Chapter 1

I was a second child, an unplanned surprise child ten years younger than my older brother. Our family was 'comfortable'. My mother, Cathryn Joseph Jenkins, was the only child of older parents. She had a sheltered childhood in which au pairs, governesses, and servants looked after her. She was schooled at home, until high school. After she graduated from a local all girls' high school, she went to an exclusive women's college in Switzerland. Mother was a very beautiful woman. She was also very delicate and emotionally sensitive. Roselawns, our large home on several acres on Long Island, had been in the Joseph family since before the Civil War.

In many ways, my early years were much like my mother's. Two German wet nurses cared for me as an infant. They spoke only German around me. A young French au pair primarily cared for me until I was seven. She spoke only French to me. My primary schooling was provided at home by a young French teacher until I went to Phillips Academy at Andover. Mother wanted us to be fluent in French and understand German.

The other dominant person during my childhood was my maternal grandmother. She was the sole heir to the Saco-Lowell Corporation, a company which manufactured textile machines and knitted garments. Most of Saco-Lowell profits came from manufacturing stockings and socks. Saco-Lowell also had extensive commercial real estate holdings in New York City, especially in the garment district. My maternal grandfather inherited large blocks of stock in du Pont and GM; he was the sole shareholder of St. Joe Paper. When he was young he swapped his stock in Florida East Coast Railway to his brother to gain sole ownership of St. Joe Paper. St. Joe Paper owned hundreds of thousands of acres of timber and pulp forests in the Southeast and Northwest. Grandfather enjoyed the woodlands and forests. He died before I was born.

My paternal grandfather and father graduated from Yale and Columbia Law School. My father worked in the family law firm, Jenkins & Jenkins, in New York City. Grandfather and father were the only partners in the Wall Street firm which specialized in securities and banking law. Grandfather kept the firm small, very exclusive and very profitable. Grandfather led a staff of specialized technical securities and banking attorneys. Father was second in the firm's management hierarchy, but he primarily ran the family's small investment bank in New York City. The family had acquired the bank during the depression. Will, my older brother, worked in the bank during his summer vacations from prep school and Yale.

My father and mother met when he escorted a family friend to a debutante 'coming out' event, where mother was also being 'presented' to society. Father was captivated by my mother's beauty and innocence. For him, it was love at first sight. His mother arranged for him to be invited to call upon Cathryn, and a romance blossomed. The mothers saw Howard and Cathryn as a good match and they encouraged the romance.

Father was the only man Mother ever dated. After a formal and proper courtship, they were married. When they returned from an extended honeymoon trip in Europe, Mother was pregnant with my older brother, William. When told of the pregnancy, mother's family gave Roselawns to Mother and moved to Wakulla Springs, Florida. My grandfather was in poor health when they moved. He died nine years later.

Mother's father's death and her difficult pregnancy and delivery with me sapped Mother's physical and emotional health. She withdrew from New York society and retreated to Roselawns or to the family's compound on Martha's Vineyard. Mother kept me close to her. Mother and I visited her mother in Wakulla Springs every winter, until I started upper boarding school. Grandmother loved to visit St. Joe Paper's woodlands. Mother, my tutor/governess, and I accompanied Grandmother and a servant on train trips around the woodlands in the family's private car. Grandmother and I enjoyed the trips and she told me about the woodlands, which she had grown to love from my grandfather. When she died, she left me the entire stock of St. Joe Paper and she left Wakulla Springs to the State of Florida as a memorial to my grandfather. Mother and I had lifetime use of the lodge and admission to the Springs. When we were not using the lodge, the state rented it to guests.

As a youngster, I spent my summers with my mother and grandmother on Martha's Vineyard. The Joseph family compound on Martha's Vineyard included three houses a boathouse. Grandmother stayed in the smallest house when she visited. My father joined us most weekends. After Grandmother died, I was my mother's main summer companion and she preferred my company to others on the island.

During my brother's prep school and college breaks, Will stayed in the City with my grandfather and father. Most weekends, he stayed at the Joseph's beach house in the Hamptons, where he partied with friends. Will rarely came to Joseph family compound on Martha's Vineyard.

I looked like my mother and was reserved like she was. Will was more like my father's side of the family in appearance and temperament. The family expected Will to carry on the family tradition in securities law and banking, but they had no such expectations of me. Grandmother Joseph hoped I would be active in conservation, forestry, and St. Joe Paper like Grandfather Joseph had been.

When I was twelve, Grandmother Joseph died and Mother became even more possessive of me. She discouraged me from having summer romances and replaced the attractive young governess and young women on the housekeeping staff, women who Will had frequently romanced, with older unattractive staff. The changing of staff encouraged Will to avoid the Vineyard and to stay in the City during the summer. After Will graduated from Yale, he went to Wharton and Penn Law School. He rarely came home while he was in school in Philadelphia.

Mother was an artist or, at least, a patron of the arts. About the only time she left the family compound in the summer was when she and I attended the small galley openings and concerts on the Vineyard. She usually slept late, and after waking, she painted. I played golf most mornings, and then ate a late lunch with Mother. In the afternoon, we generally read, painted, and listened to music. On the rare occasions when Will visited, we sailed. On the weekends I sometimes shot skeet with my grandfather or golfed with my father.

I didn't have a girlfriend or close male friends, and didn't date. When I wasn't in boarding school, I stayed with Mother. I related better to older adults that with my age group.

When Grandfather Joseph had died, Father convinced Grandmother to liquidate the garment machine manufacturing part of Saco-Lowell. Father invested the proceeds primarily in commercial real estate outside the garment district in New York City. Will worked with Father as they diversified the family's real estate holdings and built a strong trust department of the bank. Will gained valuable experience in commercial real estate and investment instruments working with Father on those activities.

When my maternal grandmother died, her family trust passed a fifty-one percent interest in the remaining Saco-Lowell to me and forty-nine percent to Will. I inherited the cash and securities that she held in her family's off shore trust accounts, as well as my Grandfather's St. Joe Paper, GM, and du Pont stocks.

While our family bought and sold securities, we almost never sold real estate. Most of our property and stocks were in trusts. My trusts owned a great deal of commercial real estate in New York City which Will managed.

I attended Phillips Academy at Andover as had Will and then attended Yale, like the Jenkins men had since my great grandfather. But I wasn't like Will, who was not only a lady's man, but was also a very popular and good student. While at Penn and Wharton, Will became part of a small group that pioneered the aggressive use of junk bonds in Merger & Acquisition activities. Will was intelligent, confident, and hardworking. Though he didn't practice law, he was a member of the New York and Pennsylvania Bars.

While Will was at Wharton, he started an investment bank, The W & R Bank of Philadelphia. Will and I sold the profitable hosiery business, which we had inherited from Grandmother, to Burlington Industries. Will used the proceeds to start the W & R Bank. W & R put into practice aggressive use of bonds and new debt instruments in M & A and arbitrage activities. My willingness to invest in Will's bank brought my brother and me much closer together than we had ever been before and erased most of his hard feelings over grandmother's preferential treatment of me in her bequests. W & R was very aggressive and a ruthless raider. From the first, the W & R was very profitable.

Grandmother's trusts provided more money that I needed. I wasn't concerned much about W & R or Jenkins & Jenkins, which I left as Will's domain. W & R was so profitable that Will lost the resentment against me that Grandmother had left me most of her assets. Will's world was finance, banking, and commercial property. He wasn't interested in the woodlands and paper mills of St. Joe Paper.

During my first semester at Yale, my class performance was poor. I received a gentleman's C in all of my subjects. I didn't like Yale much. Part of the problem was I wasn't interested in anything, and the school just didn't feel right to me. Strangely, it was a physical education class at Yale that had the greatest future impact on me of my Yale classes. The class got me into jogging and lifting weights. After a semester in the class, I lost weight and was in better condition than anytime before. Jogging became a meditation like activity that I enjoyed very much.

I was a triple legacy at the Yale chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, where Will had been very active and had been elected chapter president. I didn't want to disappoint my grandfather, father or brother, so I pledged. During my second semester, I tried to fit in at the fraternity and spent a great deal of time in pledge activities. As a result, I fell even further behind in my studies. My second semester midterm reports were very bad. In addition to problems in class, I wasn't able to keep pace with the social life of the other pledges. I made it through pledging but I didn't develop a close relationship with the other pledges.

Soon after my early spring initiation into the fraternity, Father had an unexpected fatal heart attack. Mother had to be hospitalized because of emotional stress and I withdrew from Yale to be at home near Mother.

When I withdrew from Yale, Yale notified my draft board. Not long after I was home, I received a Selective Service reclassification and a pre-induction notice.

When I got the draft board's notice, I called my grandfather, "I got a pre-induction draft notice. What should I do?"

Grandfather answered, "I'll call you back. Let me talk to someone who knows about the draft."

About two hours later Grandfather called back. "Bobby, it doesn't look good. Clayt says we can appeal that you are needed to care for your mother, but he thinks reclassification from 1-A is a real long shot. He recommends an appeal to allow us time to get you in the National Guard. The Guard is a six-year part-time commitment and you would have to go away for five months of training. I can have him appeal your reclassification and delay your induction."

"What are we going to tell Mother?"

"We won't tell her anything now. It would upset her too much."

"I think I should get it over with. I'm floundering at Yale."

Grandfather said, "We can find you a National Guard unit. It would be safer. A lot of draftees are being sent to Viet Nam."

"It's time I grew up. Maybe the Army would be good for me? And getting away would be good for me. I rather get it over than fool with it for six years."

Grandfather didn't disagree that I needed to grow up, but he was unsure what it would do to Mother. Grandfather took his duty of protection of his daughter-in-law seriously. Grandfather was an old school gentleman.

I decided to get it over and volunteered for the draft. Before I was inducted, the family bought a large condominium in West Palm Beach, Florida, for Mother and a separate small guest unit for family visitors. Mother's unit included senior care and had a facility with a social area, a complete cleaning staff, and a medical staff. A nurse/companion was hired, who lived with Mother. She traveled with and looked after Mother. The facility had gourmet quality meals in a first class restaurant which was open to the public. The facility was very upscale and didn't resemble a nursing home. I helped Mother get settled in her condo before my induction date.