Port Jefferson park's renaming honors community icons

For more than 40 years, Pete Heywood, of Port Jefferson, had been unable to shake the memory of seeing a sign bearing his family name hanging forlornly at a village park.

The sign was erected in the 1970s when the park on Caroline Avenue was named for his parents, Harry and Lois Heywood, who had gifted the land to the village. Instead of reporting what he had seen, Pete Heywood tried forgetting about it.

He couldn't.

“I felt bad about it and I told my daughter," Heywood, 85, said in a phone interview last week. "I felt really bad about the sign falling down and I didn’t pull over. It stayed on her mind and my mind.”

Flash forward 40-plus years: A new sign honoring the Heywood family stands at the park, thanks to a chance meeting last fall.

The park was rededicated on May 3 as "Joe Erland Field at Heywood Park." The new name refers to the Heywood family and to Erland, an avid softball player who served as a village trustee and fire commissioner before his death in 2012.

"I cannot begin to adequately express the meaning of this rededication to the Heywood family and to the Erland family," Mayor Lauren Sheprow said in a statement.

A park's origins

Harry Heywood, a developer, gained prominence in the village during the Cold War 1950s when he led construction of a 40-foot tower, from which volunteers monitored air traffic to guard against enemy attack. The volunteers were instructed to call a government command center when they saw aircraft of any kind, said Pete Heywood, who as a child was among the volunteers.

“Every plane they saw they had to report, whether it was suspicious or not," Randi Heywood French, Pete Heywood's daughter, said in an interview.

After the war, Harry Heywood finished building Suassa Park, a residential neighborhood in the village. He donated some excess land to the village for a park, which later was named for the family.

Why and how the original Heywood Park sign disappeared is a mystery. Sheprow said removing the name was a "historical misstep."

Things changed last fall when Pete Heywood — a retired rock drummer whose Greenwich Village quintet, The Fifth Avenue Band, released an album in the 1960s before breaking up — fell into a conversation with a neighbor, April Quiggle, during a walk around the neighborhood.

Heywood mentioned the missing sign and Quiggle sprung into action.

“He felt bad that there was no recognition for his family," Quiggle told Newsday.

By coincidence, Quiggle's mother, the late Paula Campbell, had been a kindergarten student of Lois Heywood, Pete's mother. Quiggle also was a childhood friend of Sheprow.

She called the mayor and related Pete Heywood's story. Within months, village officials arranged for the park rededication.

Kinship among families

The park renaming came with the approval of the Erland family.

Joe Erland, a Long Island Rail Road engineer, was a village trustee from 2006 to 2012, the last two years also serving as deputy mayor, said his son, Steve Erland.

Village officials named the softball diamond Joe Erland Field in 2013, a year after he died at age 56.

“He played on that field since he was 17 in village leagues,” Steve Erland, 42, who lives in Port Jefferson, said.

The Erland and Heywood families have a kinship from the park named jointly for their family members.

“The Heywoods are an old-time family in the village. It was really great sharing the honor with them,” Steve Erland said.

Heywood French, 59, of Patchogue, said her family was "thrilled" with the arrangement.

"It’s been, I guess, over 40 years since I saw the sign saying Heywood Park," she said. "To see it restored, it’s just such an honor that the village decided to do that.”

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.