It’s Presidents’ Day weekend. Time to travel – it’s one of the busiest travel weekends, according to AirHelp– to shop and maybe to remember all the men who have given their time and talents to serve our country in what must be the most pressure-filled job.
This includes our first commander in chief, George Washington, whose graceful Mount Vernon, Virginia, home, which we had the pleasure of visiting over the Christmas holiday, is imbued with his presence. But before there was wife Martha, the first first lady, there was Mary Philipse, the spirited Yonkers heiress whose powerful family gave their name to Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers and Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow. Had politics not intervened, George and Mary’s lives may have taken a different turn – together. The courtship and the marriage that was never to be are the subjects of Mary Calvi’s debut book, “Dear George, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington’s First Love” (Feb. 19, St. Martin’s Press; 322 pages), in which she offers a tale of real-life star-crossed romance.
Calvi – a WCBS-TV anchorwoman and reporter and first lady of Yonkers, as wife of Mayor Mike Spano – was to give a book talk this week at a Yonkers Public Library. That was eclipsed by the death of her father-in-law, longtime Westchester County Legislator and Clerk Leonard Spano, who died Sunday, Feb. 10 at age 88.
“The Foundation for the Yonkers Public Library would like to express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Leonard Spano, a pillar of the Yonkers and Westchester community for so many years.”
In a statement, the foundation also said it looks forward to welcoming readers to Calvi’s rescheduled talk on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 6 p.m.
For more, visit ypl.org/riverfront/.
