ADIE

The troubled condition of North America, around l929, brought on a period of social upheaval. A depression unsettled the United States, North, East, South and West. A baby girl was born into this troubled world. Her passage into womanhood was rocky and bleak. True contentment would be intangible; peripheral at best. There was always one more door to pass through; one more encounter to confront in order to move onward. Carrying a sense of alienation, the baby girl reached her adulthood, questioning her true origin. Like the pages in a book, the story, continues with each turn. When the heart yearns, the mind and the soul are troubled. Pennsylvania, a large state, was impacted by the Depression. Due to the collapse of the banks, the economy was unstable. Unemployment spread throughout the states. The cities resources were strained, and in the smaller communities the villages, hamlets and township began to shut down. The stores closed their doors when their- out- of- work, customers, could no longer make purchases. There were few who did not feel the squeeze. One group of hopeful citizens pulled together and created a mountain community, named Vista View. Throughout this trying period, county institutions were set up to take in homeless children. No one knew what the future would bring; or if the entire country, not only Pennsylvania, was to be changed by a World War. Following the Depression years, the citizens throughout the country moved on with their lives. Near the Pennsylvania border, in the state of New York, the population of Fishkill began to grow. Fishkill was established in l788. It was one of the original settlements in Duchess County. It had once been the home of the Wappani Indians: a place rich in forest, waterways, virgin meadows, rolling hills and the scenic Hudson River. The Matteawan stream was named Good Water by the local Indians, and later named Vis Kiss by the Dutch settlers. The area is spoken of as ‘The Highlands’. The mountain crest served as a beacon post in the Revolutionary War. The surrounding towns, hamlets and villages partnered with Fishkill. River travel was used before the roads were laid out. The Kings Highway became Route 9. During the Revolutionary War, a tavern and store called the Colonial Inn, a theater named Van Wyck Hall, and a Lodge named Knickerbocker had been part of the area. George Washington and members of the Continental Congress spent time in Fishkill, hosted in the Brinchohoff house and the home of a Captain Van Wyck. The very land and air spoke of the past. CHAPTER ONE DEPRESSION YEARS No amount of world turbulence disrupted the creation of children. No nation survived without the people. When a nation is in turmoil the population increases. There is a need to draw closer. Among the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, a one time summer resort was being revived. It buzzed with activity. A new adventure was beginning, and adults and children older then five were busy moving their personal articles into individual wood cabins, where they were to combine their efforts toward making a success of the newly restored mountain community. Working together they cleared away the overgrowth of scrubby that hemmed in the cabins. Each cabin had three rooms. The furniture that remained after years of wear was still serviceable. A closet size kitchen joined a closet size bathroom. It would be up to the women to make a comfortable home and manage the younger children. The men and older boys would scout the woods for firewood, fish the streams that were still running, gather edible mushrooms, root out onions and uncover wild berries as well as wild vegetables like the turnip, where the seeds had initially been planted by the native Indians. The storeroom held dry goods, medicine, tools, canned goods, and a collection of books. The lead person, a Mr. Art Carpenter, a successful business man, owner of a hardware store in the river town below the mountain range acquired the mountain property as a legacy from his grandfather who had been the builder and title holder of the camp site. Being a resourceful man, Mr. Carpenter kept his mind on the future, forming a plan to resettle the mountain site, offering a cabin to each of his five employees and their immediate family. At age fifty eight Mr. Carpenter remained a bachelor. One of the cabins would be his to live in, to use as his office and as a storeroom. His intention was to preserve life as it had been before the depression twisted the whole of the country. When his five highly qualified employees, who had sound experience in carpentry, plumbing and welding, agreed to be part of the mountain site, known as Vista View, Mr. Carpenter, with the required legal papers in hand, set about to make a success of his personal enterprise. The month was August, l930. There was urgency in the actions of everyone, a sense of keeping to the time schedule before the weather turned. One of the six cabins had been taken by a young couple, Will Mason and his eight month pregnant wife Ivy. Will had been employed as both a plumber and a furnace service man. His family and Ivy’s had encouraged the young couple to move to the mountain cabin; with tongue in check. In their aged wisdom, the parents, cautioned and encouraged; being otherwise unable to lend aid, because of their financial distress. Up until the day when Will and Ivy went off in Mr. Carpenter’s pickup truck hauling their personal belongs and a separate rope-tied cardboard box filled with hand-knit and hand-sewed baby garments, their parents continued to remind the young couple what should be done to assure that Ivy reached the county hospital at least a day ahead of her late September due date. With all six cabins using wood in their pot-belly stoves as their heat source, doing their cooking on a separate wood burning stove, it was necessary for the men and older boys to gather wood by going deeper into the land. There were great expectations. The community was becoming a sound cohesive group. In a fury of activity the women arranged themselves in pairs of twos, attending to the needs of the children, doing chores like laundry and cooking, helping the men where it was needed. Mr. Carpenter traveled down the mountain every two weeks, keeping in touch with the river town, returning with local and world news and letters from family members. He knew it was imperative to keep in mind why they had chosen to be part of the mountain community. They each had to be conscious of conserving the rations. Everyone had to pull together. By the third week the community was as fit as planned, with a system set in place to hopefully foresee and overcome most dilemmas. In the early hours of September 20th, as snow whitened the six mountain cabins, nineteen year old Ivy Mason ended twelve hours of labor, giving birth to a five pound two ounce baby girl. Winter had struck the high elevation sooner then had been expected. A two day snow fall changed the landscape to a Courier and Ives painting. Inside one cabin the cries of a new born pierced the air, drawing out the curious who were eager to hear the news. There had been talk among the adults over the young expectant mother having to deliver her baby without skill medical help. Ivy had started labor pains on the day of the first snow fall. Mr. Carpenter, who was to drive Ivy and her husband Will to the county hospital, thought it unwise to transport Ivy in her dangerous condition. He mentioned the possibility that it was a trickle thing to do even when there was no snow cover.