By Eleanor O’Sullivan
“When Billy and I look out, we can see deer,’’ said Leslie Hintelmann, gesturing toward the wooded preserve in the backyard of her Bluffton, S.C. home. Her husband, William Hintelmann III, known to just about everybody as “Billy,’’ added that “One of the reasons we bought here is because of the preserve and the privacy it gives us.’’
But the Hintelmanns, who moved to Bluffton from Monmouth County in 2012, won’t be seeing any one-horse sleighs dashing through the snow this winter.
The Hintelmanns are among nearly 200 transplants from Monmouth County who live in Sun City, a 55 yrs. and older retirement development in Bluffton that is about 20 miles west of Hilton Head Island and 20 miles north of Savannah. It is about 790 miles from Red Bank.
Many of these retirees moved to escape high property taxes and icy winters, but sadly left behind the place they happily called home for most of their lives, and beloved children and grandchildren.
With their families back in New Jersey or elsewhere, what do these transplants do for the big three family-centric holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s?
“This year, we’re staying put,’’ said Mrs. Hintelmann, who hails from Fair Haven and is a Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School graduate. She happily recalls growing up in the lovely coastal area and her nursing career. Her husband, who resided in Little Silver, retired from William Hintelmann Firms on Ridge Road in Rumson, a short walk from Hintelmann’s Corner, named after his large and prominent Rumson family.
They did spend Thanksgiving with one of her sons in Neptune, but spent Christmas in South Carolina. On New Year’s Eve, the Hintelmanns took a boat ride to watch fireworks on the Savannah River.
For Roger and Louise Merritt, who moved to Sun City from a home on Scenic Drive in Atlantic Highlands eight years ago, the holidays require careful planning.
“The family is scattered all over the country: Chicago, New Jersey and Florida; so celebrating the holidays may not happen exactly on the holiday. We met up with my wife’s youngest son and his family in Lido Beach (Fla.) last week. My daughter and her family are in New Jersey but we don’t go there in the wintertime; we ran away from New Jersey because the winters were just too much,’’ said Merritt, who retired from Merck & Co., Linden.
“But every once in a while, I think, “Gee wouldn’t it be nice to be inside and look out the window watching the snow coming down. It was a pretty sight,’’ Merritt said.
When the Merritts moved from Atlantic Highlands to South Carolina, he traded what he called “a very lovely, unique town’’ for a place of golf courses, year’ round warm weather and nearly 300 nearby restaurants. So, for the 2014 holidays, Merritt and his wife relaxed at home in summer attire.
With 14,000 residents living on 5,000 acres, Sun City is the largest retiree development in what is known as the Lowcountry of South Carolina. It’s located in coastal Beaufort County, a historic area that played an important part in the Civil War, and today is a tourist destination with ocean beaches, rivers, restaurants and shopping, not unlike the Two River area.
–Eleanor O’Sullivan
Sylvia Marguccio, who has lived in a veritable map of Monmouth County – including Brielle, Navesink and Rumson – moved to Sun City 11 years ago with her husband, Robert Marguccio, Rutgers University Class of 1956 and its director of alumni relations for some years. They were drawn for the weather and the golf. Now a widow, she lives with her daughter, Sue Marguccio, a para-legal who moved from Red Bank.
“I spent Thanksgiving with a cousin in Florida, and my son from Rumson came down here for Christmas,’’ Mrs. Marguccio said.
A first cousin of Jack Anderson, of Jack’s Music, Red Bank, Mrs. Marguccio has an extended family of in-laws from Piscataway, now living in Beaufort, whom she also visits during the holidays. Prominent in her home is a quilt that Mrs. Marguccio made with stitching saying, “Over the river and through the wood,’’ from Lydia Maria Child’s 19th century Thanksgiving poem.
“Every time I look at that quote I think of driving over the Oceanic Bridge from Rumson to Locust,’’ Mrs. Marguccio said.
In the future, Mrs. Hintelmann said, she and her husband will make the northern-bound trip at Christmas to visit children in New Jersey – the pull of hometowns and family still strong.
Transplant Sherry Conohan, a Hilton Head Island resident who moved in 2011 to South Carolina from Monmouth Beach, celebrated the holidays with family who live in the South.
“I went to James Island in Charleston to spend the holidays with my stepson, Randy Houser, who grew up in Middletown, and his family – his wife, Jean, her mother, Alice Allmaras, and my grandson, Bill Houser, who lives in North Charleston, and his significant other, Rhiannon.’’
Conohan is a veteran newspaper writer and editor who worked for the Daily and Sunday Register; the Asbury Park Press, the Atlanticville, The Hub and most recently, the Two River Times.
On Christmas Eve, Conohan’s extended family attended the 5 o’clock Mass – known as the Children’s Mass – and had a light supper following. But on Christmas Day, it was presents opening and a big turkey dinner.
Shopping excursions from James Island to downtown Charleston and trips to a nearby historic plantation were made during the week, and on New Year’s Eve, there was a quiet dinner.
But on New Year’s Day, the family celebrated both the new year and a Southern tradition: They attended a big luncheon held at Houser’s James Island yacht club where the bill of fare included hoppin john’s (a locally grown bean), hominy grits and collard greens.
“The New Year’s day menu has its roots in what Southerners were forced to eat after the Civil War, when all that could be grown on the devastated land were beans, corn and greens. Tubsful of bloody Mary’s are also served,’’ Conohan said with a laugh.
Eleanor O’Sullivan is a freelance writer who moved from Locust to Sun City in 2011. She was movie critic and a feature writer for the Asbury Park Press for 30 years and continues to write for New Jersey publications. She can be reached at Special Correspondent@tworivertimes.com.
