The Boggs/Wilgus family of Woodstock, New York

Both of my grandfathers arrived in this area in the early 1900’s.

 Henry Wilgus, my maternal grandfather came from Elizabeth, New Jersey.  He married May Van Bramer from High Woods, and after a short time in urban New Jersey, they moved to the country.  He ran a country store in High Woods, and he even coined a new motto for High Woods “High Woods, High and Healthy”.  When prohibition ended, he built an addition to the store featuring a decent sized dance floor.   Pitchers of beer were available for refreshment and square dancing for fun.  Many artists from Woodstock joined in the jolly fun, and the ceiling over the dance floor was covered with wonderful graffiti signed by artists.  Henry wanted the local kids to go on to High School, but he was told his ideas were not “…worth a row of pins” and that he was just a city slicker.  Eventually, his ideas took form, and a school bus was commissioned to take local kids to the Saugerties High School.  My mother (May Wilgus) and father (Norman Towar Boggs, Jr.) met at a party at the High Woods Store.

Norman Towar Boggs was at teaching at Columbia, when…so the family story goes…John Dewey mentioned over lunch that Ralph Whitehead had an “interesting thing going on in Woodstock”.  Norman bought land in Woodstock in an area now known as "Boggs Hill". He built a large home for himself, a smaller home for his sister, two houses for people who would be hired to work the dairy he intended to build, two barns for the animals he intended to have, and a Montessori school for his children and other children who might wish to attend.  The farm never exactly worked out. 

  Norman was a writer and a clergyman.  His most famous work is The Christian Saga a two volume work that gives his version of the historical path of Christianity was written in Woodstock.  He used to walk through the woods to the little church near the Meads Mountain House and hold services for the summer guests.  Ethel Fitzhugh Boggs, my grandmother, was a pianist who had studied in Germany.  She had an enduring love of the Maverick Concerts and was a friend of Hervey White.  Percy Keese Fitzhugh, who wrote adventure books for boys, was her brother.  One of his books is set on Overlook Mountain.

I couldn’t do better than Kim Plochman (“Plochman Lane”) in writing a description of the Boggs family.

August, 2006

Dear Diana:

            Here are some patches of reminiscence of the Boggs family, sketchy at best, since I was never in school or some other occupation that would enable us to be together for long, although all five of the family whom I know made and indelible impression on me, and so there is quite a bit to recall, but the emphasis here will have to be a little uneven, to my regret, and with my apologies.

            The Boggs family was in Woodstock in two stretches of time – I’m sure you know all this, but I’ll repeat it, to give the story a little more perspective.  In the first years, mainly in the twenties, they lived in the big Tudor style house at the top of Boggs Hill.  It had a level lawn and an elegant view of the valley.  Some way above the house was the California Quarry – why it had that name I do not know.  Quarrying for big slabs that could be used for sidewalks in New York came to an end when cement took their place.

            When we are all about six or seven years old, Mary had a birthday in the middle of summer.  Zoe Bateman, director of the Children’s House, a Montessori School, thought it would be good if instead of saying Happy Birthday we said Bonne Fete.  I arrived at the party a trifle late, and most of the guests were standing around.  I had a little gift, probably a handkerchief or some candy, and as I held it out to Mary my French failed me, and I said “Merry Christmas”.  It was not many years after that when the family moved to the environs of Nice, and it was years before I saw them again.

            I first had solid news of their return when I happened to see Ethel in the village.  She told me I had been something of a naughty little boy, but indicated that I was not stupid, and she hoped we’d all see much more of each other, which we did.  That had an Overland Whippet, a small sedan, short, narrow and crowded.  When the family was on an outing, elbows and knees stuck out in every direction.  In those days I always rode a bicycle, but for them that would have been hard considering the steepness of their hill, although this time they lived in what was a caretaker’s house, halfway to the top, and much smaller.  But it seemed a comfortable house, even so, and I remember it with a very warm feeling.  Your family became the friends I most often saw and enjoyed

            Ethel came to our house fairly often to see my aunt, Elsa Kimball, and I had many short conversations with her.  She was a strong-minded lady, a person of practicality, ready to face whatever happened.  I admired her greatly, though I sometimes felt that I had to measure up.  But that was a help, because my parents had both died many years before and except for Elsa, my relatives shied away for most of the time from helping me through troublesome years. Ethel came from a good section of Brooklyn.  She told a story about a trip she and her husband took to a side street in Manhattan.  He had an errand in one of the buildings, and while she waited in the front t seat of their touring car with its low doors, a bum shuffled over, looked her up and down, and then said, “For two cents, I’d kiss your knee”.  She was much pleased that just then her husband emerged, and the bum vanished.  But Ethel told the story with much verve.

            I went, not altogether happily to Columbia, which made it possible to come some weekends to Woodstock, railroad fare being two cents a mile.  I was invited to supper many time, and I read aloud some of the Ibsen plays. Towar and Mary listened intently, and we talked afterward.  Virginia was the about twelve, Ghosts or even Rosmersholm and Dolls House would have been pretty much for her.  Fitzhugh was usually in New York.  But the conversation was also general as well.

            Towar and Fitzhugh were both a few years older than I was.  They were intellectual, though in very different ways.  When the family returned to Woodstock, I think in 1933 or thereabouts, Towar became a pupil of William E. Shumacher, a serious painter, much of his work being of women wrapped in light-hued gossamer veils – or were these spiritual essences, not cloth at all?  Towar showed me a couple of pieces of his own work, and from a fine course I had had in school that included a weekly trip to the Metropolitan, I felt able to say that I thought his depiction of character had promise.  (There were also some traces of the influence of Shumacher.)

            Towar also told me a strange story.  When the artist lay dying in a Kingston hospital, his sister, who had come to Woodstock to be with him was standing on a hill after a brief rainstorm.  A brilliant double rainbow appeared, and she began to cry.  “I know he’s gone”, she said, “That rainbow was for him”.  Many of the colors in his work were indeed like those of a rainbow.

           

            Towar had his mother’s independence.

           

I think that Fitzhugh’s first job was with Dr. Joshua Rosett, tall and positive, highly inventive, whose main project was to build a metal copy of the human brain – this was before there was even a hint of the electronic devices that made this sort of thing much easier.  It involved, with Rosett, a process in about five difficult steps, and was, I think never finished.  Fitzhugh told me that on one occasion he was traveling on the New York Subway with a glass bottle containing hydrofluoric acid.  This acid is the only one that eats glass, and pretty soon Fitzhugh had to run out of the nearest subway station and get to a drugstore where they bathed his hands in some base that could counteract the acid.

            There are plenty of chemists, and there are plenty of physicists, but there are not many physical chemists.  I don’t know how Fitzhugh met Elizabeth Monroe, but they were both tall, forthright, and physical chemists.  Elizabeth came from Manchester, Vermont, a town that may be characterized by saying that the sidewalks were of marble slabs.  Their wedding was at her house, and was one of warm dignity.  I think they went to Cornell, and worked there.  The morning after the Hiroshima blast, at Breakfast, Fitzhugh said,” Well, at least I can be glad I had nothing to do with that thing”, to which his wife replied “Well, I did only I was sworn to secrecy”.

            I heard or perhaps read in a newspaper, that Fitzhugh was working on some sort of varnish that would be so slick that it would increase the speed of small boats without increasing the power to drive them.  I don’t know what come of that.  Fitzhugh died, decades before his time.  Elizabeth gave up her scientific research, and turned to organizing groups that would help mentally deprived children.  She was evidently quite a success in this, for a friend of mine here said that he knew her work, and it was highly praised.

            One thing that Virginia did that impressed me greatly was to give a reading of a part in Shadow and Substance, a somewhat mystical play that had slightly more talk than solid thinking.  But Virginia had mastered the Irish brogue, and read through the part with much insight and energy.  (We had a group that met fairly often at various houses in Woodstock, for the sake of reading classic plays.)  Sinclair Lewis had performed the male lead at professional theater in Woodstock the year before.  I wish I had a line like the great piece of music criticism “The So-and-So Quartet played Brahms last night.  Brahms lost.”  Sinclair Lewis was easily the worst actor that could be imagined, and not even Virginia’s performance, which was better than the professional one that did not rescue him, would have saved him.

            In the early fall of 1942, I was in Washington for a couple of weeks, helping so far as I could to get the Headquarters of the Northwest Service Command started before taking it up to Whitehorse.  I had supper with Virginia, but we both had to hurry off shortly after that, and I don’t believe I saw her for several years; this was briefly, in Woodstock village, and she asked my wife and me if we could come and see her husband’s African artifacts. 

            In some ways Mary was a mystery to me.  She was the person of pure feeling, I came to believe that she did not reason her way out of problems, but intuited their solutions.  Of the Boggs family, she had the least concern for institutions of learning, or business, or other enterprises – and when I knew her she was a sociable loner, a highly agreeable one.  I never looked into a face more open, not heard a voice more feminine.  She spoke beautiful French: I had this on good authority.

Kim

 

 

 

The Spinach: My Fourth Grade Year At Woodstock Elementary School, 1953.

            WWII kids, who are sometimes grouped together as “The Silent Generation”, remember Popeye squeezing a can of spinach right into his mouth.  It made him strong—“strong to the finish!”   Back then, fresh veggies were in short supply for a good part of the year, but thanks to early twentieth century modern canning; there were plentiful servings of what was good for you, spinach. I think the mother of all canned spinach is school.  It’s supposed to be good for you, but it takes a talented teacher to dish it up just right.  

I hated school through all but one of my elementary years.  It began with Kindergarten when I was four.  The minute I entered, I knew I did not belong there.  I thought to myself, “There must have been some mistake!”  If you made a blunder and sucked your thumb, my favorite habit, Mrs. Fast dipped it in awful tasting stuff.  You had to line up to use the bathroom.  Girls hardly ever got a turn to play with the blocks.

The next three years were not much better.  In school, I was very quiet and appeared to learn very little. At home, my mother read to me, or I listened to the radio, set up dramatic scenarios with my collection of plastic animals, and talked to my dog.  Teachers were puzzled as to why I could not seem to learn to read. I did, however, learn to tell time as I watched the clock make its slow progress towards dismissal at 3:30. The minute hand would quiver and then jump forward.          

Then, there was a miracle.  Fourth grade happened.  With her soft brown hair curled in a permanent wave, dignified, graceful, Mrs. Allen wearing a perfect tweed dress and sensible shoes stepped in the door. She had a friendly smile and hidden, blinky, squinty eyes fortified from time to time by glasses.  Mrs. Lillis B. Allen was such a brilliant teacher she gave us the spinach without making us suffer a bit.

Of course, Woodstock was a small town, and I have an older brother, so I had been told how lucky I would be when my turn came to be in her class and that Mrs. Allen would be reading all of Albert Bigelow Paine’s The Hollow Tree stories. What I did not know was she would allow so many unique things in the classroom. 

“If you have to leave to use the bathroom,” she said, “get up, put your name on the blackboard at the side of the room and erase it when you come back.” We were all confounded.  No more raising one or two fingers.  No more embarrassing call outs or questions.  Just go if you need to go. As good as the local myth, she read us The Hollow Tree, stopping each day at just the right moment to keep us in suspense.  At home, I learned to read immediately, as if by magic.  My first book was Walter Farley’s The Island Stallion. I have to laugh when I recall how puzzled I was that each page started with the words “The Island Stallion.”  Since I was reading at home not at school, nobody had told me about headings.  At school, for the most part, I still sat in stunned silence, a classic introvert.  Being around so many people for so many hours of the day depleted my energy.          

Children sixty years ago were not abnormally polite.   There were moments of chaos and distress.  Mrs. Allen used to leave the class alone for about ten minutes in the afternoon to take a break, relax and have a cigarette, and, usually, we stayed quiet.   Once, when we all piled into the coat closet and were caught by Mrs. Allen, we were actually ashamed, and Edie H. who had good political judgment even then, apologized and made us all write a card saying we were sorry.

I appreciate what I learned during that one lovely year.  I still know the cloud formations, and have an undying curiosity about ancient Egypt.  My classmate, Holly G.  told me fourth grade inspired her to become an archaeologist.  Recently, she showed me the National Geographic article Mrs. Allen read us about the opening of King Tut’s tomb. It was a very dull report, but she slowly revealed that long ago archaeological event reading a little every day and showing pictures of the boy-kings’ golden mask to a group of astonished eight and nine year olds.

Working on my own, after having been inspired by Walter Farley’s books, I wrote a book and a song about horses that year. I was very happy to find my little manuscript along with my brother, Norman’s epic “How I Came To Kill A Pirate Captain.” among the things my mother saved in a little box of treasured items.

The rest of elementary school was just spinach.  I went back to watching the clock.  My teachers were probably well intentioned, but, in my case, most were ineffective with the exception of those who taught by instilling dread.  I was one of the terrified children who learned math, and learned it well, from Mr. V., who called all students by barking out their last name (“Boggs!”) and directing them to the blackboard at the front of the class for either success or humiliation, depending on the day’s lesson. 

Teacher evaluation is in the news today.  I don’t buy into the current ratings game. It is well known that teachers are required to have children do well on standardized tests. It’s all part of something we like to call “accountability” which has been a tremendous boon to the testing industry.  I do not know if the testing, the evaluations and pure longevity would have given Lillis Allen her deserved star status and saved her job during a cutback.  I am sure that during her tenure, she was not paid enough nor was she thanked enough for making all that canned spinach seem fresh. 

A Country Store: Henry's Taj

            The sculptor, Tom Penning, told me he admired and respected my grandfather, Henry, for the caring and gentle way he took care of his wife, (my grandmother) May Van Bramer Wilgus, during her long illness.  I never met my grandmother because Huntington’s Disease carried her away several years before I was born.  She died at the age of 48 leaving three children, two grown, May and William and one a teenager, Grace, and a very sad and exhausted husband.[i] 

Henry had fallen in love with the lovely May Van Bramer when they met in Tarrytown in 1912.  She was a housemother at a boys’ school, and he was working on a tour boat.  It was, by his account, love at first sight.  She was already engaged to a High Woods boy, but she married Henry Wilgus from Elizabeth, New Jersey.

     The writing is from a notebook that Henry put together when he was an octogenarian with use of a stapler instead of glue thus the marks on the picture.  May has a pretty face and her sense of humor in donning Henry’s wedding clothes is evident.  The bulldog, Spud, was her pet, and she was very fond of him.  There is a fishing rod lying against the boat.

            The Van Bramer family had established a family tradition of burial in the Woodstock Cemetery.  Henry purchased a large plot in the front with enough room for five regular burials and unlimited ashes.  In those days, families often arranged the person for burial themselves, so although May had been a member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Saugerties, her calling hours and funeral were at home.  Henry tenderly placed all the love letters they had exchanged in their early relationship and some of her treasured books in her coffin.  However, his mourning was not satisfied by small gestures, so he commissioned his friend Tom Penning,[ii] a sculptor who worked in native bluestone, to carve a large urn with appropriate symbols indicating family and devotion to God.  Henry rarely attended church, but he was a believer in his own way.

            Henry wanted the Wilgus family crest to be on the urn.  He was somewhat sure it would be a wild goose as the name suggests, but it turned out to be a chap who is half naked and wears a leafy crown upon his head from the old English word “wildgos” meaning a man with a wild disposition.  Henry decided to use geese instead.  Tom Penning, a devoted Roman Catholic, had some knowledge of religious symbols, so he and Henry chose several for the urn.

Goose Chi Rho  (X P)

 

             

            Six months after the urn was put in place, it cracked.  Tom was distressed and offered to make a new one, but Henry said there could never be another exactly like it.  The crack would stay to symbolize the old saying “nothing’s perfect”.  As years went by, Henry added memorials to friends killed in WWII, to the bluestone industry, and one to his good friend William Spencer, a quarry worker and the subject of many tales told at the High Woods store.  His own headstone was placed next to May’s.  There would be a lot of years to live before it would be carved.[iii]

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[i] May Van Bramer Wilgus, 1888-1936.

[ii] Tom Penning is best known for his bluestone sculpture “Our Lady of the Hudson”, a bluestone statue at Port Ewen’s Presentation Church, overlooking the river.  It was done in 1952 with funds raised by local boatmen and towing companies. For many years boatmen would blow the “Port Ewen Salute” as they passed the ‘Madonna cradling a tug boat”.

[iii] Henry Alexander Wilgus, 1894-1976.