George & the Guys of Post Hill Road

I just received this wonderful post from one of our original fans, George Corday.  I am so happy to hear from him & to share the photos he sent.  I encourage everyone reading this to feel free to share  your stories and old images so they become part of the Living History of Mountaindale, New York.

Hi, I'm George Corday who first came to Mountaindale in 1934 when I was almost 2. I really have missed the old site and still don't understand how it was lost. Anyway, I came across these two photos that I'm pretty sure were taken in 1948. The group are guys from Feldman's, Palace Farm and Maliga's, all on Post Hill Road. We called it Post Office Road back then and hung out at night in Maliga's casino, ate junk food, played the pinballs and danced to the juke box for a nickel a song and six for a quarter. The other photo is me on the right and Marty Rubin posing with our Red Ryder BB guns and a fox we found dead on the road. Hope you can use them.

George Corday, Ridgefield, CT

More Love from a Camp Eva Fan

I've said it before, but the folks from Camp Eva still hold this place near and dear in their hearts. I just received a great note from Artie North. He can be reached at artienorth@att.net and here's what he has to say:

I went to Camp Eva for many years. I began as  Blue Bird and went there until I became a camper waiter. My parents had a bungalow on the oval.

Manny Rothchild was the head counselor when I began there. There was also Dave Bernstien.

I remember Eddie Bieber, the Wunches, the Seidens, the Kerners, the Weissmans, Howie Atkins, June Forbes, the Nigros, the Bernstiens, etc. Color War was the best! I never won...LOL!

They were great years!

Egg Creams & Spring Water

I was just speaking with a friend about delicious egg creams and how wonderful Mountaindale spring water is and it reminded me of this fun summertime 2001 posting from former resident, Harold Meyers

I lived in Mountaindale back in the 70's. I really enjoyed it there. My fondest memories had to be the timesI played basketball at the courts with Raymond and Lamont Larry. We would get there early on the weekends and play all day!! Well into the night. Then after the games I'd go to Rosenthals for a cold soda. Only real Mountaindale residents would know this...does anyone remember the pipe that used to stick out the side of the mountain that used to give the greatest coldest spring water!!! It was the best!! Right down the road outta town toward the Springs!!! I also loved to go to Helens and have a Egg Cream and she made the best Egg on Roll sandwiches!! I even worked with her husband Al waxing Floors at Rhulens in Monticello!! Shepsies Bar was where my Mom worked for a while and I even worked at the fruit store next to Frieds bakery IT was the best of times back then....And yes I remember you too Barbara Schulman and your brother Paul!! See ya!!

Harold Meyers , wildwood, FL usa - Sunday, May 27, 2001

Richard Abraham's Church Road Hike

This sweet memory by Richard Abraham allows us to relive the image he painted of a young boy walking with his Mom for a cherished annual treat in town along Church Road. In those days, the Moms stayed at the colonies with the kids all week until the Dads came up on Fridays, after working all week in the city.

Every year in the middle of the summer, if i wanted it or not, my birthday arrived. a tradition of walking from frishman's to mountaindale, with my mother, was created. early evening we would leave the bungalow colony and walk toward the four corners. from there down the snake road, past the budd farm.

no matter what time of day or how hot it was, it seemed the snake road was always shady and cool. when we near the mountaindale playhouse, i knew we were have almost arrived. a short few steps after that, the goal of our journey.... i don't remember the name of the store, but they made the best chocolate sundaes.

happy and full bellied, we made our way back to frishman's... you could never walk the full way back without almost every car stopping to offer us a lift. we never said no.... you could trust everyone then in mountaindale. back on frishman's, i would run to find, brian or mel or some of the other guys for a game of pinocle or ping pong or whatever.

how could life have been so uncomplicated? and how do we get back there?

Looking for Dance Teacher, Frances Fields

Linda Marks is trying to find info about her aunt and uncle, Frances and Monte Felder, who went by the name Fields professionally, and taught dance at one of the small Sullivan County hotels back in the late 50's and early 60's. Linda says, "I've asked my cousins if they know the name of the hotel or where it was located, but they don't know and no one else is around for me to ask. If any of you have any knowledge of them, Aunt Frances was my very favorite aunt and was a great dancer." So I tried to do a little research, thinking that if Frances Fields was well known in her day, then she might have been pals with Jackie Horner who is thought to be the prototype for the Penny Johnson character in the hit movie, "Dirty Dancing," which was set locally in the Catskills resort area. Of course, Jackie Horner is also known as the wife of Lou Goldstein, the famous Social Director & Simon Says guy of Grossinger's. Here's an interesting ancecdote that I came across from "It Happened in the Catskills," written by the husband and wife team of Myrna and Harvey Frommer as described in a very detailed Dartmouth.edu web review:

We hear from and learn about Neil Sedaka, who showed up at Esther Manor at the age of 19 with his band, the Nordanelles (for Norman, David and Neil), and ended up marrying Esther's daughter, much to the chagrin of her family; and of Eddie Fisher, who came up to Grossinger's in 1946 at 19, got "discovered" by Eddie Cantor on Labor Day 1949 and married Debbie Reynolds there in 1955.

Lou Goldstein, legendary social director at the hotel for many years, remembers the kid singer very well. "Eddie Fisher and I were roommates for a while -- the Playhouse at Grossinger's, Room 5. We were both single and looking. We made up a signal between us. If one of us was in the room with a girl, we would wrap a towel around the outside door knob so the other guy wouldn't barge in ... I had a lot of trouble getting into that room. It seemed like there was always a towel there."

Shelley Karpilow Farm

Here is a re-post from Shelley Karpilow of Berkeley, CA who had very sweet recollections of her family's summer "Farm" in Mountaindale.

My grandparents bought a "farm" with 50 acres, about 2.5 miles out of town. This was in 1925. (Unfortuntely I could not find a map, otherwise I would show everyone where it was.) It was on an obscure road, very rocky and up-hill, on the left, skirting Anderson's farm. There was one other farm on the road, which belonged to Mr. Pechter. He had chickens and cows, and his stepson was Paddy the cop. (I have this wrong somehow, but there was a relationship.) Our "farm" was about a quarter of a mile down the road. He took in boarders for the summer, as did my grandparents.

On the eave of the porch was a sign "Forest Hill Farm" which was there when they bought it, and never changed. There was also an apple orchard, a cherry tree, and wild strawberries across the road. As our family went there only for the summer, so there was not much farming done; besides we were all city people.

A few times my mother went up early and the kids went to school there. I attended the one-room school house for about a month, and another year, my brother went to the high school in town. That would have been about 1945, ( for by then, I was too old.)

Sometime in the 40s, the place was sold for a paltry sum, one thousand dollars, I believe. My brothers loved going there, and would drive up to visit from time to time. The last time I was there was in 1974 or thereabouts. The house had fallen and just left as nature took its toll. The forest was encroaching, but we could still see the baseball fields, and the gooseberry bushes, and other landmarks from our childhood.

Of course I am very excited to see Mtdale revived. There had been artists there in my time too. The Foner brothers , amateur violinists , would play with my uncle Philip Bass, who was a professional. And Nell Blaine married another uncle, Robert.

If you want to know more, just write.

shelley karpilow

berkeley, ca usa -

How to Post

I am hearing that some of you would really like to post Comments to this site but aren't completely sure how to go about it. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it and I am sure everyone would enjoy reading your thoughts and recollections as much as they did on the original Mountaindale Living History site. Thanks to all of you, we now have visitors from all around the world again! Here's how you Post. If you wish to comment on a particular story, scroll down to the word "Comments" at the bottom of each entry. When you click it, a 'Post a Comment' box opens. Log in and then type your Comments inside the box. Then, all you have to do is click the Post a Comment button & we do the rest. If you'd like to create an entirely new story, please email it to me at news@mountaindaleproject.org and then I will post all suitable material along with any additional photos you care to submit. And that's all there is to it! I look forward to hearing from you soon!

O&W Unstoppable Moment

In 2000, Bert Basner posted a great O&W story about when his dad, Harry Basner of Majestic Road in Mountaindale, was the creamery manager and an O&W 'Unstoppable Moment' was anticipated.
It was about the year 1926, on a Saturday in the summer time as two passenger trains of the O & W were going north through Mountaindale when the dispatcher got an urgent call. The message said that on a northbound freight train heading towards South Fallsburg, two coal hopper cars loaded with coal had broken loose from their coupling and were rolling backward on the north bound track. It was imperative that they be diverted from the northbound track. A quick check of the area showed that there was a short spur running to the Woodridge creamery. They called the creamery manager, Harry Basner, and told him to evacuate the building as the two freight cars would be shunted to the tracks of his building. A switchman rushed down and diverted the northbound tracks to the creamery siding. Many of the residents went to sit on the grass opposite the creamery. I think these were the Sussmans, Monroe Davis, the Langers, the Gordans, the Beckers, and lots of us kids. The two runaway cars roared down the tracks, hit the switched rails at high speed and turned over. We kids got our pails and began to load free coal.