In the 1990s Leonard told me about this job on Long Island; he exaggerated a bit and implied it was for the summer, but we see here it is for a week or two. His wife at the time, Pat, assisted the gardener — whether for pay or just for something to do, I do not know.
The Beau Pré Estate in Oyster Bay Cove, New York, was built by an heir to the Woolworth family fortune Helena Woolworth McCann and her first husband Charles McCann as wedding gift for their daughter Constance Woolworth McMullan and her first husband Wyllys Rosseter Betts. It was a 1928 Normandy-style Long Island Gold Coast manor. With her second husband Joseph Vincent McMullan she was raising three children from her first marriage, including two sons Wyllys Eliot Godfrey Betts (age 14 in the summer of 1948) and Charles Rossetter Woolworth Betts (age 13), at Beau Pré ('beautiful meadow' in French). Leonard was hired to tutor the boys, and having earlier decided to turn down the job to depart on their camping trip sooner, he was persuaded to take the job temporarily until a permanent tutor could arrive and take over later in the summer.
One story Leonard related to me from that time was that Mr. McMullan would ask the boys challenging history questions at the dinner table; Leonard figured out that the questions always came from a trivia column in a newspaper (presumably the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal), so he ensured the boys read that column to prep for the dinnertime inquisition. Mr. McMullan figured out he was now busted and the questioning stopped.
next post June 9, 1948
previous post June 2, 1948
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
