Usually, March can be a downright miserable month – so, why not amplify its
wretchedness by throwing a global pandemic in the middle of it?
What to do?
My first thought was to write a story about the local impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic. With a little research, that quickly got too depressing. An aside to that not- to-be written story, however, is to note that Maverick founder, Hervey White, served during the 1918 epidemic as Dr. Downer’s lone assistant while the good doctor tended to inflicted Woodstockers. According to Alf Evers, when Downer asked White how he felt about “taking a chance at death,” Hervey replied, “Life is not so sweet that I can’t do my duty.”
Moving on, I began a search of old newspapers in an effort to find something to write about. It was during that process that I ran across a series of Woodstock gossip columns (more politely, they could be called “social notes”) written by Marguerite Hurter in 1940 for the Kingston Daily Freeman. Now, gossip is nothing new in Woodstock, but, for their time - with the Nazi flag flying over most of Europe and with shadows of war looming off American shores - Hurter’s columns struck me not only for their seemingly carefree attitude, but for their “whistling in the dark” quality. Throughout her columns, Hurter offers a look at a “What, me worry?” Woodstock; a Woodstock very much centered on the arts and the belief that, no matter what may come, optimism and strength will be found in community.
This from a column written in August 1940:
“Tuesday night there will be an auction of great excitement in the Woodstock Art Gallery, when the composite picture which was painted last Friday night at the reception of the Woodstock Art Gallery’s third exhibition, will go under the hammer.
Peggy Dodds began the painting with the head of a rather bizarre lady. Someone drew a nude body. Frank London added a skirt for politeness sake, and from then on it was a free for all. Nobody thought to give the lady a bodice, and some old ladies were shocked, but it was a heap of fun. Holly Cantine, the Saugerties paper mill mogul, waxed nautical and painted a boat in the background. We do not believe the young lady of the painting is dressed fit for a boat ride, but we wish we might win the painting. It is autographed on the back by more famous names than you could collect in an autograph book.”
Hurter was also not above a little name-dropping in her columns as well. Making her way around Woodstock, she would note:
What to do?
My first thought was to write a story about the local impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic. With a little research, that quickly got too depressing. An aside to that not- to-be written story, however, is to note that Maverick founder, Hervey White, served during the 1918 epidemic as Dr. Downer’s lone assistant while the good doctor tended to inflicted Woodstockers. According to Alf Evers, when Downer asked White how he felt about “taking a chance at death,” Hervey replied, “Life is not so sweet that I can’t do my duty.”
Moving on, I began a search of old newspapers in an effort to find something to write about. It was during that process that I ran across a series of Woodstock gossip columns (more politely, they could be called “social notes”) written by Marguerite Hurter in 1940 for the Kingston Daily Freeman. Now, gossip is nothing new in Woodstock, but, for their time - with the Nazi flag flying over most of Europe and with shadows of war looming off American shores - Hurter’s columns struck me not only for their seemingly carefree attitude, but for their “whistling in the dark” quality. Throughout her columns, Hurter offers a look at a “What, me worry?” Woodstock; a Woodstock very much centered on the arts and the belief that, no matter what may come, optimism and strength will be found in community.
This from a column written in August 1940:
“Tuesday night there will be an auction of great excitement in the Woodstock Art Gallery, when the composite picture which was painted last Friday night at the reception of the Woodstock Art Gallery’s third exhibition, will go under the hammer.
Peggy Dodds began the painting with the head of a rather bizarre lady. Someone drew a nude body. Frank London added a skirt for politeness sake, and from then on it was a free for all. Nobody thought to give the lady a bodice, and some old ladies were shocked, but it was a heap of fun. Holly Cantine, the Saugerties paper mill mogul, waxed nautical and painted a boat in the background. We do not believe the young lady of the painting is dressed fit for a boat ride, but we wish we might win the painting. It is autographed on the back by more famous names than you could collect in an autograph book.”
Hurter was also not above a little name-dropping in her columns as well. Making her way around Woodstock, she would note:
“Gloria Vanderbilt and her sister, Lady Furness, have taken a house in Woodstock
and beginning Saturday will establish themselves as regular summer members of
the famous art colony in the Catskills.
Kitty Kelly, actress and Hollywood celebrity who played in Bob Elwyn’s Woodstock Playhouse in “Something Gay,” has won many friends in Woodstock.... Kitty is responsible for the Gloria Vanderbilt-Lady Furness visit here and during the run of the show sat each night in the front seat to cheer Kelly. They have all been staying at the Village Inn, and Mr. Allen says they seem to like Woodstock a lot.”
At one point, Hurter was not beyond playing real estate agent in an effort to entice
professional boxer Mickey Walker – who, at different points in his career, would
hold both the World Welterweight and World Middleweight championships – to
establish his training camp in Woodstock:
“In a recent article of ours mentioning how a handsome prize fighter was looking for training quarters, we rather hinted that Woodstock would welcome Mickey Walker. We got a letter of thanks from Mickey and it is so cute we print it as follows:
Dear Miss Hurter:
I would like to thank you for deciding a decision which nearly came to blows between my family and me.
Before I read your column I always had an idea I was handsome but I could not convince my wife, nor my brother and his wife on that point. But now they are all satisfied and even my nine-month’s old son thinks I’m beautiful! Thanks anyhow for the nice article.
Well, Mickey, you’re as handsome as Jack Dempsey any day, and we hope you win.”
Kitty Kelly, actress and Hollywood celebrity who played in Bob Elwyn’s Woodstock Playhouse in “Something Gay,” has won many friends in Woodstock.... Kitty is responsible for the Gloria Vanderbilt-Lady Furness visit here and during the run of the show sat each night in the front seat to cheer Kelly. They have all been staying at the Village Inn, and Mr. Allen says they seem to like Woodstock a lot.”
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| Interior of Bob Elwyn’s Playhouse (HSW Archives) |
“In a recent article of ours mentioning how a handsome prize fighter was looking for training quarters, we rather hinted that Woodstock would welcome Mickey Walker. We got a letter of thanks from Mickey and it is so cute we print it as follows:
Dear Miss Hurter:
I would like to thank you for deciding a decision which nearly came to blows between my family and me.
Before I read your column I always had an idea I was handsome but I could not convince my wife, nor my brother and his wife on that point. But now they are all satisfied and even my nine-month’s old son thinks I’m beautiful! Thanks anyhow for the nice article.
Mickey Walker
Well, Mickey, you’re as handsome as Jack Dempsey any day, and we hope you win.”
Hurter was also not shy when it came to visiting some of Woodstock’s notable
watering holes. One late summer evening found her at the bar of Dick Stillwell’s
Seahorse on Rock City Road.
She would later recount:
“We had a fine time last night doing the conga with “Brad’ in Dick Stillwell’s salon. The party was interrupted when Louise Hellstrom staged a little collision outside with George Broome’s car.
Dick, who knows his windjamming, got a belaying pin and disconnected the cars. Louise left her car temporarily indisposed.” (I’m not sure if Hurter meant that the car was indisposed or if she was referencing Hellstrom?)
Making her rounds of the area, Hurter would also take in the old Maverick Inn where, it seems, a couple of birds were her main source of joy:
“There is a great variety of entertainment in Woodstock, but our favorite entertainment, at the moment, is the pair of parrots at Sheriff’s Maverick Inn on the Maverick Road. These parrots dance when you sing and clap your hands, and keep calling ‘Audrey.’ Audrey is Sheriff’s young daughter. The children love the parrots. One is named Laura and the other Lauretta.” (For Woodstockers of a certain age and era, Hurter’s “bird story” reminds us of the parrot once perched outside Nina Kincaid’s Folk Art on Rock City Road.)
Marguerite Hurter began her career as a journalist following World War I writing
for the The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Herald-Examiner. Later, she would
move on to write columns (“Women, Clothes and Figures” and “ The Skirt”) for
Variety. She would eventually parlay her success into writing a syndicated column
that was distributed in more than fifty newspapers. In the 1920s, she also claimed
the title of program director for radio station WINS.
It was, perhaps, her connections to show business that led to combining both her Woodstock experience with Hollywood when, in July of 1940, she wrote:
She would later recount:
“We had a fine time last night doing the conga with “Brad’ in Dick Stillwell’s salon. The party was interrupted when Louise Hellstrom staged a little collision outside with George Broome’s car.
Dick, who knows his windjamming, got a belaying pin and disconnected the cars. Louise left her car temporarily indisposed.” (I’m not sure if Hurter meant that the car was indisposed or if she was referencing Hellstrom?)
Making her rounds of the area, Hurter would also take in the old Maverick Inn where, it seems, a couple of birds were her main source of joy:
“There is a great variety of entertainment in Woodstock, but our favorite entertainment, at the moment, is the pair of parrots at Sheriff’s Maverick Inn on the Maverick Road. These parrots dance when you sing and clap your hands, and keep calling ‘Audrey.’ Audrey is Sheriff’s young daughter. The children love the parrots. One is named Laura and the other Lauretta.” (For Woodstockers of a certain age and era, Hurter’s “bird story” reminds us of the parrot once perched outside Nina Kincaid’s Folk Art on Rock City Road.)
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Maverick Inn (Donated by Audrey-Stern Montagny/HSW Archives)
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It was, perhaps, her connections to show business that led to combining both her Woodstock experience with Hollywood when, in July of 1940, she wrote:
“This morning we met Clarkson Reynolds, the ice man. Reynolds is a character well
loved in Woodstock, and we asked him whether he knew we once made up a song
about him? It went something like this:
‘Oh, the ice man!
He’s a nice man...
He’ll freeze you,
But Please you...’
It went on in the same silly strain and Bertie Shevlin sang it with a few special yodels one day when we were with J.P. McEvoy. Mr. McEvoy was doing a show for Flo Ziegfeld with W.C. Fields that season. One morning he telephoned us in excitement and asked us to sing the ice man song over the phone. We thought it was a gag, but began to yodel. Imagine our surprise when he created the role of the ice man for W.C. Fields! Later Mr. Fields did the ice man stuff in a moving picture Mr. McEvoy scripted in Hollywood. About that time we remembered that we never collected a percentage. The moral? Never Yodel.”
And yet, following a visit with Hervey White at the Maverick, Hurter does indeed offer a moral that bears remembering:
“Yesterday we dropped in to see Hervey White at the Maverick and took tea. We like Hervey and his ideas.
Gertrude Finckle, wife of George Finckel, is running the Intelligentsia restaurant at the Maverick. There is a large coffee mill before the place and it looks like a cozy spot for a chat. The prices are low and Hervey believes young artists in the Maverick should be able to get a bite to eat without digging too deeply into their shabby pockets. Hervey has always been fighting the machine age, and whatever happens to the world, thanks to Hervey White, we think the Maverick will always be a nice place.
‘Oh, the ice man!
He’s a nice man...
He’ll freeze you,
But Please you...’
It went on in the same silly strain and Bertie Shevlin sang it with a few special yodels one day when we were with J.P. McEvoy. Mr. McEvoy was doing a show for Flo Ziegfeld with W.C. Fields that season. One morning he telephoned us in excitement and asked us to sing the ice man song over the phone. We thought it was a gag, but began to yodel. Imagine our surprise when he created the role of the ice man for W.C. Fields! Later Mr. Fields did the ice man stuff in a moving picture Mr. McEvoy scripted in Hollywood. About that time we remembered that we never collected a percentage. The moral? Never Yodel.”
And yet, following a visit with Hervey White at the Maverick, Hurter does indeed offer a moral that bears remembering:
“Yesterday we dropped in to see Hervey White at the Maverick and took tea. We like Hervey and his ideas.
Gertrude Finckle, wife of George Finckel, is running the Intelligentsia restaurant at the Maverick. There is a large coffee mill before the place and it looks like a cozy spot for a chat. The prices are low and Hervey believes young artists in the Maverick should be able to get a bite to eat without digging too deeply into their shabby pockets. Hervey has always been fighting the machine age, and whatever happens to the world, thanks to Hervey White, we think the Maverick will always be a nice place.
Hervey White (HSW Archives)
The spirit of Hervey White is always a good place to end when we need to remember that - no matter what Covid-19 news is cascading across our various screens – Woodstock carries on. They say we must face the “new normal” in the weeks ahead. Well, Woodstockers have been redefining normal for a long, long time. We’ll get by. Just do what we have always done as a community, take care of yourself, your family and your neighbors.
(My wife just yelled at me to make sure I wiped down my keyboard... think I’ll go for a walk.)
Richard Heppner
(Richard Heppner serves as Woodstock town historian, His latest book, Woodstock’s Infamous Murder Trial – Early Racial Injustice in Upstate New York is on sale locally and online.)
