The Woman Behind the Name: Our Aunt Bess
The name Bess honors studio founder Christy Mack’s great aunt. Bess was a unifier, caretaker and maker and a constant reminder good can originate from anyone, anywhere.
Bess the studio is Christy’s platform for doing what she loves – strategically and creatively helping clients launch their good into the world so they can make their impact. She wanted a studio name that would embody her purpose and honor what got her here, and Bess couldn’t be a more perfect, or fitting, name.
About Bess
Bessie Falk, known to everyone who loved her as Bess, lived her entire life in Ellenville, New York – a village at the eastern base of New York’s Catskill Mountains. Bess cherished her family, friends and community. Caring for people as well as her home marked Bess’s life, a full 88 years.
Christy’s mother Carole was in her early twenties when her own mother passed away. Afterwards, Bess became a central maternal figure in her life. Carole often drove with Christy and her sister Jill in their frog green Ford LTD to visit Bess and her husband Uncle Bill in their century old downtown duplex. It was a trip they all looked forward to over and over again.
Aunt Bess was thoughtful in how she set up her home. Christy shares, “Aunt Bess and Uncle Bill’s small duplex (just five rooms total!) had a distinct fifties feel. Outside was a long, welcoming front porch. Inside was uncluttered and decorated with furnishings like a retro, marble kitchen table with aluminum legged chairs, bold flower patterned curtains, and ceramic table lamps.”
Bess cared for everyone who entered her home. Christy’s mother Carole tells us, “The door to her duplex was always open. My conversations with Aunt Bess were special. She listened. Her unwavering attention always made me feel like the most important person in the world.”
Long talks occurred in Bess’s kitchen that doubled as a dining room. She often brewed A&P Eight O’Clock coffee in a Pyrex glass percolator and served it piping hot in mismatched mugs from the local Five and Dime with warm cherry drop cookies on the side. If you arrived later in the afternoon, Aunt Bess would serve up New York’s famous Knickerbocker beer or Whiskey Highballs (for the adults, of course) with Wise potato chips. Bess’s pot roast with potato salad was a supper classic.
Aunt Bess wasn’t just present for those who came to her home. She never missed a birthday, anniversary, first communion, or graduation celebration. She wore her most stylish suits for these occasions – even if the occasion was in a country yard.
“I was particularly drawn to this gorgeous, light lavender suit Aunt Bess would pair with her soft print, floral tie-neck blouse and oval, tortoise shell sunglasses.” Christy continues, “I have an old photo of her wearing this outfit for Jill’s first communion, happily sitting next to Uncle Bill in an emerald green webbed vintage lawn chair in the gravel driveway of our New York childhood home. I was so enamored with the feeling captured in the photo that I made her vintage style and lavender suit hue part of the studio’s brand identity.”
Bess’s way of being extended into her community. She spent her life volunteering. For years Bess cooked lunches for local elementary, middle and high-school children, and served dinner to seniors at her town’s Reformed Church. She cared for the sick too; Bess was a long-time member of the Ellenville Community Hospital Auxiliary.
During the creation of the studio, Christy discovered through family research that Bess and Bill rented their duplex for years until they saved enough money to purchase it.
Instead of converting the duplex into a larger home for their family, Bess continued to live downstairs with Bill and her daughter, Susie, in their small five-room space. Bess rented the duplex upstairs to immigrant families, providing them an affordable place to call home.
Caretaking marked Aunt Bess’s life. Christy smiles, “And so, yes, Bess’s big heart is captured in the Bess brand too. Caring beautifully for everything and everyone.”
Christy couldn’t be happier that Aunt Bess’s cherry drop cookie recipe fell out from her well-worn, navy recipe binder that late November day, sparking the idea for the studio’s name. It feels meant to be.