There’s a place. It’s about 325 miles from Duffy’s Creek. There’s a great big lake there, with another great big lake beside it. Near where that great big lake empties into a dam and disappears, you’ll find a beach. There’s not much sand left, but the grass is soft and the wildflowers are friendly. Next to the beach, the land extends to a point surrounded by tall pines and spruces, aspens that sparkle in the breeze and birches that stand around looking awesome. You walk across a carpet of pine needles on this point and you look out at wizened old mountains. One of those mountains has a rock formation in the center of it, almost in the shape of a smile. Once upon a time, if you looked very closely, you would see two birch tree logs, both at least 10 or 15 feet tall, strung together to look like a crucifix standing to the far right of the rock formation.
The mountain probably has another name, but to a couple of hundred people who passed through this place beginning in the late 50’s to early 60’s, it’s White Cross Mountain. The first time I stood on this beach and looked out across this lake at this mountain was in 1966, at the age of three, wearing a little red plaid swimsuit. And I have still have the scar on my finger to prove it. How I got to this place to begin with, why there was a crucifix in that mountain, why I and many, many other people keep coming back – and why my son might come back without me someday – are all very good questions. I would enjoy answering them, and if you stick with it, along the way there’s a history lesson, a fateful burrito, a kind-hearted motel owner, a guy who has lived off the grid for twenty years, some other really nice people – even Santa Claus shows up – not to mention the best damn soft serve ice cream under God’s Blue Sky.
In July of 1966, Francis and Joan Duffy, both 37 years old and married for 14 years, arrived at Camp Lavigerie, Onchiota, NY, owned and operated by the White Fathers of Africa, which is not a supremacy group. They had driven 325 miles with five kids, aged 3 to 13, packed into a 1964 Red Volkswagen Bus. They had never been to this place before. They had only heard about it through some friends who had some friends. And because the best things in life often come out of random events, Joan Duffy’s college roommate was from Keene Valley, NY, about 40 miles away from Onchiota. Joan had already indoctrinated Francis to Adirondack Magic. They were both from Astoria, and my mother had told the story several hundred times of how she saw the night sky full of stars for the first time when she got off the Trailways Bus in Keene Valley at the age of 18. Naturally, she dragged my father, her high school sweetheart, up to see it for himself as soon as she could. So 19 years later, they came to Camp Lavigerie, with the five kids and the Volkswagen Bus, intending to stay a week. They stayed two. The next year, they came back for two more. Eventually, they extended their annual July stay at Camp Lavigerie to three weeks. So in the end, their youngest son –me- spent about 18 weeks worth of July’s from 1966 to 1974 in this paradise in the Adirondack Mountains, about 15 miles northwest of Saranac Lake, NY.
In 1974, Camp Lavigerie shut down. The land was sold to New York State. The Adirondack Park Agency added it to the Forever Wild Lands and they tore the whole thing down, save for three buildings. Francis and Joan’s oldest four kids were off doing their own things in the summer, but they couldn’t leave their youngest son – me – alone in Valley Stream, and they couldn’t stay away from the Adirondacks, so from 1975-1978, from age 12-15, I got stuck in a cabin in nearby Rainbow Lake with them for two weeks in July or August, thus adding eight more weeks to my time spent in the Adirondacks. But my brothers and sisters and all the hundreds of people that called that big Mountain White Cross Mountain were not there for the most part, except for one or two day visits. Being a snotty teenager, and bored out of my head with my parents, who were just trying to relax for God’s sake, I explored. A lot. By bike, by boat, by thumb and by foot, from Onchiota to Saranac Lake and everything in between. The place wrapped its arms around me. And it has never let go.
And once I was old enough, I started coming up by myself, first by a combination of Trailways Bus and Illegal Hitchhiking, then later by car, bringing friends up to see it all for themselves, then still later to meet people from Camp Lavigerie for reunions. And then again to introduce those people to my wife and my son, and to introduce my wife and my son to the place where I spent a big fat chunk of summer youth, a place that I’ve visited in at some point during more than half of my 53 summers. I don’t know what the hell I was doing during the summers I didn’t make it up there, but as their probably ain’t more than 20 able-bodied ones left to go for me (and that’s optimistic) I don’t intend to miss many more from here.
My parents loved being on or near the water. For example, they bought a house on a creek in 1955, the same house I’m sitting in. It probably was not long after unpacking the five kids and the Volkswagen Bus that they went down to see the beach at Camp Lavigerie, on the shores of Lake Kushaqua. The name is an Algonquin word for “beautiful resting place.” It must have seemed like just that until their freaking three year-old son got his finger caught in a wooden folding beach chair. The Algonquin spirits probably woke up from my screaming. I don’t know how far away my parents or my siblings were at that moment. All I do know is that I was rescued by a woman named Mrs. Herman from Buffalo, who became my mother’s first friend at Camp Lavigerie, and who probably remained on her Christmas Card list for the next 45 years. And I still have the scar on my finger. I don’t have a tattoo, and I’m the only guy at The Valley Stream Pool without one, but I have this mark from the first time I ever set foot on the shores of Lake Kushaqua, the day my mom and Mrs. Herman became friends.
And the friends just kept coming, for my parents and for all of us. The place was riddled with big Irish Catholic families, each with enough kids to start their own softball team: The Lynches, Meenan’s and Donohue’s and Hickey’s, all from Long Island. The Shaw’s from Rochester, The Rudden’s from Ontario , the Heney’s from Quebec, the Desmond’s from Schenectady and the Zimmer’s from Buffalo. There were bonfires and big spaghetti dinners and softball games and talent shows and guys with speedboats and water skis; trips to the movies in Saranac Lake on Saturday Nights, or to the stores on Broadway and the Berkley Hotel in Saranac for lunch on rainy days, and let’s not forget church on Sunday morning. The place itself had originally been built in 1901 as a tuberculosis sanitarium. There was a colossal tudor-style building originally used as a hospital (“sanitarium”, actually), a beautiful little white chapel and a train station next to it, and ten or twelve “cure cottages” scattered about on the road and on the lakefront. In 1959, years after they figured out tuberculosis, the entire thing was bought by a French-Canadian medical missionary organization called the White Fathers of Africa to use as a seminary for priests in training . The White Fathers added a recreation hall and ten or twelve small cabins, which were all named after African nations. We either stayed in Algeria or Uganda. (And you’re thinking, my, this story got weird quickly. Seriously, it’s OK).
In addition to the seminary, the White Fathers first established a boys camp, then expanded it to become a “family camp.” You don’t hear about many family camps anymore. Probably because nobody has big families anymore. The folks that went to Camp Lavigerie had gone forth and multiplied, damn sure. And this piece of earth and water in the Adrondack Mountains went from a place where people at the turn of the 20th Century went to cough until they got better or died to the happiest little small town on Earth for two months every summer from 1962 to 1974.
And it was pretty much the same thing every year, and nobody would have it any other way. You went to the Camp Store to get the list of who was staying where and you started looking up old friends. And you’d find them at the Rec Hall, where there were ping pong tables and big comfy chairs and people who needed one more for a card game and a teen room I was never allowed into because the damn place closed when I was 11. Or they’d be on the beach, swimming out to the raft or getting ready to take the boat out. (There were actually people going by on water skis and waving. I kid you not). The beach would also be the site of the end of the week bonfires on Friday nights, which were great if you weren’t leaving the next day. Then of course you’d see everyone at mass at the Chapel on Sunday Mornings, but you’d know you didn’t need to see heaven when you died ’cause you were already in it. There would be daily trips in the boat with the Johnson outboard motor to get groceries at Bing Tormey’s store in Onchiota, where the sign said “67 of the Friendliest People in The Adirondacks, Plus A Couple of Soreheads”, because Bing was as funny and smart as anyone who has ever lived in Manhattan. And you might even see Santa Claus on your boat trip back to the Camp; specifically, a retired vaudeville comedian named Ireland MacFadyn who lived in a trailer on Kushaqua and would throw on a santa suit and come out to greet kids who came by, just ’cause he enjoyed it. Imagine that. (And take a look at the picture below that I have thanks to Pat Haltigan).
And in the middle there were big spaghetti dinners and talent shows in the “Green Room” of the Seminary (where we all saw Neil Armstrong step on the moon on July 20, 1969). And Mr. Rudden would sing “The Damper Song” at the top of his lungs and people would be be rolling in the aisles (google it) and Pete Hickey would channel Arlo Guthrie and get everyone to sing “I don’t want a pickle/Just wanna ride my motorcycle…and I don’t wanna die. Just wanna ride my motorcy…cle.” And Pete and all the other teenagers were like Gods and Goddesses to me. They spent the week barefoot and seemingly unbothered with by their parents for the most part, Their wild early 70’s hairstyles and fashions making the place look like Godspell for Christ’s sake. I knew they were having much more fun than us younger kids, who still bring up this unfairness when we get together even though we’re in our 50’s now. We never got the chance to let loose at Camp Lavigerie like our older brothers and sisters did, though we loved it on our own terms. (And let loose they did. My father is 85 years old now and doesn’t remember much. But if you mention Camp Lavigerie, he often says, “I’m surprised nobody ever got killed up there.”)
During the last two or three summers, there weren’t enough “brothers” living at the White Fathers Seminary to keep the place running properly, so the Brother-in-Charge, Jim Heinz, had the smart idea of employing all the teenage guys who had grown up at the camp. My brother got the enviable job of driving around in a very old Red Chevy Pickup with Brother Vernon, picking up the garbage and doing maintenance. Tim Donohue ran the Camp Store. John Forzly was the lifeguard. Tony Shubert hung out in the boathouse with a pile of comic books. I spent a lot of time annoying them.
Then, In 1979, I got to be a teenager at Camp Lavigerie for a week. I was 16 and came up to Road’s End, one of the three remaining buildings left after the Camp was demolished, to attend a reunion with my brother. The reunion was put together by all the former teenagers, who were now in their twenties and knew how to have serious fun. My brother had to leave during the week and convinced my parents to let me stay, and they agreed because they knew who I’d be staying with. Perhaps if they knew I’d spend the entire week drunk on Genesee Beer they might have reconsidered. No matter, that wonderful week was the last I’d see of Camp Lavigerie for the next 9 years. I came up to the Rainbow Lake Cabin a couple of times with some friends and a couple of times just by myself. As a matter of fact, I hitchhiked up the Adirondack Northway from Glens Falls when I was 17, just to say I did. When I got to Saranac Lake and was just walking around my childhood hometown by myself, it was the most free I have ever felt, and would ever feel. I can still catch that feeling just by standing on the river bridge on Church Street. I was alone, 300 miles from Long Island (and all the people who had formed opinions of me there), and yet I felt completely at home and not the least bit afraid, ’cause this was home, too.
In 1995, a group of people began putting together formal Camp Lavigerie reunions over Labor Day weekend. The people who had the week-long party at Road’s End were starting families and wanted to show them what it was like, minus the Genessee and debauchery, so they all got together at a hotel in Lake Placid. I didn’t go to the first one. I was so far removed from it that I didn’t think it would mean much to me. Then my parents came home gushing about all the people they saw and all the things they did, and I made sure I was at the next one in 1998 and had the time of my life catching up with everybody, and getting to hang out on equal terms with all the Gods and Goddesses of my childhood, who had turned out to be as cool as they always were except older. And then I went to one after that in 2001, and this time, I brought my wife of three weeks to see what all the fuss was about.
Trisha was feeling a little out of place. After driving through a wicked rainstorm up Route 73 and scaring the crap out of her, we arrived at The Ramada Inn in Lake Placid, which was all very nice and good but which is basically The Hamptons with Mountains. It has nothing to do with Saranac or Onchiota. She was about to find that out. We took a drive through Saranac Lake (which also made her nervous, which I found very funny) and made our way out to the old Rec Hall site, which was now (and still is) owned by a former camper, Pat Haltigan, who started out in Levittown, and who somehow found out that the White Fathers had never actually owned the land around the Rec Hall, and when they sold the rest to the State, he jumped in and bought it. Pat has lived off the grid on the Kushaqua Mud Road for over twenty years. He comes back to the story in a little bit. I’m digressing.
So there we are, all standing around on Pat’s property, catching up with each other, and Trisha is smiling and playing along. At this point Pete Hickey, and his beard and his hair and his tie-dye and his tinted hippie glasses, comes down the road covered in bloody scratches all over his arms and legs and announces that he has blazed a trail to the top of White Cross Mountain (he was one of the ones who erected the birch tree cross way back when) and would we all like to come for a hike. And I was in heaven, and my newlywed wife was wondering what fresh hell she had gotten herself into. But we climbed, Rudden’s and Shaw’s and Donohue’s and Meenan’s and lots of others, and we reached the big rock and looked down over Lake Kushaqua, and Trisha started to get it. And later that weekend we had a big softball game and a bonfire and a talent show where Mr. Rudden sang “The Damper Song” and Pete sang “The Pickle Song.” and she started to get it more. The group that organized the reunion had found a nice priest from Saranac who agreed to say a mass in front of the chapel on Sunday morning. In his homily, he pointed out how the Camp Lavigerie story was now moving on to a new generation, and pointed out how one young couple – Jimmy Meenan and his wife – had come with their newborn baby, and how another young couple, John and Trisha Duffy, had just gotten married and would probably be back at the next reunion with a baby of their own.
We came back to the 2004 reunion with a baby of our own. We caught up with everyone again, and had a big softball game (it was me and The Shaw’s against everyone else. I believe it was a blowout) and a talent show and a bonfire that we had to miss because Daddy was starting a new job the day after Labor Day.We stayed in Saranac Lake like normal people and Trisha fell in love with it on our walks around town, pushing our baby stroller just as cute as could be. By that time somebody had set up a Website where we could all try to keep in touch, but really, it wasn’t until facebook came along (you love to hate it) that it became possible to really keep everyone together. Still. life got in the way of the Labor Day Reunions and the last big one was in 2007.
After that, I went 8 years between trips to The Adirondacks. We were happy enough with our little home away from home three hours away in Copake Falls and I just kind of let it get away from me. Then on August 23, 2012, my mother died at the age 82. And I knew that on August 23, 2013 I’d be standing on the shore of Lake Kushaqua, come hell or high water. (And in that intervening year we had some of both). Trisha understood completely. We stayed at Amanda’s Village Motel in Saranac. The Dude was nine years old and thought it was really cool to stay in a motel with Mom and Dad and Mookie, who loved the big comfy beds most of all. Our next door neighbor at the motel became a friend, Bruce Freifeld. He had just toured around The Great Lakes on a motorcycle and let The Dude sit on his bike and try out his weather-proof gear, including the jacket that heats up when you plug it into the battery, which of course blew The Dude’s mind. We saw a couple of our old friends, particularly Martha Rudden and her wonderful kids, Emily and James. We walked around Saranac and went for ice cream at Donnelly’s, which was a five mile drive from Camp Lavigerie but was one of the highlights of the week back in the days, when it was Crystal Springs Dairy. Every night they twist a different flavor with vanilla and it’s the best soft serve ice cream on the planet. Anyone reading this who has experienced this ice cream can attest. I can’t describe in words how good it is.
We even went on a night walk through Tucker Farm’s Great Adirondack Corn Maze in Gabriels, which for The Dude, who is currently asleep upstairs with all the lights on, was a huge jump. On the second trip down to the lake, I saw two women and a dog. I said, “Lavigerie?” and one of the women said “John Duffy?” and I said, “Peggy Lynch?” and wound up having a conversation about the old days with someone who actually lives about five miles from here. The whole trip was magical. Even the weather was perfect, which is not always the case in this particular part of the world.
Driving back from Kushaqua to Saranac Lake that afternoon, my ipod shuffle picked out “Fire And Rain” just as I was passing the turnoff for the Rainbow Lake Cabin. I thought about my mother and tears welled up in my eyes. I thought about all the things we both had to deal with in our lives that were so far away from the peace and happiness of Camp Lavigerie, and for no damn good reason. How much we both had to deal with people and situations that just plain sucked: “Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.” But on the other hand: “Sunny days that I thought would never end.” I knew I would have to keep coming back to this place to keep my center intact, honor the memory of the person that gave this place to me, and pass it on to my son.
So we came back again, this past July. The Shaws were renting the same place they’d rented since Lavigerie closed, Martha was coming to town with her kids, so we decided to move the Copake Falls Week up and come back to Saranac and Onchiota in July. So we ended up driving 150 miles, staying away from home for a week, driving 150 miles back home, staying for four days, then driving 325 miles to stay in a motel for four and a half days. While Trisha and I could envision what it would take to endure that, and why it was worth it, we didn’t realize that it would be a little too much of a strain on our 11 year-old Dude. Meanwhile, Trisha is, currently and unfortunately, suffering from an injury related to spinal stenosis, and it really hurts her to walk. She had gotten a cortisone shot before Copake Falls that she promptly undid by feeling great and trying to load the car. So for the entire week that she lives for all year long, she wasn’t able to walk any distance in the place where we spend half our time taking walks, and it was breaking my heart. However, you have never met anyone with a bigger heart than my wife, and a sweeter spirit. She insisted that we make the trip to Saranac Lake. She didn’t want to miss it. Under these circumstances, we knew it was going to be quite as “lightning-in-a-bottle” magic as the last trip, but we went anyway. Because it’s there.
We made the trip in six hours flat. It usually takes at least seven. I was so excited that I told a friendly guy walking down River Street in front of the motel, as Mookie read the new pee mail, that I had just driven from Long Island in six hours. He gave Mookie a big hello (and vice versa), congratulated me and invited me over to The Waterhole for a drink. I of course couldn’t join him, being a family man and all that, but to be invited to The Waterhole is a great honor. Later Mookie and I saw the guy and his buddies on the front porch of the Waterhole, which is the Front Porch of Saranac Lake, and we all said hi like old friends. That’s how it goes there.
We went over to see the Shaw’s at their cabins on Flower Lake. Burt and Brian, my childhood heroes, were not there, which was a bit of a buzzkill, and started me thinking about how old we’re all getting. But we got to catch up with Glenn, who is a boy about my age – 50- and meet his three year-old son William and his fiancee Katie, plus my childhood buddy Christal, and Curtis (who Mookie particularly bonded with), and Mrs. Shaw, who is now 90 years old, and Keith, who gave The Dude a quiz on proper electrician and HVAC guy procedure, which was great entertainment around the campfire. Things were starting out well. Even Mookie got to go for a quick swim on their beach.
We stayed up too late and The Dude was starting to drag the next day. We had to drag him out of the motel for our first drive out to Lake Kushaqua. He wasn’t whiny, but he wasn’t having as much fun as we thought he should be. I couldn’t get him to come into the lake with Mookie and me, and Trisha had to sit down wherever possible. Plus I should point out that it’s a steep walk down to the lake. You can drive your car down the road, but it’s barely passable. Walking back up the hill was about all Trisha’s back could take and she was really wrecked by the time we got back to the motel. That’s when Edie decided to get involved.
Edie and Joe are the proprietors of Amanda’s Village Motel, across River Street from Flower Lake. Amanda’s was brand spanking new in the 1940’s, but Edie and Joe have managed to suspend it in time. They run a clean, simple motel where you can bring your dog and walk to everything in Saranac, except if you can’t walk. Edie saw how much Trisha was suffering, and unlike myself, decided to do something helpful. She insisted that Trisha go see her chiropractor the next day. I was not particularly in favor of the idea. I’m pretty sure a chiropractor made my back worse than it already was when I destroyed it working in the Grocery Department of Foodtown when I was 18, so of course I base my whole opinion of chiropractors on that one incident. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so we agreed that Trisha would go see Dr. Cliff Wagner (who everyone just called “Doc”) at 3:30 the next day.
Meanwhile, The Dude was getting to be a little out of sorts. I tried to change his outlook by taking him over to the local Ace Hardware and Radio Shack so he could pick up the new outlet receptacle and wire he needed for his summer projects, because he’s spoiled rotten. Put it this way: I don’t mind doing this stuff at all as long as a little gratitude is shown. Instead, when we got back to the motel he started whining about the wi-fi being spotty, and that it was too hot, and generally being nasty and unpleasant, and he didn’t want to go for a walk into town with Mookie and me (which to me is inconceivable if the town is Saranac Lake) Pile that on with Trisha being in excruciating pain and it all adds up to me getting snarky back and taking the computer away.
And I immediately flashed back to those years when it was just me in the Rainbow Lake cabin with my parents, and how much of a jerk I thought my father was being, and how it was me being the jerk. We had ice cream with the Shaw’s at Donnelly’s after Little Italy Pizza in Riverside Park and we apologized to each other and tried to reboot. Oh, and by the way, if you’re in Saranac Lake the third week of July and you’re looking for the Shaw’s, just go stand in front of Donnelly’s Ice Cream Stand on Route 86 around 8pm, and they’ll be there in no time flat.
The Dude got his computer back the next day. After I got in a spectacular morning kayak paddle with Christal, we loaded up some lunch and a big yellow dog and headed back to Kushaqua. This time I drove down to the beach to save Trisha the walk (and drove back up -and anyone who knows that road knows that Subaru should be sponsoring this page just because I wrote that). I took a dive in and Mookie tried to rescue me. The Dude was doing a monologue, a lecture, an Asperger’s thing, where he takes the listener captive (in this case and most often, Trisha) and talks through every singe detail of how he is going to – in this case -hardwire a doorbell in the house this summer. And it’s pissing me off that he might as well be standing in a Wal-Mart Parking lot for all he’s really taking in Lake Kushaqua, the spot he described as “like a tropical island” the first time he saw it two years before. But I made the adjustment. I looked outside myself and into him. I decided consciously not be an asshole. I asked him to tell ME how he was going to install the doorbell, and I started walking across the beach, Mookie behind me as always. As he monologued on and on, he followed me right into the lake, and we walked through the shallow water and watched the Aspen leaves sparkle in the breeze as he talked and talked. Finally, he acknowledged that the water was pretty nice.
I had a plan. Besides getting Trisha to the chiropractor by 3:30. I wanted to take a drive down Kushaqua Mud Road, walk on a path that I knew of back down to the lake and see a spot that was called “Children’s Beach” way back when, even though it was more a grassy spot than a beach and there were never any children on it. The spot was special because it was the place where my Mother used to go to hide from us all at Camp Lavigerie. She had said many times that it was her favorite spot on Earth. She could sit there and look at out White Cross Mountain across the lake, maybe read a book, maybe sneak in a couple of Marlboros. I hadn’t visited the spot the last time we came up because the road was closed. This time I never got down there because we saw Pat Haltigan outside his place and we got to talking, and I’m glad we did.
As I mentioned before, Pat bought the land where the Camp Lavigerie Rec Hall was located. He started out as a kid from Levittown at Camp Lavigerie but, like quite a few others, he came up to the North Country permanently as soon as he could. (I told Edie That I might have done the same at one time in my life if I had not been born chicken-shit). Pat was a long-distance trucker, so when he started out, he used to keep his rig right on the property. He had tapped into the well water, has a giant propane generator and a wood stove and therefore is able to live off the grid. (When I told the Dude that Pat generated all his own power, he just stared at the trailer for a very long time). He is also the now, unfortunately, the single father of a seven-year-old boy and has been forced to go on disability because of some injuries. He bonded with Trisha right away because they a lot of had aches and pains in common. And if you still don’t believe in climate change, I’ll tell you that Pat – the most independent person you could ever meet – has gotten a place in Saranac to stay with his son in the wintertime, after hunting season, because the last two winters were horrific all through upstate. (The Rochester Shaw’s said the same thing – The worst they ever saw).
We stood around talking to Pat, who showed The Dude some of his cooler toys (an old CB radio among others) and broke out some old pictures (some of which accompany this article) and the time got away and it was time to head back to Saranac and take Trisha to the Country Chiropractor. The Dude took the River Walk through Saranac with me and was generally pleasant. We had heroes from the Lakeview Deli for dinner, ice cream with The Shaw’s again (it was “fruit surprise” night) and all was generally right with the world.
The next morning Trisha was still in pain. We made another appointment to go see “Doc” at 11:30. I had breakfast with Christal and Martha and her kids at DJ’s Rustic Restaurant. (The Dude was “not hungry”) and planned to just spend the day walking around Saranac with The Dude and Mookie. The Dude was understandably upset about his mom’s condition and was again a little out of sorts. When we picked up Trisha, we decided to walk over to the Farmer’s Market in Riverside Park, and the walk damn near made her break down in tears. There’d be no more family walks for this vacation, or anymore rides to Kushaqua. We’d visit a couple of my favorite stores on Broadway and then have dinner at The Downhill Grill, plus of course ice cream at Donnelly’s, even though The Shaw’s had packed up to go home.
When The Dude and I have our battles, we always acknowledge after the fact that we were both to blame, and that is true. The situation usually escalates in direct proportion to how I react. The rest of that afternoon he whined about the wi-fi and the weather (it was getting right steamy) and burying his head under the covers on his motel bed. By the time we got to dinner, he insisted on ordering a burrito instead of getting something safer off the kids menu. The burrito came, looking nothing like a Taco Bell burrito, and he had a head-in-the-hands, rocking-back-and-forth full scale meltdown, bitching and moaning about how badly we treated him. And we had to eat our dinner real fast and get out. And he said some nasty stuff he didn’t have to say, just like a Duffy. And I lost my shit on him. I made him stay in the car while we got our last Donnelly’s ice cream and gave him the silent treatment until Trisha got him to sleep. And of course I felt bad about it later. I went for a drive that night, got one of may many, many coffees to go from the Stewart Shop, looked around Saranac and felt like the most selfish punk in the world for driving my injured wife and my ultra-sensitive son all this way just so I could reconnect with my past. When I told Trisha that, she told me I was being ridiculous. I love that woman.
The next morning, as we left to go home, The Dude was quiet, but apologetic. As we drove out through Saranac one last time, I told him that this place has a lot to do with the person that I am, and that I studied the ways of North Country people when I was “growing up” here in the summers. I told him that people who lived here, and the people who knew it well, were people who rolled with the punches, who didn’t let little things get to them, who treated friends and strangers alike with kindness and respect no matter what their circumstances; who kept their sense of humor and their connection to nature intact as much as possible and who knew what was important and what was not. I told him that I didn’t know when we’d be coming back, because he didn’t seem to really appreciate it. And that was just a plain old mean thing to say, but I said it anyway.
As we made our way down 73 to The Northway, The Dude told me he was sorry again. And I apologized for overreacting. And then he said something that will stay with me forever. This is what he said: “I’d like to come back here again and learn how to be a Saranac Lake Guy.”
And so we will. And we’ll find a nice cabin on a lake so we don’t have to live in a motel, and Mookie can go swimming whenever he feels like it, and Trisha will be able to walk, and we’ll leave the damn computer and all the electronic junk at home and keep working on teaching our son to love the North Country for the beautiful, magical place that it is.
And at some point, I’ll take a ride by myself and go down to Children’s Beach and sit and stare at White Cross Mountain and remember for awhile. I’m sure Mom wouldn’t mind the company.
A Creek Runs Through It 
That is amazing, John. And like Jack, when I grow up, I’d like to be a Saranac Lake person… Thanks for sharing. Martha
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Me too. 🙂
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John. Our family. Liz, Kathy, mike, Joellen, and Tom and John and mom and dad Larry and Barrie consider this special place dear to us always. Thank you for the wonderful story. We have pictures that you might enjoy. I do not know how to send via computer but if you give me your address I will mail them to you. We lived in Merrick for 68 years but live now in E. Meadow .We wished we could visit but we are on in years. 93 and 91. Hope to keep up to date on your website. Bless you. Mr. and mrs Larry pintos
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Thank you so much Larry. I certainly would love to see the pictures, but I also wouldn’t want you to let go of original photos. I will send you my address via email. There is a White Fathers – Camp Lavigerie Facebook Page where people love seeing the old pictures. I could take pictures of snapshots and post them for lots of campers to see.
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Great recollection. My family – Irish and Italian – went to the White Fathers’ camp 3 or 4 summers in a row in the early 60s. We had lived in Pittsburgh, so that was a 2-day drive involving an overnight stay at a HoJo ‘s just over the NY border, before finally arriving at the camp. I had told my wife of 52 years only a few years ago about the “White Fathers of Africa” – she didn’t believe such a terribly named religious order could have existed, ever! But she’s a research librarian, and found your amazing first person account of Camp Onchiota (that’s what we called it!). It brought back memories of sitting around a campfire at night singing “If I Were a Hammer” and “Michael Rowed His Boat Ashore” – the white cross atop the mountain (Mount Marcy?) came to mind as soon as I read it on your essay.
We are so intrigued that we intend to drive to the area next weekend (we live in Burlington, VT – about 2 hours away). I’ll post photos.
Are you a professional writer, or just a good long-form essayist?
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Thank you, Bernard. I’m not a professional, so I’ll take the compliment. Pittsburgh was probably about as far as anyone traveled to get to Camp Lavigerie. You will find if you check out the area today that the road from Onchiota down to where the camp was is in very poor shape. The chapel still remains, which is the only way you’d know you’re there. It is privately owned, by several people from Vermont, I believe. The last couple of times I was there I paddled to “family beach” from the bridge that separates Rainbow Lake and Lake Kushaqua and also hiked the other side of Kushaqua from Buck Pond. I’d love to see your pictures when you go. My email is duffyscreek@optonline.net, and I’ll look for you on Facebook. (I visited Burlington many years ago and loved it. Beautiful place) I wrote this post in 2015, and it’s the gift that keeps in giving. Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it. 😁
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Was investigating online and typed in Camp Lavegerie and a number of things popped up. We attended family camp from 1959-1969. We stopped coming as I was getting ready to graduate from college, Uncle Sam was doing his darndest to draft me and I acquired a bride who was more into the ocean than mountains. 1959 through 1969 were magical years. Dad acquired a speed boat, we skied and my Mom made 60 pound bags of potatoes turn into French fries. Great times. Phil Geniac, my brother, Kelly Street, two brothers whose names I can’t remember played rock n roll for the teenagers at Rec Center. Fantastic times.
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We are so blessed to be Saranac Lake People. I enjoyed every minute of this beautifully written tribute to our unique childhood experience. The first thing I would do when we arrived back home every year was to get out a calendar and start marking every day off until we went back to camp again. It seemed like forever until the next summer.
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Thank you for reading the story, Susan. It really is a unique thing to have had. I remember trying to explain it to kids back home when I was going every summer and it was like telling them you were going to another planet. I’m sure glad I had it. I’m glad you did, too. 🙂
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Susan Dauer Rich was and still is my best friend met her there when we were 10 years old ms those days.
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Susan and i were best friends we met there when we were eleven years old. Reading your story brought back so many memories all good .thanks
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I’m glad you enjoyed it, John. Thank you for the feedback. The response that the story got over the past year shows how deeply people felt about the place. I guess we can add you to that list of people.
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It is nice to share this special place with someone who knows that Camp Lavigerie and
Stony Wold really existed. I returned to the site this month after 50 year’s lapse and experienced this profound sense of loss…there was no physical proof that I/we lived there except for the chapel. I met the mystical there in 1965. After Summer passed and the campers left, we students at St Joseph’s were left to a very solitary, contemplative life. I will never forget the haunting call of the loons on Kushaqua and the very unnerving yells of the Coyote/wolf mixes in the hills. Those guys who weathered the long winter of 1966 will never forget the UFO sighting that Spring! It truly rocked us to the core. There was no place in our theology to explain what we had experienced! It is good for this place to return to the forest….but just the same…the emptiness of it all makes me want to cling to the memories that much more.
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I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your comment earlier, Tom. If you were there in 1965 you missed my family by one year. It was pretty shocking when we watched it all coming down in the mid-1970’s. I could only imagine what it would seem like after a 50-year absence. But Kushaqua is still a perfect place, and always will be. And it’s funny – I actually do remember the UFO stories from way back then. Your last sentence, “the emptiness of it all makes me want to cling to the memories that much more”, is an exquisite choice of words to sum up how people feel about Camp Lavigerie. Thank you for reading the story, and thank you for your commentary. It made me feel like I accomplished something special through writing it all down. All the best to you. -JD.
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A few friends and I have been camping up there for nearly 10 years now. We usually go when it’s too cold for most people to be out. It’s a great place, wish I had been around to see the way it was before!
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We saw a bunch of kids in their twenties all camping out one day, having a great time. We came back and two guys had set up a giant tent. NYS used to check and require permits, but I don’t think they can be bothered now. It’s like God’s own campsite, isn’t it? And interestingly, I’ve never been up there in the winter months, although it is definitely on the bucket list. The autumn colors must be outrageous as well. One day… :>)
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Wow, what memories. By the time you started going, I had stopped – college and summer jobs, but I won’t ever forget the place. We stayed in Overlook and Road’s End with the Smiths from Rochester, my mother’s sister’s family. With 19 of us in total, we needed one of the bigger “cabins.”
The one thing that sticks in my mind was how they’d let us go out and shoot .22s at targets overlooking the lake, and the brother would always take our money and give us the ammunition, THEN go out and put up the targets. Dad always said that’s not how he’d have done it…
That and my uncle, always trying to get the skinny on the best spot to fish for lake trout. The first year, he brought a hook borrowed from a friend that would have sufficed for Moby Dick.
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Thank you for the added memories, Mark. I’m pretty sure I remember where the rifle range was. It was along the railroad bed between the beach parking lot and the Rec Hall. I think I got to shoot there. And I have a painful but amusing memory of watching my father trying to get a catfish off a line while being eaten alive by mosquitos down by the Kushaqua Dam. You probably wouldn’t be surprised at how many people responded to this story about Lavigerie. It seems to stay with people for life. Thanks again for reading.
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This is the closest I have been to what sounds like a beautiful place…and place in time.
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Thank you, Van. The time is gone, but the place is still there. 🙂
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I enjoyed your story about Lake Kushaqua, Saranac Lake, Camp Lavigerie, etc. We had enjoyed the area since the early ’60’s. We now own 2 camps in Onchiota and love every minute we spend there, even in the dead of winter. We were there snowmobiling many years ago when the temperature dropped to 44 degrees below zero. We were nice and toasty in our camp with the woodstove cranking. The only things that would start were the snowmobiles. On another topic, do you know where we could see some photos of the small building on the White Fathers site before the state had them removed. The reason I ask is that one of our camps has 5 small buildings that were obviously moved in from another site and used as additions to the main camp or self standing sleeping quarters. They are all of different design. I have always thought that they came from the White Fathers.
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First of all thanks for reading, Dave. I’m sure you knew your former Mayor Bing Tormey. We have that in common. It’s great that some of his signs are still up on the old IGA Post Office. I love that building. And the Seven Gables. Every year I buy something off the rack at the antiques store just to have something else from Onchiota. As for the cottages: Some of them were pretty big. They were cure cottages in themselves. Others were residences for doctors and nurses and staff. The White Fathers built a cluster of clapboard cabins down by the beach on Kushaqua. They were demolished in 1974. BUT! They the first cottage my family stayed in – called Pine – sits across from the ballfield in Gabriels. (Little brown house set back from the road). And the Stony Wold train station, which was the White Fathers Camp store, was and may still be out on Route 3 in Vermontville. So that’s what they looked like, anyway. It’s entirely possible that Bing bought a cottage or two. I don’t think you can send a picture through wordpress, but if you can send a picture to duffyscreek@optonline.net I’d know a Lavigerie Cottage if I saw one. Meanwhile, enjoy the fall colors and stay warm. 🙂
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Thank-you so much for this….my summers here were like a dream. Love this treasure.
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Thank-you so much for this….my summers here wee like a dream. Love this treasure.
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John,
Thanks for sharing this story.
I also grew up there in the summers and reading your story brought back so many get thoughts (all good ) from my time spent their.
Mike
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Thank you, Mike. It’s a special club we belong to. 🙂
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Hello Martha and John. Mike Klee – who I still see to this day – you forgot to tell the rest of the story…those island parties blessed by Brother Joe and more… Maybe we should ask John Morton 🙂
My family along with Mike’s and John Morton’s were at Lavigerie in August for 2 weeks from 65 till it closed. My family of 7 kids stayed in african cottages and them moved to Mountainview. I have the mimeographed guest lists that my mom saved and a letter from McDonally’s when they purchased Bishops and Roads End. We watched Nixon resign on a small b/w tv and the smoking ruins of Overlook burning the night before we got there. The meteor showers over the lake were unbelievable [aug12th] and don’t forget singing kumbaya and where have all the flowers gone with Pete Hickey and others on guitar along with the pickel. We hiked white cross mountain & mount marcy; swung on the rope at the first bridge by the rr tunnel, water skied, went target shooting at the rifle range and fished in the pond full of trout on the hill above the main building back over where Nurses was. I never caught too many fish in the lake but the pond was a different story. John Morton and a cast of characters made sure our days at camp were memorable.
I reconnected with Pat Haltigan, a number of years ago while up there on a motorcycle adventure with my GF. What a surprise. I have many pictures of myself and whomever was with me at the time in front of the chapel. Most of my many visits have been by motorcycle but there’s a few by car and one in the snow with the 4×4. The road to the main beach parking lot used to be passable by large motorcycle but those days are gone as it all slips into oblivion. The beach has become a very popular spot for camping and we have even seen the ranger booting some folks from there – there are better lesser known spots to camp. It’s a shame there is not a historical marker on the spot of the main building. I visited with Bing Tormey years ago but I can’t remember when.
Great story John, Thank you. All I can do is smile when I think of the days at camp.
I have pictures I would love to share so if you can put them up email me.
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Hello,
I was looking for a book telling stories of Saranac Lake to read before my coming next summer with my family. We planed to come here for years because of the landscapes, the forest and special way of leaving people seems to have here. Did I told you we come from France?
I found your blog. It is just amazing! The way you describe the places and persons, your family and friends, your souvenirs. It makes us more impatient to come!
Thank you for sharing,
Marielle
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Thank you, Marielle. I invite you to look at a post from September of 2016 called, “Taking the Cure at The Saranac Lake Bowling Alley.” A lot of it is about my son, but a lot of it is about Saranac Lake itself, which is my favorite place in the whole world. I hope you get to visit it, because I know you will love it. :>)
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I just found this and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing. As the youngest member of the Donoghue family….Joan and Jim parents..my memories of Lavergerie were from a bit younger perspective(i.e. I always had to leave the bonfires so the teenagers could hang out and “sing”)! As the years have passed, I along with my husband and three children returned every year to camp at Buck Pond. My now grown children can literally tell all of my stories as they have heard them so often! As I write this my husband and I are preparing for our yearly visit in just another week!
My father always referred to this place as his most favorite place in the world! Every year when I return to the beach I can almost hear the voices from the past!
Thank you again for this post. I am forwarding it on to the rest of my siblings!!
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Hi Virginia! Thank you very much for the kind words. I’m not getting up there this year and I’m trying not to let it get to me. It’s almost like there’s some magic potion in the air and the water that you can only get in the Adirondacks, and if you can’t get there, you just can’t substitute anything or anyplace else. You’ve just got to use what you have until you can get back and recharge. And by the way, if your siblings include Tim and Dan, I see them on facebook all the time. Same family?
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Yup! Tim lives around the road from me! My Mom has been living with my husband and I for ten years since my Dad passed away. Dan will actually be up for a visit in a week or so! I am apparently the only member of the family who is not on Facebook !
You’re right about it being the place where we can recharge ourselves. It has always been that way for me as well. All the best to you and thank you once again for this post!!!!!😊
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Then you’re up in God’s Country in NH. I’m always impressed with Tim’s life up there. It’s a long way from Levittown. You can tell him this story. The last time I saw him was at the 2004 reunion. My wife Trisha and I had our 7 month old baby boy Jack with us. (He’s now 13). We were talking to Tim about raising kids, and he said something I’ve carried with me through some rough times, and it always makes me check my attitude. He said, “don’t ever let anybody tell you it isn’t fun.” He’s one of my Camp Lavigerie heroes. In hope your family has great weather and great times on your Adirondack recharge. I’ll be back. And thanks again for reading and for your positive feedback.
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Martha Rudden pegged it in an earlier post when she said Camp Lavigerie was a magical place and that her kids ‘totally get it.’ So true as my wife, son, myself and some of my sibs and their families, have been going back to the area, specifically Buck Pond on the very fringes of what used to be the White Fathers, for years. We all love the place and are continually drawn to it. Amazing how it is trans generational but somehow, once exposed, it gets into your system and does not let go. So thankful our parents decided to vacation there many years ago….in our case, 1960 – 1969. We were in Overlook when it burned to the ground in August 1969, which is about the only bad (tragic) memory I have after all these years.
Thanks for the history/stories John and evoking some wonderful memories.
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What a great recollection and story. I’m from Levittown and we had 4 families from our street who all went up together for a week each year in the early sixties. We would fish all week and have a big fish fry on our last night. A good deal of plunking cans with our 22 long rifles. Great memories.
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Thank you for reading, Jim. I never knew how many people still shared Camp Lavigerie memories until I wrote this. There’s a lot of us. :>)
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I have pictures to share – new and old
John can you send me an email so i can send pictures for you to post?
I was just there in June by motorcycle.
Down at what was called the “seminarian’s beach” some one had cut the tall birch trees on the shore line with a chainsaw and just dropped them into the water and left them. DEC was notified. There is also a picnic table there acquired from somewhere else.
It’s a shame there is no sign at the chapel telling all what was there and gone.
The chapel looks unused
I did not venture down to the rec hall area, african cottage/beach area or to bishops as the other motorcycle was loud! – they did not like road…and there was some one camping at the beach – you could see that from the seminarians beach. The road is deteriorating with time.
In the fall after the leaves are down I will return by car to look for the fish pond reservoir
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Jim,
Believe it or not, I was at Seminarian’s Beach an hour ago. I’ve been on vacation in Saranac Lake for the last week. I saw the birch in the water but didn’t notice somebody had cut it, and the DEC must have taken the picnic table. You can drive up to Family Beach from the Kushaqua Mud Pond Road, but the road down to the beach is pretty shot. The footpath is a lot easier. People still drive down there. I met some nice folks from Saranac Lake who were camping there all week (illegally of course), but being 330 miles from home, I’d prefer not to drive to where I potenytially can’t get back from. :>)
My email is duffyscreek@optonline.net. You can also find me on facebook, feel free to friend me if you’re on. (John Duffy in Creekside, NY – Duffy’s Creek- really Valley Stream but I fooled them). Thanks again for getting in touch and I’d love to see old pictures of the camp.
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I was at White Fathers late afternoon 09-20-2018 riding my motorcycle, by myself with nobody else. I was coming from up and around Lake Champlain from the VT side starting in Rutland VT in the AM. I rode down the to Bishops/Road Ends. I parked and took a lot of pictures.
Roads end looks unused while Bishops is being used. There is a broken window pane on the 3d story of RE. Anyways I rode down to the rec hall site as well, no one appears to be living in the trailer and there is an abandoned vehicle there. I walked the road to the african cottages to see if i could still ride the large touring bike down there…well if i had a second m/c with me yes as after i fell over WE could pick it up.
When i got home i with a bit of luck found THE real estate guy who knows all about WF-CL. More on this as there is a lot to relate when i have more time to write. Going up there by car after the leaves fall.
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Mr. Donnelly, the Ice Cream King, owns Bishops and Road’s End. I know the guy who owns the trailer in the Rec Hall Land. He’s in Saranac, but still uses the land. Would love to see those leaves. 🙂
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Want to know about the white fathers land etc? – here is the go to guy Sandy Hayes. 75 years old, born and raised right there. Quite the character
518-891-4343 · Fax: 518-891-6000
Cell: 518-524-4343
sandy@sandyhayesrealty.com
The chapel has been sold 3 times and the story behind the 1st sale is interesting. I think i need to go back up there and interview him with a video camera. As per Sandy the chimes in the seth-thomas clock tower were stolen except for the main one which is too big. I told him about the broken window at RE and he is personal friends with Mr Donnelly and was going to call him about it right after my call. He told me that he recalls there is a limited time lease with the state for RE and Bishops where they go back to the state. I will ask him about that when i am up there after the leaves fall.
Does Peter Haltigan still own the trailer by the rec hall? There is an abandoned SUV there as well.
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Interesting about the lease. More interesting woud be to find out when it actually ends. I assumed Peter Donnelly owned that property outright, as he’s been living in Bishops since they tore the rest of the camp down. And I haven’t seen anyone living in the Chapel in years and years. And yes, Pat Haltigan still owns that land. Hays has been the real estate guy as long as I’ve known Saranac Lake. I’ll bet he’s a character. There are a lot of them up there. :>)
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Hi John you are amazing. This story has brought back so many wonderful memories. I never got to the reunions as my family did as I moved to Fresno ca. in 1987. My dad Larry and I were talking about white fathers today and my brother John had found your story recently. THANK YOU for putting into words how amazing this place was the memories it created that will last our entire lifetime. God bless you and your family. LIZ PINTO BOGHOSIAN
lizboghosian54@gmail.com THANKS AGAIN!
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Thank you very much, Liz. I believe your parents got in touch with me recently, and they promised to send me old pictures (which I agreed to only if I could take digital pictures and send them back). If you’re on Facebook, there is a Camp Lavigerie / White Fathers page. I’m sure you’d love it. Glad I could put you at the reunions in words. :>)
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I was so excited to find your article on Camp Lavigerie! We used to come up with extended family and spend a week here in august In the late 60’s until it closed in ‘74. I have so many fond memories of this place and I never knew what happened to it or could find any pictures either. This is such a gift to me!!!! What I remember most are the talent shows. My little legs dangling off the stage with my hands crossed singing “Kumbaya”. Those were the days../.
Anyway I am in Saranac lake 50 years later and am going to try and find any remnants I can ! I ended up buying a house in Schroon Lake as I will always be an ADK girl at heart!💕🙏
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Hello Michele! Thank you for the note. I wrote this story five years ago and it’s been all around the world and back. It’s so cool when people have the exact same happy memories from so long ago. Truly a special place. We had no idea how much so as kids.
There’s a fellow named Phil Fitzpatrick who wrote a book about the History of Onchiota…
…and he used an excerpt towards the end. Lots of cool stuff about the area in there, not much about White Fathers, except from me and Brother Jim.
If you’re on facebook, there is a page called White Fathers / Camp Lavigerie – Onchiota, NY. You might find people you know. (We were strictly July people, so if you were up in August, we probably never met).
Thank you again for reading, and for sharing your reaction. It feels good to send something positive out into the world. :>)
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I was at the Chapel [again] April 2019 by car & June 15th 2020 with my motorcycle. On the April trip there was 6-8 inches of snow on the road from Tormeys to the Chapel. I met a DEC officer going the other way and we chatted. The first words i heard from him were” Where are you going with that thing? Mini Van. When i told him White Father’s Chapel he was a bit surprised – I am looking for the reservoir, he did not know about the reservoir but he does now. I gave him a 10 minute history lesson. Tormey’s is for sale.
The road from the bridge is mostly sand and gravel. In April or June I did not go down to the rec hall or beach area as i was alone- the snow tires were home in the garage & it’s difficult to pick up a large motorcycle in the sand and gravel.
If anyone travels to interesting places I left a travel rock on the stump in front of the chapel. The rock is self explanatory. “Rooster Rock Travels 2019” on FB.
“Bishops” and “Roads End” [ 2 remaining buildings] are intact but in need of TLC. It appears RE has been used in the past bust Bishops looks bad.
I wish i could share my pictures.
Tom Q
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Hello Tom! Tormey’s has been for sale for awhile. They seemed to be holding firm at $99, 000, but I just looked and it’s not on the real estate sites anymore. Maybe somebody came along. I’m going up the first week in October this year. I’ve never seen it in fall colors, and I got my chance. I’ll look for your rock. (that’s an excellent idea. I may have to leave one myself). I’m surprised Mr. Donnelly has let Bishops look so bad, but then again, he leases them from the state, so it’s probably a question of throwing good money after bad. I have a friend who was renting out Road’s End up until a few years ago. Thank you for keeping in touch. Rock on with your travels, Rooster. :>)
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I was back to the chapel by motorcycle on Sept 23d. There was a camper at the Seminarians Beach and i went down there to say hello and take some pics. He was from VT and had no clue about the place or the Chapel…
Roads End and Bishops need some love. The “Rooster Rock Travels” [FB] rock i left in June was gone so I left another. The rock i left behind had over 6000 motorcycle miles on as i had been carrying that one since June. Tormeys has been bought by a couple from VT. They have cleaned up the place and removed all the lovely placards on the front door etc. I have been photographing it for years so the history is preserved in pictures. I would have changed the door.
Phil Fitzpatrick has written a fantastic book called Onchiota Remembered; which is a “history of the most remarkable Adirondack hamlet where heroic ordinary people created unique institutions that benefited others. The institutions include the Adirondack-Florida School, Stony Wold Sanatorium, Camp Meenagha and the Six Nations Indian Museum. A website with hundreds of images serves as a digital appendix to the book.” Amazon.
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Hello Tom!
I was in Onchiota at the beginning of October. I had never experienced the leaves turning in the Adirondacks and it sure did not disappoint. The weather was cold and cloudy for the most part, but I got some breaks of sun and the colors were glorious. I didn’t take your rock, or notice one, but I looked up the story of the rocks and that’s a wonderful thing. As far as Phil Fitzpatrick, he actually included an excerpt from this very blog post towards the end of his book. I met him in the summer of ’19. He lives part-time in the funky green trailer at the start of the road to Buck Pond.I also heard about the sale of Tormey’s. It’ll be interesting to see what the new owners do with it. Thank you for keeping in touch. For me this story I wrote five and a half years ago is the gift that keeps on giving. :>)
JD
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John, I am writing an article about Stony Wold and St. Joseph’s seminary and would like to include a link to your blog. Would that be ok? The article will appear in the Adirondack Almanack. I have written ten articles so far. Here is a link to all of them so you can see what to expect.
Thank you and Happy New Year!
Gary Peacock, Plattsburgh
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John, I am writing an article about Stony Wold and St. Joseph’s Seminary that will appear in the Adirondack Almanack and would like to include a link to your blog. Would that be ok? I have written ten articles so far. Here is a link to all of them so you can see what to expect.
Hoping to get your ok. It would be a great asset to let readers know the personal touch you provide about the place.
Take care and Happy New Year!
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Hello, Gary. By all means, link away. Thank you. I bookmarked the site and your articles to come back to. It looks like very interesting stuff. Happy New Year to you!
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John. Thanks for your response. Would you be willing to speak with me in the phone? I would like to get a direct quote from about my article. I am not exactly sure what questions I will have since I am still working on the wrap up. But if you are agreeable I will formulate specific questions….along the lines of what was your reaction when you heard that the camp was closing. Thanks. Gary
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Hello Gary. I’m at 516-532-2306. It might take a couple of rounds of phone tag. 🙂 Bear in mind I was 12 years old when the camp closed. I can tell you that the camp had a “rec hall”, which the White Fathers built on land they actually didn’t own. It was a long red building. On the Kushaqua Road opposite the small road that leads down to the lake. (It’s private property now). In that rec hall was a room reserved only for teenagers. You could imagine I was rightly pissed off that I never made it into the teen room. Perhaps my quote could revolve around that. 🙂
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You can add the DWYER Family(5) to your list of visitors. We were up there in 1961 &1962.We drove from brooklyn NY and we met wonderful people. Always had some one to play with and spent a lot of time on the water. I had great memories of being in the country and sourounded by nature and new friends. Happy memories. Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful memories. Maureen Dwyer Dorney
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Thank you for the kind comment. I appreciate you reading the article, and I’m glad I was able to bring back those memories for you. :>)
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John, if you e-mail me, I can send you a word doc that has some pictures and a map of Camp Lavegerie. One of my cousins sent it around the family. I think you already have some/all of the pictures, but you might like the map. Thanks, again, for the memories. Unlike Disney, it really was a magical place.
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Hi John, My family was at Camp Lavigerie for two summers, 1966 & 1967, the memories you shared were the same as mine. We drove up from Staten Island, with another family the McNulty’s. White Cross Mt, Lake Kushaqua, spaghetti dinners… And I remember the bonfire and being introduced to Smores. Wonderful memories, I’m thinking I’ll take a page out of your book and go back for a visit. Thanks again!
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Hi Mary! Thank you for reading the story and sharing yours. In case you don’t know, there is a group on Facebook of White Fathers / Camp Lavigerie alumni AND a group called “Onchiota, NY.” You’ll find lots of pictures and memories. 😁
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