Remembering Whitney Hubbard

I want to remember Whitney Hubbard and his wife. They were my mother’s friends in Greenport Long Island during the Second World War, 1941-43.

Whitney Hubbard taught my mother watercolor. She included me though I found it boring. The first class was private at our house. I painted, labored over, a picture of the doghouse. I chose it because it related to my dog, King.

One day when we were painting on the pier in the Village of Greenport my mother looked up to see me diving off the end of the pier into the harbor. I had taken advantage of her distraction to beg a dollar to buy a bathing suit and the next thing I was in the water. That was the last time she asked me to paint with the class.

I remember Whitney as grey haired, a small slender frail looking man in a dark suit with hat and tie. He may have had a little mustache. I remember him as being quiet and patient. He and his wife lived in a run down house in the village across from the Episcopal Church and up the street a bit. I went there often with my mother. His wife whose name I will try to remember was probably manic at times but she greatly amused my mother. She was very funny. She was large, with a prominent nose, a bit over weight and had brown hair. They seemed an incongruous couple to me.

Mrs. Hubbard was a musician. One of their sources of income were her engagements to play the piano. She may have played the organ at local churches as well.

I remember her description of one of the “Ladies” clubs in the village. She imitated one of the fat ladies with a big bottom seating herself at the piano bench. My mother and I were in hysterics.

You entered their house through a gate and stepped into an over grown and neglected garden. Kind of like an enchanted forest to my child’s eyes. Their house had a lot of plants. The floors were uneven and it was musty. I remember a green house room along one side with lots of windows and a brick floor. It did look to me at aged eight to ten, like it was about to fall down.

The Hubbards were very poor. Mrs. Hubbard always had tea for us when we stopped by. My mother tried to help them by taking lessons and buying one of Whitney’s paintings