Ponte Vedra, Florida, (Christmas, 1966)

Ponte Vedra, Florida, Christmas, 1966

After Sandra’s return to New York City on December 12, 1966, she stayed briefly at Bill’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights.  While there, she spoke with Bill’s girlfriend at the time, Lucy Barker, pictured below.

 Lucy had graduated from Barnard College, with a major in Government, in 1964.  While at college, she had lived with a French-speaking family, who were working in New York, as lucy wanted to learn French.  After graduating, she had secured a job at the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), at 22 E 60th Street, off 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and lived in Brooklyn Heights, where she met and later dated Bill.  By Christmas of 1966, their relationship was ending, and Lucy had secured employment with a dairy company in Paris and was going to be living there.   She told Sandra that the family she had lived with while at Barnard were from Sion, Switzerland, and had offered Lucy the use of their car in April to explore Europe. Lucy didn’t know how to drive a stick-shift, and didn’t want to travel alone, so she invited Sandra to accompany her and to teach her how to drive the car, an invitation Sandra was only too happy to accept.

While Sandra was in New York, Bill lent her his Volkswagen “beetle” to drive to St. Lawrence University, where she picked up David and Stevie and the three drove back to New York City.  Stevie flew from there to her home in Rochester, N.Y., and Sandra, David, and Bill drove to Ponte Vedra, Florida, where our parents were visiting our mother’s half-sister, Ruth, and her husband, Grant Donaldson, after Grant had retired in Ponte Vedra following his employment as a Vice-President of General Motors.  The photo below shows our arrival in Ponte Vedra and, at right, with our parents and my mother’s half-sisters, Ruth Donaldson (on the sofa) and Fran Warner.