Mary Mattison van Schaik was born in Trenton, NJ in 1909.
One of four children, her father was a lawyer. Graduating from Smith College in
1931 summa cum laude, the friendships and connections she made there would play
a significant role throughout her life.
 |
| Mary's Wedding Portrait |
After graduation she became a speechwriter and researcher
for presidential candidate Al Smith. However it was through her job as observer
at the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland that she would meet Henri van
Schaik in 1934. They were married in 1935 and in 1936 he would win a silver
medal at the Summer Olympics as part of the Dutch show jumping team.
During WWII, Mary lived in occupied Holland raising six
children. These were not easy times. In 1957, she gave a glimpse of what it
must have been like living in Holland during the occupation.
Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the
communist government, Life Magazine suggested a food drop to help those who
were starving. Living in Cavendish by that point, Mary wrote a “Letter to the
editor” stating, Our family with six young children benefited from the British
and American food-drops in German-occupied Holland in April 1945. The food saved
lives. The act boosted morale. Operation Manna and Operation Chowhound were
humanitarian food drops carried out to relieve a famine in German-occupied
Holland undertaken by Allied bomber crews during the finals days of WWII.
Shortly after WWII, while Mary was still living in Holland,
she was asked to contribute to the 75th Anniversary Fund of Smith College.
Since it wasn’t possible to send cash, she sent bulbs to
classmates and asked them to sell them, with the proceeds going to Smith. The
idea worked and an exporting business was born.
With the changes in government in Holland, the van Schaiks
decided there was more of a future for them in America and they moved in 1953.
However, prior to their arrival, Mary had already begun to use her Smith
contacts in order to arrange for her oldest child to attend private high school
in the US. Interestingly, none of the children were taught English. As one of
her son’s noted, she never thought she would raise her children anywhere but
Holland.
Education was a top priority for Mary and so each of her
children, again through her Smith contacts, would be given the opportunity to
attend private high schools.
Settling in the old Wilcox estate on the corner of Tarbell
Hill and Chambers Rd, in Cavendish, Mary continued her bulb business. Her
husband would start a riding school across the street and became quite well
known for training dressage riders. While they would eventually divorce, they
lived across the street from one another as friends until Henri’s death in
1991.
 |
| Mary among her tulips at her home on Chambers & Tarbell Hill |
Featured in the spring 1979 edition of Vermont Life, Mary
was well known for her love of gardening and her bulb sale catalogue. At the
time of the Vermont Life article, Mary was sending out over 5,000 catalogues of
her bulbs. With the help of a group of Cavendish and Reading women, orders
would be filled and sent all over the United States and Canada. Check out MaryMattison van Schaik Imported Dutch Bulbs, Vermont 1971-1993
Mary’s love of bulbs and Smith College culminated in her
writing The Gardens and Arboretum of Smith College in 1971. Famed Central Park designer
Frederick Law Olmstead created the Smith campus layout with numerous gardens and open
spaces.
The relationship between Mary and Smith College was a mutual one.
In 1997, a tulip garden was dedicated at Smith College’s Capen Garden as a
tribute to Mary Mattison van Schaik ’31, an ardent supporter of the Garden. She
was a frequent visitor to the greenhouses and played a significant role in
helping to beautify the Smith campus.Below is a video of the tulip garden in the spring of 2016.
Mary died in 1994 and is buried in the Cavendish Center Rd
Cemetery. Fortunately, her children, Eric, Rolf, Pieter and Stein are still
very much a part of the Cavendish community.
No comments:
Post a Comment