Oral History
Interview with Ruth Harrison by Louise Davis for the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, February 5, 2004.
LOUISE DAVIS: | I’m with Ruth Harrison. We’re at her home in Heath Village. What’s the number? |
HARRISON: | Fifty-two. |
LD: | Fifty-two Heath Village. And we’re here doing an interview. So we’ll start with her name, Ruth Harrison, and it’s spelled R-U-T-H H-A-R-R-I-S-O-N. And today is February 5th, 2004. Okay, the first question Ruth is: when and where were you born? |
RH: | I was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in 1917. |
LD: | What date? |
RH: | January 12th, 1917. |
LD: | And when did you come to Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | 1948. |
LD: | And did you come to Mountain Lakes by yourself, or who came with you? |
RH: | Bill and I moved out here shortly after we were married, and that was a good choice. |
LD: | Great. The next question was: how many children did you have? |
RH: | Three children. |
LD: | And their names were? |
RH: | William Nelson Harrison, Graham Alexander Harrison, and Winifred Harrison. |
LD: | And all three of those were born in Mountain Lakes then? |
RH: | Mm-hmm. |
LD: | And so they group up in Mountain Lakes and went through the whole system there? |
RH: | That’s right. |
LD: | Tell me something about your family. Did your parents also live in Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | No, no, they lived in various places after they married in New York. My father was an immigrant from Scotland when he was about ten or twelve. And he had all of his Scottish accent knocked out of him on the streets of New York. And so I didn’t even know he had a Scottish accent that he could turn on when he wanted to. And so they moved out to New Jersey after a series of moves that my father had with a job, where they went to Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago. And I went with them on all of them, because I was born in New Jersey, and went that route. Then they came back here to Montclair. I guess I must have been all of-would it have been ’29? I guess I was eight when we came back to Montclair, and that’s where I grew up. And Bill grew up there, too. |
LD: | In fact, well, before we go on to your children, why don’t you tell us about how you and Bill met? I always like your stories about how you met. |
RH: | Oh, well, we met originally as seventh graders in College High School in Montclair. That was the demonstration school for Montclair State College. He went from first grade through twelfth, but I went from seventh through tenth. He kept to himself, and he didn’t know there were any girls in the class at the time that I was there. And so he didn’t know who I was. I knew who he was because among other things his father was our family doctor. |
LD: | Oh! |
RH: | So Bill played ball. When I was overseas, Dad would go down to the Commonwealth Field where Bill would be pitching. Was it hardball or softball? Softball, wasn’t it? I think he was doing softball. On the winning team, by the way, wasn’t it? Or wasn’t it winning that year? It was winning- |
BILL HARRISON: | Most years. |
RH: | Most years, the winning team. And Dad would write that he saw Bill Harrison pitching at the game last week. And that would be the extent of his communication. So I always knew where he was. |
LD: | But you hadn’t dated before? |
RH: | Oh, no. Well, you know, and then I came back from overseas, and this was in 1947, wasn’t it? 1947 I got back, and Mother and I went up to play bridge at the Commonwealth Club, and who should come over but Bill! And Mother said, “I think that you’d better decide if you want to go and play bridge with Bill Harrison, because I think you’re going to get asked.” And of course I was. I was still in my uniform at the time I went up there, too. But, you know, that was strictly to go play bridge. And the following week he asked me if I wanted to go out and watch the Town Council meeting [laughs]. |
LD: | [Laughs] |
RH: | And so it was ever thus. |
LD: | It’s been the same way ever since? |
RH: | That’s right. |
LD: | Now, you did say that your parents did not live in Mountain Lakes, but I think I remember that your mother actually lived with you. |
RH: | Oh, she came, yes. She came and lived with us. I didn’t consider that her living with us only because she was on the road, traveling. She went to Florida every winter and she traveled all over. Wherever there was a trip going, she’d go. And I was her favorite traveling companion, which was good for me because I did a lot of things. And we went around the world together in what, ’64 or something. I think it was ’64. What’s that? |
BH: | ’66. |
RH: | Okay, well- |
LD: | 1966? |
RH: | It was Mexico in ’64, I guess. |
LD: | Okay. And how long were you gone then when you went around the world? |
RH: | Five weeks. |
LD: | And you saw? |
RH: | Well, whatever you’d see when you’re going around the world. I mean, we had a very interesting trip. That was the second time that I’d been to Egypt, and that was kind of fun, because I got a different view of the Pharaoh, the museums and the Pharaoh. I got a different view the second time around [laughs]. |
LD: | So you took her back to many of the places you had seen when you were there? |
RH: | No, I didn’t. No, most of the places we went to were places that I hadn’t been to, and she was the traveler in the family. We had a separate, we had a Mediterranean trip, didn’t I, one time? I’m not quite sure. |
LD: | Well, let’s go back actually to some more of the Mountain Lakes history, then. Well, we should finish up with: how many years then did your mother live with you in Mountain Lakes? |
BH: | Eight. |
LD: | Eight years. |
RH: | I really don’t remember. |
LD: | We’ll make it eight years. |
RH: | Those times kind of run together. |
LD: | And where have you lived in the borough, which houses? There have been three. |
RH: | We lived at 20 Crestwood Drive in Lake Arrowhead. |
LD: | Do you remember how many years? |
RH: | I think-was that as much as eight years? |
BH: | ‘Til 1956. |
RH: | Yeah. And then we lived in the Ball Road house, 38 Ball Road, and we lived there for fifteen years. And then, to be able to have a retirement place, we moved down to the village, 21 Maple Way. That was when? |
BH: | 1971. |
RH: | 1971. |
LD: | Okay, and you were there until 2003, you moved here to Heath Village. |
RH: | That’s right. |
LD: | I guess thinking back over the years in Mountain Lakes, where did you shop when you first came to Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | Oh, in Denville, because we were in Lake Arrowhead. |
LD: | Was it pretty much the same? |
RH: | Well, they had a Safeway down there that I liked. They don’t have a Safeway any longer. And what else did they have? |
BH: | They had an A&P first, then a Safeway. |
RH: | Yeah, well- |
LD: | And did you do, like-that was your grocery shopping. At that time would you also buy, say, your dresses in Denville? |
RH: | No, no. |
LD: | You’d probably go back to Montclair? |
RH: | Yes, to Montclair or to Morristown. |
LD: | That would be where you would go? Denville was more for groceries and maybe–? |
RH: | Hardware. |
LD: | Hardware, that’s right-hardware store–? |
RH: | Anchor Hardware. Bill loved Anchor Hardware-that was not Denville. But whenever I was missing him for a period of time, he’s say “I just had to go to the hardware store.” |
LD: | Okay, and it’s still a lovely hardware store, isn’t it? What were the roads like when you moved? Yes, you’ve seen them throughout your time in Mountain Lakes. |
RH: | Well, I think they’re pretty much the same. The Boulevard was concrete. Was it–concrete? |
LD: | Or paved, yeah. It was always paved. There weren’t dirt roads or anything. |
RH: | No, I don’t remember any dirt roads in Mountain Lakes. Over in Arrowhead of course there was dual ownership of the Arrowhead roads, because we lived on the Mountain Lakes side of the line, and if you followed three hundred feet out of our backyard, it would be the Denville side of the line. So I think that, whoever had- |
BH: | The Arrowhead [unclear] the roads. |
LD: | Is that still the case? No, okay. So it was probably a little bit spotty, in terms of how they were maintained, if it was done by the–? |
RH: | Oh, I don’t know. I always felt things were maintained pretty well, but then I wasn’t looking too much for that. |
BH: | Freddy Schwartz supplied the materials, and [unclear] applied. |
LD: | On the Mountain Lakes area? |
BH: | Well, in our section, the Mountain Lakes section of Arrowhead. |
LD: | What about the lakes? The lakes-do you think about them being any different than they are now? |
RH: | No, I don’t really, because the big swimming was always up at Birchwood. And you had the Island Beach, and of course, that was very valuable to go and sit in the sand and keep an eye on your kid while he was going in the water. |
LD: | Yeah, sounds like you had your three children on the main lake there, at the beach many times? |
RH: | Oh yes, yes. I remember one time especially we were up at Birchwood Lake, and I was talking with a friend, and Winnie was, I guess, I don’t know whether she was as much as six or not. And she went out onto the dock. She saw these other kids diving out there, and so she decided to try it. I don’t know as she was even six. I was there with Jenny- |
BH: | Pretty young. |
RH: | Yeah, and she jumped in, and my back was to it, and Jenny saw her go in. She reached in and pulled her out, saying “Hey, look what I got you!” |
LD: | Oh, my gosh! |
RH: | And she had gone down, and Winnie had no idea, of course, that that was going to happen to here-adventuresome. So I said, “Well that’s fine. Let’s go back up on the beach and let you dry out a little more.” She didn’t go back in the water that day. |
LD: | She didn’t. |
RH: | No [laughs]. |
LD: | Oh, okay. That did get her attention, huh? |
RH: | Yes. |
LD: | Are there special people you remember who contributed to the life of the town, thinking back when you moved in? |
RH: | Well, of course, I was very interested in Monty Gannett. She was a very vital person as far as the League was concerned. |
LD: | I’ve never heard that name before. |
RH: | [Unclear] |
LD: | Why don’t we spell that? |
RH: | Well, Monty is just like Monty, with a Y, I think. |
LD: | M-O-N-T-Y? |
RH: | Yeah, I would think, and then G-A-N-N-E-T-T. And she lived up in the house where [unclear] now lives and just sold. And she had so many ideas and was interested in seeing that things got organized well. And she got something, and she would call me and get me entangled in it, too, as soon as she could. Very interesting person. |
LD: | Now you mentioned that you knew her through the League of Women Voters. Now did you join as soon as you moved to town? |
RH: | I don’t know, somewhere in there. I know that I was approached because the people from Montclair knew me and sent my name up. And I remember a gal coming and trying to sell me on the League, and I don’t know which child I was pregnant with at the time, but I said no, I couldn’t do it. And then I joined the following year. And I think that probably I joined about 1952. This would be my impression-maybe ’53. |
LD: | Okay, so it wasn’t immediate? |
RH: | It wasn’t immediate, no, because I was too busy raising small children. |
LD: | Well, that’s reasonable; that makes sense. Were there any other people other than Monty that you think of as particularly interesting? |
RH: | Yes, well, Halsey Frederick was always a name that we thought of. I don’t know as I ever knew him, particularly. I might have been in the same room with him. Wouldn’t Halsey Frederick be the one that we would know as being so very active in the government in the thirties? |
BH: | And Dick Wilcox. |
RH: | Oh, and Dick Wilcox, of course, yes, and his wife Lois, who was also a League member. But I guess it was Halsey Frederick was the one that made sure that we got the-the town bought up all the extra land. Wasn’t it under him? They did that in the thirties, and of course I just knew him, but his heyday was in the end of the thirties in acquiring all of this land for the borough. And Dick Wilcox after that, he was a very vital individual, and a very down-to-earth sort of a person. He wanted things done in a business-like way. I remember his talking to me about lawyers. He said, “Lawyers are there. They’re to help you stay out of trouble, but they’re not to make any policy or give you any ideas, just keep you out of trouble.” [Laughs] So I think that’s what Dick Sweeney feels that he’s doing, is trying to keep the borough out of trouble. Like every so often [unclear] there’s a difference in the point of view, because Dick would not have had any of them involved in writing an ordinance. But Dick was very interested in doing that. That’s [unclear]. Who else from that time? George Rose, of course. |
BH: | Julian West. |
RH: | Oh, Julian West, yes. Julian West was the Chairman of the Planning Board when they were going through all kinds of-in the throes of a growing community in the early fifties. And under him they changed the zoning in Mountain Lakes to what it is today. So essentially I would say that he established the A zone and the double A zone, a hundred feet and a hundred and fifty feet. They did this by very careful study so they would represent the bulk of the existing houses in the community in each case, as to what they were establishing. |
LD: | The ones that already existed, you mean? |
RH: | Yes, yeah. And then for the village he had another one, and Arrowhead he had another. But anyway, that was very interesting. And my chief recollection of him is at a meeting when they were discussing the projections for the population growth of the schools. And I remember so clearly that he stood up, and he says, “I’ll tell you this: we couldn’t have worked harder and been more active, and we had all kinds of methods of predicting what would happen.” And he said, “So I’m very sure about one thing: we’re wrong!” [Laughs] And he predicted that there would be, what, 1900 in the school system? |
BH: | About that. |
RH: | And then, and actually we never reached that number. I thought that was an interesting way of looking at the future. And he incidentally is Tim Delchamps’ father-in-law. |
LD: | Oh, okay. Interesting. What did you do for fun? |
RH: | Play bridge, and go to Town Meetings. |
LD: | Were you in League shows? |
RH: | I never was in any shows. |
LD: | Oh, you weren’t? |
RH: | No, no. I wasn’t but they were really quite a thing. I don’t remember when that was started, but that was quite a feature of the League’s. |
LD: | Talking about the League, you have been active in the League for over fifty years. And during that time, I know you’ve served as President on more than one occasion, but recently you were telling me a story about one time when you were President, it couldn’t be under your name? |
RH: | That’s right. That was because Bill was on Council in the fifties, ’56 was it? |
BH: | ’53 to ’59. |
RH: | Right, ’53 to ’59, and he was on the Council, and the state said I couldn’t be named as President, because it would be partisan. So that’s when Doris Scott, who was a very lovely individual, she says, “You can use my name.” She says, “I have absolute trust. Anything that you do I would be perfectly happy to go along with, so you use my name.” So we used Doris Scott’s name. |
LD: | Okay, so it was someone in the League, then, whose name you used, and everything went out under her name? You just- |
RH: | Yes, she was elected as President, and she just quietly-didn’t abdicate, but she just let me run the whole thing. And that was an interesting way of handling it. I think that with a lesser individual that would have been hard to do, but she was very gracious about it. |
LD: | Great story, great story. Entertainment in general: now was the Barn Theater in town at the time, or–? |
RH: | Not in town. It was out on Route 46. And then it left Route 46 and they built the present one. But we went to it from the time that it was there, on Route 46. That was a fun organization. Let’s see, what else did we do for fun? |
BH: | We joined Mount Tabor in ’61. |
RH: | Yeah, somewhere along the line we joined Mount Tabor. We played golf. |
LD: | It wasn’t all Council meetings and bridge? You played golf, too? |
RH: | That’s right. I had to do that. No, we belonged to Mount Tabor Club for thirty-five years. We stopped when we both decided we were getting a little old for it, because the doctor told Bill he could not do any more than nine holes at a time, and he was to ride a cart. Well neither of us enjoyed golf as much riding a cart as walking. And so we figured well, maybe that was time. |
LD: | And you have regularly, have done theater, and other than the Barn Theater, you belonged to symphony? |
RH: | Yeah, we had joined symphony orchestra, yes, but that was more recently that we did that, because we waited until New Jersey PAC got built, didn’t we? I think that was when we first started that. But, no, there were a lot of little things I was involved in the line of projects as they came along. I was thinking school expansion projects, because of course in the early fifties, school expansion was a big deal. And I was involved in one through the League, a fairly active push to get Wildwood expanded. And of course, our kids went to the new Wildwood School, and we watched that get the extra wing off to the side. And there was no question about that. But then when it came time to do something about the number of high school students we had, why, the School Board had made the proposal that they build on to Briarcliff School. And that was a big, big push. But we were opposed to that. The League was opposed to it; many other people were opposed to it, too, because we felt that there should be a separate high school. So what was the year for that, Bill? ’55, wasn’t it? |
BH: | 1955. |
RH: | ’55, that would have been the first Briarcliff School, but instead we went and had the new high school built in 1956. |
LD: | Okay, so that’s when the new high school was built, in 1956? |
RH: | Yeah. |
LD: | Okay. Are there any special events that stand out in your mind over the years? |
RH: | Well, I don’t know. I think that the Memorial Day ceremonies are a standout thing because they came every year, and they were very thoughtfully done. And more recently, since Duke Smith has gotten involved they’ve been very much more precise. They are always an occasion that we never missed. |
LD: | What about the Fourth of July? |
RH: | Fourth of July? I don’t know that we did anything special. |
BH: | I think the Mountain Lakes Club always had a Fourth of July. We weren’t members. |
RH: | Yeah, we never joined the Mountain Lakes Club. But we were active in the Community Church; I was, from the standpoint of-I never was a teacher or anything-but they had a couples’ group, and Bill and I both went. |
BH: | Friendship Club. |
RH: | Friendship Club, and that was a very nice organization of couples, and many of those couples we still see today, [unclear] alive [laughs]. But that’s where we knew the Hoffs from, Carol and Hop Rufener, and and who else? I can’t remember just now who they were, but when Laurel Pancake left and the new minister came in, he decreed that that was not righteous, to have a couples’ thing like that. It had to be family, and any kind of activity had to be done for family only. And so with no young kids of our own, we dropped out and that Friendship Club dissolved rapidly after that, because nobody wanted to feel that they had to have kids there. |
LD: | Yeah, makes sense. Let’s talk about some other things in your life. During World War Two, you would have been in the era when the men went to war and the women stayed home. |
RH: | We both stayed home, and for our contribution to the war, we both worked at Wright Aeronautical – |
BH: | In Paterson. |
RH: | In Paterson, during the war. |
LD: | And what position did you have? Because it was quite unusual not only for women to be working at that time, but I think for women to have supervisory-type experiences. |
RH: | Yeah, well I was a supervisor in Office Services. |
LD: | About how many people were in the office? |
RH: | Well, a hundred when we first moved there, and then they expanded it, so there was a couple of hundred before I finished working there. Originally I had the reception and escorts just as my particular responsibility. |
LD: | And what did the escorts do? |
RH: | Well, whenever anybody visited the plant, any one of the plants, they could not go out on their own. I guess that’s the kind of thing they’re doing with Security nowadays, the escorts. And I had to see that they got their uniforms and had good manners, and all that sort of thing. That was when I first began, and then they expanded it so that I had file clerks and office people in general. And so I started with about a hundred people and ended up with a couple of hundred. And it was a very rewarding experience, very interesting. |
LD: | And then after the war, you had some very interesting–? |
RH: | Yes, well then after the war-war was just getting over, in ’45, and I had already signed up to go to the Red Cross whenever there was a particular opening in its Club and Recreation Department. And so when August came along, and I was very popular around Wright Aero because I wasn’t trying to get anybody’s position, and my position was open, because I knew that I was going to go with the Red Cross. And so I did; I signed up in August, as soon as the war was officially over. And then in September, why, I went actively, and then they gave us training and so on, and I went overseas and was in Taegu, Korea for a year. |
LD: | And so it was just one year you were gone then? |
RH: | Yes. |
LD: | And then you came back, and then we had that story earlier, where you were still wearing your uniform after you got back when you met Bill, and then after-and you were married how long after that? |
BH: | About a year and a half. |
RH: | About a year. We were married-well, I got back in February- |
BH: | February of ’47, and were married in July of ’48. |
LD: | Oh, okay. And did you work during those years then, when you–? |
RH: | When I got back? |
LD: | Yes. |
RH: | Yes, I was a secretary. I was secretary to the Montclair Development Board. |
LD: | Oh! Now we’re starting to- |
RH: | An innovative organization, and very interesting people I met through that, because they had a lot of very high-powered men only on that particular board. Oh, gee, who were some of the people who were there that would be–? |
BH: | Well, Mr. Austin was the Executive Chairman of it. |
RH: | Yes. |
BH: | Bayard Faulkner was on the panel. |
RH: | Bayard Faulkner, that’s a name on the state zoning-he was on that. And Alexander Capron? I don’t know what he was, but he was a man high in business. |
LD: | So then you-let’s see, you got married, and I know you taught school, you taught math for about sixteen years. Now when did you get your degree, then? |
RH: | Oh I got my degree in 1938 and ’39. |
LD: | Before you went to work for Wright Aeronautical? |
RH: | Yeah. |
LD: | You had your degree then? |
RH: | Before I graduated. Because I taught, you see. I taught for three years before I went to Wright Aeronautical. |
LD: | Okay, you taught three years, then you worked there. Then you worked as a secretary for- |
RH: | The Development Board. It was simply because I knew Mr. Austin, and he knew that I was around, and he said, “Hey, wouldn’t you like to come and work for us here at this very new board?” And so I was the first secretary that the Board had. |
LD: | And then when did you get back into teaching, then-after you moved to Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | After we moved to Mountain Lakes. The first three years were in Flemington and Montclair, and it was in ’56 that I went back into teaching, wasn’t it? Yeah, ’56, and that was in Mountain Lakes. And I taught there for five years. And then it was-my mother needed me to travel with her, so- |
LD: | Oh, tough job! |
RH: | Yeah, that was really hard. And so I stopped, and I didn’t go back until after she died. And this was in 1969. |
LD: | I remember you telling me the story, which I thought was very interesting, of when your mother came to live with you in Mountain Lakes, how you sat down and thought about all the activities that she could do, because at that time we didn’t have a lot of activities for seniors. Tell me-I don’t remember- |
RH: | She signed up for all of them. |
LD: | Oh, she signed up for everything, but then too, you started finding, making a list of other people who had parents living with them, and who needed activities? |
RH: | Yes, and particularly if they had any kind of bridge background, whether it was very slight or otherwise. And so I would ask them, but I found at least thirty-five other women of Mother’s age that were living with their mostly daughters. And so she regularly had Charlie Hyson’s mother over. What was her name? |
BH: | Jessie. |
RH: | Jessie Hyson. |
BH: | It was not-Jessie was Hyson’s wife. |
RH: | Oh, well what was his mother’s name? |
BH: | I forgot. |
RH: | And then we had another woman, Ellen Eich’s mother-I don’t know what her name is. And oh, Seeman – What was his mother’s name? See, he’s my brain. If he can’t remember these things, I have a big problem. |
BH: | Lautensacks. |
RH: | Miriam Lautensack’s mother, Mrs. Seaman. And these were all people who had no other contacts. So we had tea sometimes. We would have bridge or we would have luncheon, and I’d take them, have three women squeezed in the back, and one in the front, and I’d take them all out to lunch. And I just felt that these people weren’t getting out enough, and we had to do something about that. |
LD: | [Laughs] Great, great! And then you’ve been active in the Girl Scouts, I would say, your whole life, probably? |
RH: | I think the Girls Scouts are probably the single most important influence in my life, other than my parents, because of the standards that Girl Scouts set for us at the time, and the activities. Those standards are still [unclear], “a Girl Scout’s honor is to be trusted,” you know, that sort of thing. And that was very important to me, and so when Winnie got to be of an age that I thought she’d be interested in scouting, eight or nine or something, whatever terrible age they start them at now-they do them, this Daisy business doesn’t appeal to me at all. But she started out in Girl Scouts, and after two years, she was in fifth and sixth grade, she did fine. She got to seventh grade, and she balked. But I said, “That’s all right. You don’t have to go. I will go anyhow, and be a leader again.” Because I’d had the group from fifth and sixth grade, and so in seventh and eighth grade I continued on with the same. |
LD: | Oh, even though-okay, and she didn’t come back? |
RH: | No, no, she didn’t want to be, because she felt that-Winnie was not one that wanted any direction, or anything. But I kept on, and that last year, the eighth grade year, I said, “We can’t possible take this number of girls,” because we had over thirty girls. And they said, “Well don’t worry, they’ll all drop out.” Not only did they not drop out, but they had more girls get involved. |
LD: | They did not drop out? |
RH: | Yeah, they didn’t drop out, but more kids came in. And in the eighth grade, it was the most popular single group. Edie Strack had one group, and Edie’s strong point was taking them out camping: “Come on kids, let’s go camping this weekend.” And so she’d have a whole bunch of them. Well, we had other activities. I think it was very good, very faithful attendance, and very satisfactory. And part of the time that I was doing that traveling. That wasn’t the time we went around the world. |
BH: | You went around the world in 1966. |
RH: | Yeah. Well, I think that was the year that- |
LD: | So you did the four years then with the Girl Scouts? |
RH: | Yeah. |
LD: | Those four years. And then I know more recently you were back involved with the Girl Scouts again. Were you in between at all? |
RH: | No, I didn’t do anything in between. But I saw this ad in the Home and School Bulletin, I guess: please, would anybody want to come and do the-what do you call it, the position? |
LD: | Was it called the coordinator? |
BH: | Liaison? |
RH: | It was the liaison for between the Mountain Lakes girls and the headquarters for the county in Randolph. And I thought, here we have these relatively young forty-year-olds who are all involved having a wonderful time with their girls, with very strong Girl Scout Troops. None of them wanted to have to be involved with going out every month. And I said, “All right, I’ll do it.” I said, “I won’t do anything other than that, but I’ll be the liaison for whatever has to be done.” That was very rewarding, because the gals were so good! |
LD: | Did you do that one or two years? |
RH: | I did that one year. |
LD: | One year, okay. |
RH: | And then there was a gal who was very involved in the Scouts, who the reason she hadn’t done it the year that I took over-everybody wanted her to take over, but her husband was being moved in his job, and she couldn’t do it. And then her husband decided he wanted to stay, so at the end of my time I said, “Take it.” And she’s been running it ever since, I think. And it’s not a job that you have to take the girls-she always arranged the camping trips that they were going to go on. |
LD: | And then you also were on the Planning Board for many, many years. How did you happen to be on the Planning Board? |
RH: | Well, I don’t know how I happened to be on it, because I had been so interested in stuff in planning. I always knew something about planning. |
LD: | Because of your secretarial job at the–? |
RH: | Oh, no. Just interested. |
LD: | Just interested, going to Council meetings. |
RH: | Yes, and I knew what was going on in the town. I don’t know if I was involved in something particularly when I went on to it, but I quit teaching; I retired in 1978. And so that fall, next year, I took on three activities. I said I wasn’t going to do a thing unless I was really interested in it, and one of the first things that came along was Planning Board. So January 1st of 1979, that’s it, yes-I started in there. And I went through on that until ’93, so that’s fourteen years I was on the Planning Board. |
LD: | And I think you were Chairman–? |
RH: | Three years. |
LD: | For three years, okay. |
RH: | And I stepped down as being Chairman as a matter of principle, and I tried to make it clear to everybody: if you’re in that position too long, there’s a very seductive type of title. Because you don’t get introduced as Ruth Harrison from Mountain Lakes, you get introduced as Ruth Harrison, Chairman of the Planning Board of Mountain Lakes, and that is a different aspect than your doing it. So I made a lot of county contacts, and I went to many county things, and beyond the county, with the Planning Board. I was involved in traffic study committees, both local and at the county level. |
LD: | And of course, probably one of the things that people always bring your name up when they’re talking about the sewering of the town. |
RH: | Oh, yes, well that was-I don’t know if that was any offshoot of the Planning Board or not. But how did I get involved in that, Bill? I know I was the Chairman of the Sewer Committee, in 1975 I think it was. |
LD: | Was that through the League, or through the town? |
RH: | Through the town. And there again, three different committees were discussing doing the sewers. Bill had been on the next to the last one. And so they appointed this committee to really look into it. I remember the time, it was in April or so, that Walt Lilley was asked-they gave us six weeks to do the job, and come up with a recommendation. And Walt Lilley was asked, “Oh, what do you expect them to do in that amount of time?” And he kind of laughed, because he was against anything to do with sewers. He said, “Oh, I don’t expect anything at all.” And so I told this to the group, and he had seventeen of us at one point. I guess we narrowed it down; I never liked to have a committee any larger than twelve, because I couldn’t fit any more than twelve comfortable around the dining room table.But when we went and we started in, I told them that this was the challenge: that we were to come up with a recommendation. And boy, we came up with it. We met every single Monday night at seven o’clock around the dining room table, and I said I would not have anybody there after nine, because I had to teach the following day. And so they all knew that they were going to have a very specific time and they were very faithful.
And I remember when the final time we came up with a unanimous recommendation, and Tom Sonnichsen said, “Unanimous? How did they do it?” They put everybody with every differing point of view on this, to make sure that this was going to be a very difficult decision. And he said, “How did you get a unanimous recommendation?” I said, “That’s twenty-one years in the League of Women Voters!” |
LD: | [Laughs] And probably very true! And then once they started the construction of it- |
RH: | Oh, that was funny, because I got a lot of the people who were interested, and I let them know that every day we’d leave-every Friday at five after six, so that Lyman Wilson could make it from his train, and anybody else who was on the train could make it. And we always met and-did we always meet at the same place, Bill? I don’t know. |
BH: | At the railroad station. |
RH: | No, I don’t think so. I was thinking someplace up on the Boulevard, probably. At any rate, this group met every Friday night, because the construction of the sewer was on. And we would walk. We’d get a list of where they were going to work the next time, and where they’d work through the last week, and then I started writing up the reports, with a critique of what we had seen, what we had suggestions for what was coming. And I gave it to John LaFound, the company engineer. Wasn’t that his name? |
BH: | Yeah. |
RH: | I gave it to him on Monday morning, and the entire engineering meeting Monday morning was on the subject of what we had for them. |
LD: | They were fighting that review? |
RH: | Yeah, that’s right. And Joan Belz wrote it up a couple of times, too, instead of my having to do it. But we always got that report in so that they could do it, and somebody said, “Oh, that’s what the whole meeting is about.” |
LD: | Great, wonderful! And I think that-what were the financial results of the sewering effort then? |
RH: | Well, because ours was very much more appropriate for the time, they didn’t have somebody coming up with some bogus solution that was going to cost many thousand dollars. And we did not go one penny over on that. It’s just about the only contract that’s been let out that that’s happened. |
LD: | You’re probably right. Also, what was your involvement in the United Nations weekend in Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | Oh, well, the Rices, Eleanor and Jack Rice and I, had been involved in the United Nations down in Montclair. He was President of the New Jersey group, and I was the Secretary. And so I knew the Rices well, and they came up-we moved up to Mountain Lakes, and they came out some time not too much later, and asked us where they should go. And I remember when they looked at houses, they were just the two of them. And whoever was the real estate person kept showing them these small houses, and they said, “We don’t want a small house. We want a large house, and we’d like to be on the lake.” And he said finally they forced her into showing them one on the lake, and that’s where they finally bought. Jack was a great commanding presence, but in my opinion, Eleanor was the brains there.We came to Mountain Lakes in the late forties, and they came a couple years after we did. Well, she one time, she said, “I think we ought to have a United Nations day here.” I sort of arranged the United Nations day, and I was in charge of the essays that the high school students would always write about the United Nations. Eleanor and I decided which one we recommended, and then the high school kid would get some kind of an award from the United Nations Association. Well anyhow, one day she said she thinks Mountain Lakes would be a good candidate for United Nations day, just like it used to be League of Women Voters League of Nations day down in Montclair in the Cosmopolitan Club. She had belonged to the Cosmopolitan Club; my parents had belonged to the Cosmopolitan Club. So I said, “All right, that will be good.” So the two of us got together and figured out, and I typed I don’t know how many letters. |
LD: | You wouldn’t have had carbon copies, and photocopy machines? |
RH: | Yeah, and so we had, I think there were fourteen students came out that first year that we did it. That would have been what, ’54, Bill? Something like that. |
BH: | Yeah. |
RH: | And she got the AAUW involved, because there were some women in there who thought that they would like to be hostesses, and so they were the first hostesses of the group. And so that’s how that began, and it was kind of a rewarding thing to be involved in. |
LD: | And it’s been going on ever since consecutively. |
RH: | Yeah, yeah. |
LD: | And what about the foreign policy Great Decisions group? |
RH: | Oh, now that was another thing. I said, “You know, we were both interested in foreign affairs. What about this program that the Foreign Policy Association does, with their Great Decisions group?” And she said, “Go for it.” So I put it up to the League, and I said, “Do we want it?” So I had the a morning group, and an afternoon group, and an evening group go on, that first year that we did it. |
LD: | Wow! |
RH: | The afternoon group dropped out, and the evening group was one that would have husbands in it, too. And so finally we had just the morning and evening, and then across the years, people who were interested in foreign policy were welcome to join. So we had maybe twenty-odd people, women, in the morning. And they haven’t had quite that number in the evening; they may have had a dozen or so in the evening, because the men were involved in that. |
LD: | I think the evening group is still in existence. |
RH: | Yeah. I think Linda’s done a lot in that. And the day time group, it’s a very changed group now, the day time group, because people who were interested in that would come in, and they weren’t necessarily people I knew elsewhere. Of course, I knew them, but I wouldn’t know them well outside. |
LD: | And what about the Affordable Housing Planning Committee? |
RH: | Affordable Housing Planning Committee? What did we do with that? I don’t remember. |
LD: | Okay, and the Lake Drive Study Committee? |
RH: | Oh, well the Lake Drive Study Committee was interesting, because this was a period where you had very low population in town, and Lake Drive was an empty school, or going to be an empty school. What could happen to it? I think it was empty. And so a committee was formed to go around and visit other communities and find out what they did. And so we went out to Dover, for instance, and looked out there, and went down to someplace near the shore and looked at what they had, because they had different plans for contraction about that time. [Tape off/on] |
LD: | So the Lake Drive School Study Committee recommended apartments be put in there? |
RH: | Yes, because out in Dover, out on Route 46 there’s a school building on the right, and those apartments are so nice! Yeah, and I mentioned I wanted to go see one of the apartments, and whoever was the superintendent of the apartments out there: “Oh, you know Mr. Bukiet? Certainly. Anything that you want!” And that was interesting, too. I’m quite sure it was through him, [unclear] otherwise. So we able to look at the nice job that they did in making apartments out of the school rooms. And so, the thing was, we didn’t need it, because Bill Kogen came along and had the idea of making it a school for the deaf. |
LD: | Okay, I was going to say, obviously your plan wasn’t the one that came into being. It’s obviously not apartments now. And of course, that’s been very successful. You were on the committee for the state review of high school operations? |
RH: | Yes, well, that is a review they do every six years. They get anybody from the community as well as from the school system to go and review. And so we met several times to make our recommendations, and I never knew what happened to them finally. But I remember meeting Eric Hinds on that committee, that committee that I was on, [unclear]. Some very, very nice people anyhow, who were very interested, and it was very well organized by the representative from the high school, whose name escapes me now. But she did a very nice job of summarizing all that we had each time, and so on. So they came out with a specific recommendation, and I forget what it was now, but that was an interesting committee. |
LD: | And then I know you spent a lot of time talking about, or looking into, senior citizen housing. |
RH: | Yeah, oh, that was fun, too, because we didn’t know what we could do. We had only ten acres that would be available, the Boulevard between what, Tower Hill Road, and Overlook, or something? It would be about ten acres in there. So we went to various places. That’s when I happened to go to, on one of my visits, was to Heath Village. I was very impressed with their philosophy and the way they were planning to do things, and their idea that they were only going to grow as they knew it was needed. And so to see these trees down here all tied up with ropes to keep them from blowing over in the wind, you know, to see the trees now, it’s quite a lot of fun. But I guess there’s one place up in Connecticut. And the thing I was impressed with there-well, two things: the people were very, very active politically within that senior development. And it was a big development; all of the developments were bigger then we could possibly handle here. |
LD: | Than you could handle in Mountain Lakes? |
RH: | Yeah, because we just didn’t have the room for it. But these people were very active politically, and they’d go to Town Meetings, because you know Connecticut acts in Town Meetings. And I also remember the trees there were lovely, and I happened to talk to one of the men who was the developer working on it. He said, “Yeah, there was a two thousand dollar fine for any tree that we cut down that wasn’t scheduled to be.” And he says, “Boy, we were careful of those trees!” |
LD: | That makes a difference, doesn’t it, yeah. And then, you were also the head of the Historic Preservation Commission for three years? |
RH: | Yeah, a number of years, because I was on the original study group before I was actually on the Commission. And that was a very rewarding study, and very interesting. And we had a couple of — I’d call them yahoos-people who think they are citizens, and think they are people from the United States, but they really are from Mars. |
LD: | [Laughs] That’s a good way to put it. |
RH: | Yeah, and the Council did not take it up. We gave them the thing in November, the recommendation, and Council couldn’t take it up, and couldn’t take it up, until around March. And in the meantime, all of the Christmas cocktail parties these yahoos went to and tried to stir up people against the Commission, and that’s what happened to that. If the Council had acted in a hurry, it would have been fine. Because of the yahoos, why, we don’t have it. And it’s very difficult, because we’re losing our historic character because of them. |
LD: | And then you went on to the head of the Senior Citizens’ Committee? |
RH: | Oh yes, three and a half years. That came, and you know it was Richard Urankar that did that. He came in and said “Ruth, you can’t say no to me. I’m putting your name up to be the head of the Senior Citizens. I don’t have anybody, and you’ve got to do it.” |
LD: | [Laughs] |
RH: | I said, “All right Richard, for you I’ll do it.” And so I did. |
LD: | Okay. And we’re glad you did. And then, we touched a little earlier on the League of Women Voters, and I think we talked about being very active in the local League, and being President at least two times. But we didn’t talk about your involvement at the state level? |
RH: | Oh yes, I was on the state Board ten years, and that was very interesting, because one of the jobs I was in was organization. My skill is organizing. This was organization, and we had, I guess, about five people on the committee, and true to what you did, we always had lunch. Whenever we met, we’d have lunch, and so it was a very pleasant day, this committee. And each one of them had a different segment of Leagues to take care of. And they were very active, and they’d come back and report the next month, and we’d have suggestions and follow-ups and so on. And as a result, Mountain Lakes had the greatest growth of any League in New Jersey. Where am I into? |
LD: | We’re at the state League. |
RH: | Yeah, and so we had the greatest growth in the state of New Jersey. We went over five thousand people for the first time in a long while, because it kept dropping, and it was the first year it went up, as a result of this very good committee. Like, Kay Jensen was on it, and she’s still on the State Board, and oh, so many people I can’t even think of who they were. But we had a very good group of people who really met with their local Leagues. |
LD: | And I think at that time we had several from Mountain Lakes who served on the State Board, didn’t we? There were about four? |
RH: | Well at one point. Linda Stansfield was on for about four years. |
LD: | And Sandy Batty. |
RH: | Sandy? No, I think she was later. |
LD: | Okay. |
RH: | Terry Lowenthal at one point, but then she moved. And who else did we have? And then Edith Frank. We used to drive down with Edith Frank. And who was the fourth person? Sue Lederman. She was a bigwig there. |
LD: | And then you were involved in the Community Church, but mostly through a Women’s Group? |
RH: | Yes, I was in group 9. I joined an age group in 1978. I couldn’t before that, because I was too busy doing whatnot, and I was teaching. So I joined group nine, and that was a very, very good, strong group, and it still is going. It’s going very strongly. And I was in there just one year, and they said, “Ruth, we’d like you to be head, because everybody else has been doing it for a while.” So I said, “Okay.” So I did that for ten years. A nice bunch of people, and this was my chief contact.And just incidentally along in there, I was bothered because they didn’t have a Women’s Association. The church was just not active as far as women were concerned, except they had two groups, group nine and group ten. And then they went and they had a group of younger women who were going to get together with their kids. But I called together a group of people from the Community Church roster. And the thing was that they had to be no older than fifty, and preferably thirty to fifty, in that range. If they were going to be older than that, forget it. And it was so funny, because Karen Kalcagno-what’s her other name? |
BH: | Tippy? |
RH: | Well, she had been Karen Tippy [unclear]. But she had been in Winnie’s class, and there was somebody else that I had taught in Montclair-in Mountain Lakes, yeah. Pat Maraziti. |
LD: | Oh. |
RH: | And she was one of them, and Karen and Pat looked at each other: “Do you have as hard a time calling her Ruth as I do?” [laughs]. |
LD: | [Laughs] |
RH: | So anyhow, I got them so that they thought about getting some women’s organizations. So now that they have a women’s group. But out of that bunch of people there was always somebody on the Board of Directors of the church, and whenever they do have any big women’s affairs, it’s an outgrowth of that. I just got together and said, “You can’t let it go so that you don’t have a women’s group in the church.” |
LD: | I was going to ask you a couple more-so you were living in Mountain Lakes during-you wouldn’t have been there during the Korean War, but you would have been there during the Vietnam War. What kind of impact? Any remembrances of the Vietnam War, and maybe its impact on the residents? |
RH: | Was it the Vietnam War that I remember my Sandy, and Bobby Wilson and -there were four of them, went down to Princeton at the time, and they came back because there had been a big- |
BH: | Paul Sabutiuk. |
RH: | Yes, and who’s the other one? Brice Shaw, yes. So anyhow, these four kids all went down to Princeton from Mountain Lakes, and big stirring up! |
LD: | Went to college there? |
RH: | Yeah, went to college. And Princeton, let their kids out a week early so they could go home and deal with this business-this was the time that they shot some kids out at Kent State. |
LD: | Kent State, okay. |
RH: | Yeah, and the school was just all upset about the whole war and everything about it. So they let the kids cut classes and said, “You can all go home.” So the four came back, and talked to the high school, addressed it, in the auditorium-the auditorium being the cafeteria at the time. And they were very impressed to be involved with it. |
LD: | And so what did they talk–? |
RH: | I don’t know. They just were talking about the Vietnam War, and I think they were opposed to it, probably. But none of them was ready to say that they were going to run away from it. |
LD: | Okay, to go to Canada or anything? |
RH: | Yeah. |
LD: | Let’s see. And now you’ve moved to Heath Village, so I guess maybe we could sort of finish up unless you have something else you want to think about is what living in Mountain Lakes-what made living in Mountain Lakes special to you? |
RH: | Oh, I think the people. You just met such nice people, such interesting people. Practically everyone you’d meet, why, you’d want to get to know better. Not everybody, but there are a few yahoos I’d just as soon knock off the end of the cliff. |
LD: | The ones from Mars? |
RH: | Yes, that’s right. |
LD: | [Laughs] |
RH: | But by and large, the people are very unusual. We’ve met many people who are all so nice. Even if you don’t know them, you know their names; you know what they’re doing and you admire what they’re doing. And each to his own, very individually, and having a lot of personal awareness. They knew what they had it in for-interesting, interesting. Nice people. I think that’s it more than anything. |
LD: | And I think we’ve covered many, many things here today. I don’t know-is there anything else? |
RH: | That seems like more of a biography than something to do with Mountain Lakes. |
LD: | Well it does seem, but as you just included in your last statement is Mountain Lakes is made up of individuals, and that’s what makes them special. So we’ll turn the tape off now, and if we think of something else, we’ll turn it back on again. |
End of Interview
Transcribed by Tapescribe, University of Connecticut at Storrs, 2004. Edited by Ruth Harrison, January 2005 and Margarethe P. Laurenzi, coordinator, Oral History Project of the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, June 2005.