Tales old and tall — A Dickerson family gathering

The sound that emerged from Jean Dickerson on Monday afternoon was like something out of a bullhorn, summoning upwards of 70 relatives to arrange themselves around her twin sister Jane, brother Ted and herself, for a family photo that extended the photographic and child-wrangling limits of nature. (Pro-tip: Create a baby-corral in the foreground and toss the wiggliest ones in there.)

With the temperature approaching 90 degrees, and the youngest members of the Dickerson clan struggling to escape the arms of their parents, the moment was immortalized with phones and cameras, and everyone got down to the business of swapping stories.

The assembled crew was just part of the enormous Dickerson family; the part related to Herbert Otis Dickerson — known to all as H. Otis  — father, grandfather or great-grandfather of most of the participants. A central figure in 20th-century Island history, H. Otis was a builder who served on the Town Board, the School Board and for many years as Town Justice.

Ted Dickerson, Jean Dickerson, and Jane Fowler are the only living children of H. Otis still around, and all are well into their 70s. Jean and Jane started organizing the event about a year ago, the first reunion of this part of the clan since 2000.

“I don’t call it a reunion,” Jean said. “I call it a gathering, because so many have not met before.”

Arthur Springer, one of H. Otis ’s three grandsons, and his wife Linda, hosted the event under a tent in their shady yard and as soon as the group pictures were taken, it was taken over by a mobile pizza oven on a truck that began producing delectable thin crust pies and arugula salad.

H. Otis was known as a hanging judge, and his children remember how some recipients of his brand of justice might have preferred hanging. According to Jane, when a young man found guilty of reckless driving was sentenced by H. Otis to write out the entire 50,000-word New York motor vehicle code in longhand, the youth complained that his punishment was “juvenile.”

H. Otis is said to have replied, “When you act like a man, you will be treated like one.”

A copy of the entire vehicle code in the unfortunate offender’s handwriting is preserved in the judge’s papers.

In the 20th century on Shelter Island, Dickersons were everywhere. H. Otis’s sister Helen Smith was the Town Clerk for decades before her daughter, Dotty Ogar, not only succeeded her mother as Town Clerk in 1978 (an elected position) but is probably the longest-serving Town Clerk in New York State. The mother/daughter team served Shelter Island for much of the last century, and Dotty is almost a quarter of the way into this one. Jane recalls that Aunt Helen was the terror of anyone submitting an expense account to the town for reimbursement. “She was known for treating the town’s money like her own,” Jane said.

Growing up in a well-known Island clan occasioned some resentment from other kids. “Sometimes other people thought we got away with things,” Jane said. “There were so many Dickersons, and there were roads named after us.”

She remembered one kid in particular who lived nearby and teased her about her family.

“Yes, he did,” concurred Jean, “but the funny thing is, he was a Dickerson too, on his mother’s side, and didn’t even know it.”

Not present at this reunion was Neil Dickerson, the oldest child, considered the best Dickerson of his generation by some, including his half-brothers and sisters from H. Otis’s second wife Louise.

Neil, who died in 2009, was a Coast Guard veteran, a graduate of Brown University and an electrical engineer. Carol Wolkom Dickerson, Neil’s wife, said he loved growing up on Shelter Island. “They did a lot of hunting and fishing and I remember him saying everyone would talk about roast beef, but they never ate beef, they only ate venison,” she said. “And the first time he had roast beef, he said, ‘Why do people like this?’”

In 1946, H. Otis’s son Ted remembers being in his second-grade classroom in the old wooden Shelter Island schoolhouse, when his teenage brother Neil — who had noticed smoke coming from a second-floor science lab — ran through sounding the alarm to get out. His warnings resulted in the safe evacuation of his three siblings and everyone else from the school, which was gutted.

“We followed the evacuation protocol for my classroom,” Ted remembered, “which had the entire second grade running through the lunchroom located directly below a chemistry classroom that was actively burning. As we ran through the cafeteria, we saw some dropping ash and smoke, but it wasn’t until we were outside that we realized we had run under the fire.”

It has been said that wherever you go, there you are, and Dickersons who have left Shelter Island for other places can testify to that. Clifford Springer is H. Otis’s oldest grandchild, and a longtime resident of New Hampshire. Seated with him were his wife, Carol, and their children, Christopher and Kate, all New Hampshire natives listening to Cliff tell tales of discovering Dickerson relatives who got there before them.

Ann Dickerson, Ted’s wife, said in the years she’s been a part of the family, she and Ted have found a number of Dickerson relatives near their upstate home in Penn Yan, N.Y.

Jean, who came back to Shelter Island to live in the family’s Midway Road home after years away, noticed after the festivities began, that she and her twin Jane were dressed alike, something they haven’t done on purpose since their college days. They both swore that the identical “Rosie the Riveter” socks they wore were a complete coincidence.

On a day full of tall tales and family ties, who could argue?