Addie Slaughter Greene
Addie Slaughter Greene, the only child of Emily Huntington Hamilton Greene and John Slaughter Greene, was born in Santa Barbara, California. She was named after her grandmother, Addie Slaughter, the daughter of Arizona cattleman and Tombstone Sheriff John Slaughter.
Greene was a writer all her life. She published three novels—You’ll Never Make the Grade, Dear, The Eagle Rises, and Saving Ben—and a memoir, How the Winds Laughed, about sailing around the world in a 28-foot boat. She also wrote three screenplays, poetry, numerous short stories, and political essays.
She began her career, a week before graduating from Pomona College, as the first copy girl to serve in the Los Angeles Times newsroom since World War II. She was promoted to the copy desk a year and a half later and served as a copy editor on the Times, The Columbus Ledger, The Japan Times (Tokyo), The South Bay Daily Breeze, and The Santa Barbara News-Press from 1965-1975.
Greene married Peter Eastman in 1964 and was prepared to support him through the rest of his undergraduate work and medical school. However, he didn’t get in to medical school and decided it would be a better thing to sail around the world. Greene, who had no sailing experience, agreed to try it out, so they bought a wooden racing boat called the Mistress.
In the buildup of American forces in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Eastman was called for his physical. They both figured he would be 4-F because his eyesight was 20-300+. They were wrong. He joined the Army in February of 1966, and in August Greene followed him to Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia. He was assigned to Vietnam in February of 1968, put in charge of editing a magazine printed in Tokyo, and Greene followed him to Japan.
Free of the Army in January of 1969, they joined forces with another couple, Jeff Bruce and Mickie Rogers, and bought a 34-foot Atkin ketch called the Sea Witch. They set sail in July for the Marquesas Island, Tahiti, and American Samoa, where, unable to get along with friends they thought they knew well, Greene and Eastman returned to the States penniless (Bruce and Rogers couldn’t afford to buy them out) and resolved to try again. That summer of 1970 they bought Wa, a Swedish-built P-28. They set sail the following January and completed their circumnavigation in August of 1973.
Eastman went to law school, and Greene went back to work at The Santa Barbara News-Press. In 1975 she bore their first child, Addie Susan, and in 1976 their second, Peter John. In 1977 Eastman left for greener pastures, and they divorced in 1979.
During his senior year in high school, Peter John changed his name to Trout Fishing In America.
Unable to get back to her profession after being out of the work force for six years, Greene went to Santa Barbara City College and got an A.S. degree in computer science. After a brief stint doing PR for Hughes Helicopters in Los Angeles, she spent the remainder of her career working for Mission Linen Supply as a systems analyst/programmer/tech writer/trainer, retiring in 2000 after moving to Ashland.
She went back to her first love, writing fiction, and joined the Talent Writers critique group in 2006. She also was an avid bridge player, having attained the rank of Silver Life Master ¼ or ½ a master point at a time.
Greene was a long-distance runner for 26 years, completing six marathons and numerous 10K and other races. She practiced yoga for more than 20 years. She also was a member of the Santa Barbara Choral Society for 22 years, performing masses by Brahms, Durufle, Faure, Mozart, and Verdi, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Greene is survived by her daughter, Addie, her son in law Kevin, her son, Trout, and Max the chocolate lab.
And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea.