Two years ago we ran this post on an interview narrated by Alver W. Napper. We are reposting it to pay tribute to Mr. Napper, who contributed to and served his community for many years. 

This month as we commemorate Black History Month, we turn our attention to an interview narrated by longtime Greenwich resident, Alver W. Napper, who was a member of the Board of Directors of the Lee Haven Beach Club. In operation from 1949 until 1952, the club was located on Shore Island, a small spit of land less than an acre large, off the coast of Byram, Connecticut. The Beach Club, a revolutionary space not without controversy, was established as a recreational club for professional Blacks from the area surrounding Greenwich.

“I like to think of this island, of this club, as being one of the milestones in the evolution of the recreational aspirations of the Black people of this area.” Alver W. Napper, June 6, 2010-February 7, 2002

The following, which details the club’s short duration, is from a 1975 Oral History Project interview conducted by volunteer R.W. Howell. Olivia Luntz, a Greenwich High School Senior and Oral History Project guest blogger, prepared this post.

Alver Napper was director of the Crispus Attucks Center and an active member of the NAACP in Greenwich. In the Lee Haven Beach Club interview, he notes that in the 1930s and 1940s Blacks could not belong to the YMCA, YWCA, or other clubs, so they had to create their own space. “Recreation for Blacks was confined principally to the church,” he says. There were clubs and groups that met in private homes, but there were no public spaces available to Blacks to rent.

In order to hold dances, for example, organizers had to look outside Greenwich. And the need for such space in town was lost on many people. Napper tells the story of a meeting held to discuss the topic. As he recalls, one woman present “spoke up in the meeting and said that she didn’t see why Blacks needed recreation; she thought that when they had their Thursday off from work, or their Sunday off, the proper thing for them to do was to go home and rest so that they would be more efficient for work the next day.” 

This may leave us stunned today, but in the early days, the town’s Black organizers were undeterred.

Napper points out that 1939 and 1940 were the first years in which the need for recreational space for Black citizens became recognized. “They organized some singing and some open-air theatrical kind of things…entertainment.” Next, the basement of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Lake Avenue was turned into a Black community center. Finally, arrangements were made to acquire the old Boys’ Club building, which was then at 33 Railroad Avenue, after the Boys’ Club moved into a new building. The Boys’ Club had never before rented their facilities for Black functions because “they were always afraid that we would have people whom we could not depend upon to observe the rules and regulations and thereby would…ruin the reputation.” 

The most important step toward having a space for Blacks in Greenwich to come together, however, was the creation of the Lee Haven Beach Club. 

The Lee Haven Beach Club was founded after a Black real estate broker from New York, Mr. J. Opie Hagans, came across the island and purchased it. The island had previously been used during prohibition as a bootlegger club, called the Pieces of Eight. Hagans was known for buying run-down properties, repairing them, and then reselling them. However, the Lee Haven Beach Club faced problems before it even opened its doors. According to Napper, “as soon as news got out that Blacks had bought the island, then the real old racist Greenwich spirit began to bubble over.”

The club was first challenged by zoning laws that prohibited new clubs being organized unless they were approved by Greenwich zoning. However, since the Pieces of Eight club had existed on the island beforehand, the challenge was moot. Next, once the club got started, there was a challenge of the club’s right to have a rope ferry that would allow people to access the island. The Lee Haven club was once again able to dodge that setback as the Pieces of Eight club had been granted a permit for a rope ferry.

But the club’s connection to the Pieces of Eight club also created problems. “During the time of the Pieces of Eight club there were people getting drunk, creating disturbances on the island, and annoying everybody around the neighborhood….The neighbors claimed that that was their main reason for trying to prevent this new club from starting.” Therefore it was important that during its existence the Lee Haven Beach Club was very quietly operated.

The greatest challenge the club had to face, Napper says, was the fight to obtain a liquor license. “Some of the people who lived around that area, people of means, paid several very prominent attorneys to block our efforts to secure a liquor license. This went on for several years until as Napper comments, they “were able to hire someone who had political clout.” Only then did they obtain the license—and not until the club paid a high price, spent to convince that lawyer to represent them. 

And the liquor license was not the only problem the Club faced. Napper adds that, “we had hearings—town hall packed hearings with the people who objected—and they had all of their lawyers there. They objected to the permittee, they objected on the basis that there were nuisances going to be created in the neighborhood, and so forth—all kinds of objections.” 

In spite of the controversy, the club prevailed and was successful—for a time.

Shore Island, Photographer: Didier Ciambra, www.ciambraphotography.com

The main clubhouse contained the bar and the restaurant, and four additional houses provided fifty to sixty rooms that could be rented out. The island also had “a very beautiful locker room, and we had a beach—a beautiful beach.” Finally, the island also had a dock where members would bring their boats. The club’s daytime activities included enjoying the beach, boating and playing games. Unlike the Pieces of Eight club, the Lee Haven Beach Club was more family-oriented. Napper notes that members from New York would “come down and rent several rooms and bring their families down for a week or two.” During the evenings there were dances and parties on the lawn and private parties in guests’ rooms. There was a jukebox “which we used to use every night,” says Napper. 

However, all the effort that went into creating the Lee Haven Beach Club couldn’t prevent its eventual demise. Napper recalls that the club lasted for four summers, those of 1949-1952. Dissension began to grow within the club because of the differing opinions among members about whom the club should be open to. Napper explains that the club was originally created as a space for professional Blacks from New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and other metropolitan areas to gather. “The general aim [was] to try and make the membership predominantly professional Black people.” 

When the club first started there were several hundred members, who mostly lived in New York and Washington. It soon became apparent that a club strictly limited to professionals could not earn enough revenue to stay open. Some members wanted the club to admit anybody who could pay their membership dues. 

“We had our Annual Meeting,” says Napper, “and the professional group had held an affair in New York City to raise money to make up the deficit for the club. When they came out, they wanted to change the constitution of the club so that you had to be professionals. There was a big floor debate about that, and they were out-voted by the people who wanted to keep it open to everybody. Then that group (the professionals) said that since you’re going to do that, you’re not going to get this money, which they raised in order to save the club. So that was the parting of ways then. Next season was an extremely lean season with most of these professionals staying away, and thereafter the club rapidly went down.” 

After that summer there was a hurricane that severely damaged the buildings on the island, and the captain/caretaker who lived on the island during the winter passed away. The island was eventually sold and remained deserted. “It’s “gone back to nature now,” Napper sadly notes.

Despite the demise of the Lee Haven Beach Club, Alver W. Napper’s interview is a compelling reminder of the contributions Greenwich’s Black residents have made to our rich and fascinating history. 

“The Lee Haven Beach Club,” 1975, is available through the Greenwich Oral History Project office located on the lower level of the library or on the first floor in the library’s reference section. 

A summary of the Greenwich Oral History Project interviews commemorating Black History Month can be found here: http://www.glohistory.org/uploads/2/5/3/1/25311459/2013_02_13.pdf

The Spragues of Steamboat Road

With this interview, by Oral History Project volunteer, Joseph Campbell, we reach once again into our archives for a narrative taking us back to the early 1900s. In 1976, Betsy Cullen interviewed William and Francis Sprague, who shared what it was like living in Greenwich at the turn of the century.

A married couple, born within a year of each other, who years later died within months of each other*, the Spragues tell of growing up and living in Greenwich and of residing on Steamboat Road.

This is their story:

Many times when we read the histories of former residents of Greenwich, their memories are of happy times growing up simply or during major events, such as World War II. The focus is usually on the positive. 

William and Francis Sprague grew up in Greenwich in the early 1900s, before and after the First World War. Their reflections include hardships endured as well as good times enjoyed. 

For the Spragues, growing up near or on the water on Steamboat Road (Mrs. Sprague lived there as a child; the couple moved back when they married), some of the good times included swimming in the bathing suits “God gave them.” They also recalled how Standard Oil had large oil holding tanks along the waterfront and how when they fished, they would have to move on to Greenwich Cove where there was less trash in the water and where the fishing was better.   

They tell of the winter of 1917 when the salt water froze up to 20 inches thick and prevented the barges from bringing in coal. Horses and sleds were used to go across the ice to get the coal in. They recount how they fished for eel by chopping holes in the thick ice and then using a long spear to stab them. We are told of the times when they had to burn wood before they had coal, and this was long before they had electricity in their homes. 

Sometimes the snow was so deep they had to dig their way out of the house to go for food, doing the best they could. There were no indoor toilets, and once they did get running water, the pipes froze all the time. In the morning they had to crawl under the house and warm up the pipes with boiling water to get it flowing again.  

Francis recalls working at the old Greenwich Hospital on Milbank Street. She worked in the kitchen with her sister when Francis was 12 years old. She worked 13-hour days.  

Lest we begin to think that theirs was a life of constant toil, there were fun times as well. You can read the descriptions of winter sleigh rides and summer carriage rides in beautiful English style horse-drawn carriages.  

The wondrous thing about these stories is the details that transport the reader to another time. The Spragues seem to remember everyone they knew when they were growing up, from the people who delivered the ice in the summer, to the shoemaker and pizza maker and the bakers. They reminisce about the streets and the buildings no longer there. In the fall there was Mr. Mead’s apple orchard, with apples ripe and so enticing, kids just had to pick the tempting fruit. They remember the old post office and before, when it was a hole in the ground filled with water that froze over in the winter, allowing the kids to ice skate. The Spragues describe a time when Greenwich Avenue had no lights and no cars, just horses pulling a trolley up and down with a water trough at the end.

The Spragues interview is a long one, well worth the reading. Their knowledge of old Greenwich and the people who lived and worked and played here is staggering. It contains much detail on life in old Greenwich. Life was hard and much was expected of kids who were many times forced by circumstances to grow up quickly and to take on adult responsibilities. But these hard times were also punctuated with good ones.

For an amazingly detailed remembrance of the Greenwich that used to be, I would encourage you to come to the library and read the Spragues story. It may inspire you to drive around to see where the old bakery with the warm rolls in winter was located or even to find the old Spragues house. And therein lies the value of the Oral History Project’s vast collection, memories that intrigue us and stir the imagination.

*Mr. Sprague was born November 11, 1893, in Waterford, Ireland; died March 22, 1979, in Stamford, CT.
Mrs. Sprague was born August 15, 1892, in Waterford, Ireland; died November 11, 1979, in Mount Pleasant, NY. 

All photos from Wiki Commons, Greenwich Connecticut, postcards.

The Sprague interview, Greenwich in the Early 1900s, can be found in the circulating collection on the Oral History Project kiosk on the first floor. Additionally, a copy of the interview can be found in the OHP collection in the local history reference area on the first floor. Library patrons may also read the interview at the OHP office on the lower level of the library.                 


Veteran's Day, 2018: A Greenwich "Miracle"

As we continue to recognize the forty-fifth anniversary of the Greenwich Library Oral History Project, we thought it fitting to reach into our archives for a heartwarming story about a World War I soldier's return. The interview we draw on is A Doctor’s Daughter, narrated by Alexandra Clarke Spann (1903-1977). Published as a hardcover “red book” in 1985, the contents draw on four separate interviews, telling the story of what it was like, growing up in Greenwich in the early days of the twentieth century, the daughter of an esteemed Greenwich physician.

There are many interesting and colorful anecdotes presented in the interview but none so engaging as the World War I story Ms. Spann narrates—and that retelling is the incident our volunteer turned to. We went back to the book, and the following is what we found.

Well into the interview Alexandra Clarke Spann is asked about “dramatic incidents” she remembers from her life. She responds:   

   

The Havemeyer Building on Greenwich Ave., once the Havemeyer School

“Well I think the most dramatic was during World War I. One of our favorite mail carriers was Johnny Lockhart, whose brother was in a division in Europe that was almost completely annihilated. Johnny got word that his brother had been killed. The town loved Johnny so much, and they knew his brother, so they were planning a memorial service. I was just big enough to carry a small flag over my shoulder in a flag drill, which you don’t hear of anymore. They sang “America,” they prayed, they did all the loving things you’re supposed to, and almost finished—when the doors on the colonnade to Havemeyer School opened, and the captain stepped it.”

Interviewer:  “The captain?”

Spann: “He [Colonel Charles E. Lockhart] was a captain [colonel] in the regiment. Dead silence. You could feel it. It pressed on you. Then all pandemonium let loose. People shouted, stamped, whistled, threw their hats up in the air. Even the flags went up. It was absolutely the most dramatic thing I think I ever lived through.”

Interviewer: “How did you feel?”

Spann: “We all cried.”

Interviewer: “You cried?”

Spann: “Absolutely unashamed, men and women both.”

Interviewer: “Did he know that this was his funeral service?”

Spann: “No, he didn’t. Somebody told him there was a meeting in the Havemeyer Building, to go see what was going on. He just walked in cold.”

Interviewer: “That’s a truly dramatic incident.”

Spann: “I think it’s the most dramatic one in my whole life.”

Without further comment or explanation, Ms. Spann goes on to tell about Boss Tweed’s property on Milbank Avenue. But it’s the story of Captain Lockhart’s miraculous return to life that lingers.

This long ago tale about a beloved soldier brought back to a hometown in the midst of honoring him seems worthy of remembering on this holiday meant for reflection.

The red book, A Doctor’s Daughter(1985), narrated by Alexandra Clarke Spann, can be found in the circulating collection on the Oral History Project kiosk on the first floor. Additionally, a copy of the interview can be found in the OHP collection in the local history reference area on the first floor. Library patrons may also read the interview at the OHP office on the lower level of the library.