Lynn Sanford Lists To 'Starboard'

Lynn Sanford has more than a passing interest in the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic observed this year.

If her grandparents had not survived the tragedy, the 62-year summer resident of East Hampton wouldn’t be here. And, of course, she would not have written “Starboard at Midnight,” her account of her grandparents’ ordeal and the fascinating life of her grandfather, Karl Howard Behr, and his wife, Helen. Ms. Sanford will be giving a talk about her book this Saturday at 3 p.m. at the East Hampton Library.

Until his death at the age of 64 in 1949, Mr. Behr seems to have squeezed in a very full life. Born in New York City to German immigrants, he attended Yale University and at 25 was a practicing attorney.

Like his brother, the champion golfer Max Behr, he was a gifted athlete. Mr. Behr was a talented enough tennis player to earn a spot on the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1907. Also that year, he played in the Wimbledon tournament in England.

It wasn’t sports but love that caused him to book passage on the Titanic in 1912. The young man had fallen for Helen Newsom.

Ms. Newsom’s mother was not keen on the relationship and, as if in a Henry James novel, she arranged to remove her daughter from it by taking her on a grand tour of Europe, beginning with the inaugural voyage of the Titanic. After the ship struck the iceberg, Mr. Behr found his love and her family. An officer directed them to a lifeboat, and it was the second one to push away from the sinking ship.

Seizing the opportunity, Mr. Behr immediately proposed. The couple married the following year.

The athlete resumed his tennis career, and was eventually entered into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He gave up practicing law for banking and was an officer or board member of several successful corporations, including the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Mr. Behr also became a friend and confidant of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States.

Mr. Behr and his wife had three sons and a daughter. Ms. Sanford, one of their grandchildren, had ambitions of being a writer. The New Jersey-born woman, who summers in East Hampton with her family, studied at New York University, Princeton University and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Since her grandfather died 63 years ago, Ms. Sanford did not know him well, but it was a sort of gift from her grandfather that enabled her to write “Starboard at Midnight,” her first book. He had written a memoir that had not been published, and there was additional material to supplement it.

“I knew about the memoir, but discovered five bulging photo albums hidden away in a cabinet in my parents’ living room,” Ms. Sanford recalled. “I was in my 20s, alone on a winter night. The mass of illustrated newspaper articles saying ‘love bloomed from disaster’ struck me as incredible in every sense of the word.”

The wealth of material was just the beginning of the path to writing a book, the author said.

“I read the memoir many times, but it was through my research and my realization of much of what he left out and that I then discovered was where most of the real heroism of my grandfather’s life made a huge impact on me and I was driven to write about it,” she explained.

A particularly interesting aspect of the story was Mr. Behr’s unlikely friendship with President Roosevelt, who was already in office when he first encountered the precocious Yale student.

“It was after the sinking of the Titanic that they struck up a rapport,” Ms. Sanford said. “They had meetings and lunches mostly when Roosevelt said he needed ‘a much younger point of view.’ My grandfather was the youngest member of the National Security League and he was always able to get Roosevelt to speak for the cause of preparedness. He also consulted with my grandfather about how to handle the pacifist German-Americans. Together they shared the firm belief that America would have to get involved in the Great War.”

Ms. Sanford added that a preparedness parade that her grandfather organized in Manhattan was “the greatest civilian marching demonstration in the history of the world, according to the New York Times.” A second such parade featured Mr. Behr riding in a motorcar with the former president.

The reviews for “Starboard at Midnight” have been very satisfying for its author, especially one by Debby Applegate, who wrote that it was “a delightful book that weaves together history and fiction to tell the true tale of a fascinating man from a fascinating time in American history.” High praise indeed from someone who a few years ago was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book, “The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher.”

Ms. Sanford has many wonderful memories of summers spent in East Hampton, where her parents were active in the community. During her visits here she can still find a plaque dedicated to them on Main Street across from the Presbyterian Church.

The author said she expects that some of the questions this Saturday at the library will be about those East Hampton years as well as any future writing project. For now, all Ms. Sanford would allow was, “My personal effort to bring the story of my grandfather to the world as I see him—as an unsung hero—is ongoing.”