Remembering my Brother Kenn

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Kenneth Goutal - 1952 - 2009

My brother Kenneth died following a complicated heart surgery at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, early on November 25, 2009. He was 57 years old. He leaves behind Martha Goutal, his beloved wife of 32 years, and three children- Abigail (30), Elizabeth (27) and Timothy (19) along with many family members and friends.

>> Click Here to See Some Photos of Kenn as a Child and as an Adult <<

He was the son of André and Beatrice Goutal and lived in Scarsdale, NY until he was 2 years old when the family moved to a 5 acre property in Walpole, MA with an old falling apart house and barn. This was to be the dream home of the Goutals and they set about remodeling at once. But one year later, everything changed. It was the summer of the national polio epidemic, just before large scale vaccinations, and our mother contracted the disease and died within a few days (August 10, 1955). This not only devastated our 54 year old father, but each of us children- Kenn who was only 3, myself -Richard- who was 9, and our big sister Paulette who was not quite 16.

Dad was a regional sales representative for Revlon and was expected to be traveling regularly to visit distributors. In order for him to work, a succession of relatives and various hired live-in housekeepers managed “the children.” It was not a good time for the kids, and work on the property was no longer a grand plan for Dad, but a burden. This led to a move to a smaller but modern house in nearby Westwood during the summer of 1957 when Kenn was 5 and just entering school.

During that school year, unknown to us kids, Dad had been proposing marriage to a Revlon colleague, Bernice Reed Bowen. On February 19, 1958 they were married. It was Dad’s intention to make “all things new and better” so it was arranged for Bernice to adopt Kenn (and myself) so that we would ever after refer to her as “Mom” and not “step-mom.” For years afterward there was no further mention of Beatrice. Bernice stepped into the role of Mom at 46 years old with no previous experience and did a pretty good job of it.

But the chaos at home during Kenn’s formative years made transition to the normal life our parents desired very difficult. At the time, I was not aware how difficult it was for Kenn.  Being 6 years older, my focus was all about the wonders of junior high school, while Kenn was struggling to find himself in Grade 1. Mom found it easier to deal with me, but Kenn’s difficulties and undiagnosed sensitivities overwhelmed her capabilities. She showered us with gifts and fun activities, but she was pretty much no-nonsense when it came to behavior. Neither my father nor mother knew how to fill the void in Kenn.

During these years, though there was an age difference, I remember most the play times with Kenn. This included model railroading; we combined his American Flyer set with my Lionel set and built our “dream layout.” It included running around the backyard and the woods across the street playing cops and robbers or cowboys with neighborhood friends. It included family trips to Williamsburg and to visit Mom’s family in Randolph, New York.

Mom came into our home and brought a more committed level of religion and faith than our father had. This led to life-long conflicts between the two of them. It also led to completely different experiences for both Kenn and myself. I guess my 14 year old mind was able to sort the mind-boggling input of Biblical ideas into sensible compartments without much emotion or sensibility… so much so that I was ready to take on Dad as my first mission-field after I “accepted Christ as my Savior” through the religious activities that Mom brought into my life.  Kenn was much younger and inputs such as that which he received from me or a Christian camp he attended resulted in mental confusion and a mix of scary emotions that stayed with him for many years. I think Kenn analyzed all of this in his later adult years found his own real level of faith.

I think of Kenn as a person of many interests and an abiding curiosity.

In high school, Kenn found a source of both new ideas and friends that came from association with the audio-visual club. I also remember that his life-long fascination for calligraphy and writing poetry began in high school. He had a very wide and odd assortment of reading interests. Consider for example that he memorized sections of Hamlet and also read Asey Mayo mysteries written in the 1920s about a Cape Cod sleuth. (OK, I enjoyed Asey Mayo too!)

Beginning then and throughout life, Kenn had many interests which he pursued in meticulous ways. He taught himself to play the guitar and he wrote songs. He liked certain forms of gaming and learned all he could about, for example, D&D. His choice of books and movies included humor, mystery, fantasy, ideas, and science fiction. He thought a lot about how these interests impacted and changed him. He even catalogued these thoughts on a web page he called simply “Influences.”

Like Kenn, my interest in model railroading stemmed from my childhood. But where I dabbled in it once in a while, preferring the larger (O-gauge and HO-gauge) trains with a clear connection to my youth, Kenn got serious about it after 1984 by building trains, joining model railroading clubs, and even creating many N-Gauge hobbyist web pages.

My interest in trains is strong but general and nostalgic; Kenn’s was detailed and focused. He could describe the workings of a particular Budd engine or the rail routes used by a now defunct New England regional freight railroad. He always had some good railroading tales and information to stoke my nostalgia. I always wanted to go on a long distance train ride with him; that is one of the things cut off forever.

I also think of Kenn as unconventional, but that is probably just my jaded point of view.

I graduated from college and chose a known field with a clear path to entry- public school teaching. Kenn took courses from Gordon College and from the University of Massachusetts, spent a lot of time learning state of the art tech information in the computer center at both schools, and left to find employment in a variety of geek niches that I still don’t understand. Today everyone has a computer (well, more or less). But Kenn was doing computers when it was unconventional. He was doing the internet when it was still in it’s infancy as ARPAnet, Telenet, and whatall else. I never even heard of it until the start of “dot-coms.”

Kenn with Mystery Author Lisa Scottoline at Crimebake 2006

I started using a Mac, my first computer, in 1985, and that is all I have used; before and after that date, Kenn used a host of historic computers that I have never heard of –with assorted wintel machines last on his list. Macs have typically been a closed system and did not interest him much. Not so long ago I told him I was using the popular GoDaddy servers for hosting my sites; he said he had little use for those kinds of outfits and always stuck to mv communications, whatever that is. Like I said, Kenn didn’t rely on what’s “popular” or “conventional” – I cannot think of any one way to define what he liked, but these were factors: amusing, symmetrical, quirky, simple, utilitarian, quiet.

As a play on words, Kenn’s interest in attending conventions was unconventional. He didn’t like the huge sensory overload of hundreds of voices and the hurly burly that went with that; in fact, it could make him ill. Still he loved the information one could learn, the loose fact added to his knowledge storehouse. So he steeled himself and went anyway. He went to many model train conventions; photography conventions; just a few months back he went to a computer collector’s convention; and he went with me to a mystery writer’s convention in 2006. Spending time with Kenn that weekend at a hotel in Lowell is something I will prize for a long while. I only regret that we will never get to collaborate on a great book idea we cooked up.

I also think of Kenn as a Go-Giver.

I wrote about that last June when Kenn gave his time to a group of homeless people in Salem who wanted the help of a photographer. But Kenn was willing to help and share what he knew with anyone who asked. Hopped down to Atlanta to help our sister. Always took time to research answers to my dumb computer questions.

Kenn had strong opinions about how life worked, but the opinions were not the sort that were judgmental.  In the last few years, I would often chat with him online about politics, marketing, family issues, and items of nostalgic interest to both of us. I felt comfortable confiding concerns to him.

I never heard Kenn say a negative thing about his kids. Sure, he knew they made mistakes, but that wasn’t what he ever talked about behind their backs. He was their supporter and cheerleader and I know they will miss him (along with his seriously corny jokes).

We will all miss Kenn.

It seems absolutely surreal to be talking with Kenn in the hospital about trains, family, films, and reminiscences one day– and then to have him go under surgery and die practically the next day. That and images of Kenn’s relative calm as he faced poor survival odds and Martha’s incredible 3 weeks of support to him shall remain with me for the rest of my days.

>> Click Here to See Some Photos of Kenn as a Child and as an Adult <<