ARTICLES

The North Shore: Home of the Ayers and the Pattons

The North Shore is a great place to visit, and what’s more fun than visiting the places one has read (or written) about?
Snippet: The Pattons on D-Day

On June 6, 1944, as the cross-channel invasion of France was underway, all five members of the Patton family sat huddled around the radio. The Pattons’ eldest daughter Bee listened in Washington, hoping “dad is on the way to get Johnny [her husband] out of prison camp,” while her sister and mother listened at the…
Snippet: Like birds on a telegraph wire

A gentle knock on the hotel room door awoke Second Lieutenant and Mrs. Patton, who had been married for less than twenty-four hours. In walked Ellen Banning Ayer, the bride’s mother, carrying a rose, followed by the bride’s brothers and sisters carrying the breakfast tray. The seven Ayer siblings—the first four from the union of…
When (the war is over,) and If (I survive.)

After crossing the Pacific Ocean twice in a schooner—from Los Angeles to Hawaii and back, in 1935 and 1937, respectively—the Pattons were convinced they wanted to circumnavigate the globe one day.
Patton on the Silver Screen

The inspiration behind the memorable opening scene of Patton is a photograph taken in June 1945 at General Patton’s home in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He had just completed a war bond-selling tour throughout the United States and was enjoying his first real vacation since March 1940. Unlike George C. Scott’s Patton, the real George Patton…
The Private Patton

Beatrice was one of the few people privy to both the public and the private Patton, two sides which were very hard to reconcile for outsiders. George spent his entire life hidden behind a mask defined by many as “Old Blood and Guts”, but with his wife he could be himself: hunting in the countryside…