|
and footpaths. It was not until several
years later that Mr. Winsor decided to develop his large acreage into
house lots. Moving the Weston Golf Club from Kendal Green to his farm
was a great in-ducement to prospective buyers, and many of the young
hope- fuls from the banking firm of Kidder Peabody and
Company, in which Mr. Winsor was a partner, built houses on the new
develop-ment. They also attended the Unitarian Church of which he was
a pillar. My father referred to them as Mr. Winsor's slaves, and
maintained that he could see Mr. Winsor checking his list every Sunday
to make sure they were all present; and when Mr. Winsor died, he said,
there was a perceptible shrinkage in attendance by the Kidder Peabody
contingent.
Uncle Andrew Fiske was also a pillar of the Unitarian Church until
one day Mr. Winsor greeted him with, "I hope to see you
in my church next Sunday." The remark infuriated Uncle Andrew. "The idea
of Robert Winsor calling it his church," he snorted,
and thereupon became an Episcopalian.
The summer after the
celebration — 1914 — Uncle Charlie Fiske came home from Europe, frothing
at the mouth. Ordin- arily he was the gentlest and
most docile of people, and such a display of temper seemed completely
out of character.
"I'd like to hit that Kaiser over the head with my cane," he
announced, brandishing his walking stick in the air and looking
at an imaginary Kaiser. He was so convincing that I felt certain, given
the chance, he and his cane could cure all the troubles of
the world. But he was never given the chance, and war broke out
in Europe. About three years passed before the United States entered the
conflict, and in the meantime there was an important |