People who have known Dick Fellenberg since he came to Southport in 2003 value his friendship and his service to our community, not least for the medical equipment loan program he has managed for residents. That service came in handy for my family on several occasions; it's good to know that John Margardo has volunteered to manage the program as Dick leaves Southport to live near one of his daughters. Dick also coordinated the Helpers Program before Deb Hutchinson assumed that responsibility, and he was a volunteer for the Audible Local Ledger. Looking out for others clearly has been a priority for him.

Dick was one of the first residents to respond to my call, in 2010, for help in getting Southport Village Voices up and running. He became a regular contributor and a valued interviewer, stopping only when health problems got in the way of his participation. Along with many other Southporters, I will miss Dick and wish him many happy years in his new home.

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"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Blanche DuBois, in A Streetcar Named Desire

The sentiments expressed in the above quotes are seemingly disparate; however, they can be complementary, as demonstrated in this story.

Shortly after arriving in the USA from Denmark, my parents, two sisters and I lived in a small apartment in Baltimore. My mother, Blanca, spoke only a few words of English. Her English instructor was Arthur Godfrey, whom she watched religiously on our eight-inch television. Though she enjoyed going to the grocery store, she was still learning American shopping customs.  

One morning, before departing for work, my father asked her to make Norsk Řllebrřd, a warm bitter beer soup served with sweetened croutons, for desert. The recipe required one bottle of dark beer. During the early 1950s, beer and wine was only sold in liquor stores in Baltimore. My mother had never been to an American liquor store before and was not aware that beer was sold in six-packs. After her morning language lesson with Arthur Godfrey, my mother and I walked to the nearest liquor store to buy the bottle of dark beer she needed to make the soup. 

Tante Lulu & Oncle Gebhardt

The store was about five blocks from our home. A large neon sign on the side of the building proclaimed "Northway Liquors." After we entered the small store, a middle-aged woman approached my mother and asked what she needed. When my mother asked for a bottle of dark beer, the woman smiled and asked if she was from Europe. My mother responded in the affirmative. The woman asked what country she was from, and my mother responded, Denmark. The woman smiled again and then asked if my mother knew a Dane named Gebhardt Tidemand? Startled and by now a little suspicious of why this woman was asking her all of these questions, my mother hesitantly responded that she did know the man and explained in her broken English that he was her husband's uncle.  

After hugging my mother, who was beginning to wonder if this behavior was typical of American shopping etiquette, the woman exclaimed, "Gebhardt Tidemand saved my family!" The woman then started to tell a tale that my mother did not completely comprehend; however, she knew that this woman had something very important to say. How did she know the name of my great uncle, who had never been to the United States? And in a liquor store in Baltimore? While she was buying one bottle of beer?

Puzzled, but with a complimentary bottle of dark beer, my mother and I walked home.

During dinner, my mother mentioned the incident to my father and suggested he visit the liquor store to find out how this woman knew his uncle. Uncle Gebhardt lived 4600 miles away and spent most of his adult life in Kiev, Ukraine, and Latvia. How could this woman possibly know Uncle Gebhardt?

On my father's way home from work the next day, he stopped off at Northway Liquors. He asked the lady at the counter if she had spoken to a woman from Denmark the previous day. She responded that she had and started shaking my father's hand vigorously while exclaiming, "Gebhardt Tidemand is my family's hero."

She introduced herself as Minna Zinober. Her husband Albert had emigrated from Russian Lithuania in 1910, settled in Baltimore and met Minna. They married in 1935 and bought their store in 1946. However, other members of both of their families had settled in Liepāja (Libau), Latvia, a port city with a large and well accepted Jewish community. The Latvian government had not instituted pogroms as Imperial Russia had, nor did it overtly discriminate against Jews as in the Soviet Union. 

However, in the late 1930s the Latvian Jewish community feared that circumstances were about to change. The Soviet Union and Germany had become allies and the security that Jews had enjoyed in Liepāja was threatened. In the 1920s and 1930s Liepāja became a major exit point for émigrés from surrounding countries, and now Latvian Jews were also anxious to leave. And that is where Uncle Gebhardt's connection to Minna and Albert comes in.

Uncle Gebhardt was the Belgian Consul, the Danish Vice-Consul, and the agent for several shipping companies in Liepāja. Some of these companies were passenger lines and some were freight lines that also transported passengers. Due to the large number of people coming to Liepāja to emigrate, many shipping agents seized the opportunity to exploit vulnerable émigrés, but Uncle Gebhardt helped the Zinobers' relatives acquire safe passage.  

The Zinobars' relatives depended on a stranger to realize their dream to come to the United States. And they shared with Minna and Albert the good deeds that Uncle Gebhardt had performed. He had earned a sterling reputation in Liepāja. 

The Tidemand home on Hartford Road in Baltimore

Minna asked my father if there was anything she and Albert could do to help us. My father explained that he had been deceived after coming to the United States; the well-paying job that was supposedly waiting for him never materialized. As a result he had accepted a relatively low wage job and could only afford a one-bedroom apartment for the five of us. He had almost no savings but wanted to realize the American dream of owning a house. Minna and Albert financed my parents' first home, a circa 1740 whitewashed stone house a few miles closer to my father's place of employment. It was a former stagecoach stop where, it was rumored, George Washington had slept. How American was that!  

My father had depended on the kindness of strangers twice in three years. It didn't work out the first time, but the second time it did. He reaped the harvest from seeds of kindness that Uncle Gebhardt had sown many years before. Minna and Albert more than repaid the kindness Uncle Gebhardt had shown to their family, but of course he never expected any repayment. The world is not as large as one may think and our daily actions may have results far in the future, in the most unexpected ways and places.

When you walk into Zel and Sheila Dern's home, you are surrounded by art: stained glass, unique furniture, watercolors and prints using all media. Colors abound. And, oh yes, there is an enthusiastic greeting from Buddy, their French bulldog Buddy, who wants your attention right away.  

Sheila & Zel Dern

As we sat talking around their dining table, munching on Sheila's homemade mandel bread ("Jewish biscotti") my eyes roamed the room and took in the unique décor. Zel mentioned that he made the beautiful table where we were sitting and Sheila said they designed and made their bedroom furniture. When I admired their stained glass Palladian window, Sheila noted that she had created the design and Zel implemented it.

So who are these creative people? Both Sheila and Zel are from New Jersey. They met at the wedding of Sheila's cousin and Zel's best childhood friend. At the time, Zel was in his first year of dental school at Temple University in Philadelphia and shortly after the wedding he went off to work at a summer camp, but the romance continued and hasn't ended. They married in 1965.

Zel had his own dental practice from 1968 to 2006 in Randolph, Massachusetts and he continues to practice on a limited schedule in Randolph. When asked why he chose his profession, he mentioned the influence of an uncle who was a dentist in New Orleans and that he enjoys working with people and using his hands Parenting, woodworking and boating were just some of the things Zel enjoyed when we was not in the office. Bridge Over Troubled Waters, a Catholic charity, provided him with a valued opportunity to be with people in a different setting and to help others. For ten years he worked with runaways and troubled kids, which gave him great satisfaction and a deep appreciation for the difficulties some young people cope with.

Sheila's college years were spent at Fairleigh Dickson University in New Jersey but she had no particular career in mind. "I liked going to parties and the beach," she said. As she discussed her subsequent career, first as a purchasing agent and later as a designer of promotional products, one could sense the creativity that made her a success. The challenge of devising ways to promote a company, product or occasion didn't daunt Sheila; it energized her. She once used chocolate sneakers as a marketing tool for Reebok and handled promotions for many of their Olympic Games campaigns. During the first Gulf War, she commissioned 10,000 "whoopee cushions" bearing Saddam Hussein's portrait for a conference of military surgeons. "In this line of business," Sheila said, "you have to be ready to turn on a dime!" She was the creative force behind her company and with just a few employees attracted some major clients. "We outsourced a lot of work and we did a lot with smoke and mirrors," she said.  

Every now and then, Sheila and Zel ventured onto a really big boat. This caricature was created while they were on a cruise to the Mediterranean and the Mid-East.

When the Derns talk about the things that have made their lives enjoyable, boating comes to the fore. They spent 30 summers living on the water, docking a powerboat sometimes on the Charles River and other summers in Newport, Rhode Island. And they prize spontaneity. Unlike some Cape Codders who hesitate to "cross the bridge," they've been known to "hop in the car and drive to Cambridge for a burger at Mr. Bartley's or to the Lower East Side for a real hot pastrami sandwich."

In 2008, a remarkable chain of events allowed the Derns to sell the building where the dental practice was located, their home in Quincy and their boat (reluctantly) within in a period of three months. Suddenly, they needed a new place to live. Cape Cod was "never on our radar as special," Sheila said, but it was within a sixty-mile radius of commuting distance to Randolph where Zel planned to continue working. They looked around, found Southport and liked what they saw. A condo on Leisure Green became available and here they are today, happy and pleased that they found such a wonderful place to live. They enjoy the people, their home with its court-side view of the tennis courts and the social life this community offers.

Just now, the Derns are in bit of a holding pattern as Zel copes with renal disease. He does peritoneal dialysis at home on a cycler machine for nine hours each night and one "transfer" during the day. Once his body is receptive to a transplant, he anticipates being the recipient of a kidney from his daughter-in-law, Maureen. Both Sheila and Zel appear very positive about returning to their adventures as soon as they can.

Despite his health issues, Zel continues to work with Sheila on their stained glass projects. Their basement houses a design studio and a shop where they create long narrow stained glass panels to fit all front door sidelight windows on many Southport condos. (See an example on the right.) The stained glass is custom designed and beautiful, providing privacy and an artistic flair when visitors arrive. Other framed decorative stained glass pieces are also available to hang in windows, as are framed mirrors surrounded by shells and other sea artifacts. The Derns are happy to receive calls from Southport residents who want to see examples of their work and how it is created. Their stock items are available to residents at special prices.

They say that "the apple does not fall far from the tree," and that is certainly true of the Dern family.  Pictures of their son and daughter and their six grandchildren smile at you from large, framed hangings. Grammy and Papa helped each grandchild "design" a major piece of furniture and together visited mills to choose raw wood; sanding and staining followed. Sheila draws the design and "Zel does his magic." When I asked about art on the walls, Sheila said, "Many of the wall hangings are done by our son, David, our daughter-in-law, Maureen and our daughter, Jaime Bordwin. All six grandchildren have made stained glass pieces for their homes." Zel, in a joint venture with Jaime, began a business making photo embedded frames. It is very evident that the Derns' creativity has been passed to new generations.  

The Dern Family: (Front) Dominic, Isaiah, Sheila, Zel, Daniel, Maureen, Teagan & Katie (Behind) Jake, Jaime, David Bordwin, David Dern

When I left the Derns' art-filled home and came back to our condo, I looked around at the art and objects we've accumulated over the years and thought, a little enviously, "It's all very lovely, too bad there are no signed Kapp originals."  

In 2009, when I first began to conduct tours as the 1850s "Schoolmaster" of the Mashpee One Room Schoolhouse, I searched the Mashpee Archives for information about each of the students in the 1901 class picture. Unlike Blanche Pocknett's folder, which had several pages of information plus pictures, Beatrice DeGrasse's record mentioned only the year she was born and the year she died at age 17. Fortunately, Rosemary Burns-Love, a fellow member of the Mashpee Historic Commission and the official Mashpee town historian, continues to search old records. She found Beatrice's birth certificate, identifying her birthday as December 3, 1893 and revealing the fact that, like Blanche Pocknett, her middle and first names had been reversed on the official school roster. Her birth name was Lillian Beatrice DeGrasse.

With so little factual information about her, what makes Beatrice one of the two most interesting students in the class? It is the remarkably descriptive story she wrote in June 1902. We have four original essays written by four different students at that time. Beatrice's story is the shortest and the most creative.

After the reading is finished, we talk about how Beatrice's words paint a vivid picture of Billy saying "No" to his master. She turned a simple story about a horse into a scene you can visualize with your eyes closed. With more education and support, Beatrice, only nine years and seven months old when she wrote this story, might have become an accomplished author.

Last year one group of students had an unusual treat when Senator Dan Wolf accepted my invitation to read Beatrice's story. He did it with great enthusiasm, shaking his head and whinnying with great authenticity.

Joe Noonan was the fastest Mashpee resident to compete in the Boston Marathon on April 21. (He had the Southport Division all to himself.) He performed impressively against much stronger competition at the international level, too, finishing in 3 hours, 49 minutes and 8 seconds and coming in eighth among runners in the 70 to 74 age group.  

Joe Noonan, ready for a run

Joe and his wife Kathy arrived in Southport last September from Lexington, MA. They're renting a condo on Sandview Terrace while they await the completion (more accurately, the start) of their new home at the intersection of Southport Drive, Sea Spray and Leisure Green. If things go well, they'll be in their new place by summer, so they're keeping their moving boxes packed.

At 42, inspired by his sons, both of whom were then high school runners, Joe bought a pair of sneakers and took up running. He was congratulating himself on running his first mile when one of his boys signed him up for a 10K charity race and gave him a month to train for it. "I didn't even know what the "K" stood for," he says, "but I did it." He can't recall his time. Incidentally, both sons are still running. The older son ran this year's Boston Marathon and posted the excellent time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. The younger son, a captain in the US Navy, currently serves in Djibouti and runs in the scorching African heat.

These days, having completed 25 consecutive Boston Marathons and more than 60 marathons in his running career, Joe has no plan for stopping. "If I go more than three days without a run, I get grumpy," he says. "I have to chase him out of the house until he feels good again," Kathy affirms.

It's tough to train for the Boston Marathon since the most intense training takes place between January and March, not the best weather for running in snowy New England. The rest of the year, Joe stays in shape by running with the GCS Club in Nashua, NH and the 65+ Club. And he competes annually with the best runners in New England in the seven-race Track & Field Series sponsored by the USA Grand Prix.

Running appears to be keeping Joe healthy. Despite decades of pounding the pavement, his knees continue to function as they should. His appetite is hearty ("He eats five meals a day," Kathy says, "lots of pasta.") and his weight is steady around 130 pounds. Kathy used to run, too, until her knees gave her trouble. So she keeps in shape by swimming a couple of miles in the pool most days.

Joe's life was touched briefly by last year's Marathon bombing. He had finished his race and was headed to the Public Garden Garage to retrieve his car when he heard first one and then a second explosion. Others in the area heard them as well, but no one, including a policeman, was alarmed. He got his car and exited onto Beacon Street where a man assisting a woman flagged him down. The man asked Joe to take her to the hospital but Joe wondered why an ambulance hadn't been called. He was told that the city's police and firemen were all tied up. Still no mention of a bombing. He could see that the woman was bleeding seriously, so he got her into the car and took her to Mass General, by which time Storrow Drive was being shut down. Finally, he learned from the radio that bombs had exploded near the finish line of the race.

Fortunately, the Boston Marathon went off without a hitch in April. It was fun to see an American man win the race this year and especially inspiring to see a Southport man put in such a great performance as well. Congratulations, Joe! And welcome Kathy!  

   

Karlyn Curran moved to Southport from New Jersey in 2003. She has a daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren in Falmouth and two sons, their wives and two granddaughters near Hanover NH. After her husband passed away and she retired from her teaching career, she moved to New England to be closer to her children. She loves Southport and Cape Cod. Even more than that, she loves being a "hands-on" grandma. She caught the travel bug from her husband and this has resulted in a chronic condition. She recently started a Travel Committee for Southport residents. 

 

Madelyn Hackett, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, had a distinguished career in nursing, culminating as the nurse manager at the USDA /Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston. In addition to her nursing degree from the St. Joseph School of Nursing, she also earned a BFA degree at Emanuel College and had her own interior design business in Boston for ten years. Madelyn has been making button jewelry for 35 years and continues to create her unique pieces. She came to Southport as a renter and liked it so much that she bought a home on Rolling Green Lane for herself and Lily, her pampered Shih Tzu.

Billie Kapp grew up in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Nyack College and earning her MEd at SUNY/Oneonta, she taught in public schools for 37 years. Along the way, her avid interest in maps and geography took her to a workshop at National Geographic in Washington, DC., which led to a 17-year part-time career as a social studies consultant with the National Geographic Education Foundation, NASA and elsewhere and several years as an instructor at Eastern Connecticut State University. After she retired and moved to Southport with David in 2009, she decided to concentrate on the things she loves most: her family, reading, swimming, walking, traveling and being by the water as often as possible.   

     

David Kapp is a native of Central Pennsylvania. He met his wife Billie at Nyack College and earned graduate degrees at Wheaton College (Illinois), Brandeis University and Simmons Graduate School of Library Science. David retired from a career as a university library administrator after working in the libraries at Brandeis, Harvard and the University of Connecticut. He was a building consultant for the planning of a number of major university libraries and was, for many years, the editor of Connecticut Libraries. The Kapps moved to Southport in 2009. They are frequent visitors to Hawaii where their son, daughter, grandson and other family members live. 

Frank Lord, a native of Newton, MA, earned his BA at Brown University and his MEd at BU. His experience in the US Navy counseling troubled young sailors led to a 38-year career as a school guidance counselor, primarily in Wellesley and Duxbury. Following retirement, he and his wife Betsy helped to build over 250 homes with Habitat for Humanity. Frank's interest in education and local history motivated him to spearhead the relocation of Mashpee's One Room Schoolhouse, for which he received the 2009 Mashpee Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Service Award as "The Schoolmaster." He serves on the Mashpee Historical Commission, the Community Preservation Act Committee, the Board of Trustees, Tales of Cape Cod and is President, Mashpee One Room Schoolhouse Preservation Council.  

Bob Mendes began his career as an advertising copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York before becoming senior vice president of marketing for a west coast department store chain. He left that position to start Pacific Sports, a sports and general marketing agency. There he developed "The Reading Team," a children's literacy program sponsored by the National Football League and the American Library Association, which used NFL players as literacy role models. Bob is the author of "A Twentieth Century Odyssey, the Bob Mathias Story." After retiring, he served as executive director of the Glendora, CA Chamber of Commerce. When grandson Adam was born, Bob and Bette moved to Cape Cod, where they recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. Neither retires well. He's had a number of part-time jobs, has written two more books, and volunteers. Bette serves on committees at Southport and at the Falmouth Jewish Congregation. Their son Steve is a pediatrician and lives in Marion with his wife Sarah and their children, and a second son, Jeff, practices law in Indianapolis.

Odin Tidemand moved to Southport in November 2011 from Silver Spring, Maryland. He enjoys writing, genealogy, cooking, theater, classical and folk music and being close to his daughter Julie, who lives in Brockton. Before moving to the Cape, he was a real property appraiser in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Odin was married for 37 years to Nancy, who passed away five years ago. He enjoys the relaxed lifestyle of Southport, his canine kaffee klatch, and the incredible natural beauty of Cape Cod.

   

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Sheila & Zel Dern for their interview & pictures,

Sam & Katherine Walter for their interview & pictures,

Joe Noonan for his interview,

Odin Tidemand & Frank Lord for photographs 

        and to my proofreader Billie Kapp.