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When
I was growing up in Galveston,
there were so many mansions that the thought of their value and
opulence to us were sidebars, really. They were nothing more than
where our friends' parents had grown up, and now were where old
people lived. People who told us the stories of Galveston's past.
Many of the stories I learned to love and tell to you.
The exception was what family and friends called The Big House.
It's on the corner of 25th and Broadway. The world knows it as The
Open Gates, and since 1889, it has probably been the most photographed
and recognized home in Galveston.
George Sealy built The Open Gates for his wife, Magnolia, and their
four children. It was designed by a New York architect named Stanford
White, but the construction was supervised by famed Galveston architect,
Nicholas Clayton. The style is known as Neo-Renaissance.
When I see
tourists staring at it or taking photos, I can't help but grin.
I wonder what they'd think if they knew what had gone on behind
those walls. The Sealys, regardless of age, knew how to party, and
they did it formally and informally with great regularity and bravura.
One of their favorite ways to dress for a party was in Gay-90s costumes.
And upstairs in the third floor attic was a playroom with a stage.
The various grandchildren, nephews and nieces would put on their
own productions there. Sometimes when there was a traveling marionette
troop passing through town, it would be engaged to do a special
performance on that attic stage for the Sealy children and their
friends. I remember going there for one of them on a cool spring
Saturday morning. It must have been about 1948.
More than once, the grandchildren, nieces and nephews roller skated
in the front parlor, knowing full well they'd be caught and made
to stop. And there was the lasting odor throughout the house from
Uncle Bob Sealy's elevator that croaked and groaned and smelled
like burning carbon when he took it up and down from his quarters.
That arsenic and old lace relic was so ominous that he was the only
one brave enough to ride it.
But the real treat was to be invited to The Big House on Christmas
Eve night, before the midnight service at Trinity Church. The Sealys
loved plants, and the house and the conservatory would be overflowing.
All of this in addition to the Christmas tree and seasonal greenery.
No one made egg nog that tasted nearly as good or was anywhere near
as potent as that Sealy bunch. I've tried to copy it for forty years.
Mine might qualify as a poor second, nevertheless excellent in flavor,
body and kick.
And a social function at the Big House where they were celebrating
one thing or another, also became the traditional time and place
for a Sealy heir to become engaged. I remember that just after her
debut party during the holiday season of 1956, Bill Crum slipped
an engagement ring on my friend Janey Pinkard's finger. Even at
16, to me it was an exciting event. I loved seeing Janey so happy.
And Ann Sealy tells the story of George, III, putting the ring on
her hand as they were in the hall outside of Uncle Bob Sealy's quarters,
greased down with Noxema after a day of too much sun at the boat
club.
Well over twenty of the Sealy heirs have worn the wedding veil of
Magnolia Sealy.
My primary connection with the Sealy family was through my childhood
friends, Billy, Janey and Becky Pinkard. They lived in a stucco
home behind Ashton Villa where the Sealy gazebo stands today. Without
trying to wade you through the lineage, primarily because I'm not
sure I can still get it right, it was their mother Jane who was
a Sealy by way of the Burton family.
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