Don't fence me in

I grew up on this long-time family-owned property next door to my paternal grandparents, Rex Church (1883–1956) and Winifred Lee (1884–1980). I saw them almost every day until their deaths, ate lunches and holiday meals with them, slept overnight there with my cousins, and saw them only as my grandparents. I suspect that, like many other people, I’ve only come to really know them as I piece together family stories.

Long after my grandparents’ deaths, my brother and I took on the task of clearing out the house in preparation for his renovations. I began to learn more about my grandparents the more old photos we found between pages of every book or magazine (I’m not sure who was reading the collected speeches of Andrew Jackson, but there it was), and taking down framed photos, mostly of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was the photos of Rex and Winifred in fencing suits that caught my attention: they had never said anything about being fencers, no stories or newspaper articles were in evidence, and of course, I never asked about the framed photos that were always on the wall in the den, probably because they were always on the wall in the den.

Once again, old newspapers have surfaced to shed more light on their activities as young adults.  In the Boston Globe archives, my son found an article about Rex Church’s participation in the Pianelli Fencing Club in Augusta, Maine. Apparently my grandfather, long after his marriage, continued to fence in Augusta, and competed against the Bowdoin College and the Bangor Y.M.C.A. teams.

I suspect that my grandparents met at the Pianelli Fencing Club: Fred Lee, one of the judges, was my grandmother’s father. (I never knew he could fence!) Winifred was also a member of the Club, although she received considerably less press coverage. However, in one of her marriage announcements, the writer noted her accomplishments as a fencer. The articles are a wealth of family information on addresses, employment, and relationships (the Rev. J.R. Clifford was Winifred’s uncle by marriage).

Rex Otis Church, farmer and superintendent of burials, and Winifred Sturgis Lee, stenographer and woman with a sword, were married on 7 November 1906, a union which lasted for fifty years with or without weapons, until my grandfather’s death in 1956. That was a nice bit of fencing (in).