The Seymour Family on Cape Cod 1961 & 1962
The Seymour families in the 1960s photo via theoldcuriousityshop.net
Cape Cod 60 years ago. Fewer people. No cell phones to tether your life to work. And fewer distractions when on vacation. It was a time to spend with your family. It was a simpler way of life.
For brothers Mike and Thaddeus Seymour and their families, the early 1960s was apparently an idyllic time. From 1959 – 2003 the families annually spent two weeks together on the Cape in Chatham and later Orleans.
The family have put a few of these home movie memories up on YouTube.
Here are 5 minutes from their home movies taken in July 1962.
About The Seymours
Whitney North Seymour Jr. known as Mike, was born July 7, 1923 in Huntington, WV. Mike Seymour served in the Army during World War II. He married Catryna Ten Eyck on November 6, 1951. They had two daughters Tryntje and Gabriel.
Mike & Catryna Seymour photo theoldcuriousityshop.net
Mike later became a prominent attorney. The couple had homes in Greenwich Village and Salisbury CT, were always civic minded. Catryna, a talented artist, worked to establish vest pocket parks when Mike was President of the Park Association of the City of New York from 1963-1965. The Seymours published four maps that Catryna drew of New York neighborhoods in 1965 that have since become rare collectables.
Mike won election to the New York State Senate, serving from 1966 to 1968. Together, Mike and Catryna formed the citizens’ organizing committee of Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference to help save Storm King mountain on the Hudson River against a Con Ed pumped storage plant. Their efforts led to early work to establish the Natural Resources Defense Council NRDC in 1969.
Mike and Catryna were also in the thick of the 1960s preservation movement in New York City with the Greenwich Village Association and Municipal Arts Society.
A true partnership, the two were married for 66 years until Catryna’s death on December 2, 2017 at age 86, Mike Seymour passed away June 29, 2019 a week shy of his 96th birthday.
Thaddeus Seymour
Thaddeus Seymour was born June 28, 1928. He attended Princeton University and The University of California, Berkeley. He studied English literature earning his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. After teaching for a few years, Thaddeus became a dean at Dartmouth College and the president of Wabash College in Indiana from 1969-1978 and from 1978 to 1990 he was president of Rollins College.
Thaddeus & Polly Seymour & Liz 1950 photo theoldcuriousityshop.net
Polly Gnagy and Thaddeus married in November 1948 and the couple had five children Liz, Thaddeus Jr., Sam, Abigail and Mary Seymour who died in 2015.
Thaddeus Seymour, an extraordinary man as described in this magazine profile, died in Winter Park, FL, on October 26, 2019 at age 91.
