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Our yearbook calls her “female Rembrandt,” but more modestly she says, “I’m going to be known as the Grandma Moses of Palm Beach.” She’s a grandma. She lives in Palm Beach. She paints Palm Beach. She has her own gallery. And what Sandy has set out to do in life, she has always done. She learned how to compete and fight in her own backyard. Her older brother Alan put her on his ad hoc tackle football team full of boys and she became one of the Backyard Terrors. “As I developed into a pistol-packing Black Bart and Tomboy, I often invited boys, Berkley Andrews for one, to join me in the garage loft where we'd put on gloves and go into the boxing ring that had been installed. I was a pretty tough gal.” Fifty-some years later at our class reunion she quipped, “Berkeley Andews was the guy I really beat and maybe that’s why he’s not here.” Berkeley, of course, went on to graduate with honors from the US Marine Corps camp at Parris Island.
Learning and earning stayed at the center of her life. The Gleichmann family had a small income, and as soon as she could, Sandy began to earn money babysitting. At school she earned a free lunch washing dishes in the cafeteria. As soon as she mastered typing and shorthand with Miss French, Mrs. Phillip Huntington, who lived on Littleworth Lane and who served as President of the American Pewter Society hired Sandy as her social secretary. She also learned on the job. “Mrs. Huntington defined charm as the curiosity to show genuine interest in others by engaging them in conversation. That lesson served well years later when writing memoirs became a passion.”
She grew to appreciate the city’s opportunities on trips with her parents, school trips to museums, and Eileen McNamara’s theater trip to see “Long Days Journey Into Night.” “I became intrigued by the dynamics of Manhattan that beat with a pulse that quickened me on many levels. I knew early on that I was destined for ‘The City’ after graduation.”
After school she used her secretarial skills to become assistant to the art buyer at Grey Advertising “where the most extraordinary array of art and photographic portfolios passed before my eyes.” That income allowed her to attend Cooper Union art classes at night. After a year with Chanel, she became the art buyer at Redbook Magazine which brought her in contact with the work of Richard Avedon, Eric Sloane, Andy Warhol and Henri Cartier-Bresson. “It was a feast to savor and inspire.”
In 1961 she decided to move with her parents, brother and sister Diane to Florida, knowing she would avoid the cold she disliked and hoping to find a job that used her own talents as an artist. The owner of McCarthy’s Deli warned her, "you'll be back . . . no one leaves Sea Cliff and stays in Florida. "She’s still there, and she found what she wanted. She went from advertising design and past up at the Ft. Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel to their first editorial artist, drawing section covers, hurricane maps, and cartoons.
In 1964 she married local businessman and widower David Robinson Thompson, and they soon added two children along side his two grown sons. Sandy stayed at home raising the boys and doing freelance design work. She also became a golfer and, with Dave, played some of the world’s great courses in the British Isles. “When we decided to marry I vowed to perform two creative efforts inspired by the beautiful tropical paradise: to one day write a memoir to record his early life experiences and also to perform in some art medium to capture the great beauty of Palm Beach.” She has done both, of course. PALM BEACH FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LAKE, was published in 1992. The memoir recorded, among much more, Dave’s Civil Air Patrol flying in the early years of WWII and his later service under Gen. George Patton in the Battle of the Bulge. That book led to other books, all written on the same manual Olympia typewriter she had in high school. She thanks “Betty French for her uncompromising work ethic and devotion to students. She kept it simple--when writing a letter, write as you would speak. I found that useful and was fascinated as I asked questions and recorded so many unique life passages.”
When foreign travel became too arduous for Dave they settled into an apartment, and Dave began to decline into senile dementia, but not before enjoying the reward of seeing his own four sons fulfill his dream of graduating from college. During the final six years of his life Sandy became an associate in a Palm Beach art gallery where she is now co-owner. But it was a one woman show that launched her ambition to become the Grandma Moses of Palm Beach. She has always done what she set out to do, but she says, “I credit God firmly and gratefully for the many blessings that have been mine. I believe that we are all watched over by a loving God who knows the path each life will take. . . . I have always felt God's presence. I feel blessed far beyond my deserving.”
At the end of 2012 Sandy closed her gallery in Miami Beach and now works at home and has more free time, part of which she uses to visit with classmates Berkeley Andrews and Ned McAdams and their wives. She also plays golf with Berk and Ned but has not revealed the scores.
Hangenthompsongallery,
326 Peruvian Ave - 325 Worth Ave
Palm Beach 33480 www.hangenthompsongallery.com
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