Tillinghast's last few years are not quite as some have presented here. For example, although he wasn't rich, he also wasn't broke. His true financial situation has been misunderstood and misportrayed for many years. For example, he bought his Harrington Park estate early in 1930, the year after the crash and one of his least productive years of work. Later that same year he built, and gave a s agift to his daughter & her family, a house directly behind his. It was equal in size and quality to his own.
When he lost his house in 1936 it was not due to lack of funds. It appears that the mortgage holder (the people he was renting the house from sold it to him and carried the mortgage) were the ones who neglected to pay the taxes on the house. This was the reason for the foreclosure. His arriving back home to discover the tax sale was fortuitous because he was able to save most of his furnishings, among them very valuable antiques. Although the property was lost to them, they had the means to store and ship all of their belongings to his other daughter & family and from there, it was shipped to California a year later. He paid for all of that.
What has been forgotten by everyone is that his father's business, the Tillinghast Rubber Goods Company, was never closed while he was alive. It remained in business and was finally shut in 1947. They received modest revenues from this their entire life and this is what carried them through the very lean times when he had no work.
He also never quit architecture or lost his passion for it or the game. It was his health that forced him to stop. A massive heart attack that almost killed him in 1939 brought an end to it. Yet even though he was unable to work at architecture or even write, his love of the game remained. Up to just a few months before his death, his daughter Marion, with whom he now lived, would regularly take him for drives past golf courses in the Toledo area. They would park alongside holes to watch the play.
During these last years he wrote to many an old friend and colleague, among them Donald Ross. There is no record of whether anyone wrote him back. A copy of his Ross letter follows. There are actually several versions of it. This is the one I have:
Dear Donald:
Without a doubt these lines will come as a surprise to you for I have been buried away so long that very few know what has happened to me. But for the past two years I have been able to do little other than drop an occasional letter – to those old friends, whom I highly esteem such as O.B. Keeler et al, and perusing their replies.
It has been six or seven years since Mrs. Tillinghast and myself called on you at Pinehurst. We hope that Mrs. Ross is still at your good right hand and that she is well. Please convey to her our best wishes.
Then four years ago we removed to California, rather anticipating the ending of our days out there – and I nearly ended mine. I am chasing hard after 67 years, you know. I think we found that our ages were not far apart. Our Sun Kissed friends exhibited two widely divergent propensities. Either a singular reluctance to part with any real money, or what was much worse, the inclination to waste it on display with little understanding of creating golf holes as you and I understand them. It was rather discouraging work but after planning for the construction and reconstruction of a half dozen courses out there with some appreciation – I was laid low by a severe heart attack some two years since. For a time the doctors gave me but small chance but my reserve pulled me through eventually, but I received strict orders against continuing any sort of golf work. This was very tough on a man who had followed such from 1905, particularly one who loved it as much as I, but the warning was direct and unmistakable – ‘Continue and it will be curtains for you!’ So that was that.
I was brought here last April and we have been living with the family of my eldest daughter ever since, while recovery has been slow and I am still confined to my room. As against my old normal weight of around 185 I just manage to move the scale beam at 134. However, while recovery has been discouragingly slow, absolute rest is restoring me, but that is what is in store for me from now on – quiet and rest. It’s hard enough to give it all up – that is the golf. When I will be east again is a matter of conjecture. Before the bad weather settled on us, my daughter used to drive me around the country quite a bit. Quite a few golf courses but as far as I was able to observe, only one good one, old Inverness, which is much the same as ever. And it is good to find something in the game that suggests the good old days. So much has changed to the new tempo as to be a bit startling, even to the playing of the game.
I suppose Pinehurst is enjoying its measure of prosperity and that you see Bill Fownes now and then. Will you be so good as to remember me to him. I have known him and his family a good many years now. And Bob Harlow? I presume he is still with you and doing good work. Speaking of Bill Fownes, I saw him… last at Pinehurst when I paid my one and only visit to you. I think he had an attack similar to mine. He is taking many things mighty easy I do know. I hope he is getting along all right for one by one the old guard is moving on.
I wonder what ever became of Nipper Campbell. I used to have a letter from him now and then and he was out here in Ohio somewhere then. He had three brothers that I knew rather well _ Jock, Matt and Andrew. I met his sister when out on the P.G.A. Tour, somewhere up in Connecticut, Hartford I think. They were a great lot and all thoroughly Scotch. Sandy Smith has gone to his reward, of course, and so many others, too…
And your good brother Alec. He did not look like himself in the old days, when I saw him last. I think that one of the real joys of the P.G.A. tour was meeting up with so many old friends of the ‘Guttie’ ball days. I am sure that this feeling will rather explain my lines to you. May you live long and prosper!
Very Sincerely
A.W. Tillinghast
When in the mood , with a bit of time on your hands, do drop me a line.
AWT