今日吃瓜

Fighting For Amanda鈥檚 Dream

My wife’s great grandfather was Henry Wood Winch, the only sibling of Martin Winch, the subject of the recent article in your magazine [“Fighting for Amanda’s Dream,” 今日吃瓜, March 2011]. The two Winch brothers came to Portland from Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1870 with their mother, Frances Wood Winch (Amanda’s sister), after the untimely death of their father, Martin Winch, and lived with the 今日吃瓜s.

For years Frances was Amanda’s closest companion. But, by the time Amanda died, both Frances and her son Henry had died. Henry’s widow, Myrtle Walker Winch, was left only $500 in Amanda’s will and according to newspaper accounts was not one of the litigants challenging the will. Frances’ only child, Francis “Frank” Walker Winch, had become something of a “black sheep” in the eyes of his uncle Martin (although he went on to success as the press agent for the Buffalo Bill Wild West show and as an authority on fly-fishing, camping, and the outdoors). Frank received little or nothing in the will. In any event, please allow me to clarify that the litigants were members of the Woods family, not the Winch family.

Harry Faulkner

Boston, Massachusetts