Missing at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse

By Laura Joyce Moriarty

About the book . . .
Sandy Hook, New Jersey is called a barrier spit. It looks like a little finger that sticks up out of the State into the New York Bay just south of New York City. It is located on the northeast side of New Jersey. It is approximately six miles long and its width varies between one-tenth of a mile, and one mile wide, and ends in Middletown Township in Monmouth County. The name comes from the Dutch who called the area "Sant Hoek", meaning "spit of land."

The Sandy Hook Lighthouse---originally the New York Lighthouse---was commissioned by George Washington and is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States. Many of the records of the lighthouse keepers are missing between 1923 and 1962. This lighthouse seemed to conjure up many stories over the years. Its endless association with legends and obscurities includes a mysterious sea and abandoned human bones.

*****
A child of an Irish Baron and housemaid discovers she was abandoned to a couple on a baby farm in Scotland. She loves her foster parents deeply, but they are killed in an accident, and she is scooped away from the farm by a rich and very strict Calvinist aunt.
She suffers additional tragedies despite being blessed with a good education and wealth through several deaths. Her life of heartbreak and desire is never quenched until she has a baby of her own, Nora.
But it was a short-lived reprieve from unhappiness, as a catastrophe takes her and her rich husband Harry Fairmont, who had lost all he owned in the stock market crash of 1929.
Nora miraculously ends up on the barrier spit of Sandy Hook where she grows up in the lighthouse with strangers during the depression.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Joyce Moriarty
• Release date: Oct 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301166657

Laura Joyce Moriarty

Laura Joyce studied Political Science at Emory University and went on to the University of Georgia to complete a Masters in Public Administration. She then worked at Emory University in Information Technology for seventeen years. During part of that tenure she wrote extensively on various technology topics and was the chief editor of a scholarly journal entitled, A Publication on Information Technology from Emory University [POINT]. Many of her papers on information technology can still be found on the Internet.She has completed a trilogy:The Secrets of Nine Irish Sons I – The BeginningThe Secrets of Nine Irish Sons II – The Rose OisínThe Secrets of Nine Irish Sons III – The Forces of StonesShe is now retired and living in Florida.Extended Bio at: http://www.fourrosesandbrownpublishing.com/aboutlaura.htm

Book preview

Missing at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse

By

Laura Joyce Moriarty

Copyright 2013 by Laura Joyce Moriarty

Smashwords edition

Request for permission to make copies of any part of this work should be mailed to the following address:

[e-mail]

http://www.fourrosesandbrownpublishing.com

Dedicated to the Class of 1963

Charles F. Brush High School

Anythin’ for a quiet life, as the man said when he took the sitivation at the lighthouse

-Charles Dickens 1812-1870 (Pickwick Papers)

[e-mail]

Dedicated to the Class of 1963

Charles F. Brush High School

Anythin’ for a quiet life, as the man said when he took the sitivation at the lighthouse

-Charles Dickens 1812-1870 (Pickwick Papers)

About the book . . .

Sandy Hook, New Jersey is called a barrier spit. It looks like a little finger that sticks up out of the State into the New York Bay just south of New York City. It is located on the northeast side of New Jersey. It is approximately six miles long and its width varies between one-tenth of a mile, and one mile wide, and ends in Middletown Township in Monmouth County. The name comes from the Dutch who called the area Sant Hoek, meaning spit of land.

The Sandy Hook Lighthouse---originally the New York Lighthouse---was commissioned by George Washington and is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States. Many of the records of the lighthouse keepers are missing between 1923 and 1962. This lighthouse seemed to conjure up many stories over the years. Its endless association with legends and mysteries includes a mysterious sea and abandoned human bones.

A child of an Irish Baron and housemaid discovers she was abandoned to a couple on a baby farm in Scotland. She loves her foster parents deeply, but they are killed in an accident, and she is scooped away from the farm by a rich and very strict Calvinist aunt.

She suffers additional tragedies despite being blessed with a good education and wealth through several deaths. Her life of heartbreak and desire is never quenched until she has a baby of her own, Nora.

But it was a short-lived reprieve from unhappiness, as a catastrophe takes her and her rich husband Harry Fairmont, who had lost all he owned in the stock market crash of 1929.

Nora miraculously ends up on the barrier spit of Sandy Hook where she grows up in the lighthouse with strangers during the depression.

October 29, 1929

When the messenger rang the bell at the front door of the Fairmont’s estate, in St. George-New Brighton on Staten Island, the butler took the telegram and walked back to his master’s library where he laid it on his desk. He was tempted to read it. The servants had been listening to the radio and heard that the stock market had crashed. He looked around the room, and wondered if it would be the last day he would be employed in this magnificent house.

Of course, it wasn’t just a house. It was a huge brown stone and brick mansion with cone shaped turrets meticulously designed by the owner, Harry Fairmont. It reminded him of his family’s castle in Scotland and he was adamant about every detail of the exterior of the home.

As a consequence, Carolyn, his wife insisted on designing the entire interior of the home. And just to make sure it was as unpleasant to her husband as the exterior of the home was to her, she contrasted every point of the exterior with the exact opposite for the interior. There were no natural wood trims on the windows, only white woodwork throughout. There were no dark colors in any room except in Harry’s private office. There, he was allowed to paint the walls forest green, build mahogany bookcases and lay walnut wood flooring. Carolyn thought the room atrocious and refused to go into it.

The entrance foyer was a shock to any visitor for they truly expected a mausoleum to match the exterior of brown stones and grey slate scalloped turrets. But it was indeed, the greatest contrast one could imagine. Carolyn had ordered white and black Irish marble for the foyer floor, white marble hand crafted stairs for the double winding staircases, and wrought iron banisters with brass trim. Every room was painted the faintest pastel color she could order. The spacious dining room was painted a pale yellow and the long drapes that hung along the gigantic narrow windows were a custom made print of blue and yellow floral damask. The ballroom was painted a barely discernible pink and the curtains were white silk that billowed in the wind when the patio doors were opened. Every room was similarly feminine and bright.

And so throughout the millionaire’s life, each and every day that went by between Harry Fairmont and his wife Carolyn was one of contention over the, the continual renovations. The irritation between the young couple who had left Scotland madly in love was obvious to anyone who even looked at them. As they managed the building of their incompatible dreams, their relationship drifted into a state of contempt for each other---so much so that they were losing their friends who had noticed their quick quips turn into outright insults and even rage in front of company.

The only thing they had agreed on was the long hall of stately suites built on the southeast beachfront side of the house. The hall boasted French-door styled windows that looked out to the ocean. On the outside, each window was lined with matching brown brick window boxes and filled with multicolored flowers all summer. On the inside white marble window boxes lined the bottom of each and they were filled with red geraniums year round. Even the black wrought iron panes were magnificent against the white marble and red flowers of the corridor.

Each suite had a double door entry into a sunroom that completely opened to the view and behind each sunroom, a stately bedroom, bath, and study was made available to any and every guest that would help break the tension and loneliness of the young rich couple.

May 30, 1927

Mark. Carolyn and I were wondering if you and Marjorie wouldn’t like to join us for tennis this weekend? The weather’s been warm and we are having the pool uncovered this week.

Sorry ‘ol chum. We’ve got plans this weekend.

How about next weekend then?

We’re planning a cruise off of Martha’s Vineyard that weekend.

Is that with the Humpfries?

Um, yes. But I’m sure you might get an invite soon, he said obviously wishing he hadn’t.

It seems you and Marjorie were our best friends, but you haven’t accepted one of our invitations for months. And we are not getting any invites from anyone else these days. To be perfectly frank, I’m curious. Did I do something wrong? We lunch every day at the club---that is with everyone, and I’ve never noticed any irritation with me, and yet . . .

Look. I’m still your friend. Furthermore, I don’t want to be the one to have to explain things to you. It should be perfectly obvious to you what’s going on.

Well, it’s not. I haven’t a clue. What did I do?

You? Nothing by yourself. But well, he paused for a while, my wife is not comfortable around the two of you . . .

What do you mean the two of us? he cut in.

Harry. You and Carolyn have been at each other’s throats for the past three years, except that it’s gotten progressively worse each time we visit. Alone you are both fine. But Marjorie just isn’t interested in listening to you quarrel with each other. It’s downright embarrassing, and frankly, leaves us cold.

Harry stood in front of his friend as the blood drained out of his face. He was clenching his fists and looked like he was about to strike Mark.

Hey. You asked, and don’t look so surprised. Over the years, many of your guests have suddenly gotten up and left when you two have gone at it. We’re all simply sick of it. I just wonder why the two of you got married in the first place. You certainly couldn’t have been in love.

How dare you insinuate such a thing? All married couples have quarrels. I’ve never noticed anything different in any other home?

Are you crazy? Your wife threw a cocktail glass across the room and you turned over a chair. You are mistaking a polite disagreement with ridiculous rage. Either face facts or you won’t have any friends left on Staten Island.

How do you know? We used to be the envy of everyone we met together at home.

Maybe so. But I don’t think I would insult my wife because she picked out yellow silk with navy blue pinstripes for the dining room chair covers. I think everyone on Staten Island heard you two screaming. How could anything so trivial be so important to either of you? Here you are, living the American dream and you can’t shut up with the insults.

Harry sat down on his office davenport and put his head in his hands.

Look Harry. I like you a lot. You’re a great guy. But we don’t want to follow the two of you into divorce court and we will if Marjorie doesn’t get her way . . . and you and your wife together just don’t get along. It’s misery to be around the two of you, and frankly, Marjorie really isn’t interested in Carolyn’s company anymore. It’s too difficult to have to make excuses weekend after weekend. Maybe you should invite some of your family in Scotland or Ireland---wherever they are from to come and visit. Maybe having them around will help reignite the feelings you used to have for each other.

Harry sat and said nothing. He was obviously in shock.

Sorry ‘ol man. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you if there was anyone else around willing. Either you go on the way you two have been acting, or change . . . and then, well, we will be the first to spread the word around to the rest of our friends. Good luck, said Mark as he inched his way back to the door before Harry could comment again.

Harry rode back to his gigantic modern castle by the sea feeling about as despondent as he had ever felt in his life. He dreaded going home as usual, but this time he knew there would be a row and he would be the one she would blame for their predicament. If he hadn’t grown so fond of his job at the bank, he would pack and return to Scotland on his own.

But the truth was that not only did he love his job, but his success. Every morning when he walked into his bank, he could hear the whispers across the staff floor as his admirers commented on his previous day’s triumphs. He was a Wall Street enigma to his rivals and many tried to extract the secrets behind his techniques. Of course, he had been granted a large bequeath to begin his career. He knew that his financial cushion was a well-guarded confidence between him and the bank executives. There was no way any of the young college boys could catch up when their portfolios started at zero. He not only brought in his money, but clients from the British Isles.

He had never suffered or wanted for anything. But he never imagined how wonderful it was to earn huge sums of money. It was his Scottish heritage that taught him how to concentrate on details and the value of various commodities. His father had been a landowner and prosperous, but had made Harry do every menial chore on his estate until he could bring home a textbook’s worth of knowledge about whatever subject was important . . . how to conserve the grasslands, how to find spring water beneath the ground, how to manage sheep and their shearing, and a hundred other supply realities.

He would say, Harry, it’s not that I expect you to grow up and run a farm. It’s that I expect you to learn the value of fifty bales of sheep’s wool versus the slaughter of ten hogs. If you don’t know how or when certain events are the most productive, and hence the most profitable, you cannot go on to manage commodity markets.

Harry knew that he was right and by the time he was eighteen, Harry was a superb student of the commodities and annual almanacs. He could calculate fifty years of trends and profits and put his money on a sure thing in every field. He knew his expertise was driven into him by an unforgiving father, and often he resented it. But when he saw the sloppy work of some of his colleagues at the bank, was grateful for the instruction that had grown his one hundred thousand into millions. He wasn’t going to leave any of it behind and try to set up another house back in Europe with a cantankerous wife.

The Wife

Carolyn Gilmore was born illegitimately in 1896 in Ireland, and quickly moved to a baby farm outside the town of Edinburgh. She was raised almost exclusively by her foster father, a man she remembered only as papa. She went with him every morning as he carted his apples over to Princess Street where he could sell them quickly, and cheaply to the great crowds of early workers. But one morning, she was ill with a cold and was coughing incessantly. Her papa said she couldn’t go.

Why papa?

Because the workers will think you have a disease that is contagious and they won’t buy the apples.

But I can stop the coughing whenever I want, she said as a loud low croupy string of uncontrollable coughs erupted.

Your mother will go with me this morning. We will be back before dinner as usual. Stay in bed and rest so you can go tomorrow.

Yes papa. I’ll be completely better by tomorrow. I promise.

She closed her eyes and it was the last time she would ever see her foster parents. Both were killed when a tram ran out of control upsetting dozens of travelers. In the chaos, their cart turned over in the street and both of them died under the hoofs of frightened horses.

Wake up child, she heard.

Who are you? she asked.

I’m your foster mother’s sister, Mrs. Edith Burns.

Who’s my foster mother? Carolyn asked.

What do you mean? Your mother here in Edinburg was your foster mother. She died in an accident yesterday along with your foster father, Mr. Gilmore.

What do you mean my foster father? He is my papa.

Your mama and papa, as you say, are both dead. They were killed in an accident. You don’t have to worry. I will be taking care of you.

At that Carolyn started crying hysterically. Her croup erupted viciously at the same time and Edith Burns got up moving a good distance from the child. She ordered her companion to give her a dose of codeine and soon Carolyn drifted off into a deep sleep. They wrapped her up snuggly and put her in the luggage holder in their carriage

It took them four hours to ride up to St. Andrews in nasty wet weather. By the time Carolyn was put to bed, a fever was raging and the doctor said she might not make it. She probably wouldn’t have except for the fact that she refused to die without finding out why this stranger had called her mama and papa step parents.

You are the love child of a great industrialist and financial tycoon and a housemaid. The baron wanted nothing to do with you and the housemaid. She was sent to America and told her child had died.

Why did they say that when it wasn’t true?

Because the great mogul was very particular about his reputation, and was not interested in giving up his gallivanting to raise a bastard child. I’m thinking he wanted to make sure you would never find him or your real mother until he was ready, and he had the money to do what he wanted. So he sent your mother abroad, and you to the people you lived with. You must have realized that a cottage farm such as yours couldn’t have survived on selling apples?

Carolyn was mystified.

Well never mind. Just take my word for it. The baron paid for your care. He visited the cottage once a year, and as long as you were in good health he paid your parents an annual sum to take care of you for the next year. It’s common in Scotland. Many rich people farm out their children. Of course, some do it for a day or week at a time, but many do it for years.

A man came to our house just a little while ago. He was dressed in a velvet jacket with lady’s lace around his collar. He wore beautiful black boots and rode a beautiful black horse. He had two other men with him.

That would have been your father. I give you permission to remember his face if you like. I have no idea who he is except for his title. I only know that because he told your step parents. I only heard of the accident because the police had my address as an emergency contact if something happened to your step-mother, my sister. I suppose she was required to let the baron know, but instead chose me to come for you. So I did that very moment. As soon as the constable came to my door, I packed what I needed to make the trip over. You must have been sleeping the entire day. You were very ill.

But what if the baron wants to be my father now?