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Interview with Mr. William Lenderking

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Interview with Mr. William Lenderking Library of Congress Interview with Mr. William Lenderking The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project WILLIAM LENDERKING Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: March 5, 2007 Copyright 2007 ADST Q: Today is March 5. This is an interview with William Lenderking. L-E-N-D-E-R-K-I-N-G? LENDERKING: Correct. Q: And this is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. And you go by Bill? LENDERKING: Yes. Q: Okay. Bill, let's start at the beginning. When and where were you born? LENDERKING: I was born in Great Neck, New York, on Long Island, March 26, 1934. Q: Okay. Year of the dog. LENDERKING: Well, I guess. I never thought of it that way. Q: Well, my wife was born in 1934. Interview with Mr. William Lenderking http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001583 Library of Congress Okay, well tell me something about, say on your father's side. Where did the Lenderkings come from? LENDERKING: The Lenderking family — and as far as I know, if there are any Lenderkings in America we are all related — is a very small family. They originally came from Germany, as I understand it, and went to England because the oldest ancestor was working in the court of one of the kings- whoever was king at the time. This would be around the 16th Century. And family records on that side of the family are not strong, because so many of the records of German families have been destroyed in the many wars that ranged over Europe down through the centuries. My mother's side of the family also goes back to England, but many of them came to America. At least one of my ancestors was on the Mayflower. His name was John Howland and he survived miraculously when he was tossed overboard in a storm but managed to grasp a bit of line and hang on tenaciously until he could be hauled back aboard. He was an indentured servant to the Plymouth colony's leader, not one of the group's leaders or religious zealots. So he was not really one of the real Puritans, who we now know were not only brave and resolute in defense of their religious beliefs, but also rigid, intolerant, cruel (against the Indians and non-believers) and not very nice folks in many ways. Anyway, John Howland eventually worked his way out of servitude, had a family and prospered. So our family in America may be small but we have been around for a long while. My great-great-grandmother lived in England with her husband and three young sons. He took the family to the West Indies, either as a senior military man to help administer the colony of Jamaica, or to earn his fortune as a businessman. It was a time trade between the West Indies and America was growing tremendously. Unfortunately he became ill and died, leaving her a widow with three young sons to raise. She probably got on one of the ships plying between the West Indies and America, and settled in Brooklyn, New York. Interview with Mr. William Lenderking http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001583 Library of Congress One of her sons was one of the first summer residents of Shelter Island, at the end of Long Island, where my family had a summer cottage for three generations. I still have relatives in England and Germany I have never met. In a novel twist, my great- great uncle was an Anglican clergyman who went to Australia around 1900 to help in Aborigine communities, and eventually became Dean of the Anglican Cathedral in Perth, where my wife came from. When my great-great uncle's wife died, he remarried a young Englishwoman, and they had several children, when he was in his 70s, I believe. His great-great granddaughter, my second cousin, is now a supermodel in New York, and she's been written up in the New York Times, made the cover of the Spanish edition of Vogue and was in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue one year. We're not sure, but we think the descendents of my American relative who emigrated to Australia must have known my wife's family in Perth, because they were around there at the same time. Of no importance, but it really is a small world. One other family tidbit. I am a first cousin, about seven times removed, of Ralph Waldo Emerson, on my mother's side. My father used to say having a famous ancestor and a nickel would buy you a cup of coffee (this was a generation before Starbucks!), and I don't remember his name coming up much in family conversations, but his ideas permeated my family's ways of thinking. I only discovered this recently when I started re-reading some of his essays and the family genealogist, an English cousin on my mother's side, clarified the relationship for us. Q: Well let's take up your father's side; when did they come to the States and what were they up to? LENDERKING: They came, as far as I know, around 1850. And they were here, I must assume, for economic betterment. They settled in Baltimore and one or two of them became prominent in the German-American community. It is interesting, to me anyway, that they were described in the newspapers as “so-and-so Lenderking, prominent member Interview with Mr. William Lenderking http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001583 Library of Congress of the German-American community.” They were not considered quite American yet. And some of them stayed and seemed to have prospered in business, and apparently some of them did not and went back. And we don't have the particulars on why they went back. I think a lot of immigrants went back to their home countries. Not all of them stayed and lived out the American Dream. Q: Well, starting with your paternal grandfather, what did he do for a living? LENDERKING: He was a railroad executive for the Chesapeake and- or the Baltimore and Ohio, the B&O. Remember from the game of Monopoly the B&O Railroad was one of the four railroads — and I don't know what his exact position was. He died before I was born, I think. Q: And your father? LENDERKING: He went to Baltimore City College, which Russell Banker described vividly in his marvelous memoir, “Growing Up,” because Baker went there too, many years after my father of course, but it seems there were still many similarities. It was not really a college; it was more like an advanced high school/junior college. And after my father graduated he taught there for awhile and then he was an entrepreneur in the development of paper vessels; that is, paper cups, paper drinking cups, paper containers of all kinds. And he formed his own company, heading it at the age of 28. This was on the edge of the Depression, where millions of American men lost their jobs and their savings and couldn't find employment. My mother's two brothers were hard hit; they couldn't find work, lost their savings, had to sell their homes and never fully recovered. In contrast, my father was a leader in a new industry on the rise. He prospered and in the mid-30s or so bought my uncle's summer home on Shelter Island on Long Island, which had been in their family almost from the time it was built in the late 19th Century. Instead of being grateful that his purchase kept the house, technically at least, still in the family, I think they resented my father's success. Interview with Mr. William Lenderking http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001583 Library of Congress Anyway, my father's company eventually became a NY Stock Exchange Corporatiothe Lily Tulip Cup Corporation — and then was bought out by Owens-Illinois in the 1950s or so, and maybe it has been bought out again. I think Lily cups are still a distinctive brand within the genre. Q: Well, what do you recall while you were a young lad about your father's paper cup business? LENDERKING: His company was bought out and he became the vice president in charge of sales for Lily, which was a principle rival of Dixie Cups, if you remember way back then, and they had a big plant at College Point, New York, right across from LaGuardia Airport, where I worked one summer. So he was one of the senior executives at that company. Their corporate headquarters were in New York City, in the Chanin Building, right across from Grand Central Station. At that time it was the third tallest building in New York, after the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Q: On your mother's side; you mentioned that they were an old England family, right? LENDERKING: I think those who came settled around New York, Brooklyn, White Plains, Long Island, and thereabouts. There were some clergymen in the family, there was an English professor, at least one that we knew of, but I'm vague on relatives I didn't know personally. Q: What about your mother's parents? What were they up to? LENDERKING: I didn't know my grandfather or grandmother. They died before I was born or when I was a baby. My grandfather was in business, I think. My mother was the youngest of four children.
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