Up on a Hill and Thereabouts

Gloria Stubing Rist

Description

In the 1930s, life for kids tucked away in the quiet woodlands of the Adirondack Mountains was rich with nature and filled with human characters. This captivating memoir contains the recollections of one woman who spent her childhood on the hillsides and in the woods near Ticonderoga. A child's-eye view of days long gone, the book describes a time and place of poverty and hardship tempered by compassion, hope, and humor.
Preface

Heading for the Mountains

Moving on from Stoney Lonesome

Nellie and My Birthday Cake

The Peeking Game

Suppertime

For a Little While, My Friend

Uncle Arthur’s Tree

Outside

Bigness

Voodooing Carly

O’Prince, Grandpa and Me

Rhode Island Reds

My Miracle

The Blind Man

Christmas Came Early

Keeping Christmas

The Day I Had Charge

Making the Run

Never Let the Left Hand Know

Sauce on the Ceiling

My First Symphony

Old Beets

Ernest

Little Coat

About My Very Own Dog

Cousin Henry and Strawberries

Junior, Little Boy Lost

At Last We Got a Car

Rock of Ages

With Love to Our Catholics

No More Make-Believe, Virginia

The Bums

The Stones

On Swimming Holes and Pigs

Gypsies and Good Luck

The Fourth of July

And So We Had Milk

Candy bar

Down in the Narrow

I Am a Lily, Easter 1934

Lake George Vacation

The Wedding Reception

Elmer Clanged

Afternoon at the Carnival

Circus Time

Great-grandpa Hall

Pros and Cons of red Twine

Politics, Country Style

Typical Late Summer Morning

Reflections

Oh My God, Bedbugs

Just Another Day at School, or the Joys of Teaching

Angelo

Old Alice, or My First Halloween

Did We or Didn’t We?

The Summer Picnic

I’ll Always Owe Beatty One

Charlie Fox

Fertility

Special Friend

Talking to Sarah

To Get a Better Place

All About Eggs

Solving Problems

Kayo, Free Spirit

Rolland Rivers’ Rope

Silence

Up in the Overshot

In Every Garden There’s a Serpent

Playing With Fire

My One and Only

Henry Galusha’s Bananas

Our Maine Adventure 1937

Learning About Sex and Musterole

Davey vs. Old Faithful

Crown Point Bay

Kitchen Hops, “Staying Good,” and Swearing Off Men

Finally Getting To Be Thirteen

Courtship

There’s Always One

Jencie and the Best Day Ever

Not to Worry

To My Beloved Teacher, Mrs. Connors

Carrie’s Wintergreen Patch

Crystal Summer

Indoor Toilets vs. False Teeth

Who Lived Where in Chilson—1930s

Fires I Have Known

How I Happened

Mrs. Rite

Special Pal

Songs

Epilogue

Sujets

• Local history
• Memoir
• Region
• History of the Americas
• Regional

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 11 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438448916
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Up on a Hill and Thereabouts
An Adirondack Childhood
GLORIA STUBING RIST

Cover photo from collection of the author
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2013 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stubing Rist, Gloria.
Up on a hill and thereabouts : an Adirondack childhood / Gloria Stubing Rist.
pages cm
Summary: “Childhood recollections of life in the Adirondack Mountains during the Great Depression”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4890-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Rist, Gloria Stubing—Childhood and youth. 2. Depressions—1929—New York (State)—Chilson. 3. Depressions—1929—New York (State)—Adirondack Mountains Region. 4. Country life—New York (State)—Chilson. 5. Country life—New York (State)—Adirondack Mountains Region. 6. Chilson (N.Y.)—Social life and customs. 7. Adirondack Mountains Region (N.Y.)—Social life and customs. 8. Chilson (N.Y.)—Biography. 9. Adirondack Mountains Region (N.Y.)—Biography. I. Title.
F129.C5245R57 2013
974.7'5042092—dc23
2013000132
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my kids, Roxy, Vern and Ernie; my grandkids, Mike, Brandon and Byron; my great-grandkids, Austin, Bella and Willow; and my cousin Nancy Marnell .

The author and her family wish to thank Rob Brill for initially bringing Up on a Hill and Thereabouts to SUNY Press's attention, and for his enthusiastic and professional support in the subsequent preparation of the manuscript.
Preface
In the early days of the 1930s, life for kids tucked away in the quiet woodlands of the Adirondack Mountains in a little hamlet known as Chilson was rich with nature and filled with human characters.
The following stories are recollections of one woman who, beginning more than eighty years ago, spent her childhood on the hillsides and in the woods of the eastern edge of the Adirondacks.
This is a child's-eye view of days long gone, of a place and of people who are forever in her heart, so that the memories are fresh.
______________________
Nicknames
Mim — My mother (Mary) Bubby — My brother (Harland) Yada — Me (Gloria) Cowboy — Harold Hayford Bob — My stepfather (Robert Ford)
Some of the other names in this book are not the actual names of the people. These names are fictitious.
—GSR
Heading for the Mountains
M y first memories are of living with my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Stone in their home in the Bronx. I have some memories of what happened there, but that's another bunch of stories to tell. The stories I am going to write are about Chilson, as that's where I lived from ages five to sixteen. My childhood was very different from yours. It was a different way of life, long gone. I just thought you might like to know about how it was then, back in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It's enough to say that Mim, my mother, couldn't stand living with my father any longer, and one morning, Mim told me she was going to Chilson to live and was taking Bubby, my brother, with her. She said I was going to stay with my grandmother and my father until she came back for me in six weeks. She said she couldn't take both of us, so she was taking Bub as he was the youngest. I was five years old. She also said that she wanted me to stay and finish my school year—first grade.
The next day, when I came home from school, Mim and Bub were gone. She hadn't said goodbye. I knew it was because she didn't want me to cry. The next six weeks were the most lonesome, awful time of my life. No one gave me the letters Mim sent. I thought she had forgotten me. I knew my grandmother and my father didn't want me, but they were not going to let Mim have me, just for spite. I knew because I heard them talking about it one night when they thought I was upstairs. I heard my father say, “I told Mary on the phone today that she cannot have Gloria.” Was I ever a scared, lonely, unhappy little girl.
A couple of days later, in the afternoon, Mim walked in. She and Uncle Tobe had come after me. What a wonderful feeling of joy! Mim was back, and I was safe again.
She said, “Come on,” and we went up to the third floor to the spooky room where I slept. We threw what few things I had into an old suitcase.
My grandmother followed. She threw one of the tantrums she always threw when she wasn't getting her own way. She raved and screamed and told Mim she couldn't take me. Mim said I was going, and we went down the stairs.
Just as we started out the front door, my father walked in. He blocked the doorway and said, “Forget it, you're not taking Gloria anywhere.”
Mim put down the suitcase and pulled a gun out of her pocket. She said, “Yada, take your suitcase and go get in the car.” Then she said, “Ernest, I mean business.” She pointed the gun right at him. My father turned white and stepped away from the door.
I ran out to where Uncle Tobe was, blissfully ignorant, waiting in the car. He put my suitcase, and me, in the backseat. I didn't tell him what was going on inside the house. I don't know what he would have done if he knew.
Finally, Mim came out of the house with her hand in her pocket. The gun was out of sight, but she had it in her hand in case my father followed her. Nothing moved from the house. Mim got in the car and we took off. I don't think Mim ever told Uncle Tobe what she had done.
It's a long way from Crestwood to Chilson. As we rolled along, it got dark, and I lay down on the backseat. I slept some, but woke up often. My head hurt and I felt sicker and sicker.
When early morning came, we were still going. I watched the sun come up over the beautiful mountains.
Mim started singing, “When it's springtime in the mountains, I'll be coming back to you. Little sweetheart of the mountains, with your bonnie eyes so blue.” Mim could never sing. She couldn't carry a note, but it was the most beautiful singing I ever heard.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life, rolling along in that car—going to Chilson and farther and farther away from Crestwood. The only thing was, I kept feeling sicker and sicker.
So I lay back down on the seat, and the next thing I knew, Mim said, “Here we are,” and there we were at Aunt Dean's house in Stoney Lonesome, almost to Chilson.
We walked in and Bubby was there, along with a bunch of cousins I met for the first time. It was great. I kept sneezing a lot, so Mim looked me over good. She said, “My God, she's got the measles.”
They rushed me upstairs, but it was too late. I had peppered Bub and my cousins good. Of course, they wouldn't break out with the measles for ten days or so.
In the meantime, sick as I felt, I knew I was in the mountains where I belonged. Nothing else mattered.
Moving on from Stoney Lonesome
T he first thing of importance, as I understood it, was to find a place to live. Aunt Dean's little house was just not big enough for two families. Mim had been born and raised in Chilson, so that was the natural spot to look for a place for us to live. We couldn't afford even an old house, but if we could just get some land …
Mim, finally, talked Aunt Frances into selling her a plot of land that she owned in Chilson. It was two acres and it cost $39. I don't know where Mim got the money, but she did, and we owned land at last.
Over to Chilson we went to check it out. The land was right at the top of Chilson Hill. Down in the valley, we could see a long sliver of Lake Champlain shining in the sun. The lot had a low hill on one side of it, but the rest of it was a big flat field with a brook running on the back side. But best of all, our land was all covered with beautiful wildflowers, and some of the biggest maple trees I'd ever seen. I knew we were home.
Someone gave Mim an old leaky tent. We pitched that below the side hill, and we had a place to sleep. We had only a few old blankets, but it was the first of June, and the ground wasn't too cold for sleeping.
Somewhere we found an old kerosene cook stove. This was set up on the other side of the lot in case it blew up. Only one burner worked and that was a sickly green when lit (it should have been a clear blue). That stove was definitely trying to tell us something. But we made oatmeal on it, and Mim could brew her black tea, so we were in great shape.
However, summer wasn't going to last forever. Mim thought if she could put up a roadside stand by fall, she'd have made enough to build “something for us to live in”—her words. I didn't bother my head about it as I could go barefoot, make mud pies, and Mim was there. Bub and I never worried about anything when Mim was there.
Our home was on a dirt road, but it was the main road between Ticonderoga and Schroon Lake. The state road was going to be built right through there, and that should bring some business—after all, the men who would be working on the road had to buy cigarettes and coffee somewhere.
The Wrights, our neighbors on the farm nex