Scent of the Past From Estee Lauder

Growing up in the borough of Queens in the early ‘40s, one of the first memories I have is of my mother wearing Estee Lauder perfume, its sweet smell wafting through the apartment (obituary, April 26). And, when I became a teenager in the ‘50s, that was the first perfume I chose. My tastes changed over the years, and it was not until 2001 when, visiting my dying Aunt Millie in Houston and asking her what she would like me to bring her-- and she asked for Estee Lauder--that I again smelled the sweetness of Youth Dew.

Like Proust’s madeleines, memories of close to 60 years ago in that apartment in Queens flooded my consciousness. Aunt Millie, the last of three sisters, died two months later; my mother died in 1968 and Aunt Charlotte in 2000, but it was that smell of Youth Dew that connected me with all of them and the years between.

Carole Merritt

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