Strong social aspect at Fox Meadow

A busy day at Fox Meadow in the early 1940s. Platform tennis, hockey and skating keep members out of mischief.

In 1938, FMTC held a Memorial Day Carnival, complete with a Fox Meadow orchestra directed by Woodruff Johnson and made up of members: on piano, Johnson; on saxophone, Putnam Livingston; on guitar, Earle Gatchell; on banjo, Allison Scully; and on violin, Wardwell Proctor.

Two reasons were given for staging the carnival: to provide a good time for families and to raise money for a Club Improvement Fund. The carnival raised $333. That was Fox Meadow Tennis Club: fun, practical, and frugal. When something needed to be done, more often than not, members would do it themselves. Dues remained low because of members’ willingness to pitch in.

The master of ceremonies was Thorndike Deland, Sr. For a ten-cent admission charge one could also watch him perform magic tricks. The gypsy cranking a rented hurdy-gurdy was Club President John Van Norden. His tunes enlivened all the attractions a carnival should have: a fortune-teller, games of chance, a marionette show, and a shooting gallery where Jim Hynson proved deadly accurate with water pistols, dousing candles as fast as volunteers could relight them.

Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983