Tree care experts adopt local oak, and elderly couple

On a recent summer afternoon in a quaint 1950s house nestled in the woods surrounding Little Fresh Pond in Southampton, Edna Teter remembered the many other summer afternoons her two children had spent swinging on the tire swing hanging from the large white oak in her front yard.

The thought of cutting down the tree once its large, heavy limbs began spanning dangerously across the width of the house that Ms. Teter shares with her husband, Mike, is unbearable.

“Oh, that’s a good tree. There’s just too many memories there,” the 84-year-old said, shaking her head decisively, during a recent interview.

So when Bill Clarke, the owner of Hampton Tree Expert Inc. in Southampton, and Mike Lenahan of Treescapes in Southampton, offered to “adopt” the tree and care for it on behalf of the elderly couple, the Teters were very grateful.

On the tree-lined streets where the Teters live, white oaks are a common sight. But one as large and grand as the 100-year-old oak that stands in their front yard is a rarity, according to Mr. Clarke.

“There’s nothing of this stature here,” he said.

Mr. Clarke, a self-proclaimed collector of trees, said once he heard the Teters’ story he couldn’t have done anything else but help the couple.

A World War II veteran, Mr. Teter now spends his days at Southampton Hospital undergoing dialysis and sometimes spending time in the hyperbolic chamber to treat his poor circulation—both results of his diabetes. And his wife is now fighting her second bout of pancreatic cancer.

Married 64 years, the Teters grew up in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn.

“I guess I’ve known her since she was 10 years old, but I never noticed her until she was 17,” Mr. Teter said with a wry smile as he looked at his wife.

While raising their two children, Marsha and Mark, in Massapequa, the Teters purchased the Southampton property in 1954 as a summer getaway.

With the help of friends and family, they cleared the lot by hand and often found themselves depending on the strong branches of the white oak in the front yard to support pulleys while drilling the well.

“That’s where that tree came in handy,” Ms. Teter said.

Mr. Teter retired from his post at the New York Telephone Company in the 1970s and the couple moved to Southampton full-time.

Back then, the neighborhood was mostly trees.

Last year, local carpenter John Martin of Big John Builders Inc. went to the Teter house to build a ramp at their front door so that Mr. Teter could navigate his wheelchair out of the house for his daily trips to the hospital. Thankfully, these days he no longer needs the wheelchair, but still relies on a walker.

After hearing the couple’s concerns about the safety of the tree limbs now hovering dangerously low over their home, Mr. Martin called Mr. Clarke for help.

“John, he was very good to us,” Ms. Teter said. “He was great.”

Mr. Clarke, who works with Mr. Lenahan on a regular basis, then called his colleague for help pruning the tree.

“I thought it was a great idea,” Mr. Lenahan said. “It’s a big, beautiful, white oak and just needed some TLC. There were some dangerous limbs hanging off it.”

Now the tree has been cut back, and, according to Mr. Lenahan, it will need to be checked on every three or four years for maintenance pruning.

The pruning and care for the tree would normally cost a couple thousand dollars, but the two companies did the work for the Teters for free. Mr. Clarke said that after meeting the couple and hearing about their medical struggles, helping them and adopting the tree was a no-brainer.

“They’re a great couple,” he said.