October PrepMo 2015

Minor #1 Character Background Story

Sherman Danbury was the third child of Franklin and Rosalie Danbury, born in 1901. He was eight months old when his parents moved into 13 Curves. He had already moved out by the time his parents had perished in an automobile accident. He had moved to New York City where a friend of his from college (Yale), had a great business idea. It has sense become one of the more prominent businesses in New York City. He was 26 when he’d moved to New York City and it would be a few years later when a beautiful socialite would catch his eye. Her name was Ava Rupert and he would meet her at a party thrown by her bank owner father, Harold Rupert. It was 1931, Sherman 30 years old and Ava was 21. He was entirely taken with her. They would court for almost eight months before he proposed and she accepted. Her father was overjoyed (duly to the fact that Sherman Danbury was already a wealthy man and was on the up and up with his business venture) at the man Ava was to marry. On April 30, 1932, Sherman and Ava would marry in an extravagant wedding (Sherman had allowed Ava full control over the wedding plans) in an old church.

They would eventually move to a large estate outside of the city, to what Sherman had always called a proper family home. It was huge with 15 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and five acres of property to go with it. They would live here until 1946, when Sherman would fall in love with the Florida Keys on a family vacation. It would be an even larger home, with 20 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms and was built right on the beach. Sherman felt as if it was a gift to himself after his business grew to the point where he didn’t need to be on site every day.

Sherman and Ava would go on to have thirteen children before Ava would die in childbirth at 46 years old. Sherman would marry Helen Allegheny 18 months later and they would go to have two sons. Out of Sherman’s first marriage, their first son, Pierce, would go on to take over Sherman’s business when Sherman suffered a stroke, which would eventually lead to his death in 1979. Pierce would move back to New York City and was labeled as CEO.

Pierce was considering the life of bachelorhood, but under pressure from his ailing father, he set out to find a wife and ironically the woman he would later marry, bumped into him at the super market. Violet Rathburn was a pediatric nurse and came from a slightly upper-middle class family. They seemingly hit it off and got married in 1974, his father in attendance.

They would go on to have five children before Violet herself would die in childbirth in 1981. He would go onto marry Scarlett Hubbard, a socialite, in 1982, have four children before their divorce in 1990. Nearly a year and a half later, Pierce would begin seeing Ava Maxwell, a daughter of one of his step-mother’s friends, who ironically enough he actually enjoyed having a relationship with. They would marry in 1992, a few months after realizing Ava was pregnant.

They would go to have six children and remain married to this day.

Oscar Clarence Danbury, Pierce’s third child with Violet, always felt entitled, no matter how often either of his parents tried to change it. He was a very sweet child without a harmful bone in his body, but he was very much a rich child. He grew up with servants who did his laundry and cooked his food, took care of his plates and drove him to school. He never had any responsibilities except to be a child. It also didn’t help that his older brother, Theodore, was the heir apparent and had been shaped and molded and trained in responsibility and respect.

A lot of Oscar’s emotional and mental well being have a lot to do with the atmosphere in which he grew up. There was a lot of pressure on Pierce from his father to be who Sherman wanted him to be. It was as if he was the first born as both Ella and Brenna were hardly ever around while he grew up. Oscar was only two when his mother died and when his step-mother came into the picture, there were nannies and wet-nurses who seemingly took over responsibilities. His step-mother only seemed to crave the wealth that the Danbury’s had and not much else. She didn’t care for Pierce’s children and bore him four children out of duty before she divorced him in 1990 and was not only out of his life, but her children’s as well.

When Ava came into Oscar’s life, he was thirteen years old and on the cusp of manhood. He was rebellious and entitled and did as he chose. He went to Yale out of high school at his father’s behest and graduated at the top of his class with his Business degree. Not that Oscar would ever do much with it. He hated the rigid and structured lifestyle his father wanted for him and craved the love he never received from his father and was only got from his mother for a very short time.

In the short three months after high school and before he would go to Yale, he would spark a very hot and tumultuous relationship with Kayla Victory-Scott. It was never serious to Oscar, but regardless, it sparked a pregnancy. Kayla was also seventeen at the point and also very upper middle-class. Kayla fought to keep the child in hopes that it would also keep Oscar. It didn’t. Kayla would give birth to their son, Tobias Anthony Danbury on February 10, 1996. Oscar would visit Tobias as often as he could during his time at college and once he’d graduated and had his own house, Oscar sued for and attained visitation rights for Tobias.

Around this same time, Oscar married a girl from college, named Stacy Brockport, with whom he’d shared a lot of classes and spent a lot of time with. Eventually, they dated for three years before marrying the summer after graduating from college in 2000. They had a very rocky and emotionally tumultuous marriage which only lasted three years. They would have a daughter 9 months after their wedding, Ella Giovanna, born March 21, 2001. Stacy had expected more from Oscar, but he seemed so aloof. He would leave for hours and come home having done really nothing and expect sex in the evenings.

The day after Ella’s first birthday, Stacy moved out of their town home and went to live with her mother. This scared Oscar as Stacy wouldn’t allow him to see Ella and he went and professed his love and apologized to Stacy. Eventually, Stacy moved back and things were okay for a little while. Stacy became pregnant at the end of the year and by the time she was six months along, she had moved out for good and filed for divorce. She would give birth to a son, Caleb Silas, on September 3, 2003.

Again, Oscar would take Stacy to court and attain visitation rights to his children. Two years later, Oscar would meet Lily Wilcox, a socialite daughter of his step-mother’s friend. They would date for nearly a year before Oscar would ask Lily to marry him and they would be married in the backyard of Lily’s family home. This would be Oscar’s longest marriage to date. A few months after marriage, Lily would discover she was pregnant. On December 3, 2007, Ashton Dwight Danbury would enter the world. In the beginning, married life for the Danburys would be okay. Oscar was a great father (something all of the women in Oscar’s life would agree on) and he would help with some other duties.

Ten months later, Lily would find she was pregnant for a second time. Carmen Skyla Danbury was born June 30, 2008 and for a short while, life seemed perfect. Oscar would seemingly go back to his old ways, staying out late and being gone, often for days. It wouldn’t be until Lily would find herself pregnant for a third time before she would confront Oscar about it and threatened to take the children and leave. For the next year, Oscar worked at being a good husband and father and did well. Everett Patrick was born on January 26, 2009 and it would be shortly after his birth that Oscar would again go to his old ways and Lily would file for divorce, becoming official on Everett’s first birthday.

Oscar would meet his next wife at a party and they basically knew each other 72 hours before getting married. Janice Colby was nine years younger than Oscar and had found him absolutely fascinating. The marriage lasted 8 months and they filed divorce in November of 2013.

During the next two years, Oscar would often spent time in Europe, visiting France and visiting ancestral sites and places, only coming home on holidays and the birthdays of his children. Ironically, while in Paris, he would visit a fashion show. Entirely on a whim, he watched the show in its entirety and one of the models caught his eye. Lauren Appleby, 24 years old, and after he asked her for coffee, realized that she was as intelligent as she was beautiful. It had amazed him.

Fortunately for Oscar, Lauren had an apartment in upper Manhattan only a few blocks away from the town home Oscar owned. Whenever Lauren was home, they would spend as much time together as possible. Mostly, they would talk. Talk about history or the future, science or movies, books or music, anything and everything.

For the first time Oscar was actually terrified of the feelings he had for Lauren. He was terrified about bringing his children around her, knowing that this was a serious relationship. What would they think of her? Would they like her? Would she like them? What about his family? When had he never given a shit what someone else thought of his family?

Over the next year, Oscar and Lauren would fall in love and she would move into Oscar’s town home. Oscar would often take time to go to all of Lauren’s shows and photo shoots. He seemed rather mesmerized about it all. In April of 2015, he would buy a ring. For once, he didn’t just buy the most expensive ring the store had, instead he went out of his way to find a jeweler that created unique and custom jewelry and had something made for her. It took him three weeks to muster the courage and was awarded with an emotional yes.

On August 15, 2015, Oscar and Lauren had an intimate wedding in France in a floral garden just outside of Paris. Oscar’s siblings, their families and his children were there as was Lauren’s parents and her siblings. They would remain in Paris for a month before coming back to the states, where they currently reside.