refers to an unhappy marriage with a period of discontent. They had three children, about whom there is more below. Van integrated himself into Newport life over the years he lived there. He became a booster of Newport and (more broadly) New England. He is widely credited as coining the nickname "The Sunshine City" for the town, which it still uses, though that term may not refer, at least accurately, to the weather. And he was often referred to as the honorary mayor of the town (though wrongly sometimes called the actual mayor). A sketch of Van at the Newport Historical Society refers to him as a common and voluble presence at town meetings. One article states he had served as a justice of the peace in Newport. News clips from the time describe efforts of Van to promote the area based upon the fact that the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Sarah Josepha Hale, had lived nearby. Somehow this created controversy, which Van seems to have fueled. Local clips also show that he started a national group for needy children after World War I called the Children's Sunshine Dinner Club. The Newport Historical Society has some Van memorabilia. One object is a trunk with his name on it, usable for all of the travel the man took around the country (via train, one assumes). Business career The principal business venture of Van was the Pine Tree Products Co., a company which he set up in about 1922. It was incorporated in New York, but evidently the products were made in New Hampshire. The chief products were a soap and a bath oil. One writer said that he had experimented for 15 years until he came up with the formula for this soap, which was based on vegetable oil and was pine flavored. It was said in one article that he sold one million cakes in a year, and in another that it was used in the Palmer House in Chicago. In addition to the Palmer House, it was used at the upscale Hotel Fontenelle in Omaha, Nebraska. The Fontenelle was the flagship hotel of Gene Eppley's Eppley Hotel Company. The soap was also used at the twenty plus other hotels in the Eppley chain. Each of the small hotel bars of Pine Tree soap contained a coupon to send along with one dollar to Pine Tree Products