In 1890, brothers Antonio and Alesandro Gilbertie immigrated with their families from Italy to Brooklyn.
Through friends and relatives they learned of a small Connecticut community called Saugatuck. Italians were moving in, displacing the Irish who had built the first 2 railroad tracks.
The Gilberties fell in love with the area, and found work building the railroad’s second 2 tracks.
Antonio and Alessandro wrote their 3 brothers — Samuel, Michael and Julius — back home in Salerno that they’d found the perfect place to live. Within the next few years, the remaining brothers and their families arrived in Saugatuck.
Over the years, the Original 5 — as they’re still called — started A. Gilbertie Florist (now Gilbertie’s Herb Gardens), Weston Gardens, and many small businesses.
They and their descendants became builders, excavators and plumbers. They served in both world wars, and in town government. Gradually they spread to neighboring towns, the tri-state region, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
A Gilbertie family photograph, circa 1910.
Today, Ken Gilbertie has no idea how many 2nd and 3rd cousins he has.
But he, his cousin Ginny and others would like to find tout.
They’ve organized a Gilbertie family reunion. It’s set for this Saturday (September 12) at Sherwood Island.
They’ve created a Facebook group, and are trying to get the word out in other ways. But they know there are more Gilberties out there.
If you’re a member of one of Westport’s leading families — or know someone who is — check out the “Gilbertie Family Reunion 2015” page on Facebook. Or email GilbertieReunion@gmail.com.
Normally, a family reunion would not be “06880”-worthy.
But — since 1890 — the Gilberties have been much more than a normal family.
Antonio and Marie Gilbertie with granddaughter Celeste, around 1940.
Westport is many things to many people. We’re hedge fund headquarters, an arts colony, and a great place to raise kids.
For 2 days every year, Westport is also the blues and BBQ capital of the Northeast.
A multi-hued, very diverse crowd of music and food lovers descended on the Westport Library and Imperial Avenue parking lots, plus the Levitt Pavilion, today and tonight.
The 8th annual Blues, Views & BBQ Festival kicked off in its highest gear ever. From kick-ass music to definitely non-vegan food — and with games, booths, fun and more for all ages — it was the liveliest opening day ever.
Tomorrow’s (Sunday) show runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. If you’ve never been, you have to check it out (info here).
If you’ve been before, you know you’re going back.
Anders Osborne — the Swedish bluesman from New Orleans — rocked a full Levitt Pavilion house tonight.
Amits Bread was a perfect complement to Big Animal Barbecue. Check out their smoker, next to Amit.
What’s a barbecue festival without ribs…
…and fried food.
These kids loved Tom’s roid-rippin’ hot sauce.
Dane Tilghman came from Pennsylvania to show his blues-infused artwork.
Tats: They’re not just for teenagers.
The Levitt Pavilion concerts were sold out. But a brass band played for everyone else in the Westport Library parking lot.
An enthusiastic crowd enjoyed the Levitt Pavilion shows.
Even at the crowded Levitt, there was a chance to chill, and enjoy the day.
In 1996 — on her son’s 13th birthday — Anne Faber’s husband was killed by a drunk driver.
In one moment, her life changed forever.
She left her job as a Wall Street analyst. She moved to Westport, for its strong school system.
Yet not until Ginger Katz — a fellow member of her Norwalk Hospital bereavement support group — mentioned rowing did Anne find a reason to get up in the morning, and really do something.
Anne knew nothing about the sport. But Ginger took her to the old Saugatuck club. The very first time Anne picked up an oar was in a race.
She was hooked.
“I’d been a dancer,” Anne — now 70 years old — recalls. “Rowing seemed very rhythmic.” She discovered a talent for tempo. Today, she says proudly, “I’m known as the metronome.”
Ginger Katz (front) and Anne Faber, years ago on the Schuylkill River.
Anne is much more than a rower, of course — a committed knitter, she makes healing shawls for chemo patients through the Westport Senior Center’s Knit One, Nibble One program, and she has trained to be a pharmacy technician, learned to be a baker and chef, and earned certification as a paralegal — but it is on the water that she feels most fulfilled.
Last month, at the USRowing Masters National Championships in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Anne won 5 medals. There were over 2,000 entries from 143 clubs, and no one is believed to have earned more.
The races were 1000-meter sprints. Anne’s stash includes golds in lightweight singles and (with fellow Westporter, 72-year-old Peggy Bliss) lightweight doubles, plus a pair of silvers and a bronze. Some of those medals came rowing with 50-something women.
Anne Faber with her medals.
Her victories mean “I’ve arrived at a level of competency that makes my boat move,” Anne says. “I train all year long, so there’s some self-satisfaction too.”
But rowing has given her more than medals.
“It’s allowed me to find myself again,” Anne explains. “It’s made me someone else. I’ve seen a different part of life. I regained my feeling of rhythm and motion.”
She loves being on the river, with fish and birds. Rowing — as difficult as it is — is quiet and peaceful.
And, Anne notes, “when the boat moves quickly and efficiently, just skimming the waterline, it’s an incredible, exhilarating feeling. It’s like a Zen period in time.”
Last fall, Anne won an Over-70 race at the prestigious Head of the Charles. She hopes to return this year.
Beyond that?
“I’m still trying to figure out what to do in the next stage of my life,” Anne says. “Whatever it is, I like exploring new things and meeting new people.”
Who knows? That may lead to more self-discovery, as wonderful as the day nearly 20 years ago when Anne Faber first dipped her toes in the rowing water.
An alert “06880” reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes:
I just came from Crossroads Hardware, where I enriched their coffers by buying a $1.49 light bulb.
As I checked out, AJ Izzo — the store’s major domo — asked if I liked tomatoes.
“Of course,” I said.
He dug into a large shopping bag, then filled a smaller brown paper bag with 6 fresh garden-grown tomatoes just given to him by a customer.
A simple, almost trivial story — but a touching reminder of the generosity and thoughtfulness of homegrown store owners from our not-too-recent past, who treated every customer as family.
While there, I forgot to purchase a 19-cent washer. I look forward to my next visit.
Maybe AJ will be giving away some basil or olive oil.
The actual tomatoes, given away at Crossroads Hardware.
Antonia Landgraf was born and raised in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It was a tight-knit Italian neighborhood — like long-ago Saugatuck, perhaps — and she loved it.
Her grandfather — born on the same block — was a mailman. Her grandmother worked in a school cafeteria.
Her parents worked for the government. They lived on the bottom 2 floors of a brownstone, and rented out the rest.
In the mid-1980s, yuppies began to move in. Bodegas and religious artifact stores gave way to crêperies, boutiques and bars.
“The good part was there were nice restaurants and shops. Not everything was a chain,” Antonia recalls.
A “Farmacy” has probably replaced a pharmacy in Carroll Gardens.
Real estate prices rose. Some renters were priced out. Antonia’s parents and grandparents owned their property, and benefited.
Many of her friends stayed in Carroll Gardens. On Facebook, she reads their comments about the changes.
“It’s not like the days when everyone knew everyone,” she says. “That’s ironic, because the first people who came did it because it was a great Italian-American neighborhood, with everyone sitting out on their stoops.”
The oldtimers-versus-newcomers debate is not confined to Carroll Gardens. It echoes in many places — including Westport. Which is where, since 2013, Antonia and her husband have lived.
They moved first to New Jersey, in 2002, because they could no longer afford Brooklyn. Then they had kids. Her husband’s company has an office in Darien. They started looking for bigger, suburban homes.
Antonia and her husband visited Westport on a beautiful September day. The water sparkled under the Bridge Street bridge. Downtown, they walked past the gorgeous Christ & Holy Trinity church, and stopped at the Spotted Horse. “It felt like we were on vacation,” Antonia says.
Moving here has been wonderful. The town is gorgeous. Folks have been welcoming. She could not be happier.
Her 3 sons — the youngest was born here — are busy, and thriving. On the day we talked earlier this summer, one was collecting crabs on Burying Hill Beach. Another was at sports camp. This is their home town.
Antonia’s boys have discovered the magic of Burying Hill Beach.
Antonia sees parallels between Carroll Gardens and Westport. Both places are changing. Some longtime residents resent what’s happening. Recent arrivals feel the undercurrent. They try to be sensitive — but this is their town too.
“We moved because of the beauty, the downtown, the historical homes,” Antonia says. Some of her new friends are natives. One of them lives in new construction, she laughs.
“We’re new, but we still respect what there is here, and what there was.” Yet, she adds, Westport is always changing. “This used to be onion farms.”
She followed the Red Barn closing on “06880.” “We went there once. We were not impressed. But I understand it was an institution.”
The same thing is happening in Carroll Gardens. Antonia pointed me to a New York Daily News story about the demise of a beloved restaurant there.
“It’s not just Westport,” she says. “It’s everywhere. If your secret gets out, that’s it.”
So, I wonder, does Antonia have any message for Westporters of every era, seeking to understand what’s going on here today?
“Not everyone who comes here is not uninterested in the town and its past,” she says.
Antonia Landgraf and her husband understand the importance of the Westport Historical Society.
“My husband and I are very much invested in Westport. We want to contribute to the community.
“We’re not just passing through. We’re here for at least the next 16 years, through high school for our youngest. We might stay here after retirement.
“New people come in all the time. They may be different from those who were born here. But don’t assume they don’t respect all that has made the town what it is.”
In 2012, Jim Hood suffered a parent’s worst nightmare: His son Austin died of an accidental drug overdose. He was 20 years old, and had been a student at Loyola University in New Orleans.
Here in Westport, Jim and his wife Julia — Austin’s stepmother — felt unbearable pain. Austin had been a wonderful young man, and a brilliant musician. He had a loving heart, a keen wit and a hopeful spirit.
His parents also felt helpless. During Austin’s struggles with addiction, Julia says, “There is so much I wish I had understood differently.” As they tried to help their son with his addiction issues, they felt as if they’d been dropped into a foreign city. They had no maps, and did not speak the language.
“We didn’t know who to turn to for help, or if we could talk publicly about the issue,” Julia says.
“We didn’t know if we could trust the people we chose to help him, and we didn’t know if we could trust our own decisions along the way.”
Jim Hood, and Austin.
They did not fully understand that addiction is a disease– not a choice or a personality trait. They did not realize that an addict’s brain is “hijacked, and chemically altered.”
Nor did the Hoods know that drug addiction affects 1 in every 3 families in the United States. At least 22 million people are addicted to drugs — including alcohol, for it too is a drug — while 23 million more are in long-term recovery.
Jim could have retreated into his grief. But that’s not who he is. And it’s not how he wanted to memorialize his son.
So, for the past year and a half, he and group of very dedicated men and women have worked to form a new national organization. Called Facing Addiction, it will be launched October 4, with an enormous rally in Washington, D.C.
The date could be a turning point in a fight that has taken far too many lives, most of them far too young.
“After Austin died, I realized how horrific this disease is. It’s hell on earth,” Jim says. “I also realized there was no well-funded national organization tackling it.”
Cancer organizations, by contrast, raise $1.7 billion annually (“as they should,” Jim says). Heart groups operate with $800 million.
Addiction organizations are run by “good, skillful people,” Jim says. “But they’re woefully underfunded. They compete against each other at times. And there is no overarching strategy.”
Jim brings a very successful business background — in advertising, Wall Street and consulting — to Facing Addiction.
Austin Hood
He calls the fight against addiction “a cottage industry. There are thousands of small players competing for money. When you’re diagnosed with cancer, you know to call Sloan-Kettering. When you have heart disease, you turn to the American Heart Association. With addiction, you don’t know what to do.”
That’s understandable, he says. Addiction is a disease shrouded in shame, stigma and denial.
“When you see an obituary for someone in their late teens or early 20s, if it doesn’t expressly say ‘cancer’ or another disease, you can assume the reason was addiction or suicide,” Jim says.
“And if the obituary asks for donations to ‘a charity of your choice’ — even if people know the cause was addiction — no one knows who to write a check to.”
Jim adds, “Addiction is not about ‘bad people.’ It’s about bad things happening to good people — decent, loving, smart people from good families.”
Austin Hood (left) and his siblings, at their Compo Beach home.
Jim has used his talents to bring many separate groups together, all under the Facing Addiction umbrella. They’re collaborating, he says, because they realize “we’re losing the battle.” Opiod use has spiked; heroin seems to be everywhere, and drug use starts earlier than ever. 90% or more of all addicts first use drugs in adolescence.
Facing Addiction’s focus is on “big-impact ideas to help more people, more quickly,” Jim says. “We’re developing a full strategic plan.”
It’s a daunting task. But, Jim asks, “what’s the alternative? The problem gets worse every year.”
Facing Addiction’s first public event is an October 4 rally on Washington’s National Mall.
The site — where Martin Luther King proclaimed “I have a dream,” millions protested the Vietnam War and many more wept at the AIDS Quilt — has “enormous symbolism,” Jim says.
“It focuses the country’s attention. It’s a place to open hearts, so we can open minds.”
Performers include Joe Walsh, Steven Tyler, Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell, Johnny Rzeznik and The Fray. All have been affected by addiction.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have recorded videos. Drug czar Michael Botticelli and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy will speak.
The next day, thousands of citizens will meet with senators and congressmen. They’ll tell their stories, and urge federal funding for the fight against addiction.
Austin Hood can no longer fight his own demons. So his father is doing it for him.
And for millions of others — plus the untold millions more who love them.
If your browser does not take you directly to YouTube, click here.
(To donate to Facing Addiction — and help millions of people, while saving hundreds of thousands of lives — click here, or text “facing” to 41444.)
WWPT-FM — Staples High School’s Wrecker Radio station — has launched the careers of many grads.
David Lloyd, Staples High School Class of 1979.
David Lloyd is not one of them. Before graduating in 1979, he was a wrestler. He was good enough to co-captain the team and place 2nd in the state tournament — so he was the subject of sports coverage, not the reporter.
After graduating from Colgate University (majoring in international relations), he worked as a wholesale distributor of flowers, then in an ad agency.
But he didn’t like offices. A buddy working in TV knew Lloyd loved sports, and helped him snag an internship with WMAZ-TV in Macon, Georgia.
He worked there — without pay — for a year. “They were great, generous people, and I learned a lot,” Lloyd recalls.
He moved on to news reporting in Savannah. But sports beckoned, and after just a few weeks he got an offer in that department from WCIV in Charleston, South Carolina.
After 7 years — and stops in Sacramento and San Diego — Lloyd and his wife talked about returning east. It was time to think about ESPN.
Tapes are not enough for that sports behemoth. Every job applicant must audition, by writing a show. It was a daunting task, but Lloyd was eager to join what he calls “maybe the greatest media network of all time.”
He was hired as an ESPNEWS anchor in 1997. Now one of the longest-tenured anchors, he’s just signed a new contract extension. Lloyd currently hosts the 1-3 p.m. weekday SportsCenter, with Linda Cohn.
David Lloyd today, hosting ESPN’s SportsCenter.
He vividly recalls his initial SportsCenter broadcast, several years ago.
Each month, a new schedule comes out. When Lloyd saw he’d been assigned to that plum (and very popular) show, he was elated.
When he first sat at the desk and heard the SportsCenter theme song, “it was like an out-of-body experience. I didn’t even recognize my own voice.”
He loves the job — and the time slot.
“There’s a lot of breaking news that time of day,” he says. “I get in about 4 hours before the show, and start writing. But if something big happens, we throw it all out.”
Deflategate — the Tom Brady football scandal — broke just before airtime. “It’s such a rush of adrenaline,” Lloyd says. “We bring people in to talk. We’re not even sure what we’re going to ask. We just go with it.”
Lloyd has also done specialty shows, and the highly acclaimed “Outside the Lines” series.
Though he never joined WWPT, he knows his alma mater’s station’s reputation. He’s also seen Staples students — including the very talented D.J. Sixsmith — come to ESPN for internships.
For those Westporters, a possible career in the big leagues begins in Bristol, Connecticut. For David Lloyd, it all began in Macon, Georgia.
According to Wikipedia, “Last House” was made on a modest budget of $87,000. It was released in the US on August 30, 1972 — 43 years ago yesterday — and grossed over $3 million domestically.
If you remember the filming — particularly the house or other sites used — click “Comments” below.
Less than 2 weeks ago, “06880” highlighted a new state law, allowing adult adoptees the right to see their original birth certificate. The hook was John Suggs, a Westport forensic genetic geneaologist who helps adults find their birth families.
I figured the story would resonate with adoptees. I suspected some might contact John.
But I had no idea it would be so life-changing — and certainly not so quickly.
Almost immediately after the story ran, John received an email from a regular reader: Mary Lou Cookman (now Mary Lou Schmerker) of Texas.
John called her, and learned her story.
John Suggs
Mary Lou is a native Westporter — Staples High School Class of 1958 — who was transplanted to Texas in the early 1970s. She’d read the “06880” piece, and wondered if John could help.
She did not have the exact dates. But sometime in the mid-1950s, the daughter of a friend of her grandmother gave birth to a baby girl.
The baby’s father had left town. The baby’s mother had to wear a metal back brace, making it very difficult to care for the infant. The baby’s mother and widowed grandmother lived alone on Evergreen Avenue.
They received great help from their Westport friends — including Mary Lou’s family. All took turns helping care for the baby. For a while, the little girl lived in Mary Lou’s home.
Ultimately the birth mother accepted that she could not continue to care for her child. She made the wrenching decision to give her up for adoption.
Left behind in Mary Lou’s house was a sterling silver baby cup, engraved with the child’s initials. Around 4 decades ago, Mary Lou’s mother gave it to her for safekeeping.
Mary Lou still had that precious cup. She polished it regularly — always hoping to find a way to return it, and tell the owner how much she had been loved and adored, and how talented and special her mother and grandmother were.
John leaped into action.
Mary Lou provided a few names and personal details. In less than a week — despite starting with an incorrect birth date — our intrepid forensic genetic genealogist struck gold. The baby girl is now a grandmother named Linda Ogden. She still lives in Fairfield County.
Mary Lou quickly flew north from Texas. She carried the sterling silver baby cup on the plane. Yesterday afternoon, they were together for the first time in nearly 7 decades.
Linda Ogden (left), Mary Lou Schmerker, and the long-lost sterling silver baby cup.
Mary Lou — the only living person left who personally knew Linda’s birth mother and grandmother — told stories about them. She assured Linda that both women loved her dearly.
And she gave back the sterling silver baby cup that had been left behind in Westport, all those years ago.
Linda Ogden, John Suggs and Mary Lou Schmerker share a laugh yesterday.
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