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Sorry, I haven't yet recorded this document.
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...Actually, there is no image; this is the transcript my mother kept of her eulogy, scanned and OCR'ed by my brother-in-law Ron. So go find a pulpit somewhere and stand up and read it out loud.
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My mother's eulogy for Gladys Green. Very readable.
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Most of us saw Glady for the last time last summer. Her knees were giving her a hard time and she tired a bit more easily-- but she was nonetheless vigorous, an extraordinarily young 84. As always, she would drop in for a brief visit, exchange the latest news of family and friends, and then be on her busy way. We shared her happiness at seeing the Golterman grandchildren playing on her beach and building sandcastles where their grandfather had built them two generations earlier, back before the war.
We were all used to not seeing her for months at a time, and certainly to not hearing from her during the off season. But she was always there, in our minds and in our hearts, and we knew that when summer came we would pick up where we left off without missing a beat. It's still hard to believe she is gone.
The memories go back a long long time. Glady and her father first summered in Woods Hole in 1938, renting a house on Gardiner Road. Bea Cosmey had urged her to look up a friend she had known in India, Alma Stokey. Glady found Aunt Alma without difficulty, for she lived just across the street at Fernbank. The two families shared a wealth of common interests, and the friendships grew stronger for half a century. The following year the Greens bought the house on Gosnold road, just around the corner. It was Glady's house, the first she ever owned, and she loved every inch of it. "The Florida house is lovely," she would say, "but it's daddy's...the Woods Hole house is mine." And she made Vagabond House a reflection of herself. As we walked up the path. we all knew that if the flag was flying, Glady was home and a loving welcome awaited us.
We all have different memories of Glady, for the road back into the past is one we must travel alone. Yet we travel parallel paths, and the reminiscences of one friend may spark happy recollections in another.
There were the wonderful years...halcyon days... with her father (Daddy Green to all of us, though the older generation usually refrained from calling him that to his face) ... Glady was devoted to her father during his lifetime and kept the memories alive throughout her own life. Just a few years ago she and I were planning to do something together, and set August 13 as the date. I started to laugh, and to say "Do you remember...?" -- but Glady was one step ahead of me. "I know what you're thinking of," she said, "-- the night Alma organized us all to watch the meteor shower." While the rest of us were gathering coats and blankets in preparation for a leisurely but chilly viewing, Daddy Green stuck his head out the porch door for about 10 seconds, and quickly came in again. "I saw mine," he said. "When you've seen one shooting star, you've seen them all. I'm going to bed."
She delighted in his dry wit; although she rarely identified them as such, her conversation was sprinkled with daddy quotes. One of the recurring problems in the earlier years was the frequent collapse of the record player. One day a repairman spent an hour examining the machine, then pronounced his diagnosis; "It doesn't work." Daddy Green muttered to Gladys that she'd better get rid of this expert on the obvious and find someone else to do the job. Years later she said she wished she'd never heard him use the expression, for all too often someone brought it to mind, and she had to bite her tongue.
Her favorite daddy quote was one he came across in the late '40s and couldn't wait to pass along to her; resorted to it when totally exasperated: "The weakness of reason is that it works only with reasonable people."
In the fall of '43 came the great adventure in joint ownership: two Greens and three Stokeys bought a boat. Some of us had sailed a little (very little, if the truth be known); others had considerable theoretical knowledge about what made a sailboat go, but had never put hand to tiller; Aunt Alma just went along for the ride. A friend surveyed this collection of misfits and observed there was only one name for the boat, SNAFU. So SNAFU she was. The overworked dinghy was SUSFU (Situation Unchanged, Still Fouled Up). A neighbor decided that any sailboat with five captains, only two of whom could row, had better have a second dinghy; he gave us FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Recovery), which lived up to its name by sinking ignominiously on its outhaul. Despite the ambiance of incompetence, Glady turned out to be a skillful sailor. (Anyone who had seen her drive a car would have predicted that.) And she was never happier than at the tiller of our beloved knockabout.
Notwithstanding the anxiety of the war years, they were pleasant times. Woods Hole was quiet; there were few cars in evidence. We all gathered almost every evening at Vagabond House, war knitting (sea boots, mittens, and Balaclava helmets) in hand, to listen to records. Dvorak's Cello Concerto and the Passacaglia were often chosen; the finale was always Oklahoma! Aunt Alma delighted in quoting Ado Annie: "I cain't be prissy 'n' quaint, I ain't the type thet c'n faint, How can I be whut I ain't?" Glady’s favorite lines were from Many A New Day: "A day gone by is bygone... Never have I asked an August sky, "Where has last July gone?" She was elated to learn that song was also the Broadway cast's favorite. Glady carefully hoarded gasoline for the weekly shopping trip to Falmouth. In between she ran errands for people on her bicycle. In August of '45 the war ended; we were jubilant -- and even more so a day or two later, when Glady came bursting into Fernbank (the family was still at breakfast) to tell us gasoline rationing had been lifted, so next Sunday's trip to my grandparents' farm in Halifax could be by car rather than train.
Life in Woods Hole always plays out against a backdrop of the weather. As the recollections recede into the past, they tend to separate themselves into two categories, gorgeous beach days and hurricanes. I remember all too well the early evening of the '44 hurricane. My sister-in-law, Maggie, and I were trying to get the older members of the Stokey family out of Fernbank and over to Vagabond House, where they had reluctantly agreed to spend the night. We weren't having much success, and Glady came over, flashlight in hand, to help us hurry them along. The wind grew stronger, the lights went out, and still we struggled. Finally the Coast Guard arrived and ordered us out. We straggled around the corner, five Stokeys, two cats, and a dog, with Glady bringing up the rear. It was pitch dark and the wind and surf were roaring; the rain had just begun. The next morning we woke to another world -- bright sunlight and a Fernbank surrounded by salt water 7 or 8 feet deep. We learned we would have no electricity for at least a week, and there was no kerosene to be had in Woods Hole or Falmouth. "No problem." said Glady -- and then we discovered why she had lagged so far behind us the night before. As she left Fernbank, she had spotted a 5-gallon can of kerosene in the basement, full to the brim. It was now sitting on her front porch; there was enough to supply the whole neighborhood. How she carried it we never figured out.
In the '54 hurricane, I was at Vagabond House with three of my children. Gladys and Erna were hurrying back from Maine. (Glady told us, incidentally. that the wind was so strong she wasn't able to hold the car on the road, so Erna was driving. Erna just put the gas pedal on the floor and hung on to the steering wheel for dear life.) They tried to get news of the Cape when they stopped for coffee; the rumors got worse and worse. They held their breath when they turned the corner into Gosnold Road, but then they saw faint lights in the windows and knew someone had found the oil lamps. They came home to a houseful of refugees and several feet of seawater in the basement. Glady said years afterwards that what still stuck in her mind was the six dozen frozen blueberry muffins floating in the garage.
We all remember the thirty wonderful years when Glady and Erna kept open house for their friends, and their friends' friends and relatives. They made an ideal combination; Glady loved to entertain, but the preparations she enjoyed were on the non-culinary side -- arranging flowers and candles, figuring out table settings, rounding up chairs, fixing drinks; her enthusiasm for cooking, if any, was well concealed. Erna loved to cook but didn't care much for the rest of the preparations; she left the meticulous attention to those details to Glady . Erna allowed us to help out occasionally in the kitchen, but there was no doubt about who was in charge: "This is the kitchen of Erna Relchmann," the little plaque read. "I am the boss. If you don't believe it, start something!" When Glady was away, Erna carried on as usual, with successive housefuls of friends and a steady stream of dinner guests.
Glady's travels were legendary -- all over this country and to Central America with her father; cruises to the Aegean and up the coast of Norway and several to the Caribbean as Erna found it harder to get around; several trips to Germany, including one to the home Erna had left a lifetime ago before the first War; the nearly year-long trip around the world with Aunt Alma Thanksgiving in St. Louis, Christmas in Bad Durkheim, We never tired of her slide shows, for she was a superb photographer. She knew that parents take lots and lots of pictures of the first child, but time and energy wane as the children multiply. So she set out to provide her friends with ample material for their albums, pictures that we value more and more as the years go by. Her home movies often caught moments that stick in the memory -- Aunt Alma hastily combing little AG's hair in preparation for the picture taking that had already started. Ruth Johlin the morning after a hurricane, ankle deep in water, pushing a dinghy up her driveway so she could row the last few yards to her house. Daddy Green and cousins on a western trip, the scenery enlivened by a small boy waving with mountains in the background, waving with a lake in the background, waving with Old Faithful in the background.
Glady's days were filled with countless little kindnesses behind the scenes to make things go smoothly...and lots of kindnesses that weren't little at all -- a month with four little Stokeys and their mother and their dog on her hands, when a polio epidemic struck Wayland particularly hard. It must have been one of the worst months of her life. She only said she was thankful she could help.
She knew when you needed help and knew what had to be done without asking. On the family's major ceremonial occasions, I usually had too many people to chauffeur in too many different directions, all at once. Without fail I would get a call from Glady not "What can I do to help?" -- but even better – telling me which elderly relatives I could stop worrying about because she was taking charge of them. She never let us feel we were under any obligation for these kindnesses, for she knew it was important to accept help as gracefully as she gave it. A call from the Cape meant something to be brought down on my next trip. A call from Florida was more serious. One January I decided to stop off in Miami Beach for a nice quiet rest on my way to Jamaica. Glady greeted me at the plane with: "Your timing is just perfect. I've got to get that back bedroom cleaned out and if we keep right at it we can get it all done by the time you leave." At least I wouldn't need to worry about all the calories Erna would try to pack into me while I was there.
Glady was stubborn at times, even feisty. Some years ago, when she had just celebrated her elevation to Medicare status, she and lots of family and friends joined us for dinner. Our dog, Tanya, was fresh from a close encounter with a skunk. Neither my efforts with tomato juice nor Tanya's in the form of going down to the beach and rolling in some dead fish had improved the situation. Tanya knew a real pushover when she saw one; she planted her head in Glady's lap, determined to spend the evening having her head scratched. Finally Glady gave up. "Tanya," she said (trying not to breathe too deeply), "I love you, but you really stink." It seemed like an accurate statement, under the circumstances. But one of the guests was upset: "Gladys, that is a vulgar word; you must not use it." Glady asked what she was supposed to say. "You should just say that she smells badly." The opening was more than Glady could resist. "But that's not true," she said. "She can smell perfectly well, better than you or I can. The trouble is, she STINKS."
The last time I talked with her was when she was in the hospital in January. She was weak, but her voice grew stronger as we talked. I told her that AG was to be a grandmother; she said, "AG? Little AG a grandmother? What wonderful news! But Edie, it will sure take a lot of getting used to!"
We all have our cherished memories; recollections of an accumulation of small events that make up the very fabric of life. Surely the Saturday night picnics are among the most vivid memories for many of us. The history of those Saturday nights is captured in the famous tablecloth, covered with the signatures of years and years of guests. (We have it here today and will spread it out downstairs so you can find your name once again.) Swordfish (how many pounds of it we must have eaten over the years!) and snowflake rolls, salad and Stokey picnic drink. And therein lies a tale of loaves and fishes, for the capacity of the Stokeys' picnic jug was seemingly infinite. The jug was a dandy -- one gallon, complete with spigot. It served the company admirably in the early years, when perhaps ten or a dozen gathered. It was less than adequate as the Saturday night gang grew and new generations joined us. But Glady wanted to maintain the tradition that the Stokeys provided the picnic drink without imposing a further burden on the aging aunts, so she would make ready another couple of gallons for sneak refills of the jug as needed. The aunts never knew.
We all knew that whenever we got back to Woods Hole the clan of family and friends would gather on Saturday night at Vagabond House. We would renew the ties with old friends; our children would make friends with the next generation. Those friendships have remained strong for decades, and now extend into the fourth and fifth generations. They provide a wonderful sense of continuity for us and for our children; for half a century Glady was the core of that continuity, the glue that held those friendships together. Glady was a friend to five generations of my family, a friend to both my grandparents and to my grandchildren. Aunt Alma and Ruth Johlin and our beloved Clara Jones were at Oberlin together at the turn of the century, and once again at Glady's picnics; some of Ruth's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are here today. The Neal family's friendship with Glady stretched over her entire life in Woods Hole; Peggy and Steve's kindness and support enabled her to live out her life as she wished. There are many who tell similar stories.
All her life Glady enjoyed a host of enormously devoted friends and family. We loved her dearly; what's more, we respected her. Beneath the warmth and hospitality lay the bedrock, the keen intelligence and wit, the common sense and good judgment. Day after day, she did what she believed was right, even though it often wasn't what she wanted to do. Because her family needed her, she turned down a job she yearned to take as Executive Secretary of the newly-formed League of Women Voters of Missouri. She took firm stands on civil rights issues long before they were politically popular. She flew back to Florida to attend church meetings when important votes were on the agenda. Her religious principles permeated her life; she defended the underdog, aided those in need, offered support and encouragement to all with whom she came in contact, never wavered in her respect for the dignity of every individual, and gave her love abundantly to all.
The world has changed since we were young. People move a lot more; few of us still live in the neighborhoods where we grew up. We move away because of school, or marriage, or career changes, or a search for a warmer climate. The separations are fostered and at the same time made more bearable as direct dialing and the jet liner have shrunk the distances. For many, the mobility carries with it a sense of rootlessness, but we are more fortunate; our roots lie deep in this little corner of the Cape where our families have spent at least part of each summer, year after golden year. We share decades of continuity, common memories with Glady as the central figure, as a symbol of what has been truly good in our lives. We have been very lucky indeed.
We were all used to not seeing her for months at a time, and certainly to not hearing from her during the off season. But she was always there, in our minds and in our hearts, and we knew that when summer came we would pick up where we left off without missing a beat. It's still hard to believe she is gone.
The memories go back a long long time. Glady and her father first summered in Woods Hole in 1938, renting a house on Gardiner Road. Bea Cosmey had urged her to look up a friend she had known in India, Alma Stokey. Glady found Aunt Alma without difficulty, for she lived just across the street at Fernbank. The two families shared a wealth of common interests, and the friendships grew stronger for half a century. The following year the Greens bought the house on Gosnold road, just around the corner. It was Glady's house, the first she ever owned, and she loved every inch of it. "The Florida house is lovely," she would say, "but it's daddy's...the Woods Hole house is mine." And she made Vagabond House a reflection of herself. As we walked up the path. we all knew that if the flag was flying, Glady was home and a loving welcome awaited us.
We all have different memories of Glady, for the road back into the past is one we must travel alone. Yet we travel parallel paths, and the reminiscences of one friend may spark happy recollections in another.
There were the wonderful years...halcyon days... with her father (Daddy Green to all of us, though the older generation usually refrained from calling him that to his face) ... Glady was devoted to her father during his lifetime and kept the memories alive throughout her own life. Just a few years ago she and I were planning to do something together, and set August 13 as the date. I started to laugh, and to say "Do you remember...?" -- but Glady was one step ahead of me. "I know what you're thinking of," she said, "-- the night Alma organized us all to watch the meteor shower." While the rest of us were gathering coats and blankets in preparation for a leisurely but chilly viewing, Daddy Green stuck his head out the porch door for about 10 seconds, and quickly came in again. "I saw mine," he said. "When you've seen one shooting star, you've seen them all. I'm going to bed."
She delighted in his dry wit; although she rarely identified them as such, her conversation was sprinkled with daddy quotes. One of the recurring problems in the earlier years was the frequent collapse of the record player. One day a repairman spent an hour examining the machine, then pronounced his diagnosis; "It doesn't work." Daddy Green muttered to Gladys that she'd better get rid of this expert on the obvious and find someone else to do the job. Years later she said she wished she'd never heard him use the expression, for all too often someone brought it to mind, and she had to bite her tongue.
Her favorite daddy quote was one he came across in the late '40s and couldn't wait to pass along to her; resorted to it when totally exasperated: "The weakness of reason is that it works only with reasonable people."
In the fall of '43 came the great adventure in joint ownership: two Greens and three Stokeys bought a boat. Some of us had sailed a little (very little, if the truth be known); others had considerable theoretical knowledge about what made a sailboat go, but had never put hand to tiller; Aunt Alma just went along for the ride. A friend surveyed this collection of misfits and observed there was only one name for the boat, SNAFU. So SNAFU she was. The overworked dinghy was SUSFU (Situation Unchanged, Still Fouled Up). A neighbor decided that any sailboat with five captains, only two of whom could row, had better have a second dinghy; he gave us FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Recovery), which lived up to its name by sinking ignominiously on its outhaul. Despite the ambiance of incompetence, Glady turned out to be a skillful sailor. (Anyone who had seen her drive a car would have predicted that.) And she was never happier than at the tiller of our beloved knockabout.
Notwithstanding the anxiety of the war years, they were pleasant times. Woods Hole was quiet; there were few cars in evidence. We all gathered almost every evening at Vagabond House, war knitting (sea boots, mittens, and Balaclava helmets) in hand, to listen to records. Dvorak's Cello Concerto and the Passacaglia were often chosen; the finale was always Oklahoma! Aunt Alma delighted in quoting Ado Annie: "I cain't be prissy 'n' quaint, I ain't the type thet c'n faint, How can I be whut I ain't?" Glady’s favorite lines were from Many A New Day: "A day gone by is bygone... Never have I asked an August sky, "Where has last July gone?" She was elated to learn that song was also the Broadway cast's favorite. Glady carefully hoarded gasoline for the weekly shopping trip to Falmouth. In between she ran errands for people on her bicycle. In August of '45 the war ended; we were jubilant -- and even more so a day or two later, when Glady came bursting into Fernbank (the family was still at breakfast) to tell us gasoline rationing had been lifted, so next Sunday's trip to my grandparents' farm in Halifax could be by car rather than train.
Life in Woods Hole always plays out against a backdrop of the weather. As the recollections recede into the past, they tend to separate themselves into two categories, gorgeous beach days and hurricanes. I remember all too well the early evening of the '44 hurricane. My sister-in-law, Maggie, and I were trying to get the older members of the Stokey family out of Fernbank and over to Vagabond House, where they had reluctantly agreed to spend the night. We weren't having much success, and Glady came over, flashlight in hand, to help us hurry them along. The wind grew stronger, the lights went out, and still we struggled. Finally the Coast Guard arrived and ordered us out. We straggled around the corner, five Stokeys, two cats, and a dog, with Glady bringing up the rear. It was pitch dark and the wind and surf were roaring; the rain had just begun. The next morning we woke to another world -- bright sunlight and a Fernbank surrounded by salt water 7 or 8 feet deep. We learned we would have no electricity for at least a week, and there was no kerosene to be had in Woods Hole or Falmouth. "No problem." said Glady -- and then we discovered why she had lagged so far behind us the night before. As she left Fernbank, she had spotted a 5-gallon can of kerosene in the basement, full to the brim. It was now sitting on her front porch; there was enough to supply the whole neighborhood. How she carried it we never figured out.
In the '54 hurricane, I was at Vagabond House with three of my children. Gladys and Erna were hurrying back from Maine. (Glady told us, incidentally. that the wind was so strong she wasn't able to hold the car on the road, so Erna was driving. Erna just put the gas pedal on the floor and hung on to the steering wheel for dear life.) They tried to get news of the Cape when they stopped for coffee; the rumors got worse and worse. They held their breath when they turned the corner into Gosnold Road, but then they saw faint lights in the windows and knew someone had found the oil lamps. They came home to a houseful of refugees and several feet of seawater in the basement. Glady said years afterwards that what still stuck in her mind was the six dozen frozen blueberry muffins floating in the garage.
We all remember the thirty wonderful years when Glady and Erna kept open house for their friends, and their friends' friends and relatives. They made an ideal combination; Glady loved to entertain, but the preparations she enjoyed were on the non-culinary side -- arranging flowers and candles, figuring out table settings, rounding up chairs, fixing drinks; her enthusiasm for cooking, if any, was well concealed. Erna loved to cook but didn't care much for the rest of the preparations; she left the meticulous attention to those details to Glady . Erna allowed us to help out occasionally in the kitchen, but there was no doubt about who was in charge: "This is the kitchen of Erna Relchmann," the little plaque read. "I am the boss. If you don't believe it, start something!" When Glady was away, Erna carried on as usual, with successive housefuls of friends and a steady stream of dinner guests.
Glady's travels were legendary -- all over this country and to Central America with her father; cruises to the Aegean and up the coast of Norway and several to the Caribbean as Erna found it harder to get around; several trips to Germany, including one to the home Erna had left a lifetime ago before the first War; the nearly year-long trip around the world with Aunt Alma Thanksgiving in St. Louis, Christmas in Bad Durkheim, We never tired of her slide shows, for she was a superb photographer. She knew that parents take lots and lots of pictures of the first child, but time and energy wane as the children multiply. So she set out to provide her friends with ample material for their albums, pictures that we value more and more as the years go by. Her home movies often caught moments that stick in the memory -- Aunt Alma hastily combing little AG's hair in preparation for the picture taking that had already started. Ruth Johlin the morning after a hurricane, ankle deep in water, pushing a dinghy up her driveway so she could row the last few yards to her house. Daddy Green and cousins on a western trip, the scenery enlivened by a small boy waving with mountains in the background, waving with a lake in the background, waving with Old Faithful in the background.
Glady's days were filled with countless little kindnesses behind the scenes to make things go smoothly...and lots of kindnesses that weren't little at all -- a month with four little Stokeys and their mother and their dog on her hands, when a polio epidemic struck Wayland particularly hard. It must have been one of the worst months of her life. She only said she was thankful she could help.
She knew when you needed help and knew what had to be done without asking. On the family's major ceremonial occasions, I usually had too many people to chauffeur in too many different directions, all at once. Without fail I would get a call from Glady not "What can I do to help?" -- but even better – telling me which elderly relatives I could stop worrying about because she was taking charge of them. She never let us feel we were under any obligation for these kindnesses, for she knew it was important to accept help as gracefully as she gave it. A call from the Cape meant something to be brought down on my next trip. A call from Florida was more serious. One January I decided to stop off in Miami Beach for a nice quiet rest on my way to Jamaica. Glady greeted me at the plane with: "Your timing is just perfect. I've got to get that back bedroom cleaned out and if we keep right at it we can get it all done by the time you leave." At least I wouldn't need to worry about all the calories Erna would try to pack into me while I was there.
Glady was stubborn at times, even feisty. Some years ago, when she had just celebrated her elevation to Medicare status, she and lots of family and friends joined us for dinner. Our dog, Tanya, was fresh from a close encounter with a skunk. Neither my efforts with tomato juice nor Tanya's in the form of going down to the beach and rolling in some dead fish had improved the situation. Tanya knew a real pushover when she saw one; she planted her head in Glady's lap, determined to spend the evening having her head scratched. Finally Glady gave up. "Tanya," she said (trying not to breathe too deeply), "I love you, but you really stink." It seemed like an accurate statement, under the circumstances. But one of the guests was upset: "Gladys, that is a vulgar word; you must not use it." Glady asked what she was supposed to say. "You should just say that she smells badly." The opening was more than Glady could resist. "But that's not true," she said. "She can smell perfectly well, better than you or I can. The trouble is, she STINKS."
The last time I talked with her was when she was in the hospital in January. She was weak, but her voice grew stronger as we talked. I told her that AG was to be a grandmother; she said, "AG? Little AG a grandmother? What wonderful news! But Edie, it will sure take a lot of getting used to!"
We all have our cherished memories; recollections of an accumulation of small events that make up the very fabric of life. Surely the Saturday night picnics are among the most vivid memories for many of us. The history of those Saturday nights is captured in the famous tablecloth, covered with the signatures of years and years of guests. (We have it here today and will spread it out downstairs so you can find your name once again.) Swordfish (how many pounds of it we must have eaten over the years!) and snowflake rolls, salad and Stokey picnic drink. And therein lies a tale of loaves and fishes, for the capacity of the Stokeys' picnic jug was seemingly infinite. The jug was a dandy -- one gallon, complete with spigot. It served the company admirably in the early years, when perhaps ten or a dozen gathered. It was less than adequate as the Saturday night gang grew and new generations joined us. But Glady wanted to maintain the tradition that the Stokeys provided the picnic drink without imposing a further burden on the aging aunts, so she would make ready another couple of gallons for sneak refills of the jug as needed. The aunts never knew.
We all knew that whenever we got back to Woods Hole the clan of family and friends would gather on Saturday night at Vagabond House. We would renew the ties with old friends; our children would make friends with the next generation. Those friendships have remained strong for decades, and now extend into the fourth and fifth generations. They provide a wonderful sense of continuity for us and for our children; for half a century Glady was the core of that continuity, the glue that held those friendships together. Glady was a friend to five generations of my family, a friend to both my grandparents and to my grandchildren. Aunt Alma and Ruth Johlin and our beloved Clara Jones were at Oberlin together at the turn of the century, and once again at Glady's picnics; some of Ruth's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are here today. The Neal family's friendship with Glady stretched over her entire life in Woods Hole; Peggy and Steve's kindness and support enabled her to live out her life as she wished. There are many who tell similar stories.
All her life Glady enjoyed a host of enormously devoted friends and family. We loved her dearly; what's more, we respected her. Beneath the warmth and hospitality lay the bedrock, the keen intelligence and wit, the common sense and good judgment. Day after day, she did what she believed was right, even though it often wasn't what she wanted to do. Because her family needed her, she turned down a job she yearned to take as Executive Secretary of the newly-formed League of Women Voters of Missouri. She took firm stands on civil rights issues long before they were politically popular. She flew back to Florida to attend church meetings when important votes were on the agenda. Her religious principles permeated her life; she defended the underdog, aided those in need, offered support and encouragement to all with whom she came in contact, never wavered in her respect for the dignity of every individual, and gave her love abundantly to all.
The world has changed since we were young. People move a lot more; few of us still live in the neighborhoods where we grew up. We move away because of school, or marriage, or career changes, or a search for a warmer climate. The separations are fostered and at the same time made more bearable as direct dialing and the jet liner have shrunk the distances. For many, the mobility carries with it a sense of rootlessness, but we are more fortunate; our roots lie deep in this little corner of the Cape where our families have spent at least part of each summer, year after golden year. We share decades of continuity, common memories with Glady as the central figure, as a symbol of what has been truly good in our lives. We have been very lucky indeed.
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I found a printout of this in my mother's filing cabinet after she died. I got my brother-in-law, Ron, to scan it and do an OCR on it.
Aunt Eva isn't mentioned at all in it by name, but I'm adding this eulogy to her Related Documents, because there are a couple of stories that featured Aunt Eva being Aunt Eva - for a retelling of one of them, see a letter that my mother wrote in the same year about Maggie:
1988 LETTER FROM EDIE TO AL, PETER, AND PEGGY
And I've added the 1944 story to the Fernbank page on this website:
FERNBANK
But my mother knew better than to let Glady's eulogy be hijacked by Aunt Eva stories.
My mother mentioned the tablecloth. It was photographed, in detail. I have the CD-DVD-whatever of it. I should upload it. Another item on a very long list of things to do.
On July 27, 2022, which was the 119th anniversary of Glady's birth, AG emailed us:
In celebration of her birthday, I will pour an Old Fashioned. Some kind of whiskey, pineapple wedge, orange slice, maraschino cherry and grenadine, I think. Quite sweet, and very stiff. First alcohol I ever was served in a family setting, when I was just 18. (Legal in Florida, perhaps?)
I responded by sending out the eulogy. My brother Roger responded:
I have so many happy memories of Vagabond house. I loved waking up there, in the bedroom with the eaves at the top of the stairs. The hypnotic lapping of the waves. I can remember walking way out from her beach to the sandbar at low tide. From there you could see the railroad bridge. It wasn't until many years later I that I realized how remarkable that was. The view looked over the causeway of Scraggy Neck, a low point on Wings Neck, and marshes at Gray Gables. I doubt that is possible now with construction and tree growth.
Vagabond changed very little during the years I remember, except Gypsy became Suzette, and a kitchen redo, but that's about it. During Ed Goltermann's tenure it continued to as it was, largely unchanged (but there were extensive needed repairs). Even the little "Green" sign at the head of the driveway remained. I always smiled seeing that during my lunchtime walks from work.
The pea stone paths, the blue dutch door gate, made for an enchanting game of tag. And taking down the flag and folding it was always a treat. Occasional walks to the Woods Hole Yacht club to watch them set off the sunset cannon. Saturday night picnics.
A few days ago, I happened to randomly glance at my "Vagabond" shirt (the Herreshoff Fish I had for a while) and almost put it on. I recall asking Glady if it was alright if I gave my boat the same as her house. It wasn't until I read AG's email that I realized it had been on Glady's birthday.
So of course the narrow paths as well as the flagpole at Scraggy are an homage to Glady and Erna, and my fond memories of that era.
"Gypsy became Suzette" - Gypsy was a cocker spaniel, Suzette was a poodle. After Suzette came Tippy.
AG wrote:
The eulogy is fantastic. Thank you, Lucy. So many details that ring so true. I have Glady's old doll Jerushy, whom she allowed me to play with one time when I was sick with a bad cold, and stayed at Glady's several days. (That might have been to spare them all from Aunt Eva's diagnosis that I was sick because I was bad to the bone.. Although after I was grown up, she had softened a bit and told me one day ". . . . you weren't really a bad child, Alma Grace.") After Glady's death and Ed Golterman was there summers, he asked if there was anything in the house I'd like to have. I described the doll; he didn't know anything about it, but found her quickly it in a bureau drawer.
"I was sick because I was bad to the bone." - Aunt Eva's interpretation of Christian Science, I guess. And lo and behold, this eulogy gets hijacked by Aunt Eva stories.
Aunt Eva isn't mentioned at all in it by name, but I'm adding this eulogy to her Related Documents, because there are a couple of stories that featured Aunt Eva being Aunt Eva - for a retelling of one of them, see a letter that my mother wrote in the same year about Maggie:
1988 LETTER FROM EDIE TO AL, PETER, AND PEGGY
And I've added the 1944 story to the Fernbank page on this website:
FERNBANK
But my mother knew better than to let Glady's eulogy be hijacked by Aunt Eva stories.
My mother mentioned the tablecloth. It was photographed, in detail. I have the CD-DVD-whatever of it. I should upload it. Another item on a very long list of things to do.
On July 27, 2022, which was the 119th anniversary of Glady's birth, AG emailed us:
In celebration of her birthday, I will pour an Old Fashioned. Some kind of whiskey, pineapple wedge, orange slice, maraschino cherry and grenadine, I think. Quite sweet, and very stiff. First alcohol I ever was served in a family setting, when I was just 18. (Legal in Florida, perhaps?)
I responded by sending out the eulogy. My brother Roger responded:
I have so many happy memories of Vagabond house. I loved waking up there, in the bedroom with the eaves at the top of the stairs. The hypnotic lapping of the waves. I can remember walking way out from her beach to the sandbar at low tide. From there you could see the railroad bridge. It wasn't until many years later I that I realized how remarkable that was. The view looked over the causeway of Scraggy Neck, a low point on Wings Neck, and marshes at Gray Gables. I doubt that is possible now with construction and tree growth.
Vagabond changed very little during the years I remember, except Gypsy became Suzette, and a kitchen redo, but that's about it. During Ed Goltermann's tenure it continued to as it was, largely unchanged (but there were extensive needed repairs). Even the little "Green" sign at the head of the driveway remained. I always smiled seeing that during my lunchtime walks from work.
The pea stone paths, the blue dutch door gate, made for an enchanting game of tag. And taking down the flag and folding it was always a treat. Occasional walks to the Woods Hole Yacht club to watch them set off the sunset cannon. Saturday night picnics.
A few days ago, I happened to randomly glance at my "Vagabond" shirt (the Herreshoff Fish I had for a while) and almost put it on. I recall asking Glady if it was alright if I gave my boat the same as her house. It wasn't until I read AG's email that I realized it had been on Glady's birthday.
So of course the narrow paths as well as the flagpole at Scraggy are an homage to Glady and Erna, and my fond memories of that era.
"Gypsy became Suzette" - Gypsy was a cocker spaniel, Suzette was a poodle. After Suzette came Tippy.
AG wrote:
The eulogy is fantastic. Thank you, Lucy. So many details that ring so true. I have Glady's old doll Jerushy, whom she allowed me to play with one time when I was sick with a bad cold, and stayed at Glady's several days. (That might have been to spare them all from Aunt Eva's diagnosis that I was sick because I was bad to the bone.. Although after I was grown up, she had softened a bit and told me one day ". . . . you weren't really a bad child, Alma Grace.") After Glady's death and Ed Golterman was there summers, he asked if there was anything in the house I'd like to have. I described the doll; he didn't know anything about it, but found her quickly it in a bureau drawer.
"I was sick because I was bad to the bone." - Aunt Eva's interpretation of Christian Science, I guess. And lo and behold, this eulogy gets hijacked by Aunt Eva stories.
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