Arizona State University



Growing Up at Lake Oscawana

One of my very earliest recollections is of a drive from Yonkers to Lake Oscawana in the spring. The question of when it would be wise to venture to make the drive was much discussed. And the problem was simplicity itself. The road out from Oregon Corners was unpaved. On this occasion, we got a bit beyond Gilbert Lane and the car started to get stuck in the mud. My father and my uncle Wistar struggled to put chains on so that we might proceed. I suppose I remember that trip because -- as I was much later to discover -- putting chains on a car is never easy in the best of circumstances. I suspect my vocabulary was enriched that morning. But in due course, my mother, aunt Etta and cousin June made it to the cottage. It was possible in those days to get to Wildwood Knolls in the winter, provided there was no snow, but in the springtime the Oscawana Lake Road was a menace.

I was born in 1926 and spent (or so I was told) that summer at the Lake. A family connection with the Lake ran back to the 1870s. My grandmother, as a young woman, visited the old Lake House several summers. She took the train to Peekskill and a carriage the rest of the way. She spoke so enthusiastically about the beauty of the Lake that when my father bought a motorcycle before World War I, he set out to discover the Lake. With my mother in the sidecar, they got to the Lake by way of Tinker Hill. He was, or so a local farmer told him, the first person ever to ascend Tinker Hill in a vehicle driven by an internal combustion engine. In due course, they found their way not only to the Lake House but also to Abele's. In those days, Charlie Abele had various facilities in the area now known as Abele Park. In later years he moved to central Florida where I recall, in the mid-30s, we visited him.

My parents bought their cottage in Wildwood Knolls in 1923. The area was under development by F.K. James and properties had gone on the market only a year or so before. Our house originally stood on the point of land slightly to the northwest of the present community dock. "F.K." was something of a character. He had been a successful businessman in Peekskill and then had turned to real estate. His two developments were Hill Top Estates and Wildwood Knolls. He had moved what was to be our house because he wanted to be able to sell as many fifteen foot dock rights as he could, and letting houses stand between the road and the lake would reduce the lake frontage available for docks. Very early on my parents had a well dug in front of the house both for convenience and because the spring (not far from the pump house that used to supply lake water to the water system) had been fouled by a neighbor (Henderson) who used a kerosene covered bucket in which to draw water. The well was simply a hole dug (or blasted) to about 12 feet in front of the house. Ceramic pipes about 30 inches in diameter constituted the actual well. My uncle Howard did the masonry that is still there. The well generally went dry by the middle of August and I generally climbed down into it on a ladder and cleaned out the leaves and gunk that had collected. On several occasions, my father lowered the vacuum cleaner on a rope and I really cleaned the well! When I was small it was an easy enough task and I was always impressed at how strange the world looked from the bottom.

"F.K." had a large home at the very southernmost part of the Lake. When he died, he left his estate to his housekeeper, June Webber. The Peekskill relatives, sought to break the will on the ground that "F.K" had been senile at the time he drafted the will. My father was called to testify in the case because shortly before he died, "F.K." drove over to our house to talk with my Dad. It was the usual thing, a mixture of social matters and business. He liked to keep in touch with the locals and he liked to save money. But when the conversation was over, he became a bit addled and asked Dad to drive him home. In the court hearings, the fact that "F.K." had driven himself over to our house suggested that he was of sound mind. My father simply answered the questions put to him, and the lawyer never asked about "F.K.'s" return trip. June Webber won and the Wildwood Knolls area fell under her jurisdiction. That was undoubtedly preferable to what would have happened had half a dozen cousins taken over the properties, but over the years June Webber became a problem all by herself. After the war, she gave people lake rights improperly, and she caused many problems over the water system. Because of her threats to close down the water system, the Wildwood Knolls Community Association was formed and my father was its first president. He was personally obliged to collect water fees for a year or two in order to keep the service going. After what seemed like interminable negotiations with June Webber, Improvement and Park Districts were formed to purchase her Wildwood Knolls properties, including the water system. Al Kerner, Mr. Sperling and Mr. Smith all helped provide legal assistance in these matters to the fledgling association.

Life was fairly primitive in those days. Each morning, my mother and aunt rowed across the cove to Durl Spock's (sp?) to buy a chunk of ice, some kerosene, and some milk. The ice house (a bit to the southeast of Perry's, held ice which had been cut during the winter, and stacked with an ample supply of saw dust. Cooking was done on a kerosene stove. It was a four burner "Perfection" model. Wicks had to be tended and the gallon containers filled regularly, a task which fell to me as soon as I was old enough to handle the glass containers. The kerosene supply was by then kept in a steel drum in our old garage. There were also two ovens for the stove. One could be placed over a single burner, the other was a double. My mother baked marvelous cakes and my aunt was a specialist in pies. Huckleberries were readily available around the Lake in those days and they made superb pies. I don't think we had gas installed until after WW II. On one occasion, I had been told to light the stove under the kettle. I did that, but I didn't monitor the flame and it soon began to smoke. In about fifteen minutes there was kerosene soot over every curtain and drape. Everything had to be washed. My name, as we used to say, was mud for a week or so!

Light was provided by a number of oil lamps and candles. Occasionally, a gas light was also set out. This was a more tricky business. We had two of them. They required white (i.e. unleaded) gas and the each had two gauze-like mantles into which the air-gas mixture sprayed and was lighted. First the tank had to be pumped until the proper air pressure had been reached -- probably based on a certain number of strokes of the air pump. Then, I believe, one heated (with a match) the two turns of wound tubing that fed the gas from the tank to the mantles. Then one lit the mantles. These lamps emitted a garish white light and made a hissing noise. Perhaps because everyone was just a bit anxious about having gasoline under pressure in the house, or because the hiss was a distraction, or because using these lamps was such a production, these lamps never encouraged one to engage in a relaxed evening of reading. The mantles, although in theory re-usable, became extraordinarily fragile once they had been used. If touched, they turned to powder.

Wicks on kerosene lamps also had to be trimmed regularly to minimize smoking. There was a special trimmer for the circular stove wicks. Lamp wicks were trimmed with a razor blade. Lamp chimneys were washed frequently and dried with newspaper to minimize soap residues. (Those were pre-paper towel and pre-detergent days!) Each stove burner had a small door through which one lighted the circular wick. The door was divided into four small panels and into each panel was fitted a piece of isinglass (a clear piece of mica). These needed to be replaced occasionally.

When the winter had been cold enough to produce ice on the Lake and there was not much snow, we would occasionally drive up to go skating, I think usually in our Packard although possibly also in aunt Etta and uncle Wistar's lovely old Chevrolet, vintage about 1928. Uncle Wistar was a good skater and I think June was too. But despite the little whale-bone braces one put on before tying on the skates, my ankles quickly gave out and I would retire. I recall that my feet always got terribly cold and I remember quietly weeping as the circulation came back in them. Since cars didn't have heaters in those days and we didn't open up the house, warming one's feet meant stopping at Spruce Hill Inn and hobbling to the large steel grate in the center of the floor. Through this grate came the hot air which heated the room -- and my feet. I don't know what sorts of skates hockey players used then, but I certainly admired the well-braced skates which my son Tim later had. I think I would have been a much better skater had they been available in my own childhood. At least I like to think so!

In the years before my father commuted to New York via Peekskill during the summer, there were a few local sources of food. Twice (or was it once?) a week a vegetable man came by with his truck. He was an Italian and his vegetables were, my mother always claimed, the finest. Best of all, he always had whatever fruit was in season. His corn, plums, beans, tomatoes, and berries were superb. There was another vegetable truck but my mother liked neither him nor his wares. After the war, Joe (I think that was his name) retired and his son, Sam continued the tradition for a few years. By then the automobile was back and the vegetable truck became a thing of the past and I know my mother really missed both Joe and Sam.

I think there was also a butcher with whom one could make an arrangement to stop by with whatever cuts one had ordered. But I don't recall my mother using that service except rarely. Dugan's bakery truck also came through regularly and we sometimes bought bread from it. There was also a small store off the Dunderberg Road. It was run by Mr. Lawson. He owned a house in that string of houses just north of Lost River which was, in those days, accessible only by boat. Lawson's store sold gas, bread, milk, and staples. He had a large dock area and people who lived in homes which could only be reached by boat had an arrangement either with him or with Perry to tie up their boats. Building materials and other heavy loads were carried over the ice during the winter. Lawson also fancied himself a land developer and the area around his store was (is) called Noswal Park (reversing the letters in his name). We didn't buy much from him. The bread was usually stale and his prices were high.

Three or four houses north of Lawson's home was Christy Walsh's house. He was manager of the Yankees and Babe Ruth was an occasional visitor. Since they had to park their cars at Lawson's Store, it is not surprising that Ruth was finagled into batting balls to local starry eyed kids. There was a good sized field at the point where the Dunderberg Road veers away from Lawson's Store and heads off towards Dunderberg Island.

The only other store in the area, except for a mini-store in the Knolls located in what was to be the Dolid [Neumann] house, (it lasted only one summer), was Alice Hollbrow's (sp?). This was a general store on that triangle of land now used for parking by patrons of Santos'. She lived in the old house just to the north on the Oscawana Lake Road. Her house still stands; the store is gone. She sold all sorts of things in her tiny store -- and that was where one went for newspapers, milk, candy, and canned goods. Her co-worker was Willy Post. He seemed to pronounce his name "Wooly" and people would try to arrange a purchase so that he would have to say "foive cents puleez". Since the Sunday Daily News was, I think, only foive cents in those days, the dialectologists did not have to look far to find something to buy. June and I thought he sounded like Edgar Bergen's Mortimer Snerd. But however strange his accent, he was a delightful character and the atmosphere in the store always pleasant.

At some point, Miss Hollbrow sold or rented the store to Jack Taibi. It became a more efficient operation in his hands. After the war, he built a larger store at the corner of Sunset Hill Road -- now occupied by the Putnam Valley Market. Once a week I guess my mother had to be driven to Peekskill to shop, especially for meat, but I don't recall that. During the war years, when meat was in short supply, Mr. Kramer, of Kramer's pond road, delivered eggs and chickens from his farm. Across the road from Hollbrow's was Mrs. Bergmann's store. That eventually became Santos'.

Since we didn't have electricity for many years, and didn't have a refrigerator for a couple of years after that, food was kept "cold" in the huge wooden icebox still situated on the porch. It required a 100 pound chunk of ice every couple of days. The ice man was Mr. Blanchard. He was even then a fairly old man, tall but very slender, and of a wiry build. He would chip off the block of ice, put it in a burlap sling, and carry it to the house. During this operation, my mother agonized every second -- sure that he would fall and hurt himself. But he always made it up the back steps, through the kitchen, and then slipped the block into the ice compartment of the huge ice box (which Elly has restored and is still on the porch). Then he would sit down to catch his breath and talk over affairs of state with my mother. He also delivered milk from Emmadine dairies. Their bottles had a bulbish top in which the separated cream remained and they provided a special ladle to spoon it out. Such luxuries ended with homogenized milk. Mr. Blanchard also carried a few containers of kerosene to keep a few of his customers supplied. Gradually, Mr. Blanchard's son, Tommy took over the business. I recall that on more than one occasion he ran out of gas with his little pick-up which transported ice, milk, etc. He then poured a couple of gallons of kerosene in the tank and proceeded on his way. The procedure worked because the engine was hot and the engine kept functioning (and smelling!) until he could get to a gas station. After the war, he became our postman for many years. We were originally on RFD 2, Peekskill. Putnam Valley did not have a post office except for the one in the store at Tompkin's Corners. All postal deliveries were via Peekskill. There was delivery in the Knolls only during the summer months. For year 'round delivery, one had to place one's mail box on the Oscawana Lake Road.

In about 1940, family friends, the St. Johns, gave us their old G.E. refrigerator. It too was consigned to the porch -- opposite where the old ice box now stands. It was very large for those times with a huge cooling coil on top. Years later, long after the war, it finally died a natural death. George Kaufer took it apart so that its disposal would be manageable and he salvaged the large sheets of two inch thick cork, some of which are still around. They had provided insulation. The refrigerator also functioned as a way of getting to the attic. (The ladder was not installed until the early '60s.) One used a chair to get to the top of the refrigerator, then slid the attic door open, and then hoisted oneself into the attic. It was a veritable treasure trove of goodies, and on state occasions I would be lifted up and allowed an inspection. There was no floor -- one had to walk from joist to joist or balance on the old doors and boards which were meant to provide some footing. There were prehistoric radios with huge tubes and there were all sorts of ancient photographic equipment.

My father was a serious photographer and had, like Elly, a really good eye for composition. Very early on in his life he had a summer photo shop in Tannersville, NY. So the attic contained various trays and containers as well as glass negative plates for his 8" x 10" camera. He also had a 5" x 7" and I remember both in use. By then they had been converted from glass plates to film packs. The camera was placed on a heavy duty wooden tripod. Then, with a black cloth over both his head and the back of the camera, he adjusted the focus by examining the inverted image which was cast on ground glass. Once the camera was focused, the film pack was installed, the exposure was estimated, and a bulb attached to a long hose triggered (by air pressure) the shutter. Taking a picture was a real production. The lenses on these cameras were quite fast which meant they were huge. My recollection is that they were given, years later, to Mary Brown as lenses for her enlarger. One problem with these cameras was that their bellows were made of leather and as the leather deteriorated through age and use, pin-holes through which light could enter would appear -- and ruin the photo. I recall on one occasion discovering a gadget into which one could place a negative and a sheet of (what I think was called) proof paper. After a few minutes in the sun, a positive picture appeared in sepia color, on the paper. This technique allowed serious photographers to decide whether a negative produced a picture worth enlarging. I thought it was marvelous to see a picture suddenly appear on paper without any chemical intervention. There was still a pack or two of this paper in the attic, so I guess I used it until it was gone.

Film was very "slow" at that time and the flash bulb was not yet on the scene. But very occasionally, a picture was taken indoors. An explosive powder, "flash powder", was placed in a tray-like device, the camera was triggered with a long exposure, then the flash powder was fired -- with a poof and a puff of smoke! I guess there was a fuse similar to a firecracker fuse which ignited the powder. Such pictures were seldom taken not only because they were a lot of trouble but because the flash powder was a genuine explosive. Nevertheless, the system could produce surprisingly good pictures.

I recall only a few of our neighbors from the early 30s. Dr. Ernst had bought what later was the Robinson house, in 1922. He was a goatee-wearing dentist from Rye and I always recall him as a very old man -- which at first he probably wasn't. He had a steel-hulled "inboard" motor boat. Once or twice June and I were invited for a cruise. We had watched Dr Ernst set sail so we knew his routine. First he started the engine and let it warm up a bit. Then he cast off the lines with considerable formality. Finally he pushed the boat away from the dock with his boat hook. In fact, Mrs. Ernst probably worked with a second boat hook. As I later learned, the reason he set sail with such procedures was that his boat had only neutral and forward speeds. Reverse gear, he explained to me, was just a source of trouble. Once he set out on the Lake, the boat proceeded at slow speed. The little Austin engine which supplied the power ticked along. Whenever June and I saw him take the boat out, we always joked that Dr. Ernst was going for a submarine ride. Only once, many years later, did we discover that the boat could sweep over the waves in proper speed boat style -- but that time Dr. Ernst was not at the helm. The boat had been stolen.

Although most of the houses in the Knolls have been winterized over the years, the majority of the homes were already in place by the mid to late 30s. Here are a few of the names I remember: Miss Marshall lived in what is now the Wright house, the Aschenbrenners (sp?) in what was to become the Axinn (Sr) house, Miss Stavers in the Munro house, Miss Jones in what is now the Robles house, Mrs. Field in what was the Joseph house, the Johnsons in what was the Levy house, the Lambs (or was it Lambkin?) in what is now the Rodriguez house, the Marquardts in what is now the Wertners, the Fishers in what is now the Lefergy house, the Boos family in what is now the Zinn house, and the Hartfords in what is now the Schlager house. Mrs. Freuder was in, I believe, what is now the Lembo house and her son built the Hitchcock house. June's uncle Charlie (Riegelman) built a house on Evergreen, later the Sweet's and then the Farbers'. Miss Marshall, originally from Clayton, NY had been a teacher; Miss Stavers had been secretary to the governor of Vermont; Miss Jones had taught at the New York City school for the deaf. Mr. Lamb had been a senior engineer on the Holland Tunnel. I know the Kerners, Chachkes (then on Southern Road), Brodys, Frieds, and the Gutcheons were all well-settled in before the war but none of them were there when I was very small. The Prinz family had the house next to what is now Millers, but like a significant number of houses in the Knolls, it was primarily a "rental property", at least in the earlier years. What are now the Chachkes and Craft houses were owned by a "Mrs. James", a cousin of "F.K.'s", and they were strictly rentals.

The Hartfords (Schlager house) were also from Yonkers and were good friends. June and I called him uncle Ernest and her aunt Tilly. Saturdays, Ernest loved to drive to Peekskill "to shop". If he needed a pack of matches, he drove in. And since such exciting excursions seldom intrigued his wife or his children, June and I were often invited along. He was a great story-teller and perhaps that is why his own children avoided these trips. But he also always took us to a soda parlor. In later years, when I was away in the Navy and my cousin Tommy was staying at the Lake, he was invited along. On one return Tommy confided to my mother that he thought Uncle Ernest read the same joke books he did.

On Lake Front Road, south from what is now the Hoffmans, was Wissaic Lodge. This was a summer camp for young adults. They had a float for swimming, many canoes, a tennis court where what was the Bryant house stands, and a hand-ball court on top of the hill (more readily accessible from Mill Road). This was owned by the Weavers. They lived at the NE corner of Dunderberg and Lake Front. The Weavers had two children and in the years just before the war we became good friends. Doug still visits the Lake frequently during the summer months. Just after the war, he and his father cut the lodge in half. Those of the salvaged timbers which were still sound were used to help construct a house on the old tennis court.

Every weekend, at least when I was a small child, a broken down "dump" truck went back and forth between what we later called the "house on stilts", and a lot near Scheidts on Eastern Road. Paddy Ruddy used the lot as a source of fill (which he loaded by hand) and he carted it down to the lake to provide a "causeway" to his island. This took years of back-breaking work. When a truck finally collapsed, it too became part of the fill. I think he enjoyed the work and I don't think he lived long after the house was constructed. His nephew, Jimmy became a good friend when I was slightly older.

Another neighbor was Dr. Scofield. A physician from Woodside, his wife was known as Lottie and the house (now owned by Bill Moses), in acknowledgement of the many stairs up from Lake Front, was called "Lotta Steps". Dr. Scofield was a true "old-fashioned" physician. He always had his "black bag" with him not only at the Lake but when he was in his car. In those less litigatious days, a physician always helped out at accident scenes. People from all around the Lake came to him for serious cuts, wasp stings, etc. He didn't charge for such services. I was terribly allergic to poison ivy and I recall that he gave me several shots of a de-sensitising agent. Unlike allergy shots I had in adult life, those worked! The Scofields always had new cars. I remember that they once had an air-cooled Franklin. Their cars were always equipped with airhorns that blew three notes and they blew the horn as they crossed the brook near what is now Neumanns. Everyone understood the three notes to be sounding: "Scofields are coming."

Their daughter, Dorothy, now retired in Florida, was a children's librarian in New York. She introduced me to the Oz books -- for which I shall be eternally grateful. Both the Ernsts and the Scofields had electricity and telephones. The telephones were not very reliable, and one needed to crank a series of long or short rings on the magneto to make calls. We did not get electricity until the mid-30s and a telephone until about 1940. By then hand cranking was past but we shared with seven other subscribers.

Around the time electricity was installed, a small addition was made to the north side of the house -- namely, two bedrooms, one for my parents and one for me. In the process, the third bedroom (the guest room) was removed and the living room much enlarged. This meant that the fireplace no longer stood symmetrically at the north side of the living room. The carpenter was supposed to install a "nice" beam to support the attic now that the supporting wall had been removed, but he obviously found an old beam and worse, he failed properly to secure it. It was held up by two small nails. That is why uncle Wistar enclosed it with planks and rested the ends on proper struts. He also converted the ox-cart hub to a light and in blacksmith style, hammered a spring leaf into the ornament that rests above it. Not long after WW II, my bedroom in the "addition" was removed, making one large bedroom and space for a closet and shower.

The fireplace was built, I believe, by Roger Travis, using stones mostly from the property. There had never been a shortage of rocks! But it always smoked because there were ledges about two inches wide which trapped the smoke and directed it into the living room. That is why, in the early '60s I placed a row of fire brick on either side of the fireplace, thereby narrowing it but also correcting the problem -- although I have never gotten around to facing the bricks with stones. In the early days the chimney was not covered during the winter months. At least not until we arrived one cold winter's day and found the remains of a frozen squirrel and owl in the living room. They had fought until exhausted, knocking over lamps, but otherwise doing no damage to anyone but themselves. There were always mice in the house, field mice that sought refuge in cold weather. My father tacked wire screening under all chests of drawers and thereby sought to make stored sheets, towels, and blankets less accessible.

Sometime in the 30s, F.K. James installed a water "system". Basically he dammed up some springs and the little creek along Eastern Road across from and a bit upstream from Kaplans. Two large concrete walled and covered cisterns held the water and were dubbed the reservoirs. The pipes were laid on the surface and the system was strictly gravity-fed. The water was, I hasten to add, delicious. We had a cold water line to the kitchen sink, heated hot water on the stove, and until the late 30s, used an outhouse. Hot water and a shower came only when we got bottled gas after WW II.

All the roads in the Knolls were private. Title was held by "F.K." through his realty company and he was often to be seen driving through the Knolls, "checking up" and, on occasion, asking uninvited "outsiders" not to park near the community dock for picnics, swimming, etc. Initially the main access road was Mill Road. The entrance up from Dunderberg Road was cut through in the late 20s. Two large stone pillars were then placed to mark the entrance to Wildwood Knolls. The water system and the roads were maintained by F.K's employee, Arthur Barger. He was a great mountain of a man with a little squeaky voice. Tending the roads meant pulling an ancient road grader (intended to be pulled by a team of horses) behind an old Clak-Trac (or some such name) Caterpillar type small tractor. Other times, Arthur's tractor pulled a large flat bed wagon (with steel wheels) on those occasions when he had to move a bit of fill from one place to another. Arthur was a great friend. He would let us ride on the wagon and let us try to turn the adjustment wheels on the grader. Occasionally, we came with our little shovels and hoes and tried to help him. He acted as if he appreciated our company; we certainly appreciated his. He later owned what is now the Montcrief house and after the war worked for the town's highway department, sometimes serving as Superintendent.

Another great friend was Joe, the Lithuanian stone mason, who worked for Bill Minersman (now Turks') all through the depression years. All those stones which now grace the Turks' property were hand cut by Joe. He drilled the holes by hand, then inserted his splitters, then tapped them -- and lo and behold, the stones would split exactly as he wanted them to. He lived in a tar-paper house across from and a bit south of Santos store on the Oscawana Lake Road. And he got where he wanted to go on foot. Where he wanted to go was generally either Minersman's or a store to refurbish his beer supply. He claimed to be able to speak seven languages which suggests, correctly, that he was a good story teller. One fall day he walked by somewhat bandaged up. It seems he had received a shot from a shotgun. He said that someone had mistaken him for a squirrel.

On the path from the back door of the house up to the outhouse there was an interesting rock formation that June and I played house in. We were pretty small and the "house" had a crevice that served as the entranceway, and a larger cavity that we considered the interior of the house. The path from the front steps to the garage was well-used and not far from the garage, my uncle had installed a swing for June and me to play on. The area was quite clear and the ground ideal for playing cars. Sometimes we played with small cars and sometimes with my little 15" long dump truck. I don't know its genealogy, but it was a sturdy little truck with a little steering wheel that actually turned the front wheels. So one could hold the steering wheel and "drive" the truck. The dumping mechanism was no longer functional, but it was a favorite toy. It had solid wheels about three inches in diameter and a design which suggested that it was a Packard.

On occasional weekends, Bill Henderson's nephew, [Bratman house] Junior Homer, who was exactly my age, would be up and we became good friends. Henderson was not regarded as a good neighbor, was often suspected of filching our firewood, and throwing empty bottles over the rock towards us. His was a "rental property", but some of the renters bought their own places, e.g. the Kerners, Dolids, and Winegardens. During or just after the war he sold the house, much to our pleasure, to Ernst and Rosel Bamberger. The Laufkotters were quite often their guests and that is where Eva and I met.

I suppose I was about eight when I got a real truck, one with pedals and a dumper that one could really dump. It served me very well and when I grew out of it and the pedals broke down I removed both the dumper and the pedals and installed a seat where the dumper had been. Thereafter, it was my version of a Soap Box Derby racing car. I would coast down the driveway behind the house and sweep out onto Eastern Road at what seemed like tremendous speed and then glide down to Lake Front Road. In those days, a huge ash tree provided protection for the place where my father parked the car. One could enter from Lake Front or from Eastern. The Town eventually removed the tree and a STOP sign was placed in its stead and the Eastern "connection: was removed. The sign was later shifted onto our own garden. But having access from Eastern to the parking place meant that I could sweep out of the way in case a car was coming on Lake Front Road.

My truck's steering wheel was equipped with two levers just as real cars and trucks then were. Our old Packard, for example, had these. That on the left was for the spark advance. One retarded the spark to facilitate starting. The lever was connected to a cable which ran to the distributor and advanced or retarded the spark simply by a slight rotation of the distributor. The right lever was simply a hand throttle. Both devices were essential because all too often one had to crank engines by hand to get started. Cranked engines often "kicked back" and broken arms (and even occasionally broken legs) were a real risk entailed by cranking. Starters were a frequent source of trouble, generators inadequate, and batteries weak and short-lived. In any case, my father saw no reason to contribute my old truck to the wartime scrap metal drives, so it was bunked under the house where it remained until I found it one summer and rehabilitated it for my son, Chris, who was then about five. He had hardly any fun with it because some Mr. Meany absconded with it.

In 1938 a major hurricane swept through the area and on up into New Hampshire and Vermont. The destruction was terrible. Many trees were knocked down including a truly huge one at the back of our dock to the right of the path. The heavy rains that accompanied the storm raised the level of the lake to the point that the dock itself and the ground area behind it were entirely under water. It was around that time, or perhaps a year before, that young Carl Grosswendt found an old carriage for sale. My father bought it for about five dollars and it was towed behind the car to the house. Dad and uncle Wistar removed the wheels, discarded the carriage, and made the wheels into a fence and swinging gate for the dock. It was a very graceful and unobtrusive fence. Another wheel was found and it was made into the light fixture which still resides over the table on the porch.

Mill Road was named after the saw mill. The chestnut tree blight had killed off a massive amount of timber and this little mill aimed to harvest the wood and convert it to lumber. Faint tracks can still be seen opposite what was Calabrese's, downhill from the Lent house. The wood for our old garage came from there. I do not remember the mill in operation but the steam engine was there when I was small and we often played on it. It had a vast number of valves and gauges. Theoretically, a portable engine, it rode on four large broad tired steel wheels. It was carted away as part of a scrap drive during WW II.

Our garage contained a wealth of mechanical things. There were all sorts of tools both for wood (my grandfather had had a fine collection of wood bits, chisels, etc.) and metal. There were spoke shaves, speciality planes, devices for rabbeting, and a lovely lignum vitae wooden mallet (which we still have). Some tools were for plumbing tasks. My uncle Wistar had a plumber's pipe vice set up in the garage and I occasionally was given the task of threading a piece of pipe. I am sure it was for my benefit, not because it was needed for any work. Around the time of the first World War, my parents had a Buick. When I was very small they had a Moon. This was followed by a Packard in the early '30s which eventually went to June's family. As a result, the garage had all sorts of remnants of those years. For example, there was a device which looked like a drill which could be used for grinding an engine's valves. My father loved cars. He actually had wanted to go into the automobile business as a very young man but his father was a great lover of horses and a fierce opponent of those new fangled machines. Whether his emotional opposition was enough to deter my father, or whether he feared his father would sabotage his efforts, I never knew. He never talked much about his father and my grandfather died before I was born. But the garage was stuffed with lovely mechanical goodies and a young child could spend endless hours poking around in its mysterious boxes. It was not only a treasure house for a child, but it was also The Place to which any and all neighbors headed when they needed a tool or a part. This often meant that a supply of things my father had bought would be gone before he could use them, and it generally meant that borrowed tools would have to be fetched. But things got done nevertheless.

In the early 30s, the county decided to widen and pave the Oscawana Lake Road. It was a fairly slow process and the cut up and over Spruce Hill was the most difficult part. But it also gave me my first opportunity to ride in a Mack Truck. The dump truck (was there only one?) assigned to the task was a lovely old Bull-dog Mack with chain drive, solid rubber tires, and brakes which worked only on the gear drive axle (not on the wheels). I had always thought that Mack's with their distinctive hoods, and grinding chain drives, were the epitome of power. After a ride in the open cab, I knew they were.

No one lived in the Knolls year 'round until after WW II except for a couple of winters when the Grosswendts lived there. Carl Grosswendt was a production engineer but in the 30s there was no production, so while he stayed in New York City and did various odd jobs, his wife and two sons lived at their cottage ("Whispering Pines"). Carl Jr. and Herbert (known as "Boots") were eight and five years older (respectively) than I. But they were always helpful to me. They were both technically skilled and were forever making things. One year half a dozen neighbors were connected by a phone system. They used old headphone (single) units for both speaking and listening. The bell didn't always work, so Carl would bellow down to us to pick up the receiver. Other times we went fishing. This sometimes involved driving in their ancient Chandler (second gear was gone) to Annesville Creek to net some shiners. Then we fished at the Lake. I don't recall ever catching a game fish, but it was fun. I often caught sunfish and yellow perch, and once in a while a catfish. I cleaned them and my mother cooked them (I did not like cleaning catfish, which may explain why I seldom caught them). In the winters, the Grosswendts heated with wood fire and kerosene, carried up buckets of drinking water from our well, and the boys walked out to Spruce Hill for a taxi that served as the school bus. I believe Carl Jr. graduated from Peekskill High.

In about 1940 they moved to Bloomsbury NJ where Carl Sr was hired to manage a pencil factory, but not before they built a house on a lot that adjoined their house. This was a Sears Roebuck house. It came "ready to be assembled" -- and assemble it they did. Carl Jr learned from a US Department of Agriculture book that locust poles made the best pilings, so that is what he cut and de-barked. The house came out very well. Carl Sr. made all the furniture and they rented the house for some years before selling it to the Winegardens (Shaeffers). Boots went off to the University of Michigan to study naval architecture in about 1939 and not long after went into a Naval program in Chicago to be one of the first graduates of a "90 day wonder" program for producing Ensigns. I saw him several times during the war years. I kept in touch with him until his death in California a few years ago.

In those pre-cholesterol days, huge (2-3 inch thick) sirloin steaks were cooked on occasional Saturdays or Sundays. My aunt Etta and my mother would serve up corn, baked potato, salad, and pies and cakes. Usually more than just the six of us were at the table. Friends -- and sometimes not real friends -- would "just drop by" at about five in the afternoon. They always expected to be invited for dinner. It might mean a bit less for the rest of us, but there always seemed enough. Bob and Gladys Cunningham were frequent guests but were always welcome. They rented what is now the Haggerty house and later bought a place near the outlet of the Lake in Abele Park. Bob had a powerful outboard speedboat and often took us for rides and after they bought the cottage near Abele's he had an "inboard". Bob was sales manager of, I think, Manhattan Pontiac and all the (used) cars my father bought from the '30s onward were bought through Bob. By the end of the war he had his own agency in Queens.

Swimming was always a part of the summer routine. I learned how to swim, but I was a fussy kid and I didn't like to have my face splashed. In fact, I didn't like to get it wet. So getting me to jump off the dock took great effort. But in due course I made the leap and, of course, discovered that I loved jumping in. In those days, the mud around the docks was removed by tying a boat securely next to a dock for an hour and letting it blow the muck out into the cove. It would now be judged environmentally unfriendly, but it left a nice sandy bottom behind. Most swimming was from the various private docks in the cove and the community dock was to some extent reserved for the securing of boats. There was also a community area known as the "baby beach" between the Ernst and Minersman property which was much used for swimming.

I guess it was in the autumn of 1934 that along with the Scofields and perhaps also the Hartfords, we stayed up until about mid-October. I was enrolled in the one room school on the Oscawana Lake Road just south of Christian's Corners. I believe the teacher was Miss Troxell. There were fewer than a dozen children in the school and I believe Boots Grosswendt was one of its few graduates. Often various people walked one way or part way with us to the school. Sometimes we walked on the roads, sometimes we took a short cut by cutting into the woods where Eastern crosses the stream near Scheidts. That meant crossing a swamp and trying to acquire the skill of balancing on the hummocks. I was a slow learner.

We had a canoe and a large, flat bottomed row boat. In the early days, my father had an Elco outboard for the boat. It had a knob on the flywheel whereby one hoped to get the engine to start. My father loved internal combustion engines and knew a great deal about them but outboards were anathema to him. The engine had once kicked back and the knob had hit and broken his finger. By and large outboards were terribly unreliable, regardless of whether they were large or small and my father never again succumbed to the temptation to purchase another. The Grosswendts had a fairly large and the Scofields a fairly small outboard. Their engines were unusual in being fairly reliable. But on any Sunday one could expect to see several people trying to start engines. Automatic rewinding cords did not come on the scene until after the war and electric starters with 4-cycle engines were still later. The starting rope was just that; a piece of clothesline with a knot on one end and a handle on the other. One always had to sit forward in a boat to avoid the whip of the starting cord. The Scofield engine had a valve that released the compression on one cylinder to make pulling the starting rope easier, and the rare four cylinder engines had a similar device for two of theirs. But it took a really strong person to start a large two cylinder outboard.

Evenings, June and I were often taken for a row across the cove and under the little bridge (perhaps 15 feet across) that connected the small island opposite with the mainland. This required that we all sit on the bottom of the boat, and bow our heads, as we glided under the logs which supported the plank deck of the bridge. This was always a matter of some apprehension because several monster spiders were known to live underneath and we were sure they had every intention of dropping down upon us. Once on the other side, we waited for the boys who were staying at the French Y.M.C.A. camp to blow taps and lower the flag. The camp occupied much of the land and beach area where Dr. Rakow later built two homes.

If we were lucky on our rows, we would see the Ram. The Ram was a large power driven boat, perhaps 30' long, with a sharp prow and capable of considerable speed although it did not plane. What it did for us was make huge waves. Its wake was really quite spectacular and although the skipper sought to avoid boats and canoes, we looked forward to seeing it glide in stately fashion over the lake. In the late 20s or early 30s, Judge Thompson had served as skipper and took people on tours of the Lake. It was based at Abele Park.

Occasionally during the summer we would pile into the canoe and paddle up to Lost River for an exploration. Although the mosquitos could be formidable, this was always exciting. The water, if stirred up, was smelly, but that only added to the excitement of the voyage. Strict rules for remaining seated were in force. But there was not much danger of our risking turning the canoe over. The river being too narrow to enable a canoe to turn around, the bow paddler very carefully reversed position and "steered" for the return trip while the former stern paddler simply paddled backwards until we returned to the Lake.

Both the canoe and the row boat required some maintenance and gradually the canvas on the canoe shrank and a new strip had to be fitted along the gunwales. The row boat was kept water-tight by covering the bottom with a porous canvas which was glued to the bottom. The glue was applied hot to the boards and the canvas pressed into place by means of a hot iron --an iron heated on a gasoline fired blow torch. The result of this process was that the boat's bottom was sealed and it would remain dry for several years, by which time the odd hole would have been bashed into the bottom.

Since my parents and June's lived in the Yonkers area, there were several ways to drive to the Lake. My father's preferred route was via the Old Saw Mill River Road. This meant driving via Church Road and Mill Street to Shrub Oak, and then, via what is now NY 132, to Yorktown Heights and thence to Millwood, Briarcliff, Elmsford, and Ardsley to Hastings-on-Hudson. Sometimes my father drove across to Warburton Avenue, other times via Odell Avenue into Yonkers proper. I know my father preferred this route because Sunday evenings were invariably congested on "The Parkway". Although the Parkway had four lanes, there was no center separation and southbound on the long hill up from Croton Reservoir one could count on half a dozen cars over-heating and hence breaking down and blocking one lane. In fact, radiators must have been badly designed and/or inefficient. They leaked, they failed properly to cool, and their rubber hoses routinely sprang leaks. All sorts of services were available in garages to "flush" out cooling systems.

Going via the Old Saw Mill meant that one was frequently driving next to the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad. Although the "Put" ran on to Mahopac, Carmel and terminated in Brewster, the main marshalling yard was at Yorktown Heights (where the Caldor shopping center now is). Thus there was always a chance to see, if not actually ride alongside, one of the two car trains pulled by a graceful steam locomotive. Stretches of the Parkway, especially from Ardsley to Odell Avenue, also paralleled the "Put". The other driving option was Broadway, i.e. US 9, along the Hudson through Hastings, Dobbs Ferry, the Tarrytowns, Ossining, Croton and Peekskill. On this route one could occasionally see the Hudson Division trains and at Croton-Harmon, there was a reverse loop over the main line to speed the turning around of the steam engines. That loop was removed when diesels replaced steam and the engines didn't care which way they were headed. More efficient, cleaner, but not as much fun for a small boy to watch. South of Harmon, the railroad was electrified although repair trains were occasionally powered by steam well into the '30s. By the mid-30s, my father commuted to New York by way of Peekskill and usually once during the summer I would be taken along for a trip -- I presume when the pressure of work at his office could be expected to be light. In those days the trains changed from steam to electric engines at Harmon, but they were some minutes faster than the trains are today.

I still regret that I never took a ride on the "Put". Once, as a small child, I rode on the electrified spur of the "Put" that ran from Van Cortlandt into Getty Square in Yonkers, but never the "main" line. My mother's cousin, Rafe Maiden, was a Pullman conductor and in about 1938 or '39 he took me along on a weekend ski train run from Grand Central in New York to Intervale/North Conway in New Hampshire. The train dropped off the skiers and then chugged back to Dover, NH where it was put on a steam line until Sunday afternoon, when the skiers were collected. He arranged for me to ride in the Boston and Maine steam engine (a freight engine, since it was a long train) from Intervale back to Dover (via a freight line from Rochester to Dover) -- some 70 miles in all. The Boston and Main conductor, a man named Rourke, presented me with all the train orders he had received for the trip. Given my love of trains, I have no explanation for not taking the "Put" on one of my returns from cycling to the Lake.

No one in the family had ever had a sailboat or, for that matter, knew anything about them. But "Pop" Coleman, was a boatman. His house, just north of Hoffmans, was built for year-round occupancy. But I don't think it was used in the winter. In the years before electricity, he had installed an electric generator in the small outbuilding that still stands to the left of the entrance to the house. It was driven by a kerosene engine. It was tricky to start since one first had to run it on gasoline until it was warm before switching over to kerosene. "Pop" had wisely converted to electricity when the lines were installed and had given the apparatus to Boots Grosswendt and he and Carl managed to get the engine working for relatively short periods but not, as I recall, to generate electricity. "Pop" had no "visible means of support", but those were depression years. We thought he had a small private income and in any case, his wife had a good job with a Wall Street house. He was a master carpenter and not only could make, or so it seemed to me, most anything -- he also could repair boats. He had a number of skiffs and canoes, but I especially remember a duck boat he had. Where oarlocks would be were meshing gears -- one attached to the paddle part of the oar, the other for the handle. This meant that the force applied by pulling the oars was reversed. One could row the boat while facing the direction in which one was moving. Perhaps these were common enough in duck hunting country, but I have never seen another like it.

He also had two lovely gaff rigged sailboats. I still remember being very impressed with his skill in replacing a rotted plank in the hull of the larger boat -- an 18-20 foot scow type boat, named the Lark, a boat which really skimmed the surface at high speed in a good wind. Boots Grosswendt was allowed to take the Lark out occasionally and I sometimes accompanied him. Once, when the wind was quite strong, the boat jibed. Jibing a gaff rigged boat is always dangerous because the boom may jibe properly while the gaff stays on the opposite side (goose-winged?), only later to fly across with extra force. Whether Boots intended to jibe or a wind shift occurred while we were going down wind I never knew. The gaff broke in half and came tumbling down -- luckily not on either of us. "Pop" was irritated, but he repaired the spar and in a few days it was again sailable.

I fell in love with sailing and in 1939, when I was 13, my parents bought a sailboat for me. It had been owned by a friend of my uncle Howard's. He had succeeded in turning it over several times on Candlewood Lake and decided that sailing was not the relaxing activity he had anticipated. I think it cost $100, which was a fair amount of money in those days. Although I knew the theory of sailing, and I knew the Lake, my body weight did not provide much ballast and the boat, built by a New England builder named True, was a tender sailer. I managed to turn it over the second day I had it. This terrified my father, who had never learned how to swim, but it proved to be a great boon to me because it put me in touch with the small sailing community on the Lake. I learned much about sailing from them and my summers from then on involved a great deal of sailing. After a few years I became a pretty good sailor. I knew the limits of my boat and I learned how complex winds can be on a lake bounded by hills.

I became good friends with Ralph and Paul Boccard. They lived in back of Perry's, off the Dunderberg Road. The Urfers had a house (still standing) just north of the bridge over to Dunderberg island. They were French Swiss and there were always remarks by Ralph's mother (who was French) about the awful French the Urfers spoke! Their son, Bobby, was about my age and the entire family loved sailing. They had five boats, including a Star class (with keel). Mr. Urfer was an engineer and had designed one of his boats so that what had been the centerboard was hinged. It could swivel and hence be turned like a rudder to reduce the sideways (leeward) motion when the boat was sailing into the wind on a tack. Whether this produced a net increase in sailing efficiency I never could decide. Mr. Urfer owned an aircraft instrument manufacturing company and did very well during the war. They later moved to Hobe Sound, Florida, where he had a yawl. He had designed it so that he could lift the keel-centerboard and hence navigate in shallow water. With the yawl rigging he said he could easily sail to Bimini and the Islands single-handed.

In about 1940, "Pop" Coleman took over an old wooden hotel known as the Dunderberg. I don't recall it as being a functioning hotel. But I do recall that there was a "speak-easy" in one of the larger out buildings during the Prohibition era, although I seldom frequented it. It was at that time that one of the Gorleys was murdered there. He was the older brother of the Gorley who served as Justice of the Peace for many years. According to lore, the perpetrator was apprehended as he sought to enter Canada at a crossing in Washington! In any event, the Dunderberg was reborn as "Coleman's Landing." "Pop" had good taste and he also had imagination. People came up from New York for weekends or for longer stays and he sought to provide amusements for them. He had boats, a swimming float, access to horse-back riding. He spruced the place up with fresh paint and he served decent meals. I recall going there with my parents for dinner on a number of occasions.

When the New York World's Fair closed down in 1940, "Pop" purchased several of the pedal boats which had been very popular at the Fair. They proved popular at the Lake too, although since their pontoons were made of wood, they required a good deal of maintenance. We sometimes rented one for an hour or so, and with two people with sturdy legs, they could be made to move across the lake quite smartly. There was also a small dance floor at the hotel and in the period through the summer of '42, we often went there to dance. Sometimes we took a boat, very infrequently someone gave us a lift, and sometimes we walked. If we walked, we were usually accompanied by a railroad (kerosene) lantern known as "Stinky". It gave one enough light to walk by, it rendered one visible, and if one kept moving, the fumes were bearable. Few of us could afford to keep a flashlight in batteries. They were not only expensive, they didn't last long. When the war started, Coleman's Landing got a boost. As it became increasingly difficult to travel, "resorts" closer to centers of population became more popular.

There was also a dance hall, open at the sides, equipped with a juke-box (like Coleman's Landing) and a soft-drink machine, known as the Trading Post. It was on the cove at the North west corner of the Lake. We often stopped by while sailing, but I never recall going there of an evening. Music was provided by Nickelodeons. These marvelous devices could play one's choice of about 24 records, including the classics of the day by Glenn Miller, the Dorseys, Benny Goodman, Harry James, etc. If someone had a quarter, one got 6 records! The Trading Post has long since disappeared and Coleman's Landing went up in flames after the war. The summers of '41 and '42 were great fun sailing, swimming, and dancing although with the summer of '42 the impact of the war was being felt in many ways. The few skills I acquired as a ballroom dancer I learned from June, who was (and is) a really first-class dancer. But my pre-eminence on the dance floor probably began when the son of our upstairs neighbors in Yonkers took up tap-dancing. Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly were probably the role models and Mrs. Cullen had high hopes that Bobby, who was my age, would make it to Hollywood. I don't think my parents harbored any such delusions of grandeur, but I was, at about age 8, signed on for a course. I don't know how long it lasted, but it lasted long enough for uncles Wistar and Howard to buy a punching bag and boxing gloves for me and urge my mother to sign me up for boxing lessons! With a nose that would have made me an easy target in the ring, and a lack of motivation for vaudeville stardom, I was spared extensive tutelage in either boxing or tap-dancing.

I mentioned that Dr Ernst's boat was once stolen. The thief was Arthur Needles. The Needles owned what is now the Rappaport house. Arthur was some years older than I and his parents considered him the resident genius. He had designed and built his own sailboat and although it looked homemade, I always counted that as an accomplishment. He was forever taunting the Grosswendt boys and on one occasion when he had let the air out of their bicycle tires or something of the sort, they fired a rotten tomato at him. It caught him full in the face and his ever solicitous mother seeing him screaming and running towards her, thought he had been bloodied. Mrs. Needles went into hysterics but calmed down when she realized the blood was just tomato juice. A few years later, Arthur stole Mr. Axinn's boat and ran it at full speed up on the point near what we thought of as the Levy Dock. The damage to the boat and motor was considerable, but Dr. Needles pleaded with Mr. Axinn not to file charges. Arthur was about to join the Army and he, Dr. Needles, would pay the costs. Mr. Axinn was a generous spirited guy and agreed. Arthur did not join up and, if memory serves, Dr Needles did not make good. Some years later, Arthur did hard time in Sing Sing and the last I heard of him was a brief announcement in the New York Times that he had been gunned down on the porch of his home on Long Island. The report said that he had successfully designed and produced a silencer for sub-machine guns. But in those years before the war, Arthur was always pleasant enough to me. He liked telling me (anyone?) about his latest scam, always something which would make him a million. He had plenty of brains and he could be personable, but he took too much pleasure in cutting corners. He had a charming sister, Josephine, but Arthur got the attention. It didn't help.

Some time in the mid-30s the Moses began to spend their summers at the Lake. They rented "Auntie Mame's" house, a cottage just south of Needles (since hit by lightning and burned). There were three brothers, William (the oldest), Bill (about my age), and Eugene (the youngest). I saw a good deal of Bill in those years and we often teamed up with Mel Popper (who lived on Laurel Lane). A large family (the Meaghers) of Irish folk spent several summers in what is now the Keim house. There were two girls, Frances and Martha (of whom I was very fond) and a boy. They too often joined us. "Dinny", the boy, had the most marvelous Brooklyn Irish accent I ever heard! He went to the maritime high-school in Brooklyn and joined the Navy. I saw him just once after the war -- by which time he was a Chief Motor Machinist's Mate. He still had his accent! Of course New Englanders of that day would have wondered how I got off commenting on someone's New York accent! When I went off to the Navy and later to college my own accent was frequently remarked upon.

In about 1935, Bill and Mary Brown bought three lots at the northern edge of Lake Front Road. They built their house themselves. (Now the Kaufer's house.) Bill was a Kentuckian and graduate of Berea and Mary was from Ohio. Both had heavy regional accents. Their son, Gordon, was two years older than I was. But in the years that were to follow, June and I saw a good deal of Gordon. He too had a sailboat and as soon as he was old enough to drive (16) he was given a lovely convertible with a rumble seat. Bill and Mary were delightful people. Both had been teachers. Both had been extremely poor as children. Bill was at that time in the newspaper publishing business, working for a man (Perry) who owned hundreds of weeklies across America. Mary took up photography, had her own darkroom in the garage, and later specialized as a medical photographer at the New York Eye and Ear Hospital. At some point early on, Gordon had developed a mastoid infection. The "cure" in those pre-antibiotics days was to chip away the infected mastoid bone. The surgeon, however, damaged or cut a facial nerve with the result that Gordon's face, or at least his cheek and smile, was largely paralysed on one side. This had a traumatic effect on his life. Gordon was a good looking young man, but his parents apparently decided that they would do everything possible to help Gordon compensate for this disability. Gordon and Mary spent a winter or two in Deland, Florida because they hoped that the warm weather would help restore the nerves and muscles. And of course he received facial exercise treatments. Whether Gordon's life would have been very different without that partial facial paralysis, I don't know. But they pushed and steered him in what they thought were his best interests, hoping thereby to compensate for what they took to be his handicap. He went to a private high school in New York City and then to Yale and NY Medical School. He took a residency in general surgery and his parents arranged a practice for him in Banning CA. He died a few years ago. He was a good friend and June and I had many pleasant times with him.

The summer of '41 and/or '42 Phil and Adelaide Tully rented the Needles house. Phil had a lovely four door Buick "convertible". The gear shift lever had a knob with Adelaide's initials inlaid in silver. I was impressed. There was nothing like that in the old Packard. Phil was hoping to hit it big as a singer/actor. Meanwhile he had a regular bit part in the Philip Morris (radio) show. It was a crime program and when the perpetrator was charged (or was it convicted) Phil sang out the court order terminating with his trademark line, "Step down". The Tullys got on very well both with my parents and the Browns and Adelaide was a great companion for Gordon Brown and myself. Although she was a dozen years older, she treated us as adults -- or perhaps we treated her as a teen-ager. She now lives in Oregon and I am still in touch with her.

There is still a chimney behind the Kaufer house. That is about all that is left of a neat little cottage that Bob Brown, Bill's younger brother, built. It was really just one room with a huge fireplace and sleeping facilities no larger than a closet. It burned after it had been used by Gordon and some friends for an ice skating party -- and there was some suggestion by the fire department that the fireplace had been left unprotected. Bob later build a house up on the road to Parish Acres off the Oscawana Heights Road. By then his wife had been confined to Wingdale and he lived there with his widowed sister Frances, a former nurse who had worked in Yonkers. Like Bill, he was extraordinarily handy. He lived in the house year 'round and commuted to New York until he and she retired and moved to Florida. Elly and I visited him in Florida, where he lived near a nephew, in the year in which he died -- at age 90. He was a particularly warm, gentle, and low key man and his relaxed approach to life meant that Mary worried that he was not a proper "role model" for Gordon. Actually, he would have been a superb one.

Two other good friends were Kathanne Harter and Lee Greene-Orr (then Dolid). Lee lived in what is now the Neumann house. I am still in touch with her. The Harter house is between the Scofield (Moses) and Ernst houses. Kathanne lives in Brussel.

Sometime around 1938 I got a Schwinn bicycle. It was my third bike. The first bike was a gift of the Grosswendt boys. It had ten or twelve inch wheels with hard rubber tires and a coaster brake. I learned to ride on it. For my next bike, I recall my father driving me to a marvelous second-hand bicycle shop in the lower Bronx. The bike he selected for me had 24 inch wheels, a coaster brake, and no fenders. I think my father must have felt that I needed a better bike so that I would acquire the proper skills, but that I was still too young for a "good" bike. Or perhaps it was a cost question. I doubt that the bike cost more than a few dollars, but even that was a lot of money in those days. After all, a ride on the trolley or the subway only cost a nickel. When we got it to the Lake, my father painted it with chrome paint and it looked quite respectable. The tires lacked tubes. The preferred make was US Rubber tires because they had what was called a chain tread. If one got a leak, one had two methods of repair. There were little brass devices the base or foot of which one fitted into the puncture hole. To the base was attached, by a three inch brass bolt, a brass disk. One screwed the disk down tight and broke off what remained of the bolt. This generally plugged the leak but it had the disadvantage of ticking on the pavement with every revolution of the wheel. The other method was more satisfactory, but required special equipment. A batch of rubber bands were inserted in the puncture hole, along with some cement. These repairs made the tire as good as new. The Schwinn had hand brakes, but no gears. It also had tires with tubes, as bikes have today. In the spring or fall I used to pedal up to the Lake and back of a Saturday. If it was windy and I had been bucking the wind I sometimes only got as far as the Spruce Hill Inn. There I would get a couple of delicious roast beef sandwiches served up with a glass of milk by the two Provost brothers, Al and Ed. At the middle of the day, the chances were that no one was at the bar so they were delighted to shmooz with me while I restored my energy for the ride back. Occasionally I used the Old Saw Mill but more often I used US 9. It was an 80 mile round trip and a good day's ride. After the war, when I was at Trinity College in Hartford, I pedalled there and back a couple of times -- via US 6. I usually pushed my bike up Tinker Hill. That was a slightly longer ride (about 90 miles). I guess traffic was lighter in those days, or speeds were lower, or my nerves were better! In any case, drivers were more considerate than they are today. I took the bicycle with me when I went to Iowa City in 1954 and it performed yeoman service until 1963, when in Minneapolis, the rear axle's ratchet finally dissolved. I bought a new wheel with the luxury of a 3 speed shift, only to have it stolen just before we moved to Arizona in 1963. The bike I bought in Arizona I now have in Groningen!

I mentioned that electric lines were not originally in place in the Knolls, but electric storms were always available. The Hudson Valley is, of course, notorious for its thunder storms and I remember some severe ones. Aunt Etta and my mother were terrified of storms, but they felt they should try not to make June and me suffer that disability. So when we saw a storm coming, we often sat on the porch to watch it sweep towards us. When the electric lines went in, the lightning seemed to head for the wires more often than towards houses and trees. But on one occasion a bolt of lightning struck the house, went through the shingles and grounded as it hit the sink and water line. My mother had been working at the sink and a canaster flew off a shelf and hit her on the forehead. It did no damage to her, but for an instant she was convinced that she had actually been struck. Sometimes, after the lights had been knocked out by a storm small flashes of lightning would appear at each electric outlet. And of course the phone would jingle with each bolt. Storms can still be just as formidable, but with the 13,000 volt circuitry now in place, the lines may prove even more attractive. I hope so.

Sometimes storms came up very quickly and I once recall getting a good jolt while swimming to the dock. On another occasion, I was with the Grosswendt boys out on the Lake in the middle of a storm. They were not to be deterred by the weather. Someone had just "borrowed" their boat so they were retrieving it. On the ride back, the lightning kept striking the Lake, about 100 feet behind the speeding boat.

My father's brother Tom, aunt Margaret and sons Tommy and Bobby, often spent a week or two with us in the summer. It was always fun to have them there. They loved the Lake and uncle Tom loved to row us all around it (really!). Evenings there would be wild card games such as Canasta or rummy or possibly Monopoly. But the summer of '39 was different. The war was coming. I remember uncle Tom sitting by the radio hour after hour depressed with the news but hooked on listening to it. In the years that followed, the war loomed ever larger in everyone's consciousness. And things escalated until December 7th, 1941. Strangely enough, the Grosswendts were having dinner with us in Yonkers when the Browns called to say that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Boots Grosswendt was by then assigned to a ship stationed there and it was some days before we all learned that unlike most of the rest of the US fleet, his ship had been at sea that day. I was 17 in March of 1943, graduated from high school on 30 June and went off into the Navy for three years on 1 July. Most of my classmates did the same thing. As is often said, for Americans, it was our last "popular" war.

The war brought many changes at the Lake. Supplies became available once again, new cars began to appear, and a few people began to live year round in the Knolls. The Town which had long been tending the roads, finally took title to them, a stone wall was constructed for Lake Front Road by what is now Hoffmans, and many surfaces were paved. In the winter, snow crews now plow the roads. A policeman patrols the Lake itself, and life guards are required at the community dock. The one room schools are long since gone and the school taxes have gone out of sight. Still, the basic charm of the Lake and its environs remains.

Harry M. Bracken

November, 1992

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