New York, N.Y. I don’t remember my father’s father because he died before I was born. Oddly, I heard so many stories about him as a child I feel I have memories, but actually I cannot. He was known to all as “Skipper,” I guess because he loved his yacht. He was Luce-stubborn, and died from an electrical shock that threw him overboard when he was working on the deck of his boat with a power drill and would not come in form the rain. Or, at last, that’s what I remember about him.
His real name was Stanford Leonard Luce, Sr. His father had been an Episcopal priest (yes, Anglo-Catholic ministers can be married and have children). Grandfather was in advertising in Boston, I believe. He built a wonderful stone home on Boston’s South Shore, in Hingham.
What I remember fascinated me the most about the house was the rail road-like tracks that went from the boat shed down into Hingham Harbor. And, as a child, the horseshoe crabs that washed up on the rocky shore.
(Not) Remembering My Grandfather, Stanford Leonard Luce, Sr. (May 25, 2021)