A Short Biography of the McCues
by Will & Karel Henry
J.J. Gerald McCue was born on Christmas day
in 1913. As a boy he converted a spare room in his parent’s house in West
Orange, New Jersey into a darkroom and radio laboratory, and after
graduating high school early at the age of 16, he went to work for Bell
Telephone Laboratories in Greenwich Village. Working there as a Technical
Assistant, Jerry was responsible for a significant development in vacuum
tubes.
After two years with Bell, he expected to
attend the University of Chicago, as his idols, the physicists Compton and
Milikan, were professors there. A fellow scientist at Bell Labs advised
against it because as an undergraduate it was not likely Jerry would have
the chance to study under their tutelage. He advised Jerry that perhaps he
should instead attend a good New England school. Jerry asked him, Are
there any? He replied, Harvard’s not bad. At Harvard Jerry majored in
Physics, competed on the Freshman swim team, sculled on the Charles River,
became an Editor of the Harvard Crimson, and graduated cum laude in 1936.
He received his Doctorate in Physics in 1940 from Cornell, and started
teaching at Hamilton College. After four years he left Hamilton for a
position at the wartime MIT Radiation Laboratory, where he developed radar
beacons for bomber planes.
After the war, he decided it was time to find
a wife, and he moved to Northampton, Mass. and became an Associate
Professor of Physics at Smith College. It was in late 1945 that he went
with a close friend to a party to celebrate a wedding at Time Stone Farm
in Marlborough, owned by the collector Edna Hilburn Little Greenwood.
Through Edna, he met Edward and Faith Andrews, and his super Shaker
collection had begun. In 1946, Dr. Miriam Crowley became an Assistant
Professor of Psychology at Smith after a stint in the Navy, and Jerry had
found his match. Married in 1949, the young couple moved to Wellesley and
Jerry joined MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory at its founding. Soon after, they
found their house on Hancock Street in Lexington where they remained until
Jerry’s passing. Miriam continued her psychology career doing clinical
trials until their son Brian was born. Jerry and Miriam were already going
to Shaker communities and buying Shaker, which was housed in their
apartment. Jerry decided he was a collector when he owned three wood
stoves. They continued collecting Shaker and bringing Brian with them on
their many visits to the Shakers. Miriam, in addition to motherhood and
Shaker collecting, became a volunteer at the Lexington Historical Society.
She was an avid golfer and won many awards. Continuing her violin lessons,
she joined the Concord Orchestra. In the meantime, she and Jerry became
world travelers. They were devoted members of the Boston Athenaeum, and to
the St. Botolph Club in Boston.
Jerry published many
scientific papers on radar and sonar, including a National Geographic
article on How Bats Hunt with Sound. The preface of his textbook The
World of Atoms, published in 1956 and updated in 1963, states that
science can be taught humanistically without being taught sloppily. He
also contributed to the National Geographic Magazine with photographs of
.
Jerry had been an avid mountain climber for most of his life. His first
ascent was the South Teton in 1940. At that time Jerry and his group were
almost the only climbers in the Teton range. The Alpine Club of Canada,
which he joined in 1946, eventually certified him as a life member. Jerry
climbed every two years until the age of 60, and then he convinced Miriam
that to stay in condition he must climb every year. He lists the
Matterhorn, Mount Blanc, Mount Assiniboine, and many others in his record
of ascents.
The McCue Shaker collection is unique and
beautiful. Meticulously selected over 60 years, Jerry and Miriam admired
the Shakers’ craftsmanship and purchased only pieces that retained their
integrity. Ahead of their time, they collected pieces in the original
finishes. This is something most other early collectors were not doing.
Jerry passed away in February of 2011 and in
that passing was an end of an era of Shaker collecting. His passion for
Shaker was acquired through their close relations with the Shaker families
in several communities. However, it was Edna Greenwood that sparked his
interest and led him on the path of collecting Shaker. At a time when
people were cleaning antiques down to the wood she advised Jerry to keep
the original finish for posterity. He, and a mere handful of other
collectors, were ahead of their time. Jerry and Miriam’s collection set a
benchmark that will never be duplicated. His exceptional recordkeeping
helps us to learn even more about the Shakers today. We are honored to
have known them since the 1980s. Our families became quite close. We feel
very privileged to offer these pieces for the first time since they were
acquired.
