The Boys Club Of Newtown: One Doctor’s Prescription For A Gentleman’s Happy Retirement

By Shannon Hicks

When a group of 20 gentlemen gather for lunch at George’s Pizza & Restaurant next week, it will continue a tradition started by a Newtown physician more than 50 years ago. For the members of The Boys Club of Newtown, lunch on February 1 will mark the latest gathering of a club that has no officers, no speakers, no dues, and very few rules.

On February 7, 1956, a group of retired residents — all male — met for lunch at The Hawley Manor Inn. Dr Benton Egee had decided that the retired gentlemen of Newtown and vicinity should go to lunch, once a month, to discuss whatever current events might require their expert commentary and review. That first “meeting” included seven men. Fifty-one years that tradition continues, now with about 20 gentlemen enjoying the lunch meetings first prescribed by Dr Egee.

Dr Egee was a town health officer and one of Newtown’s first practicing physicians. He moved into Newtown during the 1930s, established his practice by 1935, and maintained that practice for more than 30 years.

Club records indicate it was a suggestion by “the genial J. Benton Egee, MD, [who] after treating for some time, two men, Dr Egee decided, and stated, that men who were retired from business needed something to keep up their interest and to keep their nervous energy in top condition.

“He was also of the opinion,” the write-up continues, “that if the men got out of the house, and were not under foot, their wives would be able to relax and feel better.”

(Some of those women, it turns out, certainly agreed with Dr Egee’s assessment. All of the wives, in fact, of original Benton’s Boys Club of Newtown members not only welcomed the idea of getting their husbands out of the house for lunch once each month, they formed a short-lived group of their own called The Gadding Girls.)

At some point the lunch “meetings” moved from the Hawley Manor on Main Street to George’s Restaurant on Sugar Street, but the mission of the club remains the same.

Ironically, Dr Egee was never a member of the club he formed. He was usually too busy to attend the luncheons — he ran his medical practice on Church Hill Road for more than 30 years before becoming the chief of staff for Danbury Hospital’s emergency room during the 1960s. He was there for 13 years before his retirement.

He was, nevertheless, an honorary member of Benton’s Boys Club of Newtown. While the club originated with Dr Egee’s first name as part of its moniker, current Boys Club record keeper Doug Rogers says that part of the club’s name was soon dropped.

“He originated the club, there’s no doubt about that, but Dr Egee was never interested in having his own name be part of this collective,” said Mr Rogers, who has been attending the lunch meetings since 1990.

The requirements for Boys Club membership have always been very simple. If a man is retired and 70-plus years of age, and lives in or near Newtown, he would be invited to attend one of the club’s “meetings.” If he likes the members, and they in turn like him, he is elected.

There are no dues collected, nor membership fees paid. The only thing a member has ever paid for is the lunch he orders and whatever beverage he consumes.

Of course like most clubs, The Boys Club also bends its own rules from time to time. If a man is not retired and not yet 70, the club has been known to accept him as a member in good standing.

The one rule that has not been bent, however, is that to attend a meeting a nonmember must be invited, and then brought to the meeting by one of The Boys Club members in good standing.

“It might be well to state that all of our group are members that are good, whether they are standing, sitting or running around,” wrote Ray Clayberger in 1966. The group was formed, after all, to relieve stress for gentlemen and their wives. Having a sense of humor seems to be an important trait.

Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month. In the rare event that weather prevents lunch from taking place — or when a legal holiday means the meeting location will be closed — the monthly meeting is postponed one week.

“There’s a telephone network and we just say ‘See you next week,’” said Mr Rogers. “We wouldn’t miss our lunch meeting. No way.”

“As a wife, I of course always knew where he was on first Thursdays,” Caroline Stokes, a former longtime Sandy Hook resident, said this week of her late husband Robert. Mr Stokes and his wife moved into their home on Church Hill Road in 1946, where they lived until he died in March 2004.

It was shortly after his retirement from Curtis Packaging Company in 1986 that Mr Stokes was invited by friend and fellow resident Bob Macdonald to consider joining The Boys Club.

“It was sort of by word of mouth” that members learned about the club and were invited into it, Mrs Stokes said. “Benton Egee had a wonderful idea. He saw the need for a wife to be relieved of her husband for just a little time … and I think some of [the men] really missed talking with other men.

“After retirement, a man is lost at how to fill his time,” she continued. “Bob had interests, thank goodness, but a lot of men have given their lives to their position at the office, whatever it was, and their family… and after retirement they don’t know what to do with themselves.”

Mrs Stokes was one wife who was happy to have her husband join The Boys Club.

“Bob Macdonald took my Bob to a meeting, and it was perfect,” said Mrs Stokes, who began having her own monthly lunch meetings shortly thereafter, with Mary Ellen Macdonald. “We always got home much later than they did,” she said with a laugh.

Mr Stokes remained a member of the club “until the day he died,” Mrs Stokes said. “He absolutely loved it.”

Who Are These Men?

Backgrounds of Boys Club members are as varied as the melting pot that makes up this country. At one meeting in the 1960s members were requested to give a thumbnail history of what they had done before they retired.

“The result,” according to a write-up by Raymond Clayberger from that 1966 meeting, “was most interesting and Newtown [residents] should be proud and pleased that they have living in their midst men who have accomplished so much.” One gentleman in attendance that Thursday afternoon was a graduate of Freiburg University, Baden, who had done his postgraduate in London and Colombia, was then professor and master of Cultural German and French and an instructor at “a large and important school in New York City,” and even later was a banker and broker. This gentleman had also been a member of the US Air Force Technical Service Command of the Air Forces in World War II.

Other gentlemen in attendance that afternoon included the former director and controller of all activities of the Stock Certificate Division of the United States Steel Corp; a former president and director of the Woolworth chain of stores; a former president of the National Better Business Bureau; a retired vice president of “an important bank” who was also a former officer in the Financial Department of the US government; a retired rector of the Episcopal Church; and even the retired Far East representative of two international oil companies.

Many of the men who join the club have been active in the public eye prior to their nonretirement years; others have names that are recognized for the contributions they have made to making Newtown a better place over the years. Past members of the club have included Scrabble developer James Brunot, Bee publisher Paul Smith, organist Leonard Manz; Hawley Warner, who long owned The Red Brick General Store in Sandy Hook and was also one of the charter members of Sandy Hook Fire Department; and the photographer and outdoor enthusiast Albert Goodrich (for whom Al’s Trail was named).

The club has, over the years, been host to church moderators, countless business owners, Labor Day Parade marshals (among them Harold Carey, Joseph Chase, Merlin Fisk, and Robert Stokes), Masons, Shriners, Newtown Housing for the Elderly board members, Board of Education members, Legislative Council members, Economic Development Commission members, Booth Library board members, and men who have been members of nearly every other organization in town.

Today’s roster includes just over 20 members, and their backgrounds are just as varied as their predecessors. The eldest attending member is Ken Wilkinson, a former Newtown resident and a retired aerospace marketer for Lear-Seigler Company. Many residents may remember Mr Wilkinson for the 15-plus years he volunteered at C.H. Booth Library during tax season, helping others fill out their tax forms for the IRS. Mr Wilkinson, now in his 90s, lives in East Hill Woods, a senior community in Southbury, but continues to attend Boys Club meetings on occasion.

One of the longest-serving members is Lawrence Ermler, a longtime Palestine Road resident who now owns a condo at Liberty of Newtown. Records indicate Mr Ermler has been attending Boys Club meetings since at least May 1982.

The club’s current roster includes the following gentlemen: Les Burroughs, Bill Downing, Bill Edelen, Mr Ermler, Paul Gahrett, Peter Garrett, Charles Godfrey, Lou Graziani, Chet Hopper, Hank Kessler, Charles Leety, David Luessenhop, Fred Parrella, Nelson Roberts, Doug Rogers, Bob Schmidle, Steve Tyler, Bill Watts, Mr Wilkinson, and Bob Yocum.

“There are still no officers,” said Mr Rogers. “I happen to be carrying it along in notes, and I have been since Alan Mitchell’s passing in February 2004, but that’s it.”

Mr Rogers was invited into The Boys Club, in fact, by Mr Mitchell, after Mr Rogers presented a few lectures for the club during the late 1980s. Today’s meetings are fully social. Aside from a few announcements that may cover recent birthdays or historical tie-ins — “very short, very brief commentary, not lectures,” said Mr Rogers — the gentlemen are quite content to discuss the day’s issues.

“These people are well read,” said Mr Rogers. “We talk about today’s politics, today’s sports, even today’s technology. They all seem very well versed in today’s computers. Members are also always happy to talk with others who worked in their former field of employment.”

Les Burroughs agrees.

“I think so many organizations have agendas, and other things, and we just get together to have a good time at lunch,” said Mr Burroughs, who has been a member for about 18 years. His sponsor was the former Judge of Probate Merlin Fisk. “There are no topics, except what we bring up. We just enjoy ourselves.

“And lunch is always good, too. George’s is a great place to go to for lunch or dinner, and Lou [Graziani, the owner of George’s Pizza & Restaurant] has been just outstanding in letting us come in every month,” Mr Burroughs added.

While conversation and good eats may be the one item on the club’s unofficial agenda each month, Caroline Stokes pointed out that her husband was also proud to be part of a group that did good things for others.

“They gave a little bit of money at one point for a slush fund,” said Mrs Stokes “It wasn’t to be philanthropic, as far as I remember, but they would rise to an occasion. They would pass the hat if a house had had a fire, or a family had some other tragedy. They were responsive, but they never wanted to be recognized as a civic group.”

Benton Egee died in March 1997. Ten years later after his death — and more than a half-century after he decided that husbands and wives in and around Newtown could use a temporary break from each other — the club started by Dr Egee in March 1956 continues to do what he had hoped for: The Boys Club of Newtown offers a monthly opportunity for retired gentlemen of Newtown and nearby towns to get out of their homes for lunch and conversation.

For anyone interesting in joining The Boys Club of Newtown, the club’s next meeting will be Thursday, March 1. Retired gentlemen are encouraged to contact any member of the club for sponsorship.