How I got to Newport

It all started on an island called Sanibel at dawn, on the first day of Spring. If you like sea shell collecting, this is a great place to go. My Dad somehow convinced my Mom (his girlfriend at the time) and his colleague, Yusha Auchincloss, to get up at dawn so they could get the best shells. Barefoot and sandy, my father, John Atwater Bradley, proposed to AND married my mother, Marilyn Monteith Bower that day.

Yusha (above in 2008 with Me) was the Best Man and became my Godfather.

Mind you, I am skipping A LOT on how this event came to happen….from my Dad spending the previous night in Jail, getting a last minute marriage license, not to mention finding a minister to perform the ceremony at dawn. But that is a story for another day. So we’ll move on.

Why Newport? Well, with Yusha as extended family, we made annual summer trips to Hammersmith Farm in Newport, RI.

This Pic is of my brother, David in front of the “Big House” at Hammersmith in the ’70’s

I didn’t really understand the significance of Hammersmith Farm growing up, nor did I understand why buses and ferries full of tourists flailing cameras would pull up to the dock on a regular schedule. I do know now, and in case you don’t, Hammersmith Farm was the Summer White House during the Kennedy Years from 1961-1963. Built in 1887, for John W. Auchincloss on Newport’s oldest working farm, Hammersmith, was the summer residence for the Auchlincloss family for 4 generations. Jackie Bouvier’s mom, Janet Lee, married Hugh D. Auchincloss after divorcing Blackjack Bouvier who took to the bottle after the market crashed (or so I was told).

Here is where it gets cute. Yusha, a young boy then, attending Groton School, was SO very excited about Jackie becoming part of the family. He remembers thinking she could be possible girlfriend material…not really understanding that they were ‘related’ now that their parents were married. Love it Yusha. And you had good taste Yusha, Jackie sure was cute.

There was always a week or so growing up that my Dad, me, the bird and whatever dogs we had would make the pilgrimage to Newport for the ‘social’ part of our summer. This time for me was TRULY vacation. And I say ‘social’ because the rest of my summer was spent in the Gunks, at our place called the Awosting Reserve. At Awosting, I slept outside every night, took baths in the stream, and had rigorous daily lessons and activities taught by my English Au Pair. Math skills never improved, I HATED swim time in our fresh water black bottomed pool, and washing my hair with the crayfish biting my toes was not normal.

So IMAGINE how excited I was to go to Newport where I got to put on pretty dresses, took a bath in a bath, got to sleep inside, and had going to the Beach and Cocktail parties on my schedule for the day. H E A V E N. My room was the top floor of the Windmill overlooking Narragansett bay. Mmmmmmm.

OK…might have chopped off the top floor, but you get the picture. It was a big change from my mountain top mattress beneath the stars.

And then came dress up. Newport meant no hiking boots, no sneakers. It meant party shoes and party skirts. It meant counting blades of grass instead of cutting and raking them. I loved Newport.

My passion for dress making certainly had a few of it’s origins in this beachy leisure town…

And that’s the story of how I got to Newport.

Still Wear my Dresses that Short, Bradley