Pat and Robert's house

My father liked Victorian houses. I think they reminded him of his childhood of growing up in a neighborhood in Brockport, NY, a neighborhood and way of life he tried to recreate in his later years.

Victorian houses are roomy and built to last and at one time they were fairly inexpensive to own, especially if they needed work and tender loving care. My father fixed two Victorians and one 1940s house over his lifetime. He also had impeccable taste when it came to interior decorating.

This is how the house looked when they originally purchased it (it needed a lot of work, my father's architectural and carpentry skills, but it ended up to be quite the show-stopper in the end! -- see the results towards the end of post).

diningroom:

this is how it looked after they moved in, but before my father rehabilitated it:

old kitchen:

old kitchen machines:

big bedroom:

little bedroom:

old study:

another angle:

upstairs bathroom:

another angle:

the basement:

my father on a ladder fixing up the house:

the studio where my father first set up his workshop (it later became the place where he did his architectural drawings and where he painted all of the windows and doors in the house):

the bank of windows in the studio
(note for the slots under the windows, he put in little drawers):

This is what those banks of windows looked like from the outside
(with view of the back porch):

this is what the diningroom eventually looked like
(with window seat, colors, plants, new double paned windows and the wainscoting taken out):

another view of window seat in the diningroom:

here is what the newly constructed diningroom bump-out looked like:

how the livingroom came out:

house with newly constructed bump-outs (the nearest is the livingroom one):

here is how the front porch looked:

the house in autumn:

There will be some updated photos of this house soon as the house is going on the market. I'll add them when I can. 

It is amazing how a tattered house can become a masterpiece. Hope you enjoyed!

Camp Seaforth in the Virgin Islands

Lise Winne writing the post today.

My understanding of my father's role in Camp Seaforth in the Virgin Islands is that he designed some buildings for it, accompanied on his trips to the location by Ken Webb, starting somewhere around 1969.

The Beach area where the camp was located was full of manchineel apple trees -- "quite poisonous, with acidic sap that could burn one’s skin" (quote by Rick Hausman).

Rick Hausman recalls setting up the camp:
"I went alone to Virgin Gorda via Puerto Rico. In P.R., I bought tents, dishware, cookware, and related supplies to outfit the camp. Meanwhile, back at the office, we were recruiting campers and staff."

He had a few other words to say:
"... you’ll hear wondrous tales of evacuations and near-miss hurricanes, a tiny sunfish sailboat with a single camper spotted just before he disappeared around the end of the island into the Atlantic current, the days when there was no motor boat to ferry water and supplies. I believe a sometimes-functional walkie-talkie was the only means of communication with the outside world. If the ACA only knew…"

Letter from Miriam, Robert F. Winne's mother, during World War II

Robert F. Winne before he went into the army

(This post is written by Lise Winne, Robert F. Winne's daughter)

There are many letters that my father wrote home during World War II. However there is only one that exists from his mother, Miriam, during that time. The following is her letter to her son (Robert). Some of the names of his friends who stayed behind in the USA and what they were doing have been edited out (with the exception of Charlie Meinhold, a close friend, also deceased, who my father went to Farm and Wilderness Camp with the first summer that it opened). Names of people who are still living I have referred to by initials to protect their privacy. 

Jan 7, 1945

Dear Bob,

Last night I wrote you a long letter and then tore it up. Frankly, I am so frantic with worrying about you I can’t write coherently. Your last letter to us was dated Nov. 28 and with the mails so slow from the European area I can well understand why we have not heard since. Of course we did get your cable and flowers which meant so much to us. But now the terrible news of the big German offensive has thrown me into a panic. The paper states that the 75th Division is with the First Army fighting in Belgium against terrible odds, blizzards, eighteen inches of snow, etc, etc. You can well understand how I feel as I do; mothers are made that way, you know. This waiting and wondering is awful so if I really let myself go this letter will not make very cheerful reading.

Your watch came this week and you surely did a good job packing it. What a shame it had to act up when you are out of this country. I should say the main spring was broken and that will happen to the best watch made. A took it into Mr. Ring and I will send it back to you as soon as I can.

A left for school today. It has not been a very exciting holiday for her, but it has been a vacation and she has seemed very contented just being home ... The girls have had a lot of hen parties and (A's friend) has written that she has not had any dates either in Atlanta. (a boy interested in A) was here for a week but A does not consider him a date. (a boy in interested in A) —boy has not changed a bit so I hope the army will do something for him. He expects to go in Jan 10 ...

We have been snowed in again – this time the fourth big storm and they have all been paralyzing. Even the trains could not get thru Buffalo this week, to say nothing of buses and cars. It seems as tho your father has been home more this last month than in months – simply because he could not get out of town. You simply can’t imagine the amount snow we have – I never saw anything like it in my sixty years on earth. You see I am no longer forty – this war is getting me down. I guess we can take the snow and sub-zero weather tho when you boys must fight in the worst kind of weather.

Charlie Meinhold came to see us when he was home for Christmas. The lucky guy is at the U. of Maryland and seems to like his work in dentistry very much.

(A friend who was a fellow musician) is back at the Eastman School taking the public school music course.

We had a very quiet New Year’s eve and it suited me fine as I can’t say we feel much in the mode for celebrating ... We had a nice supper at midnight and wished for a better 1945 with you and (friend serving in the Pacific) safely home by another New Year’s eve.

A spent most of New Year’s eve and most of the next day in bed – too much candy and stuff. (a boy interested in A) sat with her awhile which must have been exciting but she did not miss any parties and she didn’t feel too bad.

I am glad the holidays are over but I shall miss A.

(a friend in military training in Texas) wrote his mother the first gloomy letter this week. The weather has been as bad in Texas. He is afraid their training will be prolonged for another month. Of course, his mother is tickled to death that he will be in training that much longer.

Did I tell you that (a friend) was killed in a plane accident at Westover field? He was first commissioned and looked so well in his new uniform, had lost a lot of weight too. He had only been at Westover field a few days after being home on leave, when he was killed.

I do hope we get some word from you but I suppose that is too much to expect. Just communicate with us in any way you can whenever you can. I keep writing and probably by June you will get all my letters at once.

How I do hope we hear from you soon!

Best love

Mother

Mary, a drawing

Mary

drawing by Robert F. Winne 

(note: this is an old drawing, possibly from the 1960s ... the paper is getting fragile, very yellowed and faded and it is on letter paper, not on acid free drawing paper)

Commemorative Art: Robert F. Winne and Lise Winne art

Robert F. Winne and Lise Winne pattern art

© 2014

Robert F. Winne (father): center art

Lise Winne (daughter): complementary border

commemorative art for the one year anniversary of Robert F. Winne's passing

RPI faculty meeting sketch doodles

RPI faculty meeting sketch doodles I and II

by Robert F. Winne

Professor Winne has a lot of little doodles he made during faculty meetings at R.P.I. These are just two of them out of around 150 of them.  

Was he bored at these meetings? If he was like me (which I suspect he was, since I am his daughter and I am an artist too), doodling actually enhances concentration on what is being said at the meetings. It is like knitting, creating fun little patterns.

I like how his pen moves around or inbetween the RPI emblem and words on the page.

Description of Richard Hooke, artist and woodworker, written by Robert F. Winne

© a sketch from the sketchbook of Richard Hooke, artist, woodworker, teacher

A transcript of Bob’s handwritten description of his friend Richard Hooke (an artist friend who Bob deeply admired and loved) was recently found by Bob's wife, Patricia:

In the morning as he dresses for work and prepares for the day, his eye cannot help but fall on several of the many pieces of art/craft scattered about the household—pieces that are products of his own hand and have become loyal daily companions. Perhaps he will give one or two of them a quick, gentle stroke in passing, signal both of recognition in its presence and a note of appreciation for the continuing delight it offers in its silky surface, rich color and spirited form. He calls the many kinds of human investment that went into each piece; the explorative wanderings before a breakthrough, the many tentative trials, the disasters as well as the triumphs. His mind touched on instances of realization: of coming to know the personality of the material and its resistances, of where one must proceed with great care, and where one can charge along with great abandon, of recognizing when enough is enough, knowing that a piece is never really “finished”. Those of us who are friends of this man could venture to say that his craft is as much art as craft, and perhaps even beyond art as a way of life.

memorial piece written by Robert F. Winne for Fran Garlock

© from a page written in Robert F. Winne's handwriting

I found this memorial piece written in note form (with some cross-outs and revisions) in Robert F. Winne's notes. It is about his sister's husband's mother, Fran Garlock. Fran Garlock lived in Brockport, NY, where Robert (my father) grew up. This piece is in his own words (and probably addressed to his sister's husband, Fletcher Garlock):

I am writing to express a feeling of shared sadness that your mother is gone. Fran was a lady so much alive and alert, it is hard to adjust to the reality that she is no longer with us. Her continuing presence and spirit has come to mind many times in recent days, as well as some impressions of her character that I thought I might set down here.

Some things I will always remember about Fran:

Her sheer pluck in successfully managing her complex one woman enterprise, and doing it with high humor and vigor.

Her wry wit that demolished pomposities wherever she found them.

Her no-nonsense view of the world, and our lives in it. She was no theorist about life; rather, her wisdom came out of a keen observation of every day realities. This clarity of perception that included people and critters, fruit tress and soil was something I found beautiful to behold.

Her choice was to preserve, what might be called, the 'Herriott image' of a gracious country life, a life I often felt had been somehow preordained for her. The sense of fit between person and way-of-life seemed perfect. I was always awed by how completely and elegantly she carried it off.

Her experience at nurturing all these living things gave her some pretty basic understandings about the nature of life. We humans often get so caught up with our uniqueness as a species and with our delicate temperaments that we get cut off from our primal natures, with what John Updike has called "... a sense of what lies beyond history's edge -- our daily, animal lives persisting in their chronic cycles."

This is to send much love and support, and hope that all the offspring will cherish the memory of such a fine lady.

more of my father's lovely every-day handwriting (notes are about Fran Garlock)