By Scott Brinton
Dr. Alice Leadley's childhood memories of Merrick dance through her mind continually. They are snapshots of a bygone era.
At age 90, Leadley recalls the 1920s and '30s well. She remembers the abundant huckleberry bushes that overflowed with dark-blue fruit in south Merrick. She recalls the little white violets that lined the Meadow Brook, whose crystalline water was so pure that you could drink it. And she remembers the muskrats, rabbits and quails that wandered the deep woods and farmland that dotted the landscape.
"I can recreate things in my mind," Leadley says. "I recreate so many things."
Subhed: A community
reflected in art
Leadley, a woman of keen intelligence and quiet dignity, recalls the Merrick Grammar School on Smith Street, which is now the Grace Reform Baptist Church. Her sister, Rita, graduated from Merrick Grammar with 20 other 15-year-olds in 1920. Rita, 10 years Alice's senior, went on to study at the Art League in New York City.
Alice graduated as valedictorian of Freeport High School, which at the time was a regional school that was considered the South Shore's best. Merrick didn't even have a high school back then. The sparsely populated community had but one doctor.
Alice's fondest memories are of Merrick's woodlands, the last vestiges of which are preserved along the Meadowbrook Parkway. Rita often took Alice on drawing expeditions in the forests. Rita would bring a sketchbook to capture the sights on paper while she chatted with her sister for hours. Or, as Alice often did, she ventured off to explore the woodlands.
Alice discovered her love of nature while searching for fauna and flora in the forests. She remembers uncovering a rare, pale-green luna moth that was hidden on a vine dangling from an old fence, or the remains of a box turtle, or a patch of daylilies, which was a surprising find in the woods, since daylilies are domestic.
Alice recalls the watchman who guarded Merrick's reservoir, which the Brooklyn Water Company ran and which is now simply a pond. The watchman wasn't supposed to let anyone in the reservoir, but he allowed children to play there.
"I grew up" in the woodlands, Alice says. "My sister grew up there. I loved it." Alice and Rita became close during their adventures, forming a lifelong bond.
Rita died in 1975, at age 70, while Alice was living and teaching in Philadelphia. At the time, Rita lived in the bungalow-style house that the Leadley sisters' father built in 1925 beside a narrow south Merrick canal. Alice, who earned a doctorate in French literature from the City University of New York, took over the family homestead after Rita's death, and has lived there ever since. It is a pretty home, surrounded by towering shipmast locust and low-lying curly oak trees.
With its thick shrubbery, the yard appears overgrown on a block full of well-groomed homes, but really it's a living testament to Merrick's past, when nature was allowed to flourish. Alice enjoys sitting amid the sheltering trees and watching squirrels play. Out back, there's the old hand pump with which her family used to draw well water, before municipal water lines were installed. In the pastoral setting of Leadley's yard, you quickly forget that modern, million-dollar estates lie a hundred feet west.
When she died, Rita left an enormous body of artwork. The majority of her paintings and sketches were portraits of Merrick's woodlands and bays, or of Jones Beach. Rita never made a career of art. In her era, women were expected to stay home and care for their children. Rita and Alice were both single and had to support themselves, but in a male-dominated work force, their job prospects were limited.
Rita worked for many years as a secretary. During World War II, she inspected planes for Grumman, the once-sprawling aeronautical company that employed thousands of Long Islanders. After the war Rita became a Grumman librarian, and received the Apollo Achievement Award for assisting in the manufacture of the Apollo 11 lunar module, which landed on the moon in 1969.
Alice, too, was a secretary before earning her teaching credentials. Like her sister, Alice has a creative side. She has written many unpublished short stories. In her home study, surrounded by tomes of French literature, Japanese art and ancient Greek philosophy, Alice continues to write to this day.
Rita never gave up her passion for art. "She was always painting. She was always sketching," Alice says. Her paintings are full of brilliant colors and intricate details. Most are studies of nature: a flock of birds soaring over Merrick Bay, a burst of clouds erupting across the sky like a volcano, a swath of marsh grass rustling in the wind. In a tiny watercolor painting of Hewlett Avenue, Rita documented the thoroughfare before it was developed. At the time it was a small dirt road, surrounded by fields of golden reeds and a handful of trees.
Taken as a whole, Rita's works provide a larger picture of Merrick in the early 20th century. Alice displays Rita's art throughout the family homestead. Paintings or drawings cover nearly every section of wall. Alice converted a top-floor bedroom into a mini-gallery to show off as many of her sister's works as possible.
Alice says she never worries about forgetting her childhood. She only needs to look at a wall to remember.
Subhed: Preserving the past
Alice hopes to find a permanent home for her sister's vast art collection, perhaps at the Merrick Library or a Nassau County museum. She realizes that she has only a short while left in life, and her fondest wish is that Rita's art will be preserved so future generations can peek into the past and recognize their roots.
Alice's greatest fear is that when she dies, Rita's art will be carted off to the dump.
Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat of Merrick, visited the Leadley house in January and expressed interest in finding a place for at least some of the collection. Bob Young, a Merrick environmental activist who has worked to preserve the Meadowbrook Parkway woodlands, said he would love to see Rita's art preserved in one public place so the collection could be appreciated as a whole. And at least one Merrick Library trustee said that an exhibition of Rita's work would be apropos for the opening of the new library this year, as it would unite Merrick's past with its future.
Alice Leadley waits and hopes.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
