LONGHOUSE RESERVE | Reopening

Who is that masked visitor behind the King? (Alice Tepper Marlin at the
Yoko Ono chess board, LongHouse Reserve. Photo by JT Marlin. 

June 20, 2020—LongHouse Reserve is the top attraction in East Hampton. It has been closed during the coronavirus scourge. 

Now it is reopening, in stages. It's now open Wednesdays and Saturdays, with limited visiting hours, reservations required and  timed visits of 75 minutes. Only half the parking spaces are being used, to allow social distancing. Masks are required.

Four of us went today to see recent changes. I described our visit there in 2014 as part of a mini-reunion in the lead-up to the 50th Reunion of the Wellesley Class of 1966. We go back pretty much every year and it's always a new experience because new sculptures are added, old ones are moved around and the landscaping is always changing.

Cross in the Pond. This is reminiscent of the 9/11 memorial pool in New York
City. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Loehr, who was with us on the visit.

The interlude when the coronavirus kept everyone away was used to good effect by bringing the landscaping to an even higher level of perfection than we have seen in earlier years.

Fly Vision, 360. Photo courtesy of
Caroline Tepper-Marlin. 

Some of the sculptures seemed to be new, but were possibly there in previous years but I overlooked them. At left is one with the photographer looking back from a pole full of convex mirrors. It gave me the feeling of looking at the eye of a fly.

My favorite sculpture was and is Yoko Ono's colorless chess set.  It's a No-Logo experience, i.e., blank battle standards, borderless territory. With no way of being sure who The Enemy is or where the borders are, the game loses its point. Which is... The point. Imagine. The Fog of Peace.

Which reminds me that Paul McCartney celebrated his 78th birthday on Thursday. Happy Birthday, Sir Paul.

SONNETS TO MATURITY | by Shakespeare and Brigid

Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold 

by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’ d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

(Public Domain) 

Sonnet to John and Alice by Brigid Marlin 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves do drop and mess the floor

I cling to wraps, as I do shake with cold.

I wonder if, perhaps, I'm getting old?

My voice doth croak when sweet I wish to sing

The twilight of my looks is quite a sting;

As I sit faded in the ever-rainy day,

The ashes of my fire are turning gray. 

The fire that Father wished to light up in our belly,

A fierce ambition, is now but turned to jelly.

Still, a new fire flickers from the jel, 

That wakes me from my dolorous spell.

It is the flame that burns for all my kin and friends,

I love them more, knowing ere long it ends. 

(© 2019 by Brigid Marlin) 

HARRY TRUMAN | Lauren Bacall

At Truman's piano, under framed photo of Bacall.
Photo by L Feinberg.

February 24, 2019–I visited the National Press Club last week.  

The Club still has the piano that President Truman was playing when Lauren Bacall was sitting atop it, on February 10, 1945. 

On a visit to the National Press Club in Washington to entertain members of the armed services, Bacall sat on the top of a piano while Vice President Harry S. Truman played some music.

Lauren Bacall (L) and President Truman,
Feb. 10, 1945. Photo by Charlie Enfield.

The photo series got even more attention when Truman became president later that year, after the death of FDR. 

The idea for the photos came from Bacall’s press agent, Charlie Enfield, who was also the publicity chief at her movie studio, Warner Bros. He prompted her to pose with Truman.

I reenacted the scene with my college contemporary, Larry Feinberg. Instead of sitting on the piano, we let the Bacall-Truman photo do that work and Larry was the photographer. Feinberg was on the staff of the Harvard Crimson and went on to work for the Washington Post for many years before leading research for the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It was Harry Truman who famously recommended to Washington newcomers: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Alice and I have a dog, a hero dog, Hachikō (see https://nyctimetraveler.blogspot.com/2016/05/hero-dog-is-hachiko-part-wookiee.html).

THE WOODIN CUPS | Where the Trophies Are Now

Alice Tepper Marlin with the gold Woodin

 Singles Cup. Thanks to the ITHF for
 showing the cups and permission to 
post photo (by JT Marlin).

NEWPORT, R.I., September 29, 2018 —Yesterday, after lunch at Castle Hill in Newport, Alice and I visited the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF) with classmates.

The ITHF led us on a one-hour tour arranged for Portsmouth Abbey School alumni attending our 60th reunion.


The tour was ably led by ITHF docent Liz Morancy, who was a fount of information about tennis history. 

The ITHF wisely encourages photos (how else can people learn what a great place it is to visit?), but does not allow videos, or taking photos with flash.


The Solid-Gold Woodin Cups

By special advance arrangement, after the tour, Alice and I were taken backstage, upstairs to the Information Research Center that houses the museum’s library, archives, and staff offices. The Curator of Collections, Nicole Markham then kindly showed us the Woodin Gold Cups, which were brought from a secure place for the occasion.

These trophies were awarded in 1926-1949 by the Maidstone Club, East Hampton, N.Y., in an annual invitational tournament for women. Top-ranked women players were invited to come to East Hampton to compete on the Maidstone Club grass courts for the cups.

The smaller Woodin Doubles Cup is
one of two, each valued in 1926 at
$2,000 ($30,000 today). The larger
Singles Cup may be worth $100,000.

Since 2016, when I first wrote about the Woodin Cups (https://bit.ly/2NPj1qA), I have been eager to locate and look at the cups. They were of unusually high value and were of great significance in signaling in the 1920s that women's tennis tournaments should be given the same level of respect as the men's. 

They were the only solid-gold cups offered as prizes in any tennis tournament, men's or women's. 

The pineapple-topped Wimbledon gold cups for men, for example, are not solid gold—they are sterling-silver cups with gilding. Women champions are awarded sterling-silver plates that have some gilding.

In the photo that leads off this post, Alice Tepper Marlin holds in her cloth-gloved hands the gorgeous gold cup with a portrait of William McChesney Martin (ITHF Hall of Fame Class of 1982) in the background.

It's appropriate to note Martin's portrait because when cup donor Will Woodin became Secretary of the Treasury in 1933 under FDR, he was also ex officio Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. This was Martin's position (by appointment, not ex officio; the law was changed during FDR's long administration) when I was an economist at the Fed in Washington in 1964-66.

Martin became Honorary Chairman of the ITHF. He was married to Cynthia, daughter of Dwight Davis, founder of the Davis Cup, the first major international tennis cup. Martin was, by the way, the longest-serving Fed Chairman ever (Alan Greenspan is in second place).

The Genesis and Genius of the Gold Cups

Under the challenge-cup terms of the Woodin Cup, it was loaned to the victors for a year. There would be three winners each year, one singles winner and (naturally) two doubles winners.

When Childe Hassam was visiting East Hampton,
he made sketches of Helen Wills preparing for
the Woodin Cup play at Maidstone. Source: ITHF.

When it was won three times (by the same two doubles players, in the case of the doubles cup), the cup became the property of the winner. 

The Maidstone Club, through the Woodin Cup, became a major facilitator of gender equality in tennis. The support of the club and its members, who provided lodging and other in-kind assistance to the female tennis players, helped women's tennis attract an audience and therefore enabled the organizational apparatus that made women's tennis a permanent fixture.


Woodin Cup winners who went on to become Grand Slam champions include Alice Marble, Helen Hull Jacobs, Molla Mallory and Helen Wills [later Moody]. All of them are also members of the ITHF. Marble was inducted in 1964; Jacobs in 1962; Mallory in 1958; and Wills in 1959. Jacobs and Wills were fierce opponents, whose games were called "the battle of the Helens".

Helen Wills Sketch, 1924.
Source: ITHF.

Famed artist Childe Hassam made many sketches of Helen Wills Moody. Three of them are in the ITHF. Two of them are shown here.

Spectators were drawn to the sport as the skills of women tennis players grew. The original long-skirted women's tennis outfits, which hampered play and made women’s tennis a slower game, were reduced in length, allowing women greater freedom to run and return the ball. Many of the early outfits used in women's tennis are on display at the International Tennis Hall of Fame; one of them features a tennis costume that looks like a ballet tutu. Helen Wills often wore a knee-length sailor suit. Charlie Chaplin was once asked what the most beautiful thing was that he ever saw. He answered: “The movement of Helen Wills playing tennis.” 

First Ending: The Third-Time Winning of the Gold Cups 

The Woodin Cups had two endings and a new beginning.

The first ending was in 1949, when the cups were won outright. Louise Brough won both the Singles and the Doubles cups for the third time with the same doubles partner, Margaret Osborne duPont, although the record is confusing because of Osborne's marriage and name change between the first and second tournaments.

Helen Wills Sketch, 1926.
Source: ITHF.

Louise Brough Clapp donated her two golden Woodin trophies to the Museum in 1997. She died in 2014. 


After 1949, the golden Woodin Cups at the Maidstone Club were replaced by three silver ones by the eldest child of Will and Nan Woodin, Anne Woodin Miner. 

These silver invitational Woodin Cups were presented annually for six years, until 1955. Anne Miner's son Charles (usually called Charlie, like his father) and her daughter-in-law Maisie took over from their mother,  along with fellow Maidstone member and cousin Anne Gerli. 

Maisie Miner was born Mae Hoffman in Charlotte, North Carolina and grew up in the south until she married Charlie, whom she met while he was training at a U.S. Army Air Forces base in the south during World War II.



The Color Bar and the Second Ending of the Cups (The Althea Gibson Story)

The ending of the gold cups has a simple explanation. They were won outright.

The ending in 1955 of the silver cups that replaced the gold ones has a more complex, and historically more important, explanation.

Tennis was created in the United States as a club sport, and was therefore inherently off limits to African Americans. As suffragist women campaigned for the right to vote, African-American women became more aggressive in seeking their rights.

Although white women played tennis with their spouses at the clubs, and therefore had ready access to the tennis courts for competitive rounds, the same was not true for African-American women.

The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority may be considered the beginning of the effort to lower the color bar. It was founded in 1908 at Howard University as the first Negro Sorority. One of the founders was Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885-1937), and she happened to be a pretty good tennis player (http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=12/28/2006). Although the AKA Sorority in its early years tried to avoid political activism, a significant portion of the leadership broke away in 1913 to form the Deltas, who joined the suffragist march led by Inez Milholland (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tepper-marlin/the-idea-of-a-womens-marc_b_2851100.html).

In 1917, Slowe won the first tennis tournament open to Negro women, the American Tennis Association's first tournament. She and the Association helped pave the way for Althea Gibson to come to tennis prominence a quarter-century later. 

Gibson was born in tiny Silver, in Clarendon County, South Carolina, near Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Gibson's family moved to New York City to improve their access to good jobs. Young Gibson became a star paddle-tennis and basketball player and adapted easily from these games to win at the Harlem River Tennis Courts. She started winning the American Tennis Association tournaments, won a sports scholarship to Florida A&M, and won the ATA women's singles championship every year from 1947 to 1956. (Source: https://www.tennisfame.com/hall-of-famers/inductees/althea-gibson.)

Long before Arthur Ashe came on the scene in men's tennis, Gibson became a leading player. She was the first African-American of either gender to win the women's singles trophy at both the U.S. National Championship, in 1950, and Wimbledon, in 1951. The only comparable U.S. predecessor in breaking through the color barrier in spectator sports was Jackie Robinson in baseball.

Given the fact that an uprooted southern lady was closely involved in decisions about the Woodin Cup in the 1950s, it should not be surprising that Gibson was not invited to play at Maidstone, which was not as unanimously ready to pioneer in reducing barriers to competition on the racial front as it was on the gender front.

However, many Maidstone members who were aware of Gibson's extraordinary tennis skills favored inviting her to play at Maidstone and some offered to provide her with a place to stay in their homes.

The intra-club controversy in the mid-1950s over inviting her might well have been decided in favor of Gibson, had there not been another, economic  consideration. The costs to the Maidstone Club of remaining in the fast-growing professional tennis circuit were rising. Once the Maidstone invitational tournament for women started to divide the club membership, the controversy was a catalyst for ending it.

Althea Gibson was not daunted by her rejection by the Maidstone Club. She proved herself a star within the next two years. She won:

• the women’s singles and doubles French Nationals in 1956,
• the Australian Nationals in women's doubles in 1957,
• the single women’s at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals in 1957-1958,
• the women’s doubles at Wimbledon in 1956-1958,
• mixed doubles at the U.S. Nationals in 1957, and
• the title of top-ranked woman player in the world in 1957. 

International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee (1973) Althea Gibson. She
broke through the color bar, 1951-57. Source: ITHF.

By the end of the 1958 season, Gibson had won 58 combined singles and doubles titles. She had compiled an impressive 53-9 record at the majors (16-1 at Wimbledon; 27-7 at the U.S.; 6-0 at the French; 4-1 at the Australian) and had been a member of the 1957-1958 Wightman Cup teams, helping the team win a championship in 1957.

Robert Ryland, who was playing tennis at the same time as Gibson and became coach to Venus and Serena Williams, said that Gibson would probably have beaten the Williams sisters. Certainly, he said, Martina Navratilova "couldn't touch her.” He considers Gibson one of the greatest tennis players that ever lived.

Women's Tennis Costumes on Display at the ITHF.
One in front looks like a ballet dancer's tutu.

In 1958, however, Gibson abruptly retired from tennis. She couldn’t afford to keep playing tennis under the rules of the day. There wasn’t much money to be made in professional women’s tennis.

The record suggests that women's professional tennis was a stepchild to men’s tennis. The running of the tournaments and governance of the sport was dominated by men, resulting in a lack of attention to equal treatment of men and women.

Gibson's solution to her financial needs was to turn to professional golf. In 1964, at age 37, she became the first African-American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.

Our docent  Liz, in front of a case
of ancient cans of tennis balls.

Gibson's earnings rose when she switched to golf. She won many matches and earned thousands of dollars.

However, the money was still not enough to pay her bills. She struggled to make ends meet towards the end of her life when she was widowed. Her friends periodically took up collections for her.

The New Silver Cups

Following the death of Will Woodin's granddaughter Anne Gerli in 2016, the Maidstone Club reinstituted cups for women's tennis, after a hiatus of six decades.

Three new silver cups were donated by Gerli's three daughters for intramural women's tennis at Maidstone (https://bit.ly/2NPj1qA).

Thanks to the ITHF for arranging an exciting visit, especially to the docent, Liz Morancy, and Curator, Nicole Markham, who showed us the Woodin gold cups and provided helpful comments on the history of the gender and color barriers in tennis.

The content of this post is part of a draft of a forthcoming biography of William H. Woodin and his family as well as other possible publications. The text and personal photos for the book are copyright © 2013-2018 by John Tepper Marlin. Please respect the rights of the author to the output of the thinking, time, and expense he has devoted to collecting this material about the Woodin Cup. Please forward only the link to this post. Do not cut-and-paste blocks of material in a way that deletes the source of the document. Please contact him if you wish permission to distribute this further other than via a link – john [at] cityeconomist.com.

PORTSMOUTH ABBEY '58 | Day 1, Lunch at Castle Hill Inn

Entrance to the Castle Hill Inn, showing sculpture
and distant boat. Looking out to the Atlantic
Ocean, left. Photo by JT Marlin.

NEWPORT, R.I., September 29, 2018–The Portsmouth Abbey School Class of 1958 (or Portsmouth Priory, as we were known then) has started celebrating its 60th Reunion.

Our classmates this year include one who came from as far away as Peru, just for the event. (Three sets of Peruvian parents got together and decided to send their sons to Portsmouth 65 years ago.)

Within the United States, the classmates have come from Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.

Yesterday, several of us had lunch together at the Lawn at Castle Hill, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of Narragansett Bay.

This peninsula of Castle Hill went through several metamorphoses:

Castle Hill faces Jamestown's two main
islands.

• It began as a watch house in 1740 when England declared war on Spain.
• In 1810 a Spanish brig was wrecked near Castle Hill after a storm.
• The present house was built in 1874 for the scientist Alexander Agassiz. 
• Three years later he outfitted the house with an advanced laboratory. This lab was in due course replaced by the lab at Wood's Hole.
• Agassiz made his fortune turning around a nonperforming copper mine in Michigan, and used $1.5 million of it to fund a Museum at Harvard.



Looking across from Castle Hill
to Jamestown. Photo by JT Marlin.

• In the hurricane of 1938, Castle Hill became an island. The daughter-in-law of Agassiz panicked about the experience and sold the property.

Thornton Wilder was a frequent guest, who said of the bedroom where he stayed:

"From that magical room I could see at night the beacons of six lighthouses and hear the booming and chiming of as many sea buoys." (Theophilus North, Harper & Row).

Getting a head start on the Portsmouth Reunion, four members of the Class of 1958 and two spouses assembled for lunch at the Castle Hill Inn.

The youngest-looking of the group, Carlos Cleary, is the son of a classmate who could not attend, George Cleary. He is in Venezuela and was unable to leave.

Lunch at the Castle Hill Inn. L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, John Tepper Marlin,
John Hayes III, Denis Ambrose, Jeanne Geddes, Carlos Cleary.

Later in the afternoon, the group went to for a tour of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

WELLESLEY '66 | At Agora Gallery to See Margret Carde's Art

.

Classmates assemble at home of Hachikō (fur ball far left) and Alice Tepper Marlin '66 (far right).
Photos by John Tepper Marlin, who sometimes writes about the #ArtBiz with that hashtag...

Wellesley is famed for its alumnae networking,
and the Class of 1966 is no slouch in that department.

Wellesley group in front of the Agora gallery.

Margret Carde, Wellesley '66, was one of the artists in the "Life Is But a Dream" Exhibition at the Agora Gallery at 530 West 25th Street.

This is near the High Line in the Chelsea area of New York City.

The show opened on May 22 and on Thursday May 24 had a reception for the New York City art community. The show continues through June 12, 2018.

The buzz at the gallery during the visit by the Wellesley class visit was voluble. The Thursday evening time slot is popular among the throngs of Chelsea gallery-trippers.

Margret peers out from among a group of
admirers of her art.

The Agora Gallery was founded in 1984 by an artist. 

It uses an innovative membership approach, allowing newcomers or mid-career artists access to the gallery scene in New York on a cooperative basis.

The membership revenue allows the gallery to require a lower sales commission on art than is currently asked by most upscale gallery owners in New York City.

Alice with Margret, in front of
one of Margret's paintings.

Margret says she creates her ephemeral, pastel-colored scenes inspired by her "emotional experiences and the thrill of viewing open land and sea."

After the gallery visit, the class group regrouped for dinner at the Red Cat Café, a block away on Tenth Avenue.

Other posts on the Wellesley College Class of 1966: Longhouse Reserve 2015. 50th Reunion 2016. Eclipse 2017.

WELLESLEY | A 1966 Reunion Eclipsed

Watching the Moon Eclipse the Sun. The photo shows three
Wellesley alums and their spouses, plus some other guests.

August 27, 2017 – Three years ago, seven members of the  Wellesley Class of 1966 came to East Hampton in anticipation of its 50th Reunion last year.

They visited the LongHouse Reserve.

This year four alums got together in August: Karen Ahearn Boeschenstein, Joan Hass, Alice Tepper Marlin, and Ann Liggett (Cinnamon) Rinzler. Two were part of the 2014 reunion, and two were not (Karen and Cinnamon).

L to R: Karen Boeschenstein, Curry Rinzler, Cinnamon
Rinzler, Alice Tepper Marlin, Warren Boeschenstein,
and John Tepper Marlin.

After watching the eclipse this year, the reunion group sang songs with guitar accompaniment and had dinner. 

They also went again to the LongHouse Reserve.

HERO DOG | Hachikō Wins Contest

Hachikō Dances Around on One Leg.

August 26, 2017 – The 4th Annual Springs Agricultural Fair took place today at Ashawagh Hall.

At noon the "Dog Tricks" event was featured.

A Springs dog, Hachikō, was entered. He is named after an Akita, Hachi-kõ (ハ-チ公, 1923-1935), born on a farm in Japan. Hachi is the Japanese word for the lucky number eight.

The life story of the original Hachikō was the subject of a movie, transposed to Woonsocket, Rhode Island, starring Richard Gere.

Eight (hachi in Japanese) is a lucky number in Asia, having the same Chinese character as fortune or good luck.  Seven in Asia is unlucky.  

This Hachikō (a Pomeranian-Schnauzer mix) was lucky and won second place.

He was trained by Alice Tepper Marlin with the assistance of her husband John and their daughter Caroline, who has trained her own dog Rondo.

Dog Tricks Contest Winners, First (R)
and Second Prizes. Alice Tepper Marlin
is holding Hachikō.

Hachikō won second prize out of a field of about ten dogs put forward as doing tricks at the Fair. 

Hachikō danced a few circles, sometimes on one leg (see photo above).

The first place winner is in the second photo, but we don't yet know the name of the dog or its owner. (To which the owner could reply, paraphrasing the late Mayor Ed Koch, "if I had known being in second place was so important, I would have gone for that.")

The takeaway from the contest for next year is:

• It is smart to have a routine. Start by having the dog sit, then roll over, the easy tricks. Then get to the harder ones.
• Most dogs refused to do their tricks in front of a crowd, which was funny but reduced the competition. Best to practice with people looking on.
• The winner's trainer had an excuse for why the winning dog didn't do the trick the first time. The second time it went as planned. It's good to have a trainer who can cover for lapses!
• A good time was had by all, including the dogs, who got treats, win or lose.

The full name of Hachikō in Japanese is Chūken - Hachi - kō (忠犬-ハ-チ公), or Loyal Dog - Eight - Little.  The first two characters, reading left to right, are kan-ji (Chinese ideographs) and the other characters are using the Japanese alphabet for phonetic spelling.

WEDDING | Eli Rinzler and Ana Bennett, High Falls, N.Y.

June 17, 2017—Eli Rinzler puts the ring on the hand of Ana Bennett at
Crested Hen Farms in High Falls, N.Y. Photo by JT Marlin.

We have been attending the wedding of Eli Rinzler, son of Alice's Wellesley '66 classmate Cinnamon Rinzler and Curry Rinzler, to Ana Bennett. Here are three photos from the ceremony.

1. Groom Eli on Saturday is putting the wedding ring on the finger of blushing bride Ana at the Crested Hen Farms in High Falls, New York. Eli's brother Sean was Best Man. Ana's Matron of Honor was her sister.

L to R: Charlie and Alice. Photo by JT Marlin.

2. At the reception, Alice is holding beaming Charlotte, who is called Charlie.

Charlie looks pretty pleased with the whole event and with Alice's attention.

3. Some of Eli's relatives and their friends gathered at the home of Curry and Cinnamon Rinzler in Woodstock, N.Y.

Back row, standing (L to R): Warren Boeschenstein, John Tepper Marlin, Cinnamon Rinzler (mother of the groom), Dan (husband of Dana), Karen Boeschenstein (also Wellesley '66), Terry Peard (Kit's husband). Front row, sitting: Kit (sister of Cinnamon), Chris (son of Kit), Dana, Alice Tepper Marlin, Curry Rinzler (father of the groom).

Alice (L) and Karen.

 4. Alice with Karen Boeschenstein, who, before she retired, served for many years in the Admissions Office at 
the University of Virginia.












5. John with Warren Boeschenstein, a retired professor of architecture at the University of Virginia.

VERO BEACH | Mar 12–Day of FDR's 1st Fireside Chat

Charlie Miner (Seated) and L to R: Alice Tepper
Marlin, Suzanne Hyatt, John Tepper Marlin and
Charmaine Caldwell. We were celebrating John's
75th birthday and Charlie's 95th.

Mar 12, 2017—Earlier today, on the 84th anniversary of FDR's first Fireside Chat, Alice and I were the guests for brunch of Charles Miner, Jr. in Vero Beach, Fla.

Charlie, as he calls himself (his cousins have called him Chas, pronounced Chaz), is one of three surviving grandsons of FDR's first Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin. 

Charlie's mother Mary was the eldest daughter of Will and Nan Woodin. Mary married Charlie Miner Sr.

FDR was able to devote the time to perfecting his first Fireside Chat because he delegated the calming of the panicked financial markets entirely to Will Woodin, an unjustly forgotten Republican member (one of three recruited by FDR from the GOP) of FDR's first Cabinet.

Joining us at lunch were Charlie's daughter Charmaine Caldwell and his niece Suzanne Hyatt.

I picked up some new stories from Charlie about his life. His late wife Mary Mae (Maisie) was from the south. He had previously told me that marrying her opened up to him a part of America with which he was unfamiliar, and which he came to know more about, appreciate and love. He gave some examples and ended, as he often does, with some dry humor:

We had a man in East Hampton named George who would take care of things for us. When we had a problem, Maisie would say: "Let George do it."
Back then, the main job of girls in the south was to look pretty... nice hats, you know. We played tennis but she was more of a spectator at sports. When I stopped playing tennis I started playing golf more. 
Maisie is buried in the John's Island cemetery. It's on the river side. I asked them whether I could get a few more spots in the cemetery and they said I couldn't get as many as I wanted. I guess people are dying to get in.

Besides the first FDR Fireside Chat, we were celebrating retrospectively Charlie's 95th birthday in December and John's 75th birthday earlier in March.

EAST HAMPTON | Award to Herb Field, Sage of Springs

Councilman Fred Overton presents Proclamation to
Herb Field at Ashawagh Hall. Photo by JT Marlin.

Sep 4, 2016—Herbert Edwards (Herb) Field, the Sage of Springs, has received another well-earned award.

At the recent meeting of the Springs Community Advisory Council in Ashawagh Hall, Councilman Fred Overton presented him with a Proclamation testifying to his contributions to the Springs community.  

The Proclamation.

Overton's presentation was by the authority and on behalf of the East Hampton Town's Supervisor, Larry Cantwell.

At the presentation, the crowd attending the meeting gave Herb a standing ovation for his contributions to his country and his community. 

The citation, signed August 22 by Supervisor Cantwell, proclaims that Herbert Edwards (Herb) Field was born at Franklin Farm on August 3, 1924 to Herbert Stone Field and his wife Abigail Rebecca, née Edwards. 

Herb Field with Tina Piette (L) and yours
truly. Photo by Dr Carter Dodge.

Herb enlisted in the U.S. Navy in April 1943 and was honorably discharged on December 18, 1945. He was sent on tours in the Pacific, Europe and the Americas. 

After his military service he managed Sylvester Prime’s farm on Shelter Island and then in 1949 moved to Morrisville, N.Y., where he purchased and managed wo dairy farms covering 316 acres.

After 15 years upstate, he purchased the Baker and Baker dairy farm in Amagansett and lives there today.

Comment

Herb regularly attends the Springs Community Presbyterian Church and sits consistently in the second row behind the organ donated by Robert Mulford.

Herb (L) with Dr Carter Dodge.
Photo by JT Marlin.

When I first came to Springs in 1981 as a seasonal visitor, I was invited to join the Men of Springs, a church-related activity. My wife Alice Tepper Marlin was dubious about whether I should get involved in something macho like that until she found out that what the Men of Springs did was cook and serve  community dinners.

Eventually the men of the Men of Springs one by one died or left town, and the annual chicken dinner had to depend primarily, like so much else, on the hard-working women of the church. Herb may be the last of the men of the Men of Springs who were there when I arrived in 1981.

Herb has earned the title of Sage of Springs because he knows more about the history of Springs than anyone else.

For example, he remembers when Supervisor Larry Cantwell "was in short pants." Over the years Herb has told me more truly funny stories than I can count. He has a keen understanding of farming, milling and human nature. Long may he live!

The Springs Community Advisory Committee members are:

1. Loring Bolger, Chair 2. Ira Barocas 3. Pamela Bicket 4. David Buda

5. Carole Campolo 6. Zachary Cohen 7. Katherine Reid

8. Reg Cornelia 9. Amos Goodman 10. Phyllis Italiano 11. Howard Lebwith 

12. Brad Loewen 13.Tina Piette 14. Ginny Rizzardi 15.Betsy Ruth  16. Pat Brabant

17. Judy Freeman 18. Connie Kenny 19. Tina Plesset

20. Jurdy Grodin 21. Cile Downs 22. Michael Antonelle

23. Mary Beth LaPenna 24. Debra Foster 25. Rita Wassermann 26. Susan Harder

TENNIS | DYC Senior Men's Doubles Finals

FINALISTS, SENIOR MEN'S DOUBLES (L to R): John
Jaxheimer, John Tepper Marlin, Tim Snell (Pro), Thomas
Gouge, Britton Browne. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

Amagansett, N.Y., August 6, 2016–In the DYC Senior (60+) Men's Doubles, the four finalists were: John Jaxheimer, John Tepper Marlin, Thomas Gouge and  Britton Browne.

After a tie-breaker in one set, the two teams won one set each after more than an hour and a half of play.

Instead of a third set, the match, running on overtime, was decided by a second tie-breaker.

The winners were: Gouge and Browne. All four players received glass bowls as trophies.

A photo of the handsome  trophy bowl is provided at right.