Tom,
You are so disingenuous that it is hardly worth discussing anything with you.
To clear the record you constantly invent and distort, I never characterized Pickering as a no-good drunken scoundrel. On the contrary, I stated facts that were not all that pleasant. The family is keenly aware of them. For someone that goes to great lengths to prove a suicide, why are you chastising me for explaining the circumstances as to how Flynn came to prominence at Merion? That is a far more relevant and influential fact.
While you ignored him for many years and later minimized his contributions, I promoted Pickering's efforts at Merion and quoted the Findlay article years ago as well as making known that he had more experience in building golf courses than Macdonald, Whigham and Barker combined. You did so, not because you were unaware of his efforts, they were disclosed years ago, but because you had an agenda to discredit Merion's internal efforts to route and design Merion East and also the quality and integrity of their historical record. So it was you that turned his back on the truth so you could promote Macdonald, Whigham and Barker as the driving forces behind the routing and design of Merion East. Your argument hinged on no one at Merion having the ability or experience to design and build a golf course saying the only way it could have happened was for the two best architects of their era (Macdonald and Barker) had to do so. Your story does not make sense and does not hold up to the most superficial scrutiny.
We discussed everything we knew about Pickering warts and all at yesterday's gathering. If you don't think that the actions of Pickering resonated throughout subsequent generations represented by the family members visiting Merion yesterday, you are out of touch. There was no need to impune Pickering for his actions, but we did recognize them and not gloss over them. This is the reality you get in the field and not in your study pouring over Ancestry.com pages. It comes to life and is a necessary addition to document searches. You cannot or choose not to do this sort of work.
As to the Lillian Gardner story, it changes a lot about what you wrote. None of us claimed that Lillian Gardner's family was wealthy. By the late 1800s that family was in Boston for nearly 250 years. Wealth and position tends to get diluted. Do you think every DuPont or Rockefeller is wealthy and powerful? In any case, you made it very clear that you did not think Lillian Gardner was related to the old line Boston family due to your investigations on Ancestry.com. Well, I mentioned the truth on here to demonstrate that your findings are not always reliable. Your steadfast adherence to your findings without going into the field and to the clubs and families themselves is a serious flaw in your methods. Like it or not, it is clear to many of us that bother to check your work. No doubt most on here, including the site host, take you and your protege for your word. I think that is a mistake.
By the way, you are wrong again. I did not claim that Flynn's mother was related to the Myopia Gardners in my Golf Architecture article. I stated that she was a member of that august family. We now know that she was and is also related to the Adams family and can trace her roots to John Alden. I would be surprised if she were not somehow, no matter how distantly, related to the Gardners of Myopia. Perhaps you are right in this instance. You've been so wrong, maybe you got something right. Anyway, I think it is much more interesting that she is related to John Alden than the Myopia Gardners.
Now you go off and study your Ancestry.com. Spend hundreds of hours disproving the story. I'm sure you will come up with something.