This photograph, from the East Hampton Star photo archives, shows Candace Catlin Woodruff Benjamin (1902-1952), Lela Harkness Edwards Cook (1903-1980), and Janet McCord Cook (1903-1971) eating lunch on the deck at the Maidstone Club. The photo carries a stamp from the Townend-Herbert Studio. The three women were in a similar place in life, and their families were active in the club.
Janet and Lela married the Cook brothers in August and October of 1925. Francis Howell Cook (1899-1969) and Harry (Henry) Francis Cook (1892-1956) were raised locally; their mother’s family ran the Fahys Watchcase Factory in Sag Harbor.
Francis and Janet married first, with a summer wedding at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton on Aug.15, 1925. Janet’s family owned a house on Hither Lane, but she had grown up in Manhattan. Harry and Lela married two months later, on Halloween, in Pittsburgh, where Lela had grown up and her father ran a medical practice.
After their weddings, both Janet and Lela lived in Manhattan, although Janet and Francis Cook were living in East Hampton full time by the 1930 census. Lela and Harry remained in Manhattan, bringing up their family on the Upper East Side.
The Benjamins were among the earliest members of the Maidstone Club. Candace Catlin Woodruff, who was born and raised in Litchfield, Conn., where her father had a legal practice, came to Manhattan in 1923 and married Wallace Benjamin in 1924. Candace was an enthusiastic participant in the activities of the club, serving on the Beach Committee. She was also involved with the Garden Club and the summer social scene from 1925 on.
While this photograph is undated, the dates of the ladies’ marriages and their attire allow us to date it to within a few years. All three women are wearing midlength dresses and jewelry in styles popular in the 1920s. The cloche hats worn by Janet and Lela were popular in the 1920s, but out of fashion by the early 1930s, allowing us to date this photograph between 1926 and 1930.
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Andrea Meyer is the head of the Long Island Collection at the East Hampton Library.
