(Photo courtesy of Anne Marie Santos.) My Mother was Lu Anne, the model for “Marylou” in On the Road. She is known to most of the literary world as Lu Anne Henderson, although she was born Cora Lu Anne Bullard. She also had the surnames Cassady, Murphy, Catechi, and Skonecki. Each one of these names represents a husband: Neal Cassady, Ray Murphy, Sam Catechi, and Bob Skonecki. But each also represents a different time in her life. Even more than that, they really were clear and separate lives—each having the joys and sorrows of love found and lost. Mother always spoke with love and kindness of all of these men with whom she shared her life, though in later years she would reflect on the hardships she endured while living with some of them. All of these husbands—including eventually even Ray Murphy, from whom she’d initially had to hide for a couple of years after their divorce—remained loving toward her, just as almost all the people she met throughout her life remained her friends.
