Letter To Kittie

From Sheila
January 11, 2022

Dear Kittie,

I’m going to call you “Kittie” even though you were my grandmother. Since your own children (Pete and Pat) called you by your first name, certainly you would want me to do the same.

A lot has happened since you passed on to the heavenly golf club when I was 2 years old!

I found a picture of you golfing, taken maybe at 16. You gave it to your Momma Stella, how sweet.

The picture (Figure a) was in your daughter Pat’s photo album – the one with the professional shots of Pat when she finally turned pro. Nice job making the photo album! Only one problem, you forgot to put dates on the pictures. I had to research your clothing to guess what year it was from. Your fashionable “Tam” hat pointed most likely to 1922-23.

Guess what Kittie? I turned out to be your size - petite with a powerful golf swing. Pat told me you shot a consistent 80’s game. Me too! How cool is that?

I found your birth record in a Surrey County, England record book. They spelled your name wrong! You are listed as “Rittie Stella Reid,” born in Epsom in April 1907. “Rittie” – we could laugh forever about that! I knew you had to be born near the Banstead Downs Golf Club in Sutton, England, where your daddy Wilfrid Reid was the head golf professional in those days.

Currently, I’m compiling a list of golf clubs your daddy worked as a golf pro for a special tribute Great Grandad Golf Tour. The GGG Tour list is up to 15 clubs (3 in England, 1 in Versailles, France, and 11 more all over the USA). It’s an impressive list and will be an expensive endeavor to play. I may have to wager at all the exclusive clubs. Then again, maybe that could help offset the travel costs?

Back to your golf picture, was this taken at the posh Country Club of Detroit? It appears you moved from Wilmington, Delaware (Wilmington Golf Club) to Grosse Pointe, Michigan (Country Club of Detroit) in 1923 when your dad Wilfrid became the head golf pro there. It’s not from St. Augustine, the winter home. No palm trees.

Or… was it taken at Grosse Ile, Michigan around the same time you met your future husband Joe Devany, the new head golf pro at Grosse Ile Golf & Country Club? I ask because I found the next picture of you with Joe in your son Pete’s (my Dad) belongings after he joined you up at the heavenly golf club.

Pat (your daughter) told me, about 80 years after the picture (Figure b) was taken, you were 16! I tried to research. No wedding ring on Joe. You were smoking in public. Appears that 16 was a legal smoking age back then. You must be watching a special golf match or tournament. If you were 16 (which means 1923), then that also means Joe was 27, the year he became the head pro at Grosse Ile. He’s ready to marry a woman who loves golf as much as he, no doubt.

Here's my take:

Maybe it was taken in 1924, the same year you two married. You were 17 then. You must have needed your parents’ permission to marry, which I’m sure you nailed down once your daddy Wilfrid Reid played golf with Joe as evidenced in the next picture.

I’m going to conjecture this picture of Wilfrid and Joe (Figure d) may have been taken at the 1924 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills in Michigan. They were both in the field. And Kittie – I’ll bet you were there at the tournament in June rooting for them! Alas, that fellow Englishman Cyril Walker won beating then reigning champion Bobby Jones. Although Joe (my grandad) looks super confident in the picture (most likely at the start of the tournament), he did not fare well finishing next to last in the field. Nerves probably got the best of him in his first US Open.

Guess what? I have a son named Patrick (Figure e). I started teaching him golf at two years old. Early in my career after college I could not afford to join a golf club, so I took Patrick to the golf range every weekend. He sat on a blanket with his toys and watched me hit hundreds of golf balls. Soon he wanted his own club, so I cut down an 8-iron for him. Next thing you know, he’s drawing huge galleries at the practice range hitting perfectly high 2-year-old golf shots. He would not even whiff! Just amazing really. Now he’s 37, tall, handsome, and doing well raising his daughter. He doesn’t have the golf bug anymore, but that will not last forever as he somehow manages to maintain perfect swing mechanics with very little play.

I have moved my focus to Patrick’s daughter McKenzie (your great granddaughter), a lively girl now 8 years old. She had her first junior golf camp this past year, and won the girls’ putting tournament sinking a 20-foot putt! I taught her how to play golf at age 6 (Figure f). Look at that perfect finish. It’s like some past golf pro stepped right into her body!

So Kittie, I’m still here playing golf as of 2022 chasing a round of PAR. My skin is old and wrinkled from so many years in the sun. My swing is better than when I was 19 and won the Women’s Invitational at Grosse Ile. Recently I won my golf club's Women’s Net Championship in North Carolina at age 61. I still play men’s clubs since your son Pete (my Dad) gave me my first used set at age 16. You’d be proud of my little golf family, if you were here.

Your golf star daughter (Pat Devany) gave up the game at age 40! How does a gal, once with a handicap of PLUS +2 or more, do that? She was my instructor for a year in Florida when I was a teenager. It was like getting lessons from Joe – the way her father taught her. Sometimes at the range we’d draw a big gallery. I’d think “Wow, why are they watching me hit balls?” When we’d break, everyone would run over to ask who "that woman" was instructing me. They didn’t care about me. They wanted to know who Pat was! Um… you mean my aunt, the Palm Beach travel agency owner, once a star amateur, then professional, that played with the likes of Babe and Ben Hogan? No, we don’t care about that. It was all about the FREE lessons for me!

We had a terrible flu pandemic called Covid-19 throughout the world in 2020-2021. It was like the one you lived through during 1918-1920 a hundred years ago. I caught it early on from taking a cruise in Florida. It started in China, and sure enough I rode an elevator with a well-to-do Chinese family on the cruise ship in January 2020. I became terribly ill just two days after arriving home. Unfortunately, I have since developed blood clots (possibly vaccine-caused?) and was diagnosed with atherosclerosis. More importantly, it ruined my tournament golf scores during 2021 with me dragging my right leg around golf courses with intermittent claudication.

I’m fighting back now health wise. I’ve done what any prudent American would not do. I quit the Heathcare system in 2022. Instead of spending more ridiculous amounts of money on health insurance, doctor visits, massively silly tests, and prescription medicine that I thought was going to kill me, I decided to devote it all to golf instead! Good choice wouldn’t you say? I’m sure Wilfie would agree. If, by chance, I have a heart attack or stroke (oh well…), I will just come up there and play golf with ALL of you at the heavenly golf club. See you soon!

Much love,

Sheila
Your granddaughter