March 30, 2000, Thursday
Section: Page One
Oystering in Oyster Bay:
The First 20/20 Lecture Panel Discussion Spawns Videotape Project on Oyster Industry
By DAGMAR FORS KARPPI
The tenth annual 20/20 Lecture series got off to a rousing start as the first installment of the history of the Oyster Industry took place on March 21 at the Matinecock Lodge. The spellbound audience listened to a panel consisting of Gloria Bayles Tucker, Dave Relyea and Franklin Flower.
Tom Kuehhas, director of the Oyster Bay Historical Society said, "I was really pleased with the manner in which the panel and the audience came together. There was a lot of give and take to the discussion. Several people came up to me afterwards to tell me how much they not only enjoyed the program, but that they learned a lot too."
The program was a result of an inquiry made a few months ago by Congressman Peter King. He informed Mr. Kuehhas that the Library of Congress, in celebration of its bicentennial, was looking for what the termed "local legacies" projects. They are intended to document some unique aspect of the community -- a record of something worthy of being preserved. OBHS Director Tom Kuehhas immediately thought of oystering in Oyster Bay. In the interim, the plans have changed. Now, according to Mr. Kuehhas, "What had begun as a small fact-finding mission has blossomed into what we now foresee as a half hour documentary detailing the history of local oystering."
"Whereas I had originally foreseen the oystering roundtable (the first lecture the 20/20 Series sponsored jointly by Oyster Bay Historical Society and Friends of Raynham Hall) as the culmination of the project, instead, much remains to be done before it is completed."
Many individuals have come forward to provide artifacts, documents and photographs, while others have been interviewed.
The Town of Oyster Bay's audiovisual division of the Public Information Office has provided their technical expertise to the project as well.
Fritz Coudert has volunteered his services in acting as the executive producer of the project. Mr. Coudert said, "We want to put together a documentary on Oyster Bay and its oystering history that the town and its residents can be proud of."
That creation was begun as the panel discussion was videotaped. Panelist Gloria Bayles Tucker, is the grand daughter of S.Y. Bayles, founder of the Oyster Bay Oyster Company, and the only member of the panel (thus far) to have an oyster boat named after her, the Gloria B.
Franklin Flower worked for his father H. Butler Flower from the early '50s to the early 1960s before he went to New Jersey to work at the Rutgers University Shellfish Lab and the extension service for 25 years. He returned to Oyster Bay in the late '80s and sold the business in 1996.
Dave Relyea was the third panelist. He started in the Flowers' hatchery in Bayville in 1964, as an after school and summer job, graduated in 1969 from Colgate University, returned to Oyster Bay and was hired by Butler Flower to run the hatchery. Dave, his brother Dwight, and their partner Joe Zahtila now own and operate the business. The Relyea's are great nephews of the Flower family. Their great-uncle Allan Flower was one of Frank M. Flower's three sons. Dave Relyea put together a slide show which provided the background against which the evening's discussion unfolded.
There are two more lectures scheduled in the series. The next is on April 11, and features a discussion on when the incorporated villages on Long Island's North Shore were formed. The second, on May 9, will feature historical society member Ken Gambone showing how to make an 18th century tilt-top table. All the lectures in the series are held at the Masonic Lodge, on West Main Street, Oyster Bay, at 8 p.m. Refreshments follow. The series is free. For more information please call Mr. Kuehhas at 922-5032 or Andrew Batten, director of Raynham Hall Museum at 922-6808.
Copyright © The Oyster Bay Enterprise-Pilot, March 30, 2000.
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