the Wildwood Naval Air Station. They shared their rations with the hotel kitchen. Anne LeDuc (who later owned the Chalfonte) and I were desk clerks. Martha Nash joined Mother in running the hotel. Both were widowed at a young age. Their husbands had been schoolmates at VMI. Martha was a tiny person with a big personality and giant help to my mother. She was in charge of the laundry, sending it out, counting every sheet and wash cloth. The war years were an interesting time at the hotel. Our family was scattered in military service, but at home our family rallied to keep the hotel running, and the Chalfonte remained the family compass.” Susan Farris Jackson Born 1934, Kingsport, Tennessee, granddaughter of Susie Satterfield, daughter of Fred Satterfield (1899-1989) “I visited the Chalfonte the first time in 1941 when I was seven. My father, Fred Satterfield, Susie’s son, sent my mother and me home from Manila, knowing war was inevitable. My father, after Virginia Military Institute, worked for the National City Bank of New York, the Asian division. “He sold his car and house and was sitting in a hotel waiting for his plane to leave when Pearl 50
MISS YOU ALREADY Above: This postcard, from Mary Satterfield, illustrates the relationship the hotel management had with its guests, one that remains to this day. FAMILY GATHERING Opposite above: Maria Carter Satterfield, husband Calvin III, his mother Meenie, his sister Nancy, and Dot Walker, a Satterfield cousin. PORCH TIME Opposite below: Calvin Satterfield in his signature bow tie with one of the family youngsters. Calvin and his mother Susie had a porch comedy routine that tickled Chalfonte guests in the days of homemade entertainment. Satterfield family collection
Harbor was attacked. He was taken a civilian prisoner of war and held captive until the end of the war. Mother died when I was 11, in January of 1945. She died not knowing if Father was dead or alive. She did not know his welfare and whereabouts all through the war. My father came home in April of 45, and he did not know that his wife, my mother, had died. “Father and I vacationed at the Chalfonte every year long after the war. I was in boarding school in Virginia, and in summer, with my mother gone, I stayed with different family members. I lived out of a suitcase. In my teen years I summered at the Chalfonte with Meenie Satterfield as my guardian. I was a pretty wild 16-year-old. Meenie had a lot of patience with me. She was very good at running the hotel, a great hostess, and excellent with the staff. “Theodore, who could do anything, was among the staff that my grandmother Susie had brought up from Virginia. He handled a lot of maintenance and in the kitchen carved the roast beef and lamb. Theodore took me fishing off the jetty. I tagged along with Dot and Lucille in old tennis shoes, to go crabbing in the marshes.