Leo Hoogenboom

March 13, 2025, Chatham lost a kindred spirit. To the casual Chatham observer Leo Hoogenboom (9/21/1928 – 3/13/2025) was “just another tourist” first visiting in 1967 (for a short two weeks, then progressively over the years reaching six wonderful weeks), renting a small cottage by Schoolhouse Pond. The beginning of a long friendship with the Bush (Phil & Barbara) family, fellow travelers, and nearby neighbor Freijke Ling. Leo & family went daily (early!) to Ridgevale Beach, always on Day 1 of vacation picking up all the parking lot trash – with 6 children (Hilde, Paul, Monique, Judith, Arjen, Chris) it went quickly. Leo’s wife, Ada, had sewn a magnificent blue windscreen, combined with Leo’s woodworking wizardry for the poles & stakes, every day erected to shelter the family for the day.
To get to Chatham every summer from Leo’s home in Jonesville, NY would seem an easy 4-5 hour drive down the Mass Pike … NOT. Leo preferred the more “scenic” Rt. 2 route, thus a dawn-to-dusk adventure, children occupied with their License Plate Cards. When the canal bridge appeared, what joy! The return trip home included an annual stop at Quintal’s at the base of the Bourne Bridge, for many years the one time the entire family ate out – what a treat!!
Future rentals included numerous cottages in the Old Village: several on School St, one on Andrew Hardings Lane, the little Apple Cottage for many years. Then Little Beach thereafter. Leo & family became centered around the Andrew Hardings town landing, along with Pleasant Bay and North Beach, and Leo befriended the Height family – Mary, Molly, and Julian. Leo’s sailing, clamming, conversation, and invitation to join in with the family drew in many fellow travelers over the years. Treasured North Beach moments were the annual family “Shadow Picture” – Family Hoogenboom assembled in a row by age to cast a perfect shadow, picture capturing both family & shadow.
The Break changed everything at Andrew Harding’s landing – the Morris Island Causeway & Stage Harbor became the new summer water base, remaining so for every summer until Leo’s last in August 2024. Stage Harbor, then and now, the most beautiful, wonderous harbor in the world.
Boats! So many boats. First came The Little Blue Rowboat, a simple plastic 6-foot shell, that Leo made oars and seating slats for. A perfect children’s boat for the Ridgevale Beach protected backwaters. Then in 1973 a Laser sailboat – Leo did not know how to sail, a minor detail. He & family learned quickly. A small 12’ rowboat + 7 ½ HP Elgin outboard was added to the fleet, replaced in 1977 by a new 14’ Sturdee skiff powered over the years by an assortment of antique outboard motors that Leo (a master mechanic of any & all engines) restored & maintained, and finally in 1993 a brand new 15 HP Yamaha – reliable power at last! Then a derelict 10’ rowing dingy found on North Beach was transformed by Leo into a sailboat, the Nootedop (Dutch for “nutshell”). Thereafter another project building a small strip plank rowboat (with the strips PERFECTLY symmetrical on both sides of the hull). There were a few other “miscellaneous” boats built here and there as well. An Arey’s Pond 14’ catboat, the Ada (named after his beloved wife), arrived in 2003. Thereafter came his final addition, a 14’ Adirondack rowing skiff. The Sail + Motor + Row trilogy was now complete. So many Chatham memories with these boats at their center: young children playing with the little blue rowboat at Ridgevale Beach, Laser sailing on Pleasant Bay and Nantucket Sound, the Sturdee skiff to the outer beaches and fishing, the catboat loaded up with family and guests, and rowing with his beloved Ada. A special thank you to the Pease Boat Yard, always accommodating and assisting Leo with repair & maintenance of the fleet. And finally, if you are playing Chatham trivia and get the question “Has anyone ever gotten fined for sailing their Laser to close to the (federally protected) seals?”, why yes, that would be Leo.
Seafood. In an abundance well-matched to Leo’s prodigious appetite (and yet he was always so fit – a big motor needs lots of fuel). Clamming, clamming, clamming. Mussels. Eel traps – not as bait, but for eating fried or smoked, both delicious Dutch treats (Leo & Ada immigrated to the USA in 1958, immediately after being married). Scup and flounder. And always the fallback of buying direct from the fishing boats as they came in and unloaded. Every year a Spring Fishing Weekend, a highly varied pursuit (and so, so many theories on when & how to best catch fish) directly or indirectly of fish … and increasingly in the later years, more and more glorious naps in the Outer Beach dunes on sunny days. Occasionally Leo would permit eating seafood at favorites such as aforementioned Quintals, Sea In The Rough (“Sea In The Ruff Ruff Ruff” – haha), Mayo’s (and the memorable “whopper eyes” as his young son Arjen on his birthday looked in amazement at the heaping plates of food), and in his later years his all-time favorite Nickerson’s at the Fish Pier – fish & chips, chowder, lobster bisque, oh my!!
In sharing who Leo was in Chatham, hidden during his magical summers with all of you was his “day job”. Leo was “an engineer’s engineer” – the engineer other engineers sought out to solve intractable problems. His specialty was Testing & Measurement … literally OF ANYTHING. He often designed and built the tools necessary to then build THE tool to solve THE problem. Customers were a who’s who of government, defense, space, and private industry. There was also an eclectic list of small “customers”: the local bread maker who’s machines too old to have spare parts that he maintained; the man with a broken prosthetic; anyone with a compelling story who needed something fixed could readily catch Leo’s attention, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. When Leo rented your cottage, he would leave behind numerous repairs of chronic issues he encountered (and yes, he always traveled with a toolbox … or 2 or 3).
Seeing Leo, there could be no doubt he was from the sea / of the sea. His captain’s beard – forgot his electric razor one year, too thrifty to buy another one, the beard appeared and there it stayed. His colorful hand painted sun hat – Leo balding at an early age, always very (very!) mindful to keep top of his head shielded. Cycling to/from all over Chatham with a custom box on the rear of the bike – for Leo, truly, “cycling was life”, cycling into his 90’s. Clamming, clamming, clamming. Finding, untangling, then storing for future needs epic entangled piles of derelict fisherman’s rope found on the beach, some piles so big it could take many weeks to unsnarl. His yellow life jacket – safety first. On the day’s return sail from the outer beach, first on his Laser and then later the catboat, “racing” vs his (now grown) children’s sailboats back to the Causeway, with his hyper-competitive first mate Ada, affectionally recalling the ever scheming Boris & Natasha (from the comic Rocky and Bullwinkle). Every summer a “Big Sail”, usually to neighboring Harwich for lunch at Thompson’s, in later years lunch would have to be brought along, often ½ of his son’s  Chatham Bakery sandwich.
The significant others (Mark, Carrie, Gregg, Christia, Cathy – saints all) of Leo’s children and over time Leo’s grandchildren (George, Neil, Izzy, Ian, Sarah, Leana, Chris, Ian, Casey, Ella), and eventually great grandchildren (Maeve, Violet), came to learn some key Dutch phrases: “Handig is verstandig”, “Rustig is veilig”, “Stilte!“. Leo was an increasing paradox to younger children as he got older, a combination of (very) old-school strictness with increasing helpings of infinite patience & kindness. And always great fascination with what Leo was doing at the time, be it clamming, woodworking, engine repair, painting – Leo had a magical way of drawing children, family or otherwise, in.
From Leo, a heartfelt “Thank You” from the proverbial “other side” to Chatham for being so welcoming of he & family. Technically a tourist to the very end, truthfully Chatham was a bookend to his beloved Noordwijk in Holland from his youth, Leo an old salt from start to finish, his ashes will be laid to rest on both sides of the Atlantic. Fair winds and following seas to our beloved Leo.