Email: "GROWING UP IN LAKE PLACID: To grandmother’s house we go"
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“Over the river and through the woods to grandmothers’s house we go.”             This was the song the children of my generation sang as Thanksgiving approached. In the fall of 1938, I didn’t have far to go. I was already at my grandparent’s house, the Goodsell Cottage. I spent every school year at their boarding house that sat where the High Peaks Resort upper parking lot is now located.


    If you are traveling up Saranac Avenue and look left to just beyond the hotel parking lot, you can see, still standing, a row of tall pine trees. In 1938, these trees lined a driveway past the Goodsell Cottage and if you walked down that driveway, you would have passed, on your right, the “Homestead.” This lovely old hotel, a centerpiece of upper Main Street, was owned and operated by the Roland family. It, like the Goodsell Cottage, was torn down in 1979 to make way for the big Hilton hotel in time for the 1980 Olympics.


    That fall of 1938, as Thanksgiving approached, the young people of the community scanned the sky, hoping for signs of the first snowflake. The weather was cold — in fact, very cold — and we were ready with our sleds and “bear trap binding” skis. In school, waiting to be let out at noon, the Wednesday before the holiday, I looked out the window toward the oval, disappointed to see that there was still no snow. Walking home from school, as I passed the open Marcy beach area, I realized that overnight a miracle had happened. Mirror Lake had frozen over from shore to shore and looked just like glass. No snow covered the surface. It had been freezing here and there, but I hadn’t even noticed.


    Walking home that day with me was Jeanne Rollier, who lived in the apartment building across from the Palace Theater, and Hazel Franklin, a 12-year-old champion figure skater from Bournemouth, England who was spending the school year in Lake Placid living at The Homestead while training at the arena. We instantly forgot about the snow and our sleds and skis and made plans to get out on that big mirror of ice before the snow covered it up. We knew that the town ice monitors would have to check the depth of the ice before we were allowed on, but we hoped that the below-zero weather was in our favor. We had changed our wish to no snow.


    Before the end of Thanksgiving week, we got the OK. This would be an experience I would never forget and never have again. I picked up Hazel and we walked down to where the Bandshell Park is now located, laced on our skates and sped out over the entire surface of the lake. Joining us were many others who had the same idea. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of skaters on the canals in Holland in the 1800s.


    It was amazing to us that the ice was safe from shore to shore and we made the whole swing down past Main Street, and past the spot where our town-maintained rink would be located a little later in the season. We then skated to the beach and the Lake Placid Club. On our route, Hazel showed off her championship style, as others watched and tried their best to copy her. I am glad that I had this opportunity to skate with Hazel Franklin, for after the 1940 winter season, she had plans to join an ice show.


    Home from our skate and back at the Goodsell Cottage, I had to come back to earth and get to work helping out my grandparents.


    Thanksgiving dinner had been a feast, with a dining room full of guests. I was deemed old enough now to wait on table. My grandmother explained that if I did well, I might get some tips. (A ten-cent tip, in those days, I would have considered a windfall.) There were several people from town that chose to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Goodsell Cottage, as my grandmother was well known for her cooking skills. Among those guests were Grace Lattimer and her son George, both former editors of the Lake Placid News, and Dan Winters, who was an early owner of the paper.


    Permanent Goodsell Cottage guests at dinner included several Jewish refugees from Europe that had come to escape Adolf Hitler’s planned invasion of their country. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Artur Jellineck whose home was in Vienna and who had left behind a daughter who was an opera star in Austria. Mr. Jellinek, who was a fine classical pianist, entertained everyone after dinner. He was also a music mentor for me, acquainting me with famous composers and their music and encouraging me to continue with piano lessons. These lessons I learned then have stayed with me a lifetime and in turn I have shared my love of music with my husband and five children.       


    I can still remember the feel of that Thanksgiving. The smell of wood burning in the big iron cookstove (where all meals were prepared), mixed with the pots simmering on the stove top, where giblet broth was waiting to be added to the gravy.  A huge turkey stuffed with homemade dressing, pungent with sage, occupied one of the ovens. On top of the stove, in warmer ovens, home made Parker House rolls were set to rise and venison mince meat pies baked in the second oven. May yours, this year, be just as fine.


    HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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