Three by 33: Decisions That Shaped a Life

By Malcolm D. Hawk

This is the story of my lifeat least its first 70 years. I am writing it so that my three children and my three granddaughters may know something about my background and theirs. It is the type of book I wish my parents had written, as there is so much about their lives I do not know but sincerely wish I did. Since I am telling this tale, much depends on my memory of events, my interpretation of them, and the details of those I select to include as well as those left out. I have tried to be candid and accurate and honest, to include some of the good (of which there is much) and some of the not so good (of which, fortunately, there is much less). I hope that those who read these pages will find some information to interest them and some that is new that will add to their understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465369055

Malcolm D. Hawk

MALCOLM HAWK grew up in Palo Alto, California and graduated from Princeton University and Stanford Law School. This memoir follows him through his formative years and along a career path that included assignments in all three branches of the federal government, where he encountered some of the most controversial members of the Nixon administration, and then into the petroleum industry. His legal responsibilities included the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Oceania. He and his wife Kate have three children and three grandchildren, and they have lived in Brussels and Singapore as well as in numerous cities in the United States. Since retirement, they have settled in Houston, Texas and Steamboat Springs, Colorado when not traveling to all seven continents.

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Copyright © 2011 by Malcolm D. Hawk.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011960185

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-9370-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-6904-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-6905-5

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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With unbounded love for David, Amy and Eleanor,

and Dylan, Avery and Reese

so they may know their father and grandfather somewhat better

Dedicated to Kate, who for more than 42 years has made the highs higher

and more memorable and the lows less low and

so much more tolerable

Contents

Foreword

Chapter I Family and Adolescence

Chapter II Higher Education: Princeton and Stanford Law School

Chapter III An Attorney At Last

Chapter IV Kathleen Samsot

Chapter V Life in Washington: Professional and Private

Chapter VI Exxon and Texas

Chapter VII New Jersey

Chapter VIII Back to Houston

Chapter IX Living and Working in Europe: Brussels

Chapter X Living and Working in Asia: Singapore

Chapter XI Retirement and (Much) More Travel

Chapter XII The Future

Postscript

Epilogue

Lessons for Life

Foreword

Forks that test me, not tempt me.—St. Luke

This is the story of my life—at least its first 70 years. I am writing it so that my three children and my three granddaughters may know something about my background and theirs. It is the type of book I wish my parents had written, as there is so much about their lives I do not know but sincerely wish I did.

Since I am telling this tale, much depends on my memory of events, my interpretation of them, and the details of those I select to include as well as those left out. I have tried to be candid and accurate and honest, to include some of the good (of which there is much) and some of the not so good (of which, fortunately, there is much less). I hope that those who read these pages will find some information to interest them and some that is new that will add to their understanding.

I believe that the path of one’s life is determined by the decisions that person makes. Some you create for yourself; some are thrust upon you; some you do not even know about. But the options one selects—consciously or unconsciously—set the course of life. To do this, rather than that; to associate with her rather than him; to live here, not there; to follow one course of action and reject another; to visit A and bypass B; even to take no action or make no decision. Each of these is a choice that can have substantial consequences and lead on to other choices and decisions, all of which add up to a single life.

Were I an engineer, those choices might be set down on a flow chart or a decision tree—little branches sticking out from a diagram showing which decisions were made—yes to this, no to that—and the subsequent consequences. Were I a cartographer those choices might be shown on a map—highways taken, those bypassed, leading to roads, paths, detours, T-junctions, dead ends and smooth-flowing arterials. Were I a poet, I might have described decisions made in Robert Frost’s eloquent fashion:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could…

Then took the other as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim…

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that made all the difference.*

* Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (1916)

The poet seems to be saying that once a certain road is selected the way forward is set and cannot easily be undone; some opportunities are foregone; choices made are important and should be considered carefully. But no one can fully predict where any decision will lead and what other choices and decisions will loom ahead as a consequence. One step at a time.

Over the course of my life I have been given many opportunities to make choices about which paths my life would take. Being of a decisive disposition, I have generally not found making decisions difficult, so have made those that were needed, plowed ahead, and rarely looked back. Many decisions have been called for and many made, a number being responsible for later events. But three stand out as the most consequential: to become a lawyer and work initially for the federal government, to marry Kathleen Samsot, and to join Exxon Corporation’s law department. It is surprising to me that all three of these were made before I was age 33. It is from this that I draw the title of this book: Three by 33.

There are, of course, numerous references to me, my and I in the text; such seems inevitable in a memoir. But I hope the reader will bypass the self-centeredness of this narrative, and enjoy and find interesting the tale that follows. One final caution: this book, especially in the later pages, contains details of our travels throughout the world. If anyone becomes bored with these discussions, skip over them and press ahead; they are not essential to the story but only to our remembrance of it.

A final thanks to Kate, who is an exceptional editor, grammarian and speller. Her careful work has made this text more accurate and easier to read. Any errors are entirely my own.

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

September 2011

_A.jpg

April 1945: Sharon, PA.

family tree.pdf

Genealogical Chart for Malcolm D. Hawk: Six generations.

Chapter I

Family and Adolescence

"Toutes les possibilités sont toujours possible. [All the possibilities are still possible.]—French Proverb

All I wanted Santa to bring me for Christmas was a blue tricycle.

I had no idea that in December 1944 a tricycle was an almost impossible request. The Battle of the Bulge was raging in the Ardennes forest of Belgium and American troops were jumping across Pacific islands headed toward mainland Japan. I didn’t even know that my father was somewhere in the South Pacific serving in the Army Medical Corps. World War II was at an intense stage, and steel for a tricycle (this was long before the age of plastic) was a very rare commodity. Americans were saving every scrap of metal they could find—tin cans, aluminum foil, furnace and car parts, anything that could be melted down and re-made into ammunition or vehicles to defeat Germany and Japan. Nobody was making tricycles.

But my maternal grandparents, with whom my mother and I were living at the time in Sharon, Pennsylvania, on the Ohio border, were not used to denying their only grandchild anything he wanted. So a two-state search was undertaken, and finally a pre-war but new English tricycle (with hand brakes) was located in Cleveland. The tricycle was purchased. But there was still a problem—it was red! So the tricycle was disassembled, everything was re-painted, and on Christmas morning little David Hawk found a blue tricycle under the tree—even in the midst of a world war.

I tell this story not only because the blue tricycle is the first identifiable memory I have but also because it says something about the first four years of my life. I was a very lucky little boy who was cared for by doting grandparents with ample resources while both my parents and then only my father were away from home because of the war. It was a very loving situation where I was denied nothing by way of nurture or material possessions while many others were experiencing deprivation and separation.

How did I get to western Pennsylvania for Christmas 1944? I was born at University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, on April 17, 1942. My father was working on a post-doctoral course in advanced anesthesia at the University of Wisconsin, and since both my parents were in Madison that April, so was I. On my original birth certificate I was named Malcolm David Hawk, but my maternal grandparents took such exception to the fact that I was not named Charles after my grandfather that the name Lytle was added a few weeks later. I only stayed in Madison two months because in June my father was inducted into the Army and my mother and I moved to Sharon to be with my mother’s parents for the duration.

For the first part of my father’s time in the Army he moved from one domestic army base to another—Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Camp Crowder, Missouri; and several others—and my mother traveled with him—with frequent trips for her back to Sharon to check on her infant son. But in large part during this time I was raised by my grandparents—with help from their cook, maid, laundry woman, gardener, my nanny and my bachelor uncle who lived with his parents. After my father was sent to the South Pacific, my mother returned to Sharon full-time and we remained in that sheltered existence until my father returned home in December 1945 after being honorably discharged from the Army just before Christmas.

Just to set the scene for this tale, let me go back 70 years to 1942. Franklin Roosevelt was President, Henry A. Wallace was Vice President, and Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House. The British defeated Rommel at El Alamein in North Africa in World War II, Singapore surrendered, the battle of Stalingrad began, Enrico Fermi set up the first atomic reactor in Chicago, gasoline rationing began in the United States (three gallons a week), 120,000 Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps, the American army increased from 1.8 million to 3.6 million men but the German army increased from six to eight million, and Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines. In addition to Malcolm Hawk, Aretha Franklin, Stephen Hawking, Barbra Streisand, Joe Biden, Harrison Ford, Muhammad Ali, Paul McCartney, Michael Bloomberg, Calvin Klein, Charlie Rose and Roger Staubach were born. Mrs. Miniver won the Academy Award for best movie, while the best acting awards went to James Cagney for Yankee Doodle Dandy and Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver. White Christmas was the top song and Bambi was the most popular movie. No Nobel prizes were awarded because of the War. The average salary was $1800 a year, the Dow Jones was at 119, a postage stamp cost three cents, a gallon of gas 19 cents, a gallon of milk 60 cents, bread was nine cents a loaf, a coke was five cents, an average car cost $920 and an average house cost $3770.

Now let me pause here to introduce my heritage.

We can trace one branch of my father’s family—the Hawks—back eight generations to somewhere in Germany in 1707.

The first identifiable Hawks are Hans Jerg Hawk born in 1707, and his wife Catherine, born in about 1709, both in Germany. Their son Conrad was born in Germany in 1741 and emigrated to the new world before 1760; he settled in Northampton in eastern Pennsylvania and married Catherine Williams, who was born in America in 1743 and died in 1782; they had 13 children. There followed three additional generations of Hawks in Armstrong, Pennsylvania, until my grandfather, Fred Collier Hawk, was born in 1877. By coincidence (we did not know this until 2010), my great-great grandfather was named David E. Hawk. He was born in 1806 and died in 1895; in 1833 he married Catherine (there is a pattern here) Eckman (born in 1814 and died in 1884). My great grandfather (the fifth of their seven children) was George Alexander Hawk, born in 1842. He was a stationery engraver who in 1868 married Hannah Viola Hitchcock (born in 1845). He died at age 72 in 1914. Almost all of the Hawks were long-lived, at least one living to age 90 at a time when life expectancies were much shorter than today.

My paternal grandfather, Fred Collier Hawk, was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, on January 20, 1877. By this time the family had moved from the eastern to the western part of the state and settled near Pittsburgh. We do not know how far he went in school, but he became a financial clerk at a succession of companies; in 1900 he worked at a bank, in 1920 at a paper mill. On September 28, 1904 he married Rose Mae Lauer from Mansfield, Ohio. They had one son, Malcolm Henry, my father, and they divorced about 1930. Fred continued to live in Mansfield and never remarried. In 1947 he moved with our family to Palo Alto, California. He lived with us until 1950, when he rented his own series of apartments in Menlo Park, where he became active in a senior citizens’ center known as Little House; there he took up weaving and pottery and continued his interest in the card game Whist. He took one Caribbean cruise in the mid 1950’s which called at Haiti. He died in Menlo Park on July 11, 1959, while I was traveling in Europe.

Fred was a fairly short and slender man with a somewhat dour personality. After he moved to an apartment we saw him infrequently but did have Sunday dinner with him every few months and gave a large 80th birthday dinner for him at our home in 1957. Considering that he lived with us for almost four years, he had a relatively small impact on my life.

My paternal grandmother, Rose, had even less impact. She was born in Mansfield on February 21, 1887, and lived there almost her entire life. After her divorce, she married Ralph S. Tamblyn and they lived in a two-story wooden frame house on a quiet street. In the mid-1960’s she developed Alzheimer’s disease and my father moved her to a nursing home in San Jose, California. She did not know any of her family, and only my father continued to visit her until she died there on August 27, 1968. I know almost nothing about her family although I do have a hazy recollection of meeting my great-grandfather John Lauer at her home in Mansfield in the late 1940’s; at the time he was completely blind. I believe he came originally from Michigan with German antecedents. All I know about my great-grandmother was that her maiden name was Mary Widmaier.

I have numerous regrets about my grandmother. While I lived with my maternal grandparents during World War II and went thereafter to visit them often in Sharon and in Laguna Beach, I rarely visited Mansfield. Life with the Tamblyns was pleasant and comfortable but dull—there was little to do but go to a cafeteria for a meal or sit on the front porch and wait for the afternoon newspaper to be delivered!—whereas life with the Lytles was active, interesting and fun and there were always many people about with whom to do things. As a consequence, while I would spend many weeks in Sharon almost every summer, I would hurriedly schedule a quick train trip to Mansfield at the end of my time in the east to visit my other grandmother. I am sure this differing treatment hurt her, and I now regret it, but that was the way it was. Rose visited us in Sharon and in California a few times (perhaps twice in 20 years), and my father would return to Ohio every few years to visit her—but he also usually spent more time in Sharon than Mansfield.

Rose was a small woman with tightly curled grey hair who wore sensible print dresses and shoes. While she was married to my grandfather apparently she was a stay-at-home mother and wife, but later became a telephone operator at a time when most calls were made through operators sitting at consoles with many wires to be plugged in to complete the connections.

We know a great deal more about the maternal side of my family, especially the Greggs, whom we can trace back to 1620 in Armagh, Ireland; and the Lytles, whom we can locate back to about 1720.

The earliest Gregg records start with a Mr. Wilkinson in 1620 from Armagh, whose daughter Ann in 1666 married William Gregg (born 1642). They apparently immigrated to America in 1682 and settled in New Castle, Delaware, where he died in 1687 and she died in 1692. Family legend has it that the Greggs are part of the MacGregor clan from Scotland, who are believed to have left that country and moved to Ireland when the MacGregors were banned during the highland clearings. If true, then the Greggs are related to the famous Scots outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor, in which relationship they have taken some pride for generations. John Gregg, the son of William and Ann, was born in 1668 in Waterford in Ireland; he married Elizabeth Cooke of Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1694. Three generations of Greggs followed, all living in New Castle—but during the time the United States was being formed, apparently the dividing line between Delaware and Pennsylvania changed (perhaps several times) and sometimes New Castle is identified as being in Delaware and sometimes in Pennsylvania. Coming closer in time, my great grandmother, Margaret Gregg, was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania in 1825. She in turn married Joseph Milton Lytle in 1846. Their son, Charles Augustus Lytle, my grandfather, was born in New Haven, Pennsylvania on January 5, 1865. Much more about him later.

Our knowledge about the Lytle side of the family begins with the birth of Robert Lytle (also possibly spelled Little or Litel) about 1720, probably in Northern Ireland. It is believed he was one of three brothers, Robert, William and Andrew, whose Protestant ancestors were removed from Scotland to Ireland during the reign of James VI early in the 17th century for the purpose of counterbalancing the growing Irish Catholic population. Robert and his Scots-Irish brothers came to America at mid-century and he married Margaret Dennison in 1766. Their son William Lytle was born in 1777 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Robert fought on the colonial side in the Revolutionary War. About 1796 the Lytle family crossed the mountains from eastern to western Pennsylvania and became one of the founding families of Connellsville. William married Mary (Polly) Clark in 1803 and their son, Joseph Milton Lytle, born in 1820 (the 11th of 12 children) in Connellsville, was my great-grandfather. He was a justice of the peace, local politician, deputy US marshal, very active in Republican politics, staunch Presbyterian and a contractor and skilled carpenter. He and his wife, Margaret Gregg (see above) had ten children, of whom my grandfather was number eight. Joseph Milton died in 1911.

There is some dispute about the birth date of my grandfather, Charles Augustus Lytle. During his lifetime I always thought he was born in 1865; and took some pride in the fact that he was alive while Abraham Lincoln was president. But at his death the official record put his birth a year later, in 1866. However, we have discovered some early records that indeed date his birth to January 5, 1865. I choose to believe the earlier date. He was born in New Haven and lived there until 1890 except for the time he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he majored in mechanical engineering and graduated in 1887. For some time he lived near Pittsburgh in close proximity to his sister, Flora Isabelle (Aunt Belle) Reighard. While there he met a niece of Belle’s by marriage, Mary Garfield Roberts, who was working in the Reighard household. Charles and Mary were married in Washington, Pennsylvania, on June 14, 1905. Their son, Charles Augustus Lytle Jr. (Uncle Duck), was born in Washington on July 4, 1906. The Lytles moved to Sharon, Pennsylvania in 1907 where my grandfather supervised the construction of the Petroleum Iron Works of Sharon Steel (later a unit of US Steel); he later became superintendent of that plant and was involved in the design and construction of the first oil tankers. He was also president of the F.E Kerr Company, founded in 1912 as a franchisee of the Mayflower moving and trucking company, and was a member of the board of the Buhl hospital in Sharon. For a time he also owned a hotel in Ashtabula, Ohio, on Lake Erie, acquired unhappily as the result of a bad debt. He was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church, active in Rotary for over 50 years, and held a Masonic 33rd degree membership card (the highest level) for over 70 years.

His daughter, my mother, Margaret Isabel Lytle, was born in Sharon on July 23, 1911. He retired in about 1913 when his brother-in-law, David P. Reighard (Uncle Davie), died leaving a substantial fortune for which my grandfather served as executor. Until his death in 1956, my grandfather spent his time managing his business affairs (he was very astute, having sold many of his investments early in 1929 in anticipation of the stock market crash) and traveling. He frequently visited his brothers and sisters, took cruises to Cuba and the Caribbean, often went to Atlantic City and to California (as early as 1919) and wintered in Laguna Beach (from 1936 to 1952). He lived the rest of the time in the family home at 570 East State Street, Sharon, just at the brow of the hill bordering the eastern edge of the Shenango Valley, next door to the Presbyterian church. He suffered a stroke in 1952 but lived in his home for four more years under the care of nurses and his family. He is buried in the family plot in Oakwood Cemetery in Sharon.

I remember my grandfather well. He was a round-faced man of medium-to-stout build with sandy blond hair that the family often described as dirty applesauce. He was always formally dressed with stiff collar, paisley four-in-hand-tie and a dark three-piece suit. He had a gold watch on a long chain which he carried in his vest pocket. A favorite game of mine as a small child was to blow on the cover of the watch to make it open magically (with some clandestine help from grandfather on the stem release mechanism). I would often sit on his lap and have him read to me or play games in the garden. When I would visit my grandparents at the Hotel Laguna in Laguna Beach, we would play cards (usually Canasta), eat our meals in the hotel dining rooms, and walk in downtown Laguna for shopping or to go to church on Sundays. Grandfather was a somewhat reserved person but always enjoyable company; all of his family (especially my mother) were devoted to him.

My grandmother, Mary Garfield Roberts Lytle, who may well have been my favorite relative while I was growing up, was born in Mann’s Choice, Pennsylvania on May 19, 1881. Her middle name was chosen to honor the current Republican president. Her father was John Calvin Roberts and her mother was Helen Craig Reighard, birthdates unknown. She had one surviving brother, David Louis. John, known as Squire Roberts, was apparently at various times a dealer in tobacco and alcohol, an insurance agent, and a photographer. He lived for many years on a farm southwest of Bedford and moved into town with his second wife, Mary, after the death of Helen in 1895. My grandmother went to grammar school in Bedford and some of her school books survive. She and her stepmother did not get along and she was sent to Pittsburgh to live with her uncle, David P. Reighard, a self-made millionaire businessman, oil investor and railroad owner, and his wife, the former Isabelle Lytle, my grandfather’s older sister. These two are discussed separately. My grandmother did light-duty work in the household before marrying Belle’s brother, Charles. Both later inherited substantial sums from the Reighard estates as Uncle Davie and Aunt Belle were childless; as a result, however, she was bequeathed only one dollar by her father who took the position that she had been made wealthy by the Reighards.

After their marriage in 1905 my grandparents lived successively in Pittsburgh, Washington and Sharon, Pennsylvania. They moved to Sharon in 1907 so that my grandfather could help build and supervise the Petroleum Iron Works. They initially lived on the very western border of Sharon, also the western border of Pennsylvania, and it is here that my mother was born in 1911. She often said that had she been born across the street she would have been born in Ohio, and that if she had wanted to run away from home to Ohio, it would have meant crossing the street. Shortly after her birth the family moved across town to a large Victorian house on State Street that they occupied until their deaths. The home had large public rooms, four bedrooms, three baths, and two sleeping porches; it was furnished with high-quality mahogany pieces, oriental carpets, fine paintings and expensive porcelains, much of which I suspect came from the Reighard estate. It was in this atmosphere that I spent my first five years and many summers thereafter. My uncle Charles always lived at home except while he was attending the Hill School or Yale; after his marriage in 1946, his wife Marjorie also lived in the State Street house, not always in complete harmony with her mother-in-law.

My grandmother was the epitome of a fashionable woman in the early 20th century. She was just over five-feet tall, somewhat heavy-set, had long curled chestnut hair and dressed in brocades, silks and furs. She had a substantial amount of diamond jewelry which when not in use was carried in a pouch around her neck. She was active in the social life of Sharon: entertaining frequently at tea and bridge, a pillar of the Golden Workers women’s circle at the next-door First Presbyterian Church, and a member of the Sharon Country Club. I remember that there were usually guests for Sunday lunch around the large circular dining table (now in our Houston home) under the Tiffany chandelier (later stolen). She was a wonderful grandmother, warm and cuddly, who always had time to read to me or scrape an apple for my snack. I never knew her to do much cooking but to supervise the household staff of maid, cook, washerwoman and gardener. She was an inveterate shopper—especially of porcelains, American Indian baskets and jewelry, and other decorative items. She did not drive but enjoyed late afternoon outings in the family car driven by my grandfather, uncle, or later me, to local farmers’ markets to buy fresh corn, peaches, apples, berries or other produce for dinner or for preservation in glass jars in the basement. Despite their position in Sharon business and society, neither of my grandparents ever seemed to put on airs or assume any hint of superiority.

She and my grandfather went regularly to church where they occupied the Lytle pew, five back from the front on the center-left. It was here that I was christened and confirmed. They travelled frequently, and beginning in 1936 took the sleeper train to Chicago and on to California every January and stayed until May at the Hotel Laguna, where they had a large circle of similarly-retired friends. They rented a corner room, sometimes two, for about $4 a night. While there it was also convenient for them to visit with Louis Roberts, my great uncle, who lived in North Hollywood, and was involved in the car business and also dabbled in the early days of motion pictures (and at one time was landlord to Marilyn Monroe).

Between 1952 and 1956 my grandmother devoted her time to caring for her stroke-impaired husband, but then resumed the visits to Laguna until about 1960. She continued to live in Sharon until her death on June 7, 1967.

Uncle Duck as I nicknamed him in the 1940’s, or in reality, Charles Augustus Lytle Jr., was born in Washington, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1906. He lived with his parents in Sharon for his entire life. After attending school in Sharon he enrolled at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and then at Yale from which he graduated in 1929. He wanted to be a doctor but his parents thought otherwise and forced him to enroll at Yale Law. Apparently he hated law school (a feeling I can understand), and spent much of his time visiting young women at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. He did not return for a second year at Yale Law School, and instead returned to Sharon where he eventually took over responsibility for the F.E. Kerr Company, the family moving and storage business. He was not much interested in business, and while he kept the firm running for about 40 years, it declined into a shell of its former self, and Duck spent his time attending to his hobbies: sports car racing, photography and keeping up with friends worldwide. He was a well-known expert on sports car racing, attending the Indianapolis 500 for over 30 years, and serving as grand marshal at the Watkins Glen races in upstate New York. He never drove professionally himself but instead became one of the most respected figures at races all over the United States and Europe, especially at Sebring in Florida, Monza in Italy, Le Mans in France, Nuremberg in Germany and Silverstone in England. He spoke French and Italian, not only to help him at the races, but also so he could understand opera, another of his interests. He was an expert photographer who amassed probably the largest and best collection of race car pictures in the world (over 50,000), which he bequeathed to the US Auto Club’s sports car museum at Watkins Glen upon his death in February 1978. He traveled widely, read voraciously, ate prodigiously and took care of his parents with devotion. Fortunately, family money enabled him to pursue his interests without having to contribute many resources himself; but unfortunately, it also allowed him to waste a first-class mind rather than become a skilled physician.

In 1946, after his 40th birthday, he married Marjorie Sainsbury, born in Wales in 1914, who worked as a telephone operator in Sharon. Aunt Mimi (another of my nicknames) adopted many of her husband’s interests, especially travel and opera but not racing (although she accompanied him to many events), but was fundamentally a rather unhappy woman as she was denied both children and her own home. She lived with her in-laws for over 20 years and in their home for another 10—even after their death it was still their home with their staff and possessions. She co-existed with her mother-in-law, outwardly on good terms, but inwardly under a blanket of resentment, and she eventually turned to alcohol as an anesthetic. She and her sister-in-law, my mother, maintained a correct but not warm relationship. Her mother, Mimi’s Mama, and second husband, George Young were ostensibly welcome guests at the Lytle table almost every week. Mimi moved into her own apartment in Sharon after her husband’s death and the sale of the State Street home to the Presbyterian Church. She died of cancer in 1982. Both she and Uncle Duck are buried in the Lytle plot in Sharon.

In addition to my grandparents and uncle, the Lytle household was a busy web of activity. First, there was the cook, Frieda Welch, nicknamed Woo-Woo by a young boy who could not say Frieda. The washerwoman was Jennie Shumack, who managed the wash boards and new washing machines (with spinning attachments to partially dry the clothes) and the ironing mangles for the large linen and damask tablecloths from the dining room; all the dirty clothing came down the laundry chutes to the basement from the second and third floors. Jennie also provided home-made pickles and sauerkraut. Her daughter, Kate Schmidt, did the house cleaning and after her mother retired, took over the washing and ironing duties as well. Ard was the black gardener who came weekly to tend the lawn and gardens. Finally, Rosemary Scarmack was a young woman of Italian heritage who served as nanny for me while I lived in Sharon. My most vivid memories of her are the times she let me stand in the window to look at the State Street traffic light change colors and when she would take me to a pizza restaurant in nearby Ferrell, which had the best tasting tomato sauce I have ever had. In addition there was Tillie, Otillia Agusta Gross Cusack, who had been my mother’s nanny and close friend, who would also sometimes look after me as well.

More about Woo-Woo who was very special to me as I spent much time working in the kitchen with her where she focused on the multi-course evening meal and Sunday lunch. In the early years she allowed me to play in the kitchen and take out of the cabinets the myriad pots and pans that constituted that well-stocked pantry. I never heard her complain about the messes I made or the time it took to clean up afterward. She taught me to cook and much more and was always available to let me assist with whatever she was doing. On Sundays for over half a century she taught Sunday School at the secondary Presbyterian church down the hill, and I would often go with her to learn the elementary Bible stories and then accompany her to church before she came up to the house to fix Sunday lunch. Sometimes on Friday nights I would go home with Woo-Woo to the house she shared with her four spinster sisters and spend the night in her bed. If her nephew Petie was there as well, he would take me to the weekly boxing matches at the local high school. I suppose looking back that these fights were between local men in their twenties; there were always some bloody noses and a few swollen eyes, and it was very exciting and different from the female-dominated life that I knew. Woo-Woo worked seven days a week for $35 and she had off Thursday afternoons and Sundays before and after lunch. We were her life and she worked for the Lytles for forty years. Her chicken pot pie, roast beef, corn pudding, pickled beets and eggs, creamed noodle ring and chocolate desserts still constitute my idea of the best food ever; we use her old recipes still. She was a very special friend until she retired in 1976 and died in 1986.

There are two other sets of maternal relatives who should be mentioned, not for their relationships