R S V P / ORANGE COUNTY : Woman of ‘Means’ Shares Letter to Future Family

It was one from the heart when Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey addressed book lovers at a meeting of Round Table West at the Balboa Bay Club on Monday.

At the Valentine’s Day-themed luncheon, the author of “A Woman of Independent Means”--a 1978 best-selling novel that told a tale through family letters--shared her “last letter,” one she will leave in a safe for her children, to be read after her death.

“My grandmother left a letter in her safe to be read after she died,” Hailey explained. “And it occurred to me that I would love to do the same. . . .I don’t know if it will ever be published,” she said.

She read: “My dearest family, now and future, this letter is undated because I want you to read it as if it were written yesterday.

“I pray that I am writing this years--even decades--before my death. I will not tell you my age at this moment because I find more and more that any chronological measure irrelevant.”

Hailey went on to tell her children that, in life, “We must accept events in the inevitably random order that they present themselves and to rejoice in the knowledge that we seldom know in advance what each day will bring.

“But that doesn’t mean we should become passive spectators in our lives,” she cautioned.

“We cannot control most of what happens to us, but we alone have the power to decide how we will respond to what life inflicts.”

Then she proposed a challenge: “Take one step each day beyond simply maintaining your life as you lived it the day before . . . create your future one day at a time.”

Hailey said she was grateful that the book, written the year she turned 40, was enjoying a rebirth. The paperback has been reissued with a cover picture of actress Sally Field, who stars in the six-hour NBC mini-series beginning Sunday.

Last summer, the author went on location with Field to Houston, where the production was filmed. Hailey didn’t write the screenplay, she said, but she loved hanging out with the stars, sharing the excitement. “I was kind of like a grandmother who stays for the fun and then goes home when the work gets too tough.”

Hailey originally planned to write a book about the frustration of womanhood; she wanted to call it “Letters from a Runaway Wife.” But her husband convinced her to do otherwise.

“He asked me, ‘Why don’t you write about a woman who didn’t have to leave home to become liberated?’ A woman like my grandmother,” she said.

She thought that was a good idea. But she decided to hang onto the letter format.

“Letters have always come easy to me,” she explained. “And I think they are enjoying a comeback. On Internet, people are writing letters and falling in love without even seeing the other person’s face.”

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Philharmonic Design House: It was souffle in a mansion with no walls on Sunday when members of the Orange County Philharmonic Society met for brunch to celebrate its upcoming House of Design fund-raiser.

About 400 philharmonic boosters toured the under-construction Pelican Hill home that will be featured during the annual home tour beginning April 22.

Greeting guests at the 6,500-square-foot French Mediterranean digs were owners John and Sandy Miller, who plan to put Chateau Sur La Mer up for sale once it is decorated by a team of 19 Orange County designers. For tour information, call (714) 840-7542. Proceeds will benefit music education programs for Orange County youths.