Of Boundaries and Bounders

Disputed Territory: Croswell Bowen owned this one acre parcel, across from Hidden Hollow. Helen Tee-Van called it John Worden's Arbutus Swamp and was disturbed when Bowen put up a writing studio which turned out to be on the Tee-Van side of the boundary.

     In describing my father in psycho-analytic terms, his cousin, Dr. Carolyn Mackenzie, observed that he had problems with personal, social boundaries and limits. His relationship with his neighbors at Hidden Hollow is a grand metaphor for this.

    As I've written, the Tee-Vans were great friends of Walter and Isobel Merritt, who presented them with the deed to their house and property at Christmas, 1928. This relation was partly based on a shared love of nature, and partly on both couples' places in New York Society. I've explained Merritt's brilliant success as a pro-management lawyer in labor disputes. The Tee-Van's position in New York was more complicated. Helen Tee-Van was the daughter of Frank Damrosch, a distinguished member of a distinguished family that included musicians Leopold and Walter Damrosch, and David Mannes, and the writer Marya Mannes. Mrs. Tee-Van was an artist, illustrator and author. She met John Tee-Van while both accompanied the New York Zoological Society's expedition to British Guiana with the famous explorer, William Beebe. For decades she continued her career as an illustrator and muralist of wild life in its setting. John Tee-Van's origins were humbler, his skills as impressive. Tee-Van's father came from Ireland and worked on the construction of the Bronx Zoo. John Tee-Van, born in Brooklyn, worked at the Zoo as assistant keeper or cage cleaner in the birdhouse. In 1916,  William Beebe, recognizing his skills in caring for animals, made him his assistant in the Department of Tropical Research. Two dozen expeditions and many publications followed, and he became Director of the Bronx Zoo. 

     The TeeVans named their Hardscrabble Road house Kartabo, after a locale in British Guiana. Helen delighted in the seasonal progression of plants. The couple's first weekend guests were the wife and son of the Former Borough President of New York, George McAneny. Many interesting visitors followed: Frank Damrosch, Warder and Polly Norton, founders of the publishing company, Clifford Pope, who accompanied Roy Chapman Andrews to China and found the first fossilized dinosaur eggs, Eugene Gudger, the foremost expert on whale sharks, Laura Bragg, a pioneer as head of the Charleston Museum, and many other fascinating personalities. Among the most interesting to me would have been Chiang Yee. Chiang Yee, trained as a chemist, but was prolific as a writer, poet and painter of the Silent Traveller series. John Tee-Van and Chiang Yee corresponded about pandas; John Tee-Van was called the panda nurse because he successfully brought two young giant pandas from Chungking, just as Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

     When Chiang Yee visited the TeeVans in 1953, Hidden Hollow was leased to their friends, Paul Fitzpatrick and Toni Hatvany, and I was seven years old. Three months later, we went for a picnic by the brook opposite the house. I remember it, and evidently it made an impression on Mrs. Tee-Van as well, for she noted in her album that we had behaved noisily in the "Arbutus Swamp." A week later, she discovered my father building a house in which to type, above the Swamp. She contacted the Zoning Board to see if he had permission, and then decided to investigate if in fact the shack was on the TeeVan's land. Sherman's land record and surveying experts were called out to investigate the boundaries. The building was on the Tee-Van's land, although my father claimed he had been told otherwise by Lida Beckwith.

     The shack remained on the hillside, unused and becoming more and more of a shack. A few years later, the Fitzpatricks gave up their lease, and we regained Hidden Hollow. Helen Tee-Van had not much like my father, referring to the famous Pedro, aka Piotr Lupinski, as one of Croswell Bowen's tramp friends, and remarking in 1937 that Croswell Bowen, a friend of some of her messier tenants, had bought John Worden's house. I think she valued her privacy and quiet. She had no children of her own, but doted on her Damrosch nieces, taken them to visit the Goldenrod Jungle, across the road. She remained annoyed with my father; her disdain felt even by me.

     My question about this symbolic interaction is whether or not my father intended to discomfit Mrs. Tee-Van by ignoring the boundary, and thus shake loose the Fitzpatricks from the house? Did she dislike him because his quicksilver intelligence flickered too lightly over the scientific analysis of the Tee-Van's world and the artistic seriousness of the Damrosch's?