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Birth:          1 Jul 1911 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Notes
"No Rocking Chair for Me: Memoirs of a Vibrant Woman Still Seeking Adventure" 
which is her autobiography
called Faity (b/c of her brother calling her WIfey and her sister not being able to 
pronounce it)
talks about the house at 277 Henry St. (see obit of Lydia Maule Kelsey). It was a five 
story brownstone.Later they converted it into 14 apts to generate income, and they 
moved to 64 E 86 in NYC
was actress and model. was in The Petrified Forest (1935), Straw Hat on Broadway
her best friend as a child was Ethel Colt, dtr of Ethel Barrymore
her French tutor was Madame Borglum, widow of Solon Borglum, whose brother was 
the sculptor who designed Mt Rushmore
http://www.womanaroundtown.com/locations/new-york/esther-faity-tuttle-still-no-
rocking-chair-for-her
Esther “Faity” Tuttle–Still No Rocking Chair For Her
Monday, October 25th, 2010
by Merry Sheils on Woman Around Town

by Merry Sheils
 
If ever there were a lady who personifies a Woman Around Town, Esther Leeming 
Tuttle (Faity, to her friends) does.  For starters, she’s been here longer than any of 
us–99 years and counting.  (Full disclosure: I was among the guests gathered to fete 
her in July to celebrate her 99th, and I expect to be among that same crowd when she 
turns 100 this year).

Profiled in Jane Brody’s column in the New York Times last week, an upstate paper 
the week before, it seems the city’s abuzz with Faity. Two weeks ago she was 
honored for her 50 years of service to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The day of our 
interview, she had just been honored by another group. And who among us can boast 
of starting another career at the age of 95? Only Faity.

We met for coffee at her penthouse apartment, beautifully appointed and in vibrant 
colors. Family photos abound, as well they should, with 21 great grandchildren to brag 
about.

Born in Connecticut into a life of comfort, just 11 years later she was an orphan. On 
her own at the tender age of 18, she came to the city to seek her fortune in theatre. 
The Great Depression was on, and times were tough. Very much like now. Faity’s 
lessons on frugality and resourcefulness helped her survive then, and her pearls of 
wisdom are just as true now as then.

“The thing I most remember about the Depression was how city wide it was. I’d see 
men in Brooks Brothers overcoats standing in bread lines on every street corner. You 
could get a free cup of coffee or an apple. Times were tough, and everyone suffered,” 
she recalls. Sound familiar? “But, we survived. We had to.” Lesson learned: 
indomitable spirit.

Esther Leeming Tuttle (Faity to her friends) came to NYC fresh from boarding school in 
Warrenton, Virginia, where she began her life-long love of horses and became an 
accomplished rider.

Faity’s father, Woodruff Leeming, was a renowned architect who earned a graduate 
degree from the Ecole du Beaux-arts in Paris, where he befriended the equally 
renowned glass designer, Rene Lalique. A prominent plaque on the Henri Bendel 
building, finished in 1907, honors Woodruff Leeming for his design of the building and 
the Lalique windows, the first of their kind in the U.S. After serving in The Great War, 
he was stricken with and later died from tuberculosis, leaving her mother with three 
young children. Money was tight, and just a few years later, her mother died. While 
her aunt paid for their schooling, there was no money for college. All three siblings set 
out for New York City with nothing but determination.

The three shared a Greenwich Village apartment, and Faity learned to live on a dollar 
a day. “Back then, transportation was ten cents, the New York Times was three cents, 
and an automat breakfast of a muffin, juice and coffee was just fifteen cents. Lunch 
was just slightly more, and a Chinese dinner was a splurge at 50 cents. You could 
survive.” It may take a bit more today, but one can forego Starbucks and buy coffee 
from the umbrella man.

Determined to become an actress, Faity needed a job to pay the rent, and she quickly 
was hired by Macy’s at a salary of $22 a week that included a 20 percent discount on 
clothes and shoes. Not bad for an 18-year old.

As the Depression deepened, it soon became impossible for most people to find any 
job—but her Macy’s experience kept Faity employed at other department stores while 
the economy ravaged. When Roosevelt was elected, his version of “quantitative 
easing” resulted in the WPA, and Faity got her break when the WPA hired her in 
Bridgeport, at $99.44 a month (ditch diggers earned the same). She lived in a fleabag 
hotel for just $12. But, she was making a living as an actress, and she co-starred in 
productions with Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard.

Then life intervened. In 1939, she met Ben Tuttle at a dinner party and he was 
smitten. She was more cautious. “I was used to theatre types—Ben was an intellectual 
and a businessman. I took my time to make up my mind to marry him.” She and Ben 
were married for 47 years and raised 3 children in a beautiful Georgian house in the 
Park Slope section of Brooklyn. And she finally got her own horse. In the early 1950s, 
they bought 100 acres in Columbia County for just $3,000. The old farm house had no 
plumbing nor electricity until Roosevelt’s REA wired rural America. She taught her 
children to ride, and her sons and late daughter’s family all have houses (with both 
plumbing and electricity) on the family property. Sadly, her only daughter Honor died at 
the age of 38 from cancer. “That was the saddest time of my life,” she says softly, with 
the pain only a parent knows.

How did this Connecticut Yankee manage all of these 99 years? “Ben was a Yankee, 
too. We were frugal. To this day, I turn off the lights when I leave a room. I never ride 
if I can walk, and I never take a taxi. I took the subway until a few years ago, when I 
fell. Now I take the bus. All those years of going to auditions, I walked or took the 
subway. If I got the job, I treated myself to a taxi. But only if I got the job.”

Although busy volunteering for causes she holds dear, at the age of 95 she became a 
successful granny model, and her face adorned buses all over the city. She also wrote 
her memoirs, entitled, “No Rocking Chair for Me”. She keeps a bulging, worn leather 
binder full of photos and other memorabilia just steps from her chair (and it’s not a 
rocker).

What wisdom does she have for us? “First, take care of your health. Your body is an 
instrument, my acting teacher told me when I first started out.” She’s up at 6:00 am for 
an hour of Yoga, then a 30-minute walk, a practice she’s followed since 1950. She is 
meticulous about her diet – oatmeal and juice for breakfast, meat sandwich and fruit 
for lunch; lamb chops or beef for dinner, with vegetables and a tiny serving of 
potatoes. Always fruit for dessert. She has a martini every night at 6, and the twinkle 
in her eye suggests she enjoys every drop. She’s entitled.

Plans for the future? “I don’t make too many plans, except to spend as much time as I 
can with my 21 great grandchildren. I want to be helpful to them, to see that they get 
to have a great life and experience the wonderful things I got to do.”

Woman Around Town’s Six Questions

Favorite Place to Dine: The Cosmopolitan Club
Favorite Place to Shop: Bloomingdale’s because it’s close
Favorite New York Moment: The Metropolitan Opera just as the curtain goes up
Favorite New York Sight: Sunset in Central Park looking south towards the lights of 
the Plaza Hotel Circle
What You Love About New York: Excitement engendered by people on the street
What You Hate About New York: Noise; Getting stuck in traffic



Parents
LEEMING Woodruff (14 Jul 1870 - 20 Nov 1919)
HOWARD Esther (18 Jan 1877 - Jun 1923)

Siblings
LEEMING Honor (18 Dec 1901 - 3 Apr 1997)
LEEMING Edward Howard ("Monk") (2 Feb 1908 - Apr 1981)
LEEMING Elizabeth Lonsdale ("Lee") (1910 - 17 Jan 1962)
LEEMING Esther Woodruff (1 Jul 1911 - )

Marriage To TUTTLE Franklin Benjamin ("Ben") (6 Sep 1901 - 29 Sep 1987)
    m. 1940 

Notes

Parents
TUTTLE Frank James ()
WORRALL Mary ()

Children by TUTTLE Franklin Benjamin ("Ben") 6 Sep 1901 - 29 Sep 1987
TUTTLE Frank James ("Jimmy") ()
TUTTLE Woodruff Leeming ("Teddy") ()
TUTTLE Mary Worrall ("Missy") (28 Mar 1945 - 25 Dec 1983)

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