Dear Nick,

When you asked me to record some notes on early family history, it touched a chord inside me because I feel guilty about not having done it before. Now, however, I do have time and some of these things will be forgotten unless I write them down. No one else would know about many of them. I have included what seemed like highlights from the beginning up until WW II.

My grandfather, Henry H. Lee, hereafter called Dada, was born in an enchanting place in Norway called ETNE. I visited it in 1974 and it is at the head of a beautiful Fjord and surrounded by majestic mountains. He went to sea at an early age and later was on the crew of one of the Tall Ships. Once when sailing near Turkey he fell from the rigging on to the deck. He broke both his legs so badly that the ship's Doctor wanted to amputate both of them. Fortunately, the Captain was a friend of Dada's family and he refused. They packed his legs in ice until they could get him to a hospital where his legs were saved. He did have a slight limp but otherwise he was fine. Later he jumped ship in Canada and got himself to NYC. He started a Delicatessen store but when times got bad he was too kind hearted to refuse credit to customers who could never pay their bills and the Delicatessen store folded. Next he started selling water to the many ships in the harbor and this did prosper. He gradually built and bought ships to expand his business - Hoisters, Tugboats, etc. I am told his Roisters carried the first cables across the East River when they built the Brooklyn Bridge (ed note: not true according to the newspaper article which states that he took water to the workers on that Bridge and later bought the hoisters used to build it which was the start of his sucessful harbor businesses), now more than 100 years ago. He bought a steam yacht that had belonged to President Woodrow Wilson's brother.

My father, Laurence J. Munson, was born in Christiansand, Norway, a charming seaport, and left there at the age of six to come to NY. I have visited the house he was born in (1974) as my nephew Lee (Alex' oldest son) knew the address and gave me a picture of it. It was a nice feeling to touch the door and door-frame that his little fingers must have touched many times before he left.

He arrived in NYC and was so afraid of getting lost that he hugged a tree as his first act when he arrived in NY.

Yesterday, as I started this roaming into history, it was pouring rain - the heavy driving rain that went on and on. In Cragsmoor that kind of rain always set off an alarm inside me because I knew the damage a heavy rain could do to the roads if culvetts clogged, etc. So I'd put on my boots, etc. and take a shovel and check around the Upper House - the Upper Road and around the Lee Void. I'd of course check the drainage around Five Oaks and down to the gate. Did you know the driveway from Five Oaks to the Gate was 1/4 of a mile? I really enjoyed it - the sound of the rain on the trees and knowing I was protecting our house and property. It's fun working with water and its a pleasure to clear a culvert and watch the stream of water on its merry way down the mountain.

My mother and father found Cragsmoor through some of their artist and musical friends - it was largely an artist's colony then. They rented a small cottage, one of several in Broadhead's Grove. It was in the triangle where Bob Van Kleeck built the new Post Office.

My first visit in the summer of 1911 was in my mother's womb as I was born the following October. They rented it again in 1912 when they heard that Five Oaks and the Upper House were For Sale. Mother got her father, Dada, to come up to see it. -He loved it because it reminded him of Norway and he bought it immediately, all 100 acres. He gave us Five Oaks and he and Mormor lived in the Upper House; as a small child, I would love to go up there in the early morning to savor biscuits, potato pancakes, or whatever. One morning Mormor leaned out the window and whispered, "It's too early", so I played around until I saw the smoke from the chimney and then I went back and I'm told I said, "I saw the 'moke Mormor." We loved Cragsmoor and the day before we would drive up for the summer we could hardly sleep and we'd be ready and packed by 6:00 AM. Then the trip would take all day in our Model T Ford. We'd always have several flat tires or even a blow out and Dad had equipment to repair the inner tube. I can still smell the stuff he used and then he'd have to pump up the tire, by hand of course. We'd have a picnic lunch on the way. Dad would have to get out and crank it if the car stalled. When that happened in traffic it was rough. Once when we stopped for a red light, my sister Wiggles said, "Keep it shaking Dad."

Georgia Wright would drive up every day and Mother would give her a list of things we needed and Georgia would go to Ellenville in her horse and buggy and return with our supplies. Their cows pastured on our land and we got our milk, vegetables, raspberries, etc. from her. One of my chores was to take a shovel and collect the horse manure to fertilize the garden.

I remember one time I took the train to Spring Glen and Georgia met and took me to Five Oaks in the horse and buggy. It was slow but so beautiful and peaceful

At this time we lived in Brooklyn at 357 Ovington Avenue which was also the Munson School of Music. One year my sister Wiggles, Binks and I all got Diptheria which was more serious then. Also my Mother had lost one or two brothers because of it. Of course we couldn't stay at home because of possible contagion with scores of pupils coming there every day. So we went to the King's County Hospital - a public one, which worried me but it turned out to be excellent and we all recovered in time.

But Mother now insisted that we have a house separate from the School and in the country. So Dad bought a house in Garden City, 117 Meadbrook Road, in late 1927 or early 1928. Mother was thrilled buying furniture, etc. She had excellent taste and the house was her dream come true.

Then tragedy of the worst kind struck. It was the Spring of 1929. We had been in Mother's dream house a year or 18 months. Dad had our Studebaker checked out at a Service Station and they returned it with a note saying that we should bring it back as soon as possible as the brakes swerved badly to the right. Dad put the note in his pocket without reading it as he thought it was the bill.

Anyway they asked me to drive them to the LIRR station at Stewart Manor as they had missed it at Garden City. Naturally I had to go fast to catch the train. It was raining and when I put on the brake to make the turn to the station we swerved sharply to the right and turned over a couple of times and crashed!

People were wonderful. I particularly remember a minister - he was a son of Bishop Stires - stopped and stayed with us. An ambulance came for Mother and Marian. Marian had a gash on her arm but was OK. Dad and I followed them to the Mineola Hospital. After a while Dad came back to me and said, "Mother's gone." During the nightmare he found the note from the Service Station and showed it to me. He said, "If only I had read it this would not have happened."

Mother was the soul of our family. Beautiful, charming, intelligent and really the business brain in the family too.

She was fanatically religious with extreme Norwegian Lutheran Evangelical strictness. Dr. Trexler, one of Brooklyn's most prominent clergymen, said of mother: She was the kind of lady who would have made an excellent First Lady of the White House. We were all devastated. We couldn't go near Cragsmoor for a year or two.

On top of that a few months later, November 1929, the famous Stock Market crash took place. Many people jumped out of high story windows and 12 million became unemployed. Naturally our house was mortgaged, a 1st; and a 2nd mortgage given Dad by a Jewish friend of his, Mr. Cooper. It was for $2500 which was then a lot of money. But when Dad explained the situation to Mr. Cooper, he said, "Never mind about my mortgage. I have enough money."

In 1930 I entered Rutgers University and Dad was able to help me a little for the first year. By the summer of 1931, however, he told me he couldn't help me any more and the bank foreclosed our house. Mother's Dream house was gone. Marian gave up Simmons College and dedicated herself to helping all of us. Marian, Wiggles, Binks and I took an apartment in Garden City. Alex was already married. I remember Wiggles was so economical that we lived on $1 per day.

Dad would visit us once a week and six years later he remarried and I was his best man. Wiggles and I spent a week getting Five Oaks ready for their honeymoon.

Dad was a sweetheart. He was kind and had a good sense of humor. He was very distinguished and an excellent musician (piano and organ). He completed his musical training in Paris. He was a good speaker and I was always so proud of him when he was on a platform speaking or performing. He was really the cultural leader of the Norwegian-American Community while Dada was probably the outstanding business leader.

Dada was a generous contributor to the Norwegian Lutheran church and the Norwegian Lutheran Hospital.

I managed by waiting on tables at Rutgers and working summers at the Cragsmoor Inn (plus some scholarships) to finish the next 3 years and I graduated in 1934. I was President of my Junior Class and President of my Fraternity, Delta Phi. I was particularly proud to be made a member of the Honor Society "Cap & Skull."

I got a job on Wall Street in a Municipal Bond House, Barr Bros at 40 Wall Street on the 55th floor. I was paid $16 per week. I'm afraid I didn't like it but I did work hard as the money was essential.

I also became very active politically in the Republican Party in Garden City. A friend of my sister Marian was Nate Bennett. He said "the Republican Recruits (Young Republicans) need to be revitalized and you can do it."

Well I plunged into it with enthusiasm and soon became President of the Garden City Republican Recruits. We gained hundreds of new members and held meetings in the best houses in Garden City. We organized successful dances, forums and plays. These attracted a lot of attention and publicity even in the NYC newspapers.

Meanwhile at Barr Bros, being in Municipal Bonds, I was asked to attend various luncheons where city and state officials would be present. At several of these I met former NYS Senator Joseph Clark Baldwin III. I recognized the name as his fight to investigate Mayor Jimmy Walker and Tammany Hall had been widely publicized. It resulted in the election of a Fusion Mayor - La Guardia. The Senator was also a member of a socially prominent family and was a Liberal Republican and I liked him. We had lunch several times and then he said, "With interests like yours you don't belong in Wall St, you should be in my business, in Public Relations. Should you become interested, call me."

My leadership of the Republican Recruits continued to succeed. My brother Binks still remembers our Recruit Song. As a reward for my good work, the Party leaders gave me the honor of escorting our 1936 candidate for President, Gov Alf Landon,from one meeting to a big dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Well I was shocked and outraged by him and his speech - so much so that I suddenly realized that I was a mass of inherited or borrowed opinions and that I knew nothing first hand on which to base actual opinions. I then worked furiously to get caught up on the facts of labor unions, the plight of farmers and coal miners and the 12 million unemployed. The more I studied the more I admired President Roosevelt. To make a long story short, I ended up voting for President Roosevelt and resigned as Pres of the Recruits. I wrote a series of columns for the local Garden City newspaper expressing my new views. Well Garden City was and probably still is 90% Republican and very conservative and I was most unpopular.

At Barr Bros trouble was brewing. I would work as a trainee for a few months in one Dept and then in another. Well then I was in the Cashier's Dept and I liked all the men there. They were very competent but very underpaid. They showed me a letter they had all signed asking the Senior Partner to look into the question of their remuneration. They said they'd understand if I didn't sign because I was not really a regular member of the Cashier's Dept, but it would make it unanimous if I did.

Well I was convinced they were right. One of the best of them had five children and only made $26 per week. They thought their immediate boss, the head of the Cashier's Dept was not telling the Senior Partner how little they were making. There were no threats, just an appeal for more adequate pay.

Well I signed it. Next morning early I was called in to see the Senior Partner. He said, "Well Henry, we've decided that there isn't enough future for you to advance here and so we are terminating our association." They gave me a month's pay but respectfully asked me to leave within a half hour!

Because of my political activity and my shocking them by voting for Pres Roosevelt they assumed I had organized the whole letter and that I was a subversive element!

I immediately telephoned Sen Joseph Clark Baldwin; we had lunch and he asked me to come to work for him at $100 per week starting in six weeks. My Uncle Henry Lee arranged for me to go to Cuba on a freighter. I was the only passenger and had to pay only $1 per day. It lasted two or three weeks and it was a thrill.

Then I worked for Sen Baldwin at 45 John Street and business went well. Our clients included the French Line, Celotex and Certainteed, Lord & Taylor, later in 1939 the World's Fair, and several others. We expanded the firm and in time it became Baldwin, Munson & Mann and we moved to 10 Rockefeller Plaza, Joe Baldwin, two of his brothers, lan (Mike) and Sandy Baldwin and Lloyd Mann. (I still see Sandy and his wife Lois in Vt where they now live. She is 85 and Sandy 81 or 2 and both in great form.) Business was good.

In 1937 the French Line invited Joe, his mother and me to go to Paris at their expense and we travelled on the SS Normandie - it was a beautiful ship, like a glass of great champagne - and many friends were on board. This was my first trip to Europe and seeing Paris for the first time was a thrill. Many business and social leaders entertained us in the famous restaurants and even a very chic "house of call" - "The Sphinx." But I was very surprised to find a feeling of defeatism on all levels.

The Princess de Wagram said, "Hitler is too strong for us and anyway Communism would be worse." [Napoleon, after the battle of Wagram, made Beithier one of his Marshalls, the Prince de Wagram, and also gave him the exquisite chateaux "Gros Bois" which we visited. There was a great collection of Napoleonic memorabilia in miniature.] I bought a silver cofteapot in Paris and "Arty", Joe's mother, gave me a sugar and creamer to match.

Then we went to England and stayed at the Ritz. We also stayed at "Dytchley", Ronald Tree's beautiful 6,000 acre place. (I often stayed there in later years.)

By this time I had taken an apartment in NYC at 57 East 72 Street. I had also been made a member of the Racquet & Tennis Club - one of the best men's clubs in the world. I remained a member for 39 years. I was also made a member of the Metropolitan Club in Wash DC and also the Metropolitan Opera Club. During WW II while in the army I was made a member of White's Club - recognized as the apex of men's clubs in the world, located in London.

I moved from the minor league, namely, the Garden City Republican Recruits to the majors as I started helping Joe politically as well as the regular public relations business. In 1937 I was campaign manager for his double headed campaign for the new City Council and as a Delegate to the 1938 Constitutional Convention. Both campaigns were Manhattan wide and both were successful. It is thrilling to run a campaign. One visits all kinds of areas and places and you meet many interesting people. You feel closer to the heartbeat of life than at any other time.

Meanwhile Dada died in 1931. He had remarried his housekeeper, a Mrs. Stuberude, several years before his death. She was not satisfied with the amount of money Dada left her so she sued for more. It took several years to settle the estate but finally, we grandchildren were offered real estate in Cragsmoor or on Long Island. Uncle Herman offered to pay $300 cash to each grandchild for the property in Hempstead should they elect to do so. My brothers and sisters wanted the cash offered for the LI property, so I decided to take the Cragsmoor property.

I got friends to help and I worked hard to improve the house and fields in Cragsmoor. As I began to make more money, I took on a caretaker, Harry Rodin (I paid him $45 per month), and the place began to look very well. Later I was lucky to find an excellent manservant, Raymond, who had had the thorough English training, i.e., a year as asst chef, another year as asst wine steward and then he became Headwaiter of the SS Leviathan. When that ship was unionized Raymond left as he was far too independent to join any union. I forget how I met him, but he came to work for me for $45 per month and I provided a small apartment around the corner for him that cost me $25 or $30 more per month.

Raymond made it possible for me to entertain more and very well. He was a snob and therefore very happy when Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mrs. Woodward and the Dukes and Duchesses came for dinner but he hated it when I entertained politicians, as I had to do more and more. He would say, "Mr. Henry, but they are so common." Raymond also would drive me to Cragsmoor in "Trina", a 1934 Ford Station Wagon that I bought from Sandy Baldwin for $100. Raymond would cheerfully help paint and garden as well as preparing meals.

Bill Sands insists that one time Raymond drove both of us to Cragsmoor and we had a flat tire. Raymond made martinis for us, Bill said, and Raymond changed the tire. I don't remember that but Bill swore it was true. At the Constitutional Convention in Albany I worked hard to get the Baldwin Housing Amendment passed and it finally was. The committee gave me a silver cocktail shaker as a thank you. (I still have it.) This was the first time NYS was empowered to loan money for housing. Now tens of thousands of families can have housing they can afford.

Later I was campaign manager to get Joe elected to Congress and also to get him re-elected - both were very successful. Four hundred volunteers helped. I became his Congressional assistant in addition to the public relations business.

Many interesting political battles and social engagements made Washington, DC an exciting place. I would usually stay with my good friend from Republican Recruit days, Mrs. Robt Low Bacon. Her husband was Congressman from Nassau Co. Her very comfortable house at 1801 "F" St was very active, as she was the leading Republican hostess in Wash.

A most important event happened on Aug. 14, 1941. The Selective Service Act was continued by only one vote - 203 - 202. I was keeping tally on the votes and for a while the nays were ahead. Had it failed we would have been largely demobilized by the time Pearl Harbor happened on Dec. 7, 1941.

A group of us were very worried that the isolationists might win out . So we worked to get 5 or 6 midwestern Republican Congressmen to agree to go to England to see first hand what was going on. Joe Baldwin persuaded Marshall Field to agree to finance the trip and I was asked to organize it. That is a story by itself but on our way back from a fabulous experience,on Dec 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We were lunching with the American Consul in Belem, Brazil horrified when we heard the news. We got back to the U.S. as quickly as we could and as a Reserve Officer I requested Active Duty and was soon an Infantry Lt in the Army.

I gave up my apartment and sent my furniture for storage at Marian's house in Garden City. I got Raymond a job with Pan-American Airways and he quickly became head of all their Steward personnel. After the war he would bring butter and bacon, etc. from Ireland to Monique and me as they were hard to get in NY after the war. He even took us out to dinner at the Waldorf Astoria! Later he was killed on a flight from South Africa.

We returned from Lisbon via West Africa and Brazil. Hitler had declared war on the U.S. before we got back but we were in Washington in time for declaration of war against Japan.

Mrs. Vanderbilt told me to treat her house at 640 Fifth as my home when I came to NY which I did. After the war the first place I stayed was in her house at 86th & 5th Ave. She had sold 640 5th during the war.

In conclusion: At some point everyone has to reassess one's own life as objectively as is possible. There are forces at work within us, - both conscious and subconscious that in time prove decisive, even though we may not know it until much later.

There are two factors in my pre-war life that seem of major importance for me:

First, my strongly negative reaction to Gov Alf Landon, the GOP candidate in 1936, produced a very positive impact on me. At the age of 24 I realized I had no serious independent thoughts of my own. I realized I knew nothing about many national problems everyone talks about. As a result, and for the first time, I seriously studied and worked to secure a real knowledge of those areas of most interest for me. I could never be a blind Republican again. I am a free thinker on the Liberal side. How I wish this had happened to me before I went to college. I have always believed that enhancing the quality of life for all is or should be the prime purpose of all. I believe that had a lot to do with my strong interest in politics as a vehicle to help me achieve that.

The second major factor for me was meeting Senator Joseph Clark Baldwin III, Even though I hated Barr Bros (my first job), I am grateful to them for enabling me to meet Joe Baldwin. Because of him I could transfer my political activities from the minor league to the major leagues.

Getting active politically in NYC, NYS and at the national level through Congress gives one the feeling of participation in the lives of all people.

Through Joe Baldwin I was able to learn the ins and outs of Public Relations which has been my profession ever since. After the war I added Fund Raising Counsel.

I am deeply grateful to you, Nick, for nudging me to write up this perception of our family's history and mine too. Soul searching as an integral part of the process - I have learned more about myself - who I am - than ever before. There are genes and threads of our lives that have roots going way back. For example, my favorite composer is the Norwegian Grieg. His themes, rhythms, melodies and the nuances of his music pierce my inner soul and always will. Shortly after the divorce when we were living at 27 West 67 St you Nick asked me, "What is money?" At the time I answered routinely that "You'd find out."

I hope all of you have learned some things from me and I know I have learned a lot from all of you, especially about Vietnam. That question you asked has come to my mind many times. I have known many very rich people well over the years and I'd say at the most 2% of them were happy.

Now I would answer your question differently. I'd say "of itself it is nothing as long as essentials are covered."

Outside of my children, my biggest satisfaction is that I have helped more than two dozen organizations I believed in to substantially strengthen their case and helped them raise the funds needed for them to better achieve their goals. In the case of the Manhattan School of Music it meant $10,500,000.

In particular, I know that I played a pioneering and leading role in gaining greater recognition at all levels for the core, or seminal role of the Arts in enhancing the Quality of Life for everyone. That is important to me. That meant far more than if I had made millions in a strictly business sense. Sorry this has been so long but when you start writing something you believe is important it takes on a momentum of its own. Looking back over 72 years, most of them fascinating (some very unhappy and frustrating),is an eerie feeling.

This opus ends with the outbreak of WWII. I hope to do more later.

Love, Dad