Hester Carter Dies At 100

Hester Braxton Carter

Longtime Bridgehampton resident Hester Braxton Carter, a genteel woman from Virginia who devoted her time to the community, died on Wednesday, November 9. She was 100 years old.

Ms. Carter celebrated her centennial birthday twice this year, once on the day of her birthday, with some friends and residents of the Peconic Landing community and the mayor of Greenport, and again in August, where more than 160 friends and family members celebrated with her at a bigger gathering in Bridgehampton.

“It was a party to honor her,” Ms. Carter’s daughter Antoinette Vreeland said. “Almost every guest came up to her and greeted her.”

With so many years of work and time poured into the Bridgehampton community, it is no wonder there was a big turnout.

Ms. Carter was an active member of the Bridgehampton Community House Association and devoted much of her time doing needlepoint and knitting work for fundraisers and the Christmas arts and crafts fair. She also was a frequent visitor at the Hampton Library and served on the vestry at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton.

“She absolutely loved Bridgehampton,” Ms. Vreeland said. “She made wonderful, dear friends there.”

Ms. Carter was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on June 16, 1911, daughter of Nina and Robert Tomlin. Proud of her Southern heritage, she was known for saying the old adage, “American by birth; Southern by the grace of God.” According to Ms. Vreeland, Ms. Carter’s grandfather Colonel Walter H. Taylor served as Aide de Compte to General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War.

“She would always focus on how genteel the South was, and within three seconds of meeting someone, she would let them know she was from Virginia,” Ms. Vreeland said.

Ms. Carter was raised in Norfolk until her father died when she was 16. She and her mother moved to Baltimore, Maryland, to be near family, and she attended Oldfields School in Glencoe, Maryland. Upon graduating, she decided to move to Manhattan, where she went to work for Macy’s Department Store.

She met Paul Stuart Carter through a friend, and they married on January 18, 1936. They resided in Manhattan, where Mr. Carter worked in advertising, but moved to Montclair, New Jersey, just before their second daughter, Antoinette, was born.

“She was the most self-sufficient woman you’d ever meet,” Ms. Vreeland said. “She made my wedding dress, she’s made suits, every curtain that ever hung in her house, slipcovers for sofas. She was handy with her hands.”

Since 1936, Ms. Carter and her husband spent summers at Mr. Carter’s family-owned house, known as “Tremedden,” which was on the corner of Ocean Road and Sagaponack Road, as well as a second house on the beach on Mecox Road. It was that beach house that the couple used during the summers after they were married. Then, during the 1960s, they purchased a small house a few doors down from what used to be Muller’s Market, now Almond Restaurant, on the corner of Ocean Road and Montauk Highway. Later, they bought a house on Hildreth Lane.

When Mr. Carter retired, they sold their house in New Jersey and made Bridgehampton their full-time residence. When her husband died in 1981, Ms. Carter continued to live in the house until she moved to Peconic Landing in Greenport in 2002, soon after it opened.

Ms. Carter said she couldn’t believe she lived to 100, but she was happy to receive letters from Willard Scott from “The Today Show” and President Barack Obama on reaching her 100th birthday.

“She always used to say, ‘I don’t feel my age,’” Ms. Vreeland said. As a self-determined, forthright and opinionated woman, “you never needed to ask how she felt about something, because she would tell you before you asked,” Ms. Vreeland said. “She was very strong.”

Ms. Carter is survived by two daughters, Nina Rosselli Del Turco, of Rome, Italy, and Connecticut, and Antoinette Carter Vreeland of Maryland and Bridgehampton. She also is survived by seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will take place in August 2012 at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 961, Bridgehampton, New York 11932; or Oldfields School, P.O. Box 697, 1500 Glencoe Road, Glencoe, Maryland 21152.