Harvard lawyer with an international reputation pays tribute to his mother.
Paul C. Whipp (1882-1966)
The sandy-haired young man paced back and forth in his dorm room. He checked and rechecked the time on his gold pocket watch. He checked and rechecked his appearance in the mirror above the bureau. The long-awaited Parlor Night had finally arrived. It was the one night each month when a large, brightly lit room of the Western Maryland College library was declared neutral territory. There, students of both sexes could come together and get acquainted.
The occasion was anything but casual. Western Maryland at the turn of the century was a co-educational institution, but its rules were so austere that young men and women in the same class were seated on opposite sides of the classroom. And—except on Parlor Nights—they were forbidden to socialize on campus.
Paul Whipp checked the face on his watch and the face in the mirror one last time, then strode off toward the library. A methodical person, he had rehearsed the conversational gambit he intended to follow so no time would be wasted. His target for the evening: a bright-eyed young woman named Mary who had caught his eye. They were in many of the same classes, and, although the classroom arrangement and strict campus regulations kept them apart, Paul already knew a great deal about Mary. He was certain, for example, that she was the smartest girl in the class, always well prepared with a quick, well-thought-out reply when the professor called on her. She was demure and ladylike, too. When, as seemed to happen frequently, she caught Paul looking at her from across the classroom, she blushed and lowered her eyes.
Paul Culler Whipp was born January 28, 1882, in Jefferson, Maryland, a town not far from Frederick. (Originally the family name of Whip was spelled with a single p; Paul added a second p and spelled it Whipp.) He was the eldest of three children. Next came his sister, Ethel, then a brother, George William Preston, whom the family called Pres. While Pres was still a baby, the children’s father died. The baby was sent to live with his grandparents, and Paul and Ethel stayed with their mother. Although they saw their younger brother often, Paul and Ethel, who were only two years apart, were especially close. The bond they established during their growing-up years endured throughout their lives.
In 1900, Paul graduated from high school and entered Western Maryland College in Westminster. He enrolled in the historical curriculum, which would prepare him to study law. Although he was a quiet, unassuming young man, professors as well as fellow students, including Mary, recognized he was one of the best scholars in the class. The yearbook referred to Paul as “perhaps the ablest man among us.”
After the two “best students” finally became acquainted one Parlor Night, they soon found ways to spend much of their free time together. However, Paul had many other interests besides Mary. He won recognition as an outstanding orator in the college debating society. His flair for writing earned him distinction as class poet, editor-in-chief of the college monthly, and editor of the yearbook. Somehow, he found time to serve as football manager. And his classmates thought highly enough of him to elect him president of the Class of 1904.
Everybody seemed to know how much Paul and Mary cared about each other (the yearbook teased that Paul’s favorite pastime was “smiling, especially at Mary”). Yet suddenly the romance was over and no one knew why. Paul was so taciturn he could not bring himself to talk about what happened. Instead, he spent still more time buried in his studies, relaxing only with solitary drives into the country. “All one ever saw him do was work, work, work,” one classmate recalled.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904, Paul taught public school for two years in Middletown, Maryland, only a few miles from his hometown. Then, in 1906, he went away to Harvard Law School and graduated three years later.
After Harvard, Paul immediately moved to New York, where he and a partner established a law practice. A quiet man, Paul possessed first-rate intelligence and an enormous capacity for work. Colleagues and adversaries alike admired his thorough preparation and monumental knowledge of the law. He had an uncanny ability to anticipate surprise moves by the opposition. In fact, clients who knew him as quiet and subdued in ordinary conversation were startled by his superb oratorical abilities before the court. He was noted for his effective negotiations to settle controversial matters and avoid litigation.
Because of his extraordinary talents, Paul Whipp soon earned an international reputation as a fine general practitioner of law. Most of his work was in corporate, commercial and estate law. During the 1930s and early 1940s, he spent most of his time representing the surviving directors of a Russian fire insurance company. Although the firm had been liquidated by the Communists after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, substantial assets were on deposit with the New York State superintendent of insurance. The litigation involving these assets continued for a number of years and was complicated by the United States’ recognition of the USSR, which claimed the assets, but ultimately Paul Whipp’s firm was successful.
Paul’s career spanned nearly half a century, covering two World Wars and a Great Depression. As the years passed, the name of Paul Whipp’s firm changed several times as partnerships were formed and dissolved, but the firm bearing his name was always among the most prestigious.
Soon after he had established himself professionally in Manhattan, his mother and sister sold the family home in Maryland and, at his insistence, joined him in New York. He made a comfortable home on the Upper West Side for Ethel and Letitia Whip (who continued to spell her last name with a single p, as did her younger son, after Paul and Ethel changed theirs). Eventually he bought a small cottage in the Adirondacks, where they frequently spent weekends. When Paul’s international cases involved trips to Europe, Ethel and Letitia often went along.
Paul never married. Some thought he remained a bachelor because he never again met a girl he thought as much of as his college sweetheart, Mary. Instead of marriage and a family of his own, he devoted his life to his profession and to caring for his mother and sister. And he kept in frequent contact with his younger brother, Pres, who became a lawyer in Baltimore and specialized in admiralty law.
Paul Whipp was always active with his college alumni association, and at the 1954 commencement exercises, on the 50th anniversary of his graduation from Western Maryland—renamed McDaniel College in 2002—his alma mater celebrated the event by conferring on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
Two years later, Paul Whipp retired from his law practice. For a while, he and Ethel continued to live in their New York apartment, staying involved in the neighborhood Lutheran church they had been members of for years. But Paul and Ethel were, by then, well into their 70s, and longed for a quieter life than they could find in bustling Manhattan. In 1959, they bought a modest house in West Hempstead, Long Island, and moved to the suburbs.
The years passed quietly. Ethel developed glaucoma, and, as her eyesight steadily worsened, she was less able to get about. Although failing health kept him from the rigorous “work, work, work” philosophy that had guided his life, Paul stayed busy. He rediscovered gardening, which he had not attempted since boyhood, and he puttered contentedly in their small yard. He liked to walk the quiet, tree-lined streets, greeting his neighbors with a nod and a few friendly words.
Then, inevitably, time and ill health overtook him. In December 1965, Paul and Ethel journeyed to Hollywood, Florida, hoping the mild winter there would restore some of their health and vigor. On January 28, Paul observed his 84th birthday. Soon after that, his condition worsened, and, when pneumonia developed, he was taken to the hospital. Paul C. Whipp died quietly there on February 25, 1966, his sister by his side.
Ethel Whipp, lonely and heartbroken, returned to their home in West Hempstead, but she no longer was able to live alone. She soon moved into a quiet residential hotel in East Orange, New Jersey, where she lived for six more years. She died on August 4, 1972, at age 86.
Paul Whipp had lived a conservative, productive life. He was always conscious of the needs of others, and he wanted this caring to continue. As a tribute to his mother, Paul established the Letitia M. Whip Memorial Fund for the welfare of children and older adults who may be in need of assistance.