Uncle Jack, Aunt Mary, The Cunner Club and All

Steph’s folks grew up in Maine and the culture of that state permeated their family life, even though Steph and her siblings spent their entire lives in Hamden, CT, where Steph’s father, Paul Kittredge, was a professor at Quinnipiac College.   Steph’s mother, Maude Helson Kittredge, also grew up in Portland.  So there were lots of cousins, aunts, uncles and extended family to meet in Maine.

We drove into Portland and stayed with Maude’s sister, Mary, and her husband Jack.  Mary was a lively woman — skinny like Maude, but a heavier drinker and smoker.  She was a good story teller and a pretty upbeat person as I recall.

Her husband was called “Uncle Jack” by the Kittredge kids.  He was a successful businessman, having owned and operated a small fleet of fishing boats that harvested lobster and fish from the North Atlantic waters.   Jack had inherited a seven acre property near Cape Elizabeth, ME — just south of Portland — on which a huge building called “The Cunner Club” was built.

The Cunner Club was built in the late 19th century by some Portland business people as a retreat for the summer.  It had probably a dozen or so rooms on the second floor and a large open area — great for playing cards and so on.

Jack took us out there to celebrate our marriage and cooked a huge feast of steamed clams, lobsters, corn on the cob and other late-summer wonders.   I still remember that feast as a great time and part of a past that no longer exists.

There were other fine visits — Uncle Teddy, who was an executive at Yonkers Raceway, retired by the time I met him — who looked a lot like the father in American Gothic.  He had two sons, I think, who were a few years older than us.   Steph seemed to admire them, but we never had any further dealings with them.  

All in all, we spent about a week visiting places she had summered and relatives who hadn’t made it to the wedding.  Then it was time to head south.

We wanted to drive the full length of Rt. 1, from Maine to Florida.   After realizing how far it was to the New Brunswick border, and knowing how many stoplights we’d have to deal with, we abandoned that plan and used I-95 to head to Florida, which was our next stop.