- Beverly Huntington Seaman Chase, 92, died peacefully at her longtime home at Westchester Country Club December 31. She'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's ten years earlier.
She was born April 7, 1919, at her grandfather Henry's apartment in the Alameda, 255 West 84th Street, Manhattan, to Julian and Gladys Lorraine Dodge Seaman.
She grew up in Pelham and New Rochelle. After graduating from New Rochelle High School, she attended College of New Rochelle.
It was while stopping to see her mother, who was an avid bridge player and in the middle of a game, that she was introduced to another player who upon seeing her declared, "I have a nephew whom I'd like you to meet."
She met Hollis H. Chase and a romance that was to last for nearly 70 years began.
"I won Beverly over when she saw that I could play tennis," recalled Mr. Chase, "unlike another of her suitors at the time. She was a champion tennis player; my serves came back harder than I hit them to her."
They were already engaged when Mr. Chase was called into military service. "I'd finished my pre-flight training and we were at a dance for the cadets. While we were on the dance floor, she turned to me and said, "We should get married." They were married the next day, September 9, 1942, at the Army Air Force Post in Montgomery, Alabama. The newlyweds moved from base to base until Mr. Chase went overseas in November 1943.
After he returned from the war, the Chases lived in Larchmont from 1944 to 1957 before moving to Rye Brook. In 1982, they moved to Westchester Country Club to be closer to Mrs. Chase's mother, who lived in the apartment directly above. Mrs. Chase spent part of nearly every day with her mother until her death two years later.
Kenneth Huntington Chase remembers his mother as a bright and determined woman. "Her real vocation was her family, whom she was devoted to, but she was good at everything she did — bridge, bowling, photography, tennis, and landscape gardening. She even studied Russian."
Her husband described his late wife as a wonderful and very self-effacing woman. "One year we won the bridge tournament at the Second Congregational Church in Greenwich, but she was reluctant to accept the prize because we weren't members!"
Mrs. Chase was a member of the 14th Twig and a volunteer at Greenwich Hospital.
In addition to her husband of 69 years and her son, an attorney who lives in Manhattan and is retired from Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Mrs. Chase is survived by her brother-in-law, Wilbur Porteus Chase of Kensington, Maryland.
A service was held January 6 at Rye Presbyterian Church. A private interment followed at Ferncliff Cemetery.
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1916 - Yes, date unknown
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