woman navigating motherhood in a new place. By the fall of 1961, Joan had been living in Lincoln for just over six months. She was still adjusting and learning the ins and outs of the town, still trying to balance who she had been with who she was becoming. And then, one ordinary October morning, everything changed. Suddenly, Joan's own life became a mystery that rivaled the ones she read in her books.
