The last time Admiral Nimitz and Mrs. Nimitz vacationed at Wellfleet
was in April, 1941. Members of his family, however, continue to
visit there at least once or twice every year. The two older Nimitz
daughters, Catherine, who is head of the music division in the
Washington, D. C. Library, and Nancy, who is in the Information
Division of the library, were at Wellfleet for a week last spring--they
brought with them some Navy friends and people of the musical world.
Catherine and Nancy plan to return next September and spend a month.
A Cape Cod story on Admiral Nimitz reflects the same quiet dignity and
staunchness of character that folks at home vision when they read of
him in the great war dispatches out of the Pacific. Fundamentally, he
is a man of simple tastes. He has done nothing on the Cape to cause a
personal headline in the newspapers and, from summer to summer, has
moved among his less gifted Wellfleet neighbors practically unnoticed.
Which is the way he seems to like it.
“Most of his time in Wellfleet is spent walking in the woods and
fishing. These are his chief pleasures. He reads of course, but he
doesn’t spend as much time at it as he does roaming in the outdoors. He
is a good fisherman,” relates Miss Freeman.
The Admiral and Mrs. Nimitz, nee Catherine Vance Freeman, daughter of
the late Richard R. Freeman, a Boston ship broker, were married in
1913. She was born in Wollaston, Mass. Since birth she and others of
her family have summered at Wellfleet. After her marriage, however,
she travelled far to be with her husband, living on the West Coast and
in China, Germany and other foreign places.
At first the Nimitzes spent their summer visits at the old Freeman
family house, outside Wellfleet, on Route 6. During the last war the
family summer home was re-established in the remote Gull Pond section,
one of the most primitive and lovely spots on Cape Cod. Here Mrs.
Nimitz’s sister makes her year-round residence. The former residence is
now owned by Edmund Wilson, literary critic of _The New Yorker_
magazine.