Memories of “Sixty One Eighteen”

“Sixty one eighteen”, as it was known, was Grandmother and Grandfather’s house on St. Andrews Lane. That changed when the house was sold around 1966 and Aunt Martha and Uncle Warwick took that number. My son, Stephen Lord Jr. had his 3rd birthday party, with ponies, on the lawn, there. It was the last Davenport function.

I lived there several times. Mother, Daddy and I lived in the apartment over the garage while our house on St. Andrews Circle (as opposed to Lane) at the foot of the hill, was being built. After we moved, Bangs, our Cocker Spaniel, bore a path up the hill, through what is now the Steven’s house, around the fish pond, to greet us at the end of 6118’s driveway, as our car took the long way up the road.

Grandfather had Bingo, his English Setter; a fabulous rose garden behind the garage; and his humming birds who drank not from the plastic feeders of today, but from test tubes he painted red, and hung on green garden stakes around the huge porch with the columns. The hummers loved it and were everywhere. I do not remember Grandfather ever doing any other maintenance work. There was a story that one morning in bad weather the man who came to milk Buttercup didn’t arrive. Disliking the bad weather himself, Grandfather brought Buttercup into the kitchen and took care of her. He joked, “Always do what you are asked but do it badly and you will never be asked again”.

Right next to the porch were the Indian breastworks that Grandmother was always telling me about. My father, John, found many arrowheads.

Grandfather was a gentle, stern, Puritanical Connecticut Yankee from Staten Island. He was the only man at that time ever to turn down an invitation to become a member of the Richmond German. During Prohibition, my other Grandfather, Thomas McAdams (later president of the American Bankers Association), had his own bootlegger. Grandfather Davenport gave up drinking.

At one point, Grandmother’s nieces, Imogene and Ida Burrows lived at 6118. The story goes that someone turned to Grandfather at a wedding function when the 5 boys and the 2 nieces were all dressed to the nines and asked “Sidney, how in the world do you do it?”

“In terms of 18 tooth brushes”, he replied.

When my mother and father went away, I would move up the hill to 6118. My room was the little one in the back of the house. The cradle that all 5 boys were rocked in was in that room, so I assume it was the nursery. I have that cradle now. Grandfather slept in a rather small middle room, next to Grandmother’s large bedroom. There was a connecting door between the rooms. I moved to 6118 for about six months when my parents moved to Washington at the beginning of the war. Grandfather conducted prayers every morning (and maybe every evening too, I don’t remember) in the study. No absentee excuses. Every night at dinner, the radio was tuned to H.V. Kaltenborn with war news. I was fascinated that Grandfather took iodine with his meals. Of course it was the only known treatment for heart disease then.

Before the war, Sunday dinner was pretty much required attendance. Grandmother, Grandfather and I would always stop at Highs Ice Cream shop en route home from Grace and Holy Trinity to pick up vanilla “cream”, as Grandmother called it, for Sunday dinner. There were no freezers in those days. I remember the large roast beef being carved by Grandfather, and a clamoring for more before he served himself. Of course Sarah was in the kitchen. She was the only help. She wore a white cap and I don’t think she had any hair. I can’t imagine what she was paid and to my knowledge she had no family or days off. Where would she go living that far out in the country? Her bedroom was in a little house in the back driveway, and she had to go outside and into a connecting room for her bathroom. A shed for garden tools was at the other end of the small building.

Sarah made rolls at least twice a week. Later, when I walked to and from St. Catherine’s, I would stop by Sarah’s kitchen to eat a fresh roll, or if they hadn’t been baked I preferred the dough anyway. I also have Sarah’s dough bowl. She made wonderful floating island too.

Woodrow was also a mainstay. He cut grass with the push lawn mower and worked outdoors with Grandmother when he was sober. I remember being told he drank Solox, not expensive whiskey. Many a day my mother propped Woodrow up against a tree and plied him with coffee. He had a brother, Willy, who showed up occasionally. There were often late night phone calls from jail for “Mr. John” or “Lawyer Davenport”. Daddy would leave him, or them, there to sober up.

Grandmother and Woodrow “slipped” boxwood every time a grandchild was born. There should be lots of English box there now. However, when I was learning to drive, I was allowed to go from my house up the hill to 6118 and back. I took out a few box bush branches with me. Grandmother never said a word about it, although I knew she knew.

There was the one large goldfish pond and there were several small ones hidden in gardens. They were the ones I could get in.

There were always peacock feathers in an umbrella stand in the front hall. These Grandmother collected from Miss Ellen Ball’s peacocks who strutted and shed everywhere.

After the war Mother, Daddy and I moved from Washington back to 6118. Our house was still rented. We lived in the wing that was the original house that was torn down by the present owners. I think that almost everyone of the 5 sons and their families lived at least briefly back at 6118.

That first day of January in 1946 was the first time I saw my father cry. He came to pick me up at a friend’s house and told me that my Grandfather had died. It was also my Grandmother’s birthday. It was the end of an era. Grandmother wore black for years. At my insistence she finally changed to navy blue. As her namesake I could get away with some things her grown sons couldn’t. I remember saying “damn” in front of her and she didn’t blink an eye. My father and Uncle Byrd waited for her to call me down.

Grandmother took me to a Dior (or some major fashion designer) opening in Paris. We looked very disheveled having worn our same “traveling clothes” for at least a month. As these gorgeous mannequins came down the runway, she whispered audibly that it was too bad the designer didn’t know not to put an unsightly zipper down the back. It should be on the side, out of sight, under the arm. Then she looked smug and said “You didn’t think I knew such things. Did you?” The answer was “No. I didn’t think you knew such things”.

Grandmother had to leave St. Timothy’s School before she finished, because her father, Byrd Warwick died and there was no money. However she acquired knowledge on many subjects. She was well versed on Ataturk, the Mau Mau, Rudyard Kipling and you name it. Her 1937 copy of John Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is filled with her notations.

She learned from her trips abroad and many hours spent at Mr. Valentine’s auctions, listening and buying. We were happy recipients of a dining room table, a foot stool, a beautiful bench and several of her “finds”. She brought us the stool when she came to visit us in Washington. She built up a large library and started painting, mostly in pastels, at Squam Lake in the summers.

She always said to me “You are going to wish you had listened to all the things I’ve told you”.

I do wish I had listened and learned from all those who are no longer available to me.