North Shore Golf Summer 2020 V2

NORTH SHORE GOLF <<< 23
Talk about some of the special
projects you have worked on.
The club has been through good
times and bad, the Depression, the
two World Wars, and I've always been
interested in history, so when I saw
that board meeting notes during WWII
always ended with a list of all members
who were currently in service. I decided
it would be meaningful to identify all of
them. There were 22 in all.
Another project nearing completion is
my presidents pictures project that shows
their entire boards and who served.
How were you introduced to the
game of golf?
My first job after serving in the war
was with a company named Bomac
Laboratories in Beverly, a company
that made tubes for radar machines.
Some of the guys there would go up
to Cape Ann Golf Course and play,
and they asked me to go. So I went up
with them a few times and liked it. My
father had belonged to Salem in the late
1930s, so I asked him to go up with me
one day. … So I joined, I think that was
in 1969 and have been there ever since.
Tell us about your game.
And, what's your favorite course?
I got down to 15 (handicap) for a
while and my best score at Salem was
83. My lowest score ever was also at a
Donald Ross course, Oakley, and that
was an 81. Believe it or not, I still have
the scorecards. … It's pretty hard to
compare any course to Salem. Ours is
a fair test and you get what you earn,
and that's what I love about it.
Is it true that the club almost went
under during World War II but was
saved by members?
Yes. A group of members did keep
the club afloat during the war. I'm not
sure if the club would have survived
without them. I think Michael Flynn
was one of them, but I'm not sure
about the others. … We might not be
here had that not happened.
You have catalogued many original
documents and photos. Is it
important they remain intact for the
next generations?
Our president, Mr. Charles Fox,
just mentioned recently we need to
preserve the original documents. We
first need to find a way to reproduce
them so we still have access to
them, and then need to identify the
things at greatest risk that need to
be stored in temperature-controlled
settings. I'm so lucky now that Bill
Finnerty is helping me with this.
He has been great. He just logged
all the original blueprints and had
them copied, and also took hundreds
of loose slides and converted them
onto disks, so we are making great
progress.
Have you uncovered some
especially interesting things during
your research?
An old member who went by the
golf shop noticed my bulletin board.
I had posted something on the World
War II project and he told me his dad
was a vet and gave me all his stuff.
Turns out his father was a member
of the Military Police working with
the atomic bomb project. ... We also
have some interesting things about
Donald Ross, one of them a four- or
five-page letter he wrote about the
condition of the greens and what
needed to be done about them. It was
very detailed and way beyond me, as
the only thing I know about grass is I
hope it's green!
But I think some of the most
interesting things are the old
photos and programs. We found an
old program for ... members who
boarded their horses at the club.
Arthur McCarthy had relatives who
helped build the course and he found
some of them in old photos. We then
matched the names to ledger books
that kept track of the expenses and
found a McCarthy name on it who
was paid $1 for his work. We also
found records of the money paid to
Donald Ross.
What's the most challenging, or more
accurately, the most frustrating part
of what you do?
People at the club were aware of
what I was doing, so they were good
about coming to me before tossing
things out. … But, getting people to
part with their archives is difficult.
Most of the time the answer is, "You'll
get it from my family when I'm gone."
My favorite phrase is "Let ME throw
it away," meaning "Just let me see it
before you toss it."
2020 has been a challenging time
for people all over the world.
Do you plan to incorporate such an
unprecedented event into
your archives?
It's funny you ask, because back in
1995 when Gary Larrabee wrote our
100-year history book, we set up a
binder with a timeline for the next 25
years so we could put in important
events as they happened. Things
like when we hired our first general
manager, when a member broke the
course record and other things. So
we got to this year and have already
added to the timeline things like the
club offering online or pickup (food)
orders, which we had never done
before. As the year winds down, I
expect we will be adding material
about golf courses being shut down
… and pursue some of the things that
affected not just Salem, but the game
of golf.
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