Grandma and Grandpa: The Early Years

…and my dad!

Final Cut Pro

After taking a short-term (i.e. 6-9pm weeknights, 3 weeks straight) Multimedia Communications Class this January, plus a 2-day Final Cut Pro training, I’m inspired to finally edit my video of Bill O’Donovan and put together my interviews from the Gazette…Keep checking for updates!

PS – and, I’m also in the market for a new laptop…thinking MacBook Pro!

Grandpa’s autobiography

Grow Old Along With Me

As I mentioned in a previous post, before meeting Bill O’Donovan last Monday, I skimmed the pages of my grandfather’s 108-page autobiography, “Grow Old Along With Me” (PDF link above!), written in 1992.

My grandfather, Wilbur Reese, born in upstate New York, met my grandmother in Norfolk, Virginia (where there was a Navy Base) on a blind date in February, 1942. He said that she was different from most of the other girls he’d met – there was something “ladylike” about her…a certain sophistication. He was “impressed,” he said. They went out several times in the next couple of months before he proposed, in April. They’d meant to marry in June, but he was unexpectedly called into duty, and actually were married only FOUR days after they got engaged…

Wow.

More pictures!

Thanks to Paul Reese, I’ve now got some new photos:

I found these pictures in my Reese family album.  One is marked “Merle & Bill 5/17/76 Williamsburgh, VA”  I assume all three were taken at the same time.  Is the woman with Hope her mother?

Of the Walter Reese siblings taken in I think 1980 only one, Pauline Reese Loedel is living today.  They are  Left to right:  Duane, Pauline, Andy,  Ernestine Canrike, Merle (my father), Fanny, Wilbur “Bill”.

I have a copy and have read Uncle Bill’s autobiography.  I only wish my father had tried to write his.  However, we do have interview tapes that my youngest sister, Sally, made shortly before his death.  I know he mentions Bill but it concentrates on their early years growing up on the Randall Road.

Paul

Reporting back from Cambridge!

I regret not having updated this blog more frequently during my trip, but time seemed to really fly by, and there was almost no time to turn on my laptop between seeing my old friend, Lauren, meeting Bill O’Donovan and a few others at the Virginia Gazette (which I’ll talk more about later) and spending some quality time with a really awesome Nieman, Beth Macy! We had a great time together, playing Boggle,  walking along the coast of the Rappahannock River, baking bread (check her blog for the recipe!) and, of course, lots of eating and drinking. (We did make it to the gym though, and then treated ourselves to Mexican as a reward for our hard work).

Before meeting Bill O’Donovan, I’d skimmed through my grandfather’s 105-page autobiography, which chronicled in great detail what happened, where, when, and to whom. I looked for the parts where Hope was mentioned. When I finally did meet Bill O’Donovan (and I felt like I could’ve used so much more time to come up with questions!) I was a bit overwhelmed, and didn’t know where to start. Bill Graciously introduced me to a few of his coworkers who were around at the time that grandma was at the paper, and each of them lit up at the mention of her name.

Rusty Carter, the Editor of the Virginia Gazette, was the first person I talked to. He knew my grandmother for just a couple of years, but had a lot   of wonderful stories to tell. He told me about the “Last Word” column that my grandmother edited, where people would call the paper with complaints or observations about things happening in Williamsburg.

Ann Efimetz, a reporter originally from the Boston area (one look into her office would tell you that!), came into the Virginia Gazette in the late ’80s. Hope interviewed her. She said that Hope had come into her life for a reason, and she still prayed for her.

Altogether, I was struck by what an impact my grandmother had made. Even her scissors which had her name “Hope” taped to them, had remained at the paper, over twenty years after she’d left the office. (Rusty dug them up for me!).

Bill took me out to a wonderful steak house, Opus 9, and we discussed my life at the Nieman Foundation and the future of journalism. It seemed that things were going pretty well for them down in Williamsburg compared to the rest of the country. He swore that the bi-weekly model was the answer.

I spent two hours leafing through the orginial archives, greedily scanning the pages for her, and my, name: Hope Reese. There was definitely something thrilling about seeing my own name in print, and knowing that I was reading the same words that came from my grandmother’s pen (or keyboard) forty years ago.

Beth and I woke at 4am this morning, jumped in the car, headed to Newport News Airport, and arrived in Boston at 8:20am. I went straight to work, and now I’m on my way to class at the Harvard Extension School, where I’m taking a Multimedia Communications Course with Marlon Kuzmick (which, sadly, I had to miss for two days in a row!).

More updates (and multimedia!) to come!

Arriving at Frosty’s…so cozy!

Cute little kitchen…Here we made the no-knead bread, fritattas, and drank wine together.

Dark at night, but beautiful and sunny in the morning. Spent a lot of time at this table playing Boggle and Bananagrams (invented by someone in Cambridge!). Also watched “Elephant” by Gus Van Sant once we’d figured out how to work the TV

Slept well here!

My first view of the Rappahannock from my bedroom at daybreak.