The Life of Leonard
Ask Sylvia Bogley Bigger or Fran “Junior” Magassy for their earliest memories of Leonard, and instead of an answer you will get a slightly perplexed look. It is the same look that you would have if you had asked someone to share her earliest memory of a parent. Earliest memory? Impossible. Like a mother or a father, Leonard has just always been there. They have never known life without him.
For those who were new to Potomac, Leonard and his famed uncle, Johnny Jackson, were the key to being accepted into the Potomac social circle. “I knew,” explains Jt.-MFH Vicki Crawford, “that when I moved to Potomac in 1960, and I joined the hunt, if I wanted to make any friends I had to make sure that Johnny and Leonard liked me. I spent my fi rst entire party getting to know them, not the guests! If they didn’t like you, you could forget it. Little did I know, it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.”
Who were Johnny Jackson and Leonard Proctor, these gatekeepers of society? They were the bartenders. But Johnny and Leonard were not “just” bartenders; they were Potomac’s social arbiters.
The Home Place
Like others in his family in the 1930s and 1940s, Leonard lived some of the time at “The Home Place,” the family’s settlement of homes off River Road, and the rest of the time in Washington, where his family worked in the households of the Washington establishment, many of whom belonged to the Washington Riding and Hunt Club at 22nd and P Streets. As Washingtonians began to move out to Potomac, it opened up job
opportunities closer to “The Home Place.” In 1945, Uncle Johnny Jackson got 15-year-old Leonard Proctor a job exercising horses, and in 1947 Leonard hunted for the fi rst time. And that was that. He liked this work!
While they were settling Potomac and building farms, the local landowners likewise began forming the nucleus of the Potomac Hunt at the farm of General Semmes on Glen Road. Also at that time, a farmer’s pack of hounds was established at Charlie Carrico’s Bradley Farm (near the intersection of River Road and Bradley Boulevard). In
1945, the year Leonard learned how to ride, the Potomac Hunt came into its own, establishing a clubhouse and kennels on Glen Road in Travilah, eventually absorbing the remains of the old Washington Riding & Hunt Club. Throughout the memoirs of these families can be found the members of Johnny and Leonard’s families. The lives of the Jackson family are woven through the lives of the founding families of the Potomac hunt…whenever a memoir is written, a Jackson is mentioned. While Johnny worked primarily in those days for the Kay family (it is he who dubbed Fran “Junior” when she was just a tot), Leonard worked for a variety of families, including the Bogleys. When Sylvia started hunting as a little girl, Leonard was the one she remembers as always being there, making her feel safe. As the club grew, so did Leonard’s involvement. He moved out from under his uncle’s wing, and began riding horses—and
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www.equiery.com | 800-244-9580 DECEMBER 2012 | THE EQUIERY | 35
Celebrating 65 years following the Potomac Hounds
He has just always been there. Their rock. Their ship’s ballast. Their confi dant. Their confessor. For certain ladies of the Potomac Hunt, Leonard Proctor is not just another member of the hunt fi eld, he is a member of their family. For some of the Potomac women, the families who helped found and shape the Potomac Hunt Club, Leonard has been a part of their lives since they were born.
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