The Ferry boat ride at dusk from Clayton N.Y across the St. Lawrence River to Gananoque, Ontario in the 1930’s was a beautiful and calming excursion.
It came at the end of a day long trip in our ’37 Packard from Summit N.J. in the late 1930’s.
The boat ride was a moment that we treasured. Serenity as those in recovery from addictions know is a key. I think about that boat ride still as a source of the tranquility most of us seek.The ferry held about six cars and wound its way through such beautiful islands–Hay Island, Leek island, Tremont, Dixieland, Heee moment in time
I am writing this hoping that those who are struggling with life and its difficulties will be a little calmed by its message. We get over our addictions partly by choosing life styles that have calming influences.
It is not a “how to settle down in ten easy steps.” It is partly about developing a less frantic life style. It’s about acceptance.
Our last ferryboat ride was the summer of 1939 when construction on the international bridge connecting some of the islands between the islands was near completion. It made the connection between the USA and Canada much faster (its main intent as war loomed) and the ferry became obsolete.
World War II as it unfolded changed a lot but not everything. My grandfather, “Papa” Rees continued running Parmenter & Bulloch, a rivet factory in Gananoque owned by his father-in-law.
Papa was a colorful character whose principal loves were music, making rivets and telling funny stories with a high slapstick component. Some of the adults had heard his tall tales too many times, but I and my younger sister Diantha, as she grew older, couldn’t get enough of a chatty Ted Byers stepping inadvertently off the town dock into the deep water or a tipsy “eelfly” Carnegie covered with flies and clutching a lamp post.
We only stayed with mama and papa for a couple of years but we were always in close touch during our summers. Every week we went to Mama’s Sunday night suppers under her prized apple tree as Papa held forth while his many guests rolled their eyes. We in the younger set also knew hanging around Papa was good for a nickel ice cream cone at the shop next to the customs house or even a quarter for a Sundae at the Modern Café, a Chinese operation, up town.
Papa led a dance band touring northern New York at the turn of the century and later organized a military band that played at the pavilion in the Gananoque park. We we would all attend his concerts—my sister running around playing tag with the other kids and me smoking Players with my teenage cousins.
The Golden Apple
Another part of the lives Dannie and I and other family members shared in Canada was the Golden Apple, an internationally famous restaurant during the flowering of Gananoque before the 401 highway diverted traffic from Highway 2. It was founded by Mrs. Runyon in the 1920’s on the ground floor of a charming house on the corner of Highway 2 and Market, and it packed them in.
The glamorous Golden Apple hostesses; the highly deferential waitresses; the coffee girls with their trays of relish; the sticky buns; the Lake Ontario Whitefish; the charm of the flagstone terrace; the genial fortune telling of the astonishing Andre; they all conspired to make an enchanting lunch or supper.
Dannie later became a hostess herself following a glamorous predecessor, Joan Lindsay, who is today my wife.
The summer of ‘41, the year before Mitchell and Wilson finished our cottage on Tremont, we stayed at the Golden Apple’s Blue Moon cottage across the street from the restaurant. After a day at the beach or a round of golf we would return to the Blue moon and play croquet with our cousins, the Killens and the Kips, with emotions often running high.
Tremont
We moved into the cottage at Tremont in June of 1942. Dannie was not quite four, but we all pitched in to make it our home. We began with a wood stove, Coleman lamps, a four-horse cranky outboard, a leaky St. Lawrence skiff and no telephone. It was freezing on those June mornings but we huddled around the stove for robust breakfasts and slept under piles of Hudson Bay blankets when night fell.
And then the kids began showing up as Dannie matured. The Fieldhouse gang and the Murphys across the inlet on Apahopqui, and over the years the numbers grew, and when she became a teenager, the boys began showing up from other islands and from Gananoque and Kingston. When I joined the Navy, and Joan and I left for the near East, Dannie picked up where I left off at the Canoe Club dances and island picnics and other get togethers.
The glamorous hostesses; the highly deferential waitresses; the coffee girls with their trays of relish; the sticky buns; the Lake Ontario Whitefish; the charm of the flagstone terrace; the genial fortune telling of the astonishing Andre; they all conspired to make an enchanting lunch or supper. And Dannie and I shared an experience that was pure and simple fun no matter the age.
Dannie later became a hostess herself following a glamorous predecessor, Joan Lindsay, who is my wife and is here today to celebrate Dannie’s life.
The summer of ‘41the year before Mitchell and Wilson finished building our cottage on Tremont, we stayed at the Golden Apple’s Blue Moon cottage across the street from the restaurant. After a day at the beach or a round of golf we would return to the Blue moon and play croquet with our cousins, the Killens and the Kips, with emotions often running high.
Tremont
We moved into the cottage at Tremont in June of 1942. Dannie was not quite four, but we all pitched in to make it our home. We began with a wood stove, Coleman lamps, a four-horse cranky outboard, a leaky St. Lawrence skiff and no telephone. It was freezing on those June mornings but we huddled around the stove for robust breakfasts and slept under piles of Hudson Bay blankets when night fell.
“Cozy” doesn’t begin to cover it,
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