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My thoughts on this occasion are on my maternal grandfather, Harry Hovey Spencer, born in 1879, and nicknamed Bamps by me. The bare outlines of his life include a walking commute over the Brooklyn Bridge to his first employment in a button factory downtown in Manhattan; enlistment in the US Navy in 1898 with service as a foredeck seaman on a brig that took part in the Spanish American war off Cuba that summer; and a civilian job in the back office of a brokerage firm, F.S. Smithers, that became his career.

In case you think a back office brokerage job is a modest lifestyle, he would on occasion take a ride on Smithers’ commuter yacht from Glen Cove, on the north shore of Long Island, to Wall Street, an upgrade from walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

He was exceptionally good at bookkeeping accounts. He used to tell the story of spending his lunch hour with a friend across the street at IBM calculating on a legal pad the sales bonuses earned by the salesmen there, clearly before they had started selling computers. He had some IBM stock too, which would have put all of us children among the filthy rich; he sold all of it. 

While he worked in the brokerage he married my maternal grandmother, Natalie Johnson, called Gigi, and had a single daughter, Nancy Spencer, my mother. Gigi was one of Brooklyn’s debutantes and her family initially thought Bamps was too poor and too much a working man for their daughter. However, Gigi was strong willed and in love so they got over their prejudices.

Perhaps because of his enlistment in the Navy, he continued to serve in the military with the National Guard. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1910, he was a member of New York’s First Cavalry, which practiced their horsemanship and charges in the 90th street armory. In 1916 his regiment was sent by train, bag, baggage, horses, and chuck wagons, to Brownsville, Texas under the command of General Pershing to chase Pancho Villa through the hills of northern Mexico. The effort was called the Mexico Border Service. My grandmother would always interject at this point that he forgot his socks, which she had to mail to him in Brownsville.

Every summer Harry and Natalie Spencer spent at Point O’Woods on Fire Island in a cottage they built in 1928, and which burned to its foundation in that first spring. They had tried to be state of the art by installing a diesel generator under the house. Lighting in those days was by oil lamps, a fire hazard. The engine caught fire shortly before July 4 and the house occupants, my grandparents and two houseguests, scrambled to safety carrying only a throw rug; everything else was destroyed in the fire. The house was rebuilt to the same design the following year. 

One of Bamps favorite activities was dressing up in costume to attend masquerade at the Casino in Point O’Woods. He frequently involved others, usually with Manhattans as persuasion. The results could be unpredictable. On one occasion he had his daughter serve as his coolie; on another he enlisted my father and Bengy next door as his fellow tipsy monks. 

Our summer days in Point O’Woods were structured by the community sports schedule and meals prepared by Mary Cimbola, a Russian émigré who lived in Brooklyn with her son and came out to Fire Island each summer to cook for the house. The noon meals were always three course affairs. Between courses, Gigi would summon Mary by ringing a small brass bell. Inevitably after such a meal Bamps would take a long nap in his red corner chair.

Bamps lived to be ninety seven. On the wall at our house was a photograph of Major Harry Spencer’ calvary regiment with Bamps mounted at its head. For years in the winter he would go to the Point O’Wood offices in Manhattan to hang out with Albert Elseroad and his friends. When the POW Association closed their offices in a cost saving effort, Bamps was feeling adrift until our father offered him a small office in his suite at 11 Broardway. Spencer recalls Bamps having tears in his eyes when he recounted this favor. He used to lunch with ex calvary friends every week after the Mexico conflict, often at Gage and Tollner, a famous Brooklyn restaurant. One of his sad consequences of his long life is that one by one they all died and his lunch group grew smaller and smaller.

Bamps’ experience with the military continued throughout his life. In addition to his early experience in the navy and his time in New York’s First Calvary, he volunteered for service during World War One but was not sent overseas. In World War Two he tried to volunteer but was deemed to old for a commission. Instead he signed up to work at Sikorsky making Corsair fighter planes. Every morning for the duration of the war he arose early and took the train to Stratford, Connecticut to work his shift at the plant. Such dedication I also felt was characteristic of our country’s contribution to the war from those who did not fight.Later, when the war was over, he took me back to the plant for a tour. At the time they were making helicopters. Sikorsky is now part of Lockheed Martin and still makes helicopters.

We do not have much record of Bamps’ time with SF Smithers. He was naturally tight lipped about his own work history and the manner of that time was not to give details about work unless prompted.

In my earliest memories of Bamps he was retired. When he reached retirement age of 65 I was two years old. I remember him principally in Point O’Woods during the summer where he raised pine trees from seedlings under the house and planted the young trees all over the community. Then, he was President of the Club at Point O’Woods and always talking about how the Club was just getting by. He was certain that if July was sunny and the Club well attended, then August would be rainy and poorly populated. This was his sense of the island’s inevitable balance of nature. 

Later he was President of the POW Association for many years, a tradition carried on by my brother, Spencer. One day after yet another storm had eliminated the dunes along the ocean I suggested to Bamps that dune grass be planted on the rebuilt dunes to secure them from wind erosion and help add to their height. To my surprise, the Association took the suggestion and instituted an annual community planting with erection of dune fencing.

Bamps had an extraordinary sweet tooth. I recall him adding sugar by the tablespoon to his helping of baked Alaska one Sunday dinner. After such a large dinner before his inevitable nap, or after downing several Manhattans at cocktail hour, he would smile contentedly and announce to all present that “a child could play with me now.” 

Bamps and Gigi were not great travelers. However, I do remember them traveling to Spain where they hired a touring car and, much to Gigi’s regret, ate a Spanish soup delicacy made with tiny live eels. They also traveled to Venice.

After Gigi died Bamps moved to an apartment in Greenwich, Connecticut with a Jamaican woman caretaker. He still liked to walk and generally ate his lunch and drank a single Manhattan at Boodles in downtown Greenwich. He liked to stop at his bank on Greenwich Avenue and chat with a teller there from Nicaragua. This friendship grew to the point where Bamps offered to buy her a car, at which point my terrified parents intervened and asked the bank managers to step in. I do not recall if the teller lost her job, but the friendship ended with Bamps’ finances intact.

One of the benefits of a long life is that Bamps knew my oldest daughter, Kelly, his great grand daughter. This photo was taken in the summer of 1972; Bamps died in 1975.