LETTERS

Re “Cleo Trumbo, 1916-2009: Wife of Oscar-winning blacklisted writer,” Obituary, Oct. 18

Thanks for your sensitive and revealing obituary of Cleo Trumbo, describing her role in the long marriage between a young carhop and a famous and blacklisted screenwriter as “making sure that we were all OK and in really keeping the family together” (their daughter’s words).

I recall Trumbo’s own appreciation of Cleo: “that wonderful woman without whose agile footwork from kitchen to laundry to nursery to sickbed to market ... the author couldn’t possibly have become what he certainly is ... she has filled his heart, home, life, world, universe.”

Yes, and long after he had died, she stood up for him and eloquently spoke up for him and the constitutional principles he defended, as you described.

Joe Wyatt

Pasadena