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Sally Fulton Reston, 89
Was Co-Publisher of the Vineyard Gazette for Two Decades
Sarah Jane (Sally) Fulton Reston, the wife of the late James B. (Scotty) Reston, died Saturday, Sept. 22 at her home in Washington, D.C. She celebrated her 89th birthday earlier this month.
From 1968 to 1988 Mrs. Reston was co-publisher with her husband of the Vineyard Gazette. Both in those years and for three decades before them, she was his constant companion as he traveled the world as New York Times columnist, Washington bureau chief and the newspaper's executive editor.
It was in 1965 that the Restons first visited the Vineyard, spending the summer in the tranquility of Menemsha so Mr. Reston could finish a book he was writing. The Island "took," and three years later, international journalist Reston and his "Gal Sal," as he sometimes affectionately referred to his wife, bought the Gazette from country editor Henry Beetle Hough. Mr. Hough, with his wife, Elizabeth Bowie Hough, had been the Gazette's editor and publisher for 48 years.
A few months after their Gazette purchase, the Restons bought the tall white 1804 former Davis Academy house on Davis Lane in Edgartown, just behind the newspaper office, to be their Island home.
But Vineyard sojourns were limited because of the travels that were an essential part of the Reston job. Scotty Reston's work was just as much Sally's as his, for she not only accompanied him and hostessed for him, but back-stopped for him, advised and counseled him, edited and photographed for him, though skillfully seeming to be only in the background.
Virtually every summer, however, she would make sure the whole family of children and grandchildren gathered together in Edgartown to celebrate the July 14 French Independence Day birthday of the Restons' eldest son, Richard, and the July 4 American Independence Day birthday of their youngest son, Tom, with a dinner of lobster, corn and peas. (James B. Reston Jr. Day, as his father thoughtfully dubbed his middle son's birthday, was March 8, but he and his family, too, would join in the Vineyard festivities as often as possible.)
When the fireworks began, the family would enthusiastically watch the soaring rockets and the sparkling showers of stars over Edgartown harbor from the North Water street porch of present Vineyard Gazette editor and publisher Richard Reston and his wife, Jody, for patriotism was a vital part of family life. When her third son was about to be born, Sally had emphasized to the doctor that she wanted him to arrive on the Fourth of July and, sure enough, she and her physician succeeded in delivering Tom 20 minutes into the holiday.
On her Island visits, Sally always made sure there was time for nature walks at Cedar Tree Neck or Felix Neck or a stroll around Sheriff's Meadow Pond. She joined the Martha's Vineyard Garden Club and worked indefatigably to try to save what she had been told was the Island's second oldest elm that shaded her Davis Lane yard in Edgartown.
There were often early morning tennis games at the Edgartown Yacht Club courts. Sometimes there would be boating trips out of Chilmark with the late Donald J. Hurley. And sometimes Sally would go out to take pictures for the Gazette or do perceptive interviews with such Vineyard seasonal residents as opera singer Beverly Sills and author John Updike. Former Gazette staffer Virginia Poole recalls how Sally won the hearts of her young reporters by always remembering the stories they had written and complimenting them on their work.
It was in mid-life that she discovered photography. She not only photographed with a sensitive and artistic eye, but learned to do her own developing and printing. From time to time, her pictures of the heads of state her husband was interviewing would accompany his articles in The New York Times. Her Gazette photos tended to be reflections in a still pond, boats bobbing at anchor, a gnarled tree, a small boy at play.
For all her round-the-world travel and years of sophisticated city dwelling in New York, London and Washington, Sally always cherished her country background in a small Illinois town and retained a love of the beauties and restorative powers of nature.
As a young woman on the eve of marriage, leaving Sycamore, Ill., the town of her childhood, she wrote about "racing the wind down the creek" and lying under the trees. "When you grow up in the simplicity and modesty of a countryside like this, your spirit remains colored by its skies forever, with the cool shadows of the trees, and with the sunlit green of the sloping fields."
She was born Sept. 5, 1912, in Sycamore, the daughter of William J. and Laura (Busey) Fulton. Sycamore, in those days, was a county seat of 4,000 set in corn and soybean-growing country. Her father, a lawyer, later became an Illinois circuit and supreme court judge. As chief justice of the state supreme court, it was he who swore in Adlai Stevenson as governor of Illinois. Her mother's family had followed the same route as Abraham Lincoln's family, from Kentucky to Illinois.
Sally attended public school and high school in Sycamore and, in girlhood, developed a great affection for the piano. With piano-playing friends or relatives she always enjoyed sitting down for four-handed duets of Mozart or Beethoven.
In 1930, she left Sycamore for the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. It was there, one December evening in 1931, as Scotty recalled in his memoir, Deadline, that the "big event" in his life occurred when he met Sally Fulton with the "dark hair and thoughtful eyes and a smile that made me feel funny inside."
He was a senior; she was a sophomore, but they became inseparable - even talking dreamily of marriage, and she accepted his fraternity pin.
Soon, however, he was graduated and writing about sports for the Daily News in Springfield, far away in Ohio, his home state. For one brief period, in a romance that was to last for 64 years until Scotty's death in 1995, Sally asked to be freed from her commitment to be his girl alone.
She was 20. He was far away. She thought she might like to date other men, but in reality, she was as smitten with Scotty as he with her. Though she thought she should be dating some of the time, she concentrated on her philosophy major instead and on earning a Phi Beta Kappa key. And she closely held on to Scotty's fraternity pin.
By the time Sally received her degree from the University of Illinois, Scotty was in New York working for the Associated Press. He urged his intended to come east, which she did, for a visit. Then, eager to be near him, she began her career in New York as a journalist. She was an editor and writer for Mademoiselle Magazine and later worked for Reader's Digest in London. On Dec. 24, 1935, the young couple was married
.
Two years later, they were living in London where the AP had assigned Scotty to write about sports and international affairs.
But next came World War II. Mr. Reston's journalistic responsibilities shifted to those of war correspondent and he moved from the AP to The New York Times London bureau. The family moved back to the United States, first to New York city and then Washington, which was to be their principal residence for the rest of their marriage.
Their homes were variously in Georgetown, in a house near the National Cathedral in northwestern Washington and, most recently, at Kalorama Square, also in the northwest section of the city. When their children were young, the Restons bought a little log cabin, as well, and moved it to Fiery Run in the Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
There, again, Sally could be at one with nature. Afternoons, the family would pile into their jeep, drive across the fields and up into the foothills to watch the sun set. Evenings, they would play games and read aloud - a favorite lifetime pastime. Tom Reston remembers how, as a boy, he would hurry home from school at lunchtime, as much to listen to his mother reading to him mellifluously from Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped or Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs while he ate, as to eat the lunch itself.
Because of the Restons' virtually continuous schedule of travel, there was need of help in the family household. On a stay in Mexico - a favorite vacation retreat and a place where Scotty worked on books - they learned of a young Mexican, Frank Olguin, who became their cook, driver, man-of-all-work. It was he, under Sally's direction, who handled the tasks of everyday living. Sally's interest in and work for Mexican immigrants led to her being honored with the highest award of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, of which she was a board member. She was also a member of the board of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.
Although she was not a homemaker in the traditional sense of the word, her artistic eye helped furnish her homes with color and order and charm.
"She always made sure that there was a place for everything - for books and Scotty's pipe ashtrays - but nothing was ever so tidied up that you felt you couldn't put your feet up," longtime Washington and Edgartown friend Nancy Muir remembers.
She was especially fond of works of art. In the Restons' sunny Edgartown living room, an Island seascape by Thomas Cocroft decorated one wall; a rice paper scroll of water and willows from China covered an entire other wall.
The same good taste that she had in interior design was reflected in her selection of clothes. "She never got hung up about them," Jayne Ikard of Washington and Edgartown recalls, "but she always looked as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox."
But it is for her graciousness (albeit with considerable toughness behind it), and unfailing devotion to her husband that she is most remembered.
"They were a team and handed things back and forth to each other seamlessly," recalls Marian (Sulzberger) Heiskell, a close friend and former New York Times board director.
"She always backed him up. She was his memory. She would urge him to tell his stories. She had enormous intelligence and he would always talk to her about what he was doing. Theirs was a blessed partnership."
Another longtime Vineyard and Washington friend, Najeeb E. Halaby, found them the perfect counterparts for each other. "He was the dour, rumpled Scot - though with a twinkle in his eye. She was so lovely. I think she had something of the quality of a muse for him."
"I always think of Ladybird Johnson and Sally Reston in the same way - as wives who illuminated their husbands," said former U.S. Secretary of Defense and Edgartown seasonal resident Robert S. McNamara.
"Sally always put Scotty front and center," one-time Gazette intern Elsie Walker recalls. "Oh, Scotch," she would chide when he did something especially outrageous, "but if ever there was a woman behind a great man, she was it!"
Mrs. Reston is survived by her three sons and their wives: Richard and Mary Jo (Jody), of Edgartown; James Jr. and Denise Leary, of Bethesda, Md.; Thomas and Victoria Kiechel, of Washington, D.C. and five grandchildren.
Mrs. Reston will be buried beside her husband Thursday at the Leeds Church graveyard in the tiny rural village of Hume, Va., located in the valley farmland of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Vineyard Conservation Society, P.O. Box 2189, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.
Paul Stuart Engley, 81
Was ‘Summer Kid' Who Made the Island His Lifelong Home
On April 16, 1943, 23-year-old Pvt. Paul Engley of Quincy sat down with pen and paper and wrote to his family from northern India.
"If you can believe it," he wrote, "this is supposed to be a serious letter. For the past few days I have been doing some serious thinking about the future."
He was in India with the U.S. Army Air Corps, his young life caught up like millions of others in the great war. But, like most of those men and women - including his brothers Burton and Roger, who would both be in the Army by the war's end - he was thinking of life afterward.
"By now, you must know that I am thinking of selling the Quincy house and going to live on the Vineyard," he wrote. "We have talked about it many times before and I know we all agree it seems to be the best thing. . . . It is not an easy or small move, neither is it a hard or impossible move.
"Think of the advantages and disadvantages. Weigh them both, all of you. Write to Rod and Burt and speak to Auntie before you let me know what you all think. I agree that it concerns all of us.
"As you all know, I intend to make the Island my home no matter what."
Paul Stuart Engley died Wednesday, August 29, at Windemere Nursing Home. He was 81 years old. True to his youthful resolve in that hot, distant place nearly 60 years ago, he returned at the end of the war and made the Island his home.
Paul Engley was born in Boston in 1920 and grew up in Quincy, graduating in 1937 from North Quincy High School. Into the last months of his life, he had fond memories of his boyhood - including Boy Scout trips to Cape Cod and drives to the New Hampshire mountains with his older brother, Roger. He still loved and talked about his father, Hollis Lewis Engley, though his father died when Paul was 15 and left a family of seven struggling to survive in the midst of the Depression. Paul missed his father right up to the time he himself died.
Paul Engley was an Oak Bluffs summer kid who became an Islander. His mother, Gladys Toward Engley, and his father introduced him and his brothers and sisters to the Vineyard. Starting before World War I, when the couple's first child, Burton, was a baby, they vacationed at the modest family home in the Highlands of Oak Bluffs. It was a seductive summer life there - on the beach, on the water, on Circuit avenue, at the Tivoli, at the fair in West Tisbury.
In 1936, after her husband died, Gladys bought an old farmhouse off Middle Road in Chilmark and began to take in summer guests. There was no electricity or telephone at the house; oil lamps provided light in the evening. The children slept in the barn across the old stone wall from the house. Paul worked delivering laundry and later drove a truck for grocer Paul Bangs, who had markets in Vineyard Haven, Chilmark and Cuttyhunk. In the years before the war, he hung around with an up-Island crew of young men and women - Bill Smith, Betty Flanders and Barbara Stantial among them.
Military service in India was a revelation. "They say it hasn't rained here for months and probably won't rain for more months," he wrote. "There is loads of dust and sand, miles of it, very few trees and bushes. Camels are a common sight either drawing a wagon or being ridden. There are lots of donkeys and horses, too. I mustn't forget the sacred cows that leisurely stroll down the streets of the town and whenever in the mood settle their carcasses in the sidewalk or street and snooze."
Still, he wrote to his brother Roger, he and his friends daydreamed about home. "Much of my time is spent in thinking about the Vineyard and all the fun I have had there," he wrote. "It sure has meant a lot to me and still does. All I ask is that I get back there and am able to settle down and stay there."
He came home in 1945, settled on the Island and began working with Roger. Soon after coming home, Donald and Joan Downs introduced him to Lucille Andrews of Vineyard Haven, the daughter of barber Billy Andrews and reporter Edna Jackson Andrews. They were married
in her mother's Edgartown Road house in June of 1946. Nine months later their first child, Hollis, was born, followed as the years passed by Roger, Jeanne and Tom.
Paul and Lucille lived first on Music street in West Tisbury, then moved their family to a succession of homes in Vineyard Haven, finally buying a big, shingled house at the corner of Main street and Daggett avenue, renovating it and living there 25 years.
Paul worked for his brother Roger's West Tisbury construction company for nearly 40 years. Roger and his wife, Betty, both now dead, owned and ran the business. Paul acted as foreman. For decades the small but serious and hardworking crew built solid homes and a reputation for honest and first-class work across the Island.
When Roger decided to close his business and retire in the mid-eighties, Paul retired, too. The Daggett avenue house was sold and he and Lucille moved into the small, renovated camp on the edge of Tashmoo Pond that had belonged to her parents. There he dug quahaugs in the water just beyond his lawn and took his canoe across the pond to dig in the clam flats. When old friend and new neighbor Albion (Beanie) Alley needed crew for his small lobster boat, Paul went along and Lucille enjoyed the lobsters.
About the same time, he and Lucille built a home in Warren, N.H., on a hillside above a working dairy farm, with a broad view of the sunrise over Mt. Carr. Though the move seemed odd to some of their Island friends, Paul and Lucille loved their winters in the mountains. It was a change from 40 years of Island life and they were near their daughter, Jeanne, and her children, Josh and Monica. In late August of 1992, Paul wrote to one of his sons, "We expect to be on our way to New Hampshire soon. I will be able to work on the land and projects in the shop. Lucille will be able to warp one of her looms. The weatherman says that the snow will come early this year and we can sit back and watch it fall."
In the New Hampshire house, while Lucille knitted or wove on her looms, Paul turned to woodworking. He made signs, toys, ornaments, walking sticks, tables, benches, finely-detailed miniature buildings, all of which he sold at church fairs or gave away. He loved life in the mountains, loved seeing a new way of living and becoming a part of the small, friendly Warren community. He especially loved sugaring season and sawmills.
And for the past half-dozen years in both New Hampshire and Vineyard Haven, he fought the private, heroic battle so familiar to spouses of people with Alzheimer's Disease. As the woman he married
in 1946 slowly slipped into mental confusion, he protected her from herself and tried to protect her from her disease. He never asked for help, never admitted that it was too much for him.
Two years ago, he began a serious fight with emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, probably brought on by cigarette-smoking early in life. He was in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers, but his lungs steadily failed. Lucille finally entered Windemere Nursing Home's Alzheimer's Unit in Oak Bluffs earlier this year when he could no longer care for her. From then on, he was too weak to visit her more than a couple of times.
He entered Windemere himself in June. Before he died Wednesday, Lucille was brought up to visit him. She sat at his bedside and touched his arm. She recognized him and knew he was sick. He died later that evening, surrounded by people he loved.
Paul Engley leaves Lucille, his wife of 55 years, and his four children: Hollis, of Falmouth; Roger, of Ocala, Fla.; Jeanne, of Canaan, N.H., and Tom of West Tisbury. He has 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He is also survived by a sister, Ruth Truesdale of Ocala, Fla., a brother, David Engley of Fremont, Calif., and numerous nieces and nephews. His brothers, Burton and Roger, and his sister, Natalie Sherwood, all died before him.
A memorial service celebrating his life will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 8, at Christ United Methodist Church in Vineyard Haven, with a reception afterward. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Windemere Nursing Home, Hospice of Martha's Vineyard or the Vineyard Nursing Association.
Fred M. Simons, 79
Was Vineyard Leader; Career Spanned 50 Years as TV Engineer
Fred M. Simons died peacefully at his Aquinnah home on Monday evening, Oct. 8, following a long illness. He was surrounded by his many caring friends.
Fred was born June 18, 1922 in Chicago and was raised in Swarthmore, Pa. He attended the George School, which was a Quaker School.
He had a fascination with electronics and built his first radio in 1931 and his first hi-fi in 1935. He then started a public address rental business with his first hi-fi set.
Fred attended Swarthmore College in 1940. In 1942 he enlisted in the Signal Corps and was an instructor at Fort Monmouth for two years. He spent two years in France and Germany, first as team chief in Avranches and Gelnhausen, and later as chief inspector of telephone long-line installations in Western Europe.
Upon leaving the service in 1946, he worked for the Bartol Research Foundation in Swarthmore and was loaned to the United States Navy for low-level radiation research in Bikini Atoll in 1947.
Fred went on to receive a bachelor of science degree in engineering from New York University in 1948 and went directly to work for Bell Labs in New York. In 1950 he joined CBS and worked as a television engineer for the next 34 years, the last 16 of which were spent in Boston for WGBH.
Upon his retirement in 1984 he moved year-round to his Lighthouse Road home and quickly found himself on the Gay Head (Aquinnah) planning board, the Vineyard Conservation Society, chairman of Island Theatre Workshop, treasurer of Community Baptist Church of Gay Head, president of the Island Council on Aging, chairman of the Up-Island Council on Aging and vice president of the Friends of the Up-Island Council on Aging. None of these roles were planned for in his retirement, yet he felt compelled to serve all of these worthy causes.
Fred had intended to turn a hobby into a small business repairing and restoring furniture. This endeavor, he once asserted, turned out to be both entertaining and profitable. Throughout his retirement he brought hundreds of chairs, tables and bureaus back to health.
He also kept his hands in an old hobby of cartooning, including a book of cartoons depicting the life of a well-known Vineyard philanthropist, Margaret Love. He was in the process of writing his memoirs, which would have been fascinating, as Fred was a great storyteller. He would often recall his experiences and one would never imagine some of his escapades throughout his illustrious life. His home was decorated with owls in every size, shape and medium imaginable.
Fred was fond of animals, especially his cats, Squeeky and P.K. (Perfect Karma). His other interests included history and music. He was proud to provide taped spiritual music piped through the steeple of Community Baptist Church to ring across the town of Aquinnah.
In 2000 Fred was nominated by the Up-Island Council on Aging as Senior Citizen of the Year, as he exemplified the "Spirit of Positive Aging" in every way. He always found a way to assist others and was honored for his involvement in many community organizations.
Fred had a fondness for children and supported underprivileged children in the United States and around the world. He had a passion for stuffed animals and anything representative of owls. He also loved Beethoven.
Fred was a clerk for Community Baptist Church of Gay Head, which he attended every Sunday when his health allowed. For three years, he assisted with the weekly summer emporiums for the fund-raising activities of the church and had assisted with refurbishment of the Parsonage. He was devoted to Community Baptist Church and shared his home on a regular basis as host for Bible study classes. His assortment of gadgets was a source of inspiration for the youth of Community Baptist Church and was discussed by the Rev. Roger H. Spinney during services. Throughout his illnesses he was often visited by Mr. Spinney, as had he been visited regularly by the Rev. Peter R. Sanborn, with whom Fred had remained in touch.
He was honored with a 79th birthday celebration at Up-Island Council on Aging in June, an event planned by director Joyce Bowker and her staff, including Ellen Sutter Reynolds and Kathleen Brady. His party was well attended by his numerous friends across the Vineyard and by his niece, Susan, and her sons, Ian and Morgan.
Fred will be greatly missed by his friends and family. His neighbors were a great source of comfort to him, and each shared a facet of his life in their own manner, whether as a caregiver, shopper, meal planner, nurse, appointment planner - however one could assist Fred, it was done. The caring and love of his friends was certainly evident, especially during his final days at home.
He is survived by his sister, Dorothy, and by his niece, Susan Rhodewalt, her husband, Scott, and their sons, Ian and Morgan, of Lincoln College, Pa. He is also survived by a vast number of friends across the Vineyard. Fred was cared for in his final months by Mr. Kirkland Beck and Miss Lonnae Cameron.
On Thursday, Oct. 11, his friends gathered at Community Baptist Church of Gay Head at 1 p.m. for a memorial service.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Community Baptist Church of Gay Head, Box 151, Aquinnah, MA 02535 or to the MSPCA Foote Memorial Shelter of Martha's Vineyard, Box 2097, Edgartown, MA 02539.
