Williams, Nancy Pollock

Nancy Williams Interview:

This is file 59. This is Jean McMillen. I am interviewing Nancy Williams about her time in Lakeville, and the Methodist Church. The date today is Sept. 17, 2013.

JM:What is your full name?

NW:Nancy Pollock Williams

JM:Your birth place?

NW:Watertown, New York

JM:Your birth date?

NW:August 28, 1955

JM:Your parents’ names?

NW:Gerard Bernard Pollock and Emma Ruth Pollock. That is my mother’s maiden name.

JM:Your mother was a Pollock and she married a Pollock.

NW:Yes, and it was spelled the same way, 2 L s and 2 O s.

JM:Do you have siblings?

NW:Yes I have 3 siblings. I am the oldest child and I have a sister who is you year younger than I am Susan, I have a sister Heidi who is 5 years younger that I am, and a brother Christopher who is 7 years younger than I am.

JM:What is your educational background?

NW:I started third grade here in Lakeville at Salisbury central school and went through the eighth grade at SCS. Then I went on to Housatonic Valley Region High School and graduated in the class of 1973. Then I graduated from the University of Connecticut.

JM:What was your degree?

NW:It was in Home Economics with a major in Human Development/Child Development and Family Studies.

JM:How did you and your family come to the area?

NW:My father was appointed by his United Methodist bishop to the Lakeville United Methodist Church.

JM:You came as a family in 1963.

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JM:Your dad stayed for 21 years, I think.

HW:He left in 1984.

JM:Yes, we’re going to talk about the Methodist Church and first we’ll talk about Sunday school. Do you remember who the superintendent of Sunday school was then?

NW:I believe it was Mr. Fitts when we first arrived.

JM:That would be Charles Fitts? (See 16A Adelaide Fitts)

NW:Yes

JM:Do you remember any of the Sunday school teachers that you had?

NW:My first Sunday school teacher, I think she followed us along for a couple of classes, was…

JM:McKee? LeMoyne?

NW:They taught primary classes and I was in the third grade. It was Mrs. Francis, Mrs. Russell Francis.

JM:What did Shirley Costa have to do with the Sunday school, anything?

NW:Probably about the time I was in 7th grade, I think she became the Sunday school superintendent for a couple of years. I don’t believe she ever taught a Sunday school class, but Sunday school used to be before church from 9:45 to 10:45 because it was a separate entity, we had our opening in the large meeting room. So she prepared the whole opening.

JM:Where was Sunday school held? Was it in the church or was it in Fellowship Hall?

NW:It was in the Parish House. It is the building on the opposite side of the parsonage from the church.

JM:When you father was in the Methodist Church, was his pastoral study in the parsonage or was it in the opposite building?

NW:There was a space, a room in the upstairs of the parsonage that was a study and that must have been the original study because the Parish House was dedicated just before we arrived. Then my father’s study was in the Parish House.

JM:That house was dedicated in 1958, I think and you came in 1963.

NW:I think it might have been given in 1958.

JM:It was.

NW:But it wasn’t prepared for use yet.3.

JM:Probably not.

NW:I don’t think the actual dedication occurred until 1963. I think it tells on the back of the church plate where all those dates are listed. They must have had an actual dedication and that was later like 1962 or 1963.

JM:I think you are right on that. (She is. Ed.)

NW:I know it took the UMW a while to prepare that big room; they took on the responsibility for that whole big room. They acquired the furnishings for it, draperies and things; that was their meeting room. The Sunday school did meet there briefly for about 15 minutes for our own little service with readings and a hymn. We had used hymnals. Then we went off to our separate classes.

JM:Were you in choir?

NW:Yes, one thing that the Pastoral Relations committee told my father when they interviewed him was that they would like a junior choir. My mother was already leading a junior choir in Western New York where my father was finishing seminary, so that started in pretty much right away in September I think.

JM:She got the job.

NW:Yeah, I was already in junior choir and went through in Lakeville. I was trying to remember I think it was maybe 7th and 8th grade Mrs. Britton (Mrs. Everett Britton Ed.) took a group of us as a junior high choir for at least those 2 years. Then when we started high school we just went into the senior choir. I was in all of those choirs. Even there were so many kids born in 1955 and thereabouts that all the churches in this area, even small churches, had junior choirs. We had a pretty big junior choir. Al Sly and Mrs. Stone directed a lot of the children’s music for the Congregational Church. They decided to have a junior choir festival. Well, it was much like any choir festival, they sent out the music and we all rehearsed in our individual choirs. It was a Lenten theme; the music was all selected for Lent. Then we came together for a rehearsal and then on a Sunday afternoon we had a performance of a regular concert. Mrs. Stone directed us initially for most of the rehearsals, and then when she thought we were all getting together, Al came in and went through everything with us. We came a little early on Sunday and went over things with him. He directed us in that concert. It was really nice.

JM:Where was this concert held?

NW:In the Congregational Church, they have the biggest space. We needed a pretty big space. I think the choirs took up the entire balcony on almost all the way around, probably not at the farther end, but the sides and the back and where the regular choir sits, and mainly in the back or at least when I first participated in a few things up there. There were a lot of us and we all wore our different colored robes. I think there was some kind of a procession. It was really done very well, almost like we were a senior choir.

JM:That must have been a great experience.4.

NW:We worked on that for quite a while. My mother did a lot of work with us on that too. Mrs. Britton helped, but my mother did extra practice with us.

JM:Knowing your mother, yes I would think so. Methodist Youth Fellowship, you had some very interesting experiences when you father was in charge, would you tell me what the background is on some of these service projects that you did?

NW:There was Junior MYF and Senior MYF. I started Jr. MYF in 7th grade and 8th grade and then high school was Sr. MYF. We did all kinds of things. I shall mix up probably what we did as Jr. MYF and Sr. MYF, but I don’t think it matters. He took us to various places; one was to Gould Farm in Monterey, Mass. which was a psychiatric rehab. They had a working farm that they were doing. I can’t remember about the animals, I think there were pigs, but they did grow a lot of vegetables. So about this time of year they really needed some help. I just remember there were tons of winter squash of every kind, and all different kinds of cabbages and they were huge, the green ones and the big red ones. They needed it sorted. I think they had just picked it and just tossed it into this big shed, but they had space where they could put them in bins so we just had this giant bucket brigade, just passing all these big squash and getting them into the right bins. There might have been some decorative gourds. I remember we were trying to tie cabbages so that they could hang. We stayed overnight there so that we could get up in the morning and do some more work the next morning; that was a whole weekend. Some of it was just like we’d work on a cleanup program, picking up cans and bottles along beside the road. I think the whole community was working on it, so the MYF would pitch in. Sometimes it was just going along with the Jr. Choir to one of the nursing homes like Geer or Noble to sing. Noble would have been later on because they weren’t open initially. (See Eileen Mulligan tape #147A. Ed.) Sometimes it was just participation in the worship service.

Oh there was the strawberry shortcake festival for the hospital ship HOPE. If the church was doing like the UMW was doing a summer bazaar or the men would be doing a chicken barbeque later in the evening. There was a canopy that was assembled over the window of the kitchen on the side the parsonage that faced the church lawn. Not to take up space in the Fellowship Hall where other things were going on, we used the parsonage kitchen. Of course earlier in the summer we would have gone and picked the strawberries. I always said that my father picked the hottest day of the summer for us to go out to pick strawberries. We would be dying of thirst by the time we would get back. Cars weren’t necessarily air conditioned then so we would have all the windows rolled down and we would be out in this heat picking all these strawberries. We did that for a couple of years; we sold strawberry shortcake at tables right there on that little piece of side lawn that joins the church property. People would be walking right up that sidewalk and walk into the Fellowship Hall and they would have to walk right past our little tables and the side window to the kitchen. It was fun. I guess all the parents donated various short cakes, but that didn’t work out so well because we found out how many different kinds of cakes people tend to put strawberries on. We had to get a little more specific after that. Of course Frances McKee made the real baking powder biscuits. I remember picking on Roger relentlessly because he brought baking powder biscuits, a couple of us had just finished high school home economics where our

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2 old battleaxes of home economics teachers. When you made baking powder biscuits or plain muffins, they had to look like they had come out of a book. They had to be perfect, and split perfectly. We had just been through the process of making homemade baking powder biscuits. In came all these baking powder biscuit from Mrs. McKee. We said,”Roger! We don’t want to see baking powder biscuits.” The process had been beaten into our brain. We couldn’t manipulate the dough too much because it would make the baking powder biscuits too tough and flat, not light and flaky and blah, blah, blah. A lot of people just used plain yellow cake mix or a plain white cake mix or a pound cake mix; we got every possible kind of cake so the next year we got a little more specific. It worked out well. My mother always used one of the Bisquick mixes and you could do that really fast to bake these biscuits; they were much like baking powder biscuits, but it was the easy, fast way. She could make a ton of them really quickly so that if we ran out, we’d have more biscuits to put the berries on. I think she had back-up biscuit mix in the pantry just in case. That was a lot of fun. We usually came up with a pretty donation for the hospital ship HOPE.

It was one thing right after the other different experiences, some of it was just experiences that he thought would be good for us whether it was fund raising for some mission. I remember going to the Albert Schweitzer Friendship House. The woman who ran it -it was her father who had the archives of this tremendous amount of correspondence that had gone on between her father and Albert Schweitzer over their lifetime. I guess now the archive has gone to Syracuse University, but at that time it was there. People could go there if they were studying Albert Schweitzer.

JM:Oh yes, it was quite noted in Gt. Barrington at the time.

NW:To do the research. We didn’t realize she was going to show us the full feature movie that had won the Academy Award and about his life that lead up to the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. I think we were there for well over 2 ½ hours. It was a long movie. I probably never would have had the chance to see it unless I had seen it there. I think we did some other little fund raiser for the Friendship House, but I don’t remember exactly what it was.

We visited drug rehabs. When I was either a junior or senior in high school we were with the Congregational Church because they had Rich Reifschneider as their assistant pastor. They had a much older pastor who had actually retired and they needed someone. He just filled in but ended up staying for a while but he needed some assistance. One of Rich’s jobs was to work the youth. The Congregational Church needed to work on it; they had not had a youth group in a while so somehow we ended up combined. One of our trips was Gould Farm. One of the things we did every year was the Sunrise Service down at the Grove. That was a lot of fun. Lynn Rebillard’s family was Methodist and the time we went to Gould Farm he was looking for a girl counselor and he asked Lynn. Then Lynn and Rich ended up getting married. That was quite the big event. They had buses coming down from the Albany area, Clifton Park. Rich was had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and by then he had his own church. They had a bus that came down from there with his parishioners. There were a lot of Methodists and all the Congregationalists from down here. The reception was over at the White Hart so

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people could come. Some of it was right at the Congregational Church; some of the initial things were there with at least one cake and goodies for everyone. The dinner reception was over at the White Hart. I didn’t get to go; I was supposed to help serve the goodies at the Congregational Church, but I was working 40 hours a week by then. By the time they got married I was already in college, and I had to work that Saturday at the “Village Toggery”. My sisters told me all about it.

JM:Did you dad take the group to the Big E?

NW:Yes, almost every year because Bill Chilcoat was in cattle specialist so every year he was always judging, at any state fair and even county fairs. Bill was always judging up there so he always got us tickets and we went. We did it the year we were with the Congregational Church group. I think John Rogers drove; various years you would have different people.

JM:Yes, it was much more of a community group of youth rather than not.

NW:That was true for those particular years. I think there were 2 years that it was a combined group of kids. Most of the years that I was in MYF it was pretty much Methodist Fellowship.

JM:Did you do anything as a service project with the Fall Festival? Because at the time that I came to town, it was very much all of the churches and there was the Antiques part in the Town Hall. All of the churches worked together.

NW:The UMW did certainly. They started out with a cart and the First Selectman, being Methodist (Bill Barnett Ed.) got them a permit. They used a little segment of land that belonged to the town right off the library property. I think it is the parking lot now; it is almost across from the entrance to the back door of the Fellowship Hall of the Congregational Church. So the Methodists had their bakery cart outside initially. When they first started doing it, and what can anyone say when the First Selectman was Methodist. The Fall Festival had been the exclusive domain of Lime Rock Trinity Church, then the Episcopal Church in Salisbury and the Congregational Church also got into the act. The Methodist and the Catholics of Lakeville were really not participants. It started with this cart which was very successful outside the door of the Congregational Church. I think by the next year they were all invited to come in; then the Catholic Church was included as well. By then it became a community effort. I do not know that MYF participated; I think it was mainly United Methodist Women. Then it was called WSCS the Women’s Society of Christian Service. They took on that responsibility and raised quite a bit of money over the years. I was surprised to hear that the Congregational Church won’t be doing any of their White Elephants or baked goods tables or anything inside this year. They will probably have their luncheon, but so many younger women are working; they really can’t get it done. It takes a lot of work. I did the bake table for 2 years. The night before you are pricing and taking everything over and then there is more taking things over on Saturday morning. Whatever is left over is later sold. I happen to get out of work at 12 o’clock on Fridays, so I could do it, but a lot of people can’t get away that early. They are really cutting back; I was very surprised.

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JM:The people are getting older; they can’t find back up. Cindy (Smith) and I were in a tent on the lawn outside of the pharmacy last year.

NW:That’s what it is going to be again.

JM:It was ok; I had worked the Country Kitchen inside the Congregational Church for several years, and it was all the Methodists, the Catholics and the Congregationalists all together.

NW:That’s what I did for 2 years.

JM:I did that for many years, and then I also worked the craft table; again it was all of the churches provided crafts. That’s gone down the tubes, I guess too. That’s too bad because it was a lovely experience in the fall.

NW:It was a lot of fun. Although this is going to be much easier because when I was doing the baked goods, I would go home at night with a whole list, and type it up on the computer. Then whatever was left, I would check off. Then I would know what I had sold, and what the totals were, so that I could give an idea. But all this color coding that had to go on and wait all the waiting that goes on. You wait until everything is totaled, and then the percentage comes finally in a check. This is going to be instant; there is no color coding and whatever is earning goes right into the treasury. The only problem is that it won’t be so much fun if it is rainy and cold to be outdoors. It was very comfortable to be inside.

JM:It was not rainy but it was cold when Cindy and I did it last year.

NW:But for the most part you get nice Columbus Days, but not always.

JM:Tell me about the Camp Sloane scholarships for the Methodist Church.

NW:I think initially when Camp Sloane was giving out scholarships, they were thinking of doing something nice for Ninth Week because that was what they were for. At the time Camp Sloane was set up with a July session, an August session and a 9th week which was for all the kids. (See John Hedbavny file 55: History of Camp Sloane) They really had to do it because there were kids that needed to stay until school started. They didn’t always fill up 9th week because quite a few kids did go home. Camp Sloane is in Lakeville so the scholarships would come to my father; he would be assigned the job of finding kids to go to camp. Well, I think at this point there are scholarships but they are not full scholarships. These were full scholarships. Certainly established camp has become much more expensive that it was in my day. Now I think there was some to do about why couldn’t it be all of Salisbury; why didn’t all of the churches get the benefit of it. Initially I think camp Sloane was doing it for Lakeville, and there were only 2 churches in Lakeville, the Catholic Church and the Methodist Church.

JM:There was a very strong Methodist background with some of the directors there.

NW:That’s right and also the Grounds keeper, Chris Wadsworth is in charge of that now, but Ole Hegge was from the Methodist church and groundskeeper then.

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NW:Dad did try to fill them, but sometimes he had a hard time to get kids. It was too close to school starting, and my siblings went. Roger McKee always went.

JM:It was a sleep away for the week.

NW:Yeah, it was established camping for the week. I always went to Girl Scout camp and sometimes church camp. Girl Scout camping was a two week thing. I think my parents figured that somebody else could go to camp. They never even asked me if I wanted to Camp Sloane. Susan and Leslie Laverty went a couple of years, my brother and sister went at least one year, but I always had other camping interests.

JM:Tell me about the Grove.

NW:It certainly not what it is now; I just saw that new building. It is just gorgeous, but it was a lovely place and for us we could just walk. I guess we were old enough by that time. We could walk down for swimming lessons by ourselves. Bob Devantry was one of the life guards; they didn’t even have the whole crew of lifeguards, but they had coverage the whole time. I think there were maybe only 2, I don’t remember who else, but Bob was there most of the time. Our parents wouldn’t just let us jump in and go out to the raft when we felt like it; we had to ask Bob if he wanted us out there. If it was too busy, my parents didn’t want him having to think about extra kids. “If Bob doesn’t want you out there, you just wait until he says it is ok.” There was a log which I can see why they would think it was too dangerous to have such a thing now, but that was the most fun of all. You just couldn’t stay on it; it really took a lot of practice to do that. At first it was tethered at one end, and it would really pop up; it was like riding a bucking bronco. Then I think probably the Board of Health said, “Well, you have to have it tethered at both ends.” If somebody was too heavy, it could come out of the water and clobber them on the head. I don’t know if anyone was seriously injured, but it was a possibility. It was the type of thing that a state inspector would have visions of a disaster upon seeing it. It became tethered later at both ends, and then it disappeared entirely. I am very experienced with board of Health Inspectors for New York State from the Amenia Day Nursery so I know how these people think. I know how thing progress and it depends upon what inspector if there and who thinks something is too dangerous to have around. The little raft has come in a little closer because that used to be a challenge. The first challenge was to be able to swim from the dock to the little raft and climb up on the little raft. That wasn’t even that easy because there was no ladder or any kind of help to pull yourself up on to it. Then the next challenge would be to make it from the little raft to the log, and eventually as you aged and became a stronger swimmer, you could get out to the big raft. That had at that time the high diving tower on it. That eventually disappeared because that was deemed I am sure too dangerous or the insurance got to be much too expensive to have such a thing. We had all these great things when we were down at the Grove. I just remember being poised on top of that high diving platform; it seemed like such an accomplishment just to swim out to the big raft. These are rites of passage in Lakeville. How old were you when you first swam out to the big raft? How old were you when you had enough

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nerve to jump off the high diving platform? Then there was the low diving board which was where you learned how to do back flips.

JM:Who taught swimming and diving? Was it Jeanette Axelby?

NW:Jeanette Axelby taught the junior and senior life saving. I don’t remember Jeanette teaching regular swimming lessons. I think the first year we moved Mr. Hemmerly was either just finishing and there was another younger man…

JM:Art Wilkinson?

NW: Art Wilkinson came eventually, but there was someone else in there. Art certainly was most of my life was in charge of swimming lessons, and the swim team. I guess that was it. The Red Cross levels were beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate swimmer and then I think you went to Junior Life Saving and Senior Life Saving; there might have been another step in there but that was most of it. That was part of the summer program.

JM:Who was the Manager of the Grove then?

NW:I think Frank Markey was the Manager the entire time we lived here. I don’t remember anyone other than Frank. Fred Romeo was eventually his assistant in the summer. Of course Frank would have been in charge the whole year round. People still used the Grove in late August and late fall and into early spring.

JM:Did you go to sock hops at the Grove?

NW:Yes, in the old building that was Art. I don’t know if anyone did that before Art. He might have started that when he was in charge of the Recreation Program for Salisbury. That was for 7th and 8th grade and I think 9th graders were allowed to come to, although by the time we went to high school I don’t remember being at all interested in going to a junior high sock hop. I don’t remember ever going in 9th graced, but in 7th and 8th grade I would. My sister Susan wouldn’t miss one; she and her friends really loved it.

JM:What were they like?

NW:I think they were always on Friday night. It was either every other Friday night or once a month, it started in September when school started and concluded probably in May when school got too busy. There were so many school functions that it would be hard to find a night to do it. There would be a Halloween Hop or a Valentine’s Hop. It was records and it was a real sock hop. That was pretty much it. I think there might have been a pool table out or ping pong table or something like that. Maybe there were card out, playing cards. It seemed like there were some other little functions besides the dancing. There were refreshments.

JM:What was the time frame? Was it from 7 to 9?

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NW:Yeah it was pretty limited. I don’t think it went on for more than from 7:30 to 9:30 or something like that. I think 10 o’clock would have been way too late for 7th and 8th graders. I think I would go to the first one, and maybe Valentine’s Day or something like that. It always seemed like there was something else that we were doing, but my sister Susan and her friends they were devoted to the sock hops. We just had different personalities and different likes.

Now the school (SCS) had Friday night movies and that was like every other Friday for a period of time. You would buy tickets I think there would be 5 movies. Mr. Kofsuske was sort of in charge of the Audio-visual club and he had the kids that were in the club; it was their thing. Mr. Romeo patrolled and was supervisor. Now I didn’t want to miss that; I enjoyed the movies more that the sock hops. I thought that was a lot of fun. I can remember not wanting to take dancing lessons at Indian Mountain School because I didn’t want to miss the movies at Salisbury Central School. I don’t know how I got out of it; my parents didn’t press me. I had taken a lot of ballet for three or four years. Susan really wanted to take the cha-cha and all that and that was what it was-ball room dancing. I guess they must have thought that they needed to polish off those boys, as Indian Mountain School was mainly boys then. They needed some girls to help.

JM:Do you remember the dancing at Indian Mountain School? Do you remember who taught it?

NW:They must have asked somebody to come it. Susan might remember because she did it. I could tell you who went like Peter Wadsworth there then. I know Leslie Laverty, and Susan did it. They were all into that.

JM:Was Vacation Bible School in the summer?

NW:Yes, at the end of August and sometimes it interfered with 9th week at Campo Sloane. I remember Susan and Leslie would miss a good part of Bible School.

JM:That was a week at that time, wasn’t it, Bible School?

NW:Yeah.

JM:Was that done by the regular Sunday school teachers or was it done by volunteers from the congregation?

NW:I think most of the teachers were teaching Sunday school but they got other people to do it. There were other parents involved that might not be involved during the full school year. They had a week that they would give time to helping with the craft work and stuff like that. We had a lot of fun with that. I never missed Bible School because I didn’t go to Camp Sloane.

JM:So that was something that you did on a regular basis.

NW:Girl Scout Camp for 2 weeks was almost right after school; I went right from the first part of July right through to the middle of July.

#2 Nancy Williams Interview

JM:Was there a Girl Scout troop right here in town?11.

NW:Oh there were a number of Girl Scout troops.

JM:Tell me about your Girl Scout troop.

NW: We stayed together until we were seniors in high school. As seniors in high school I think we were assistant leaders to a junior troop, or maybe a cadet troop. We did a lot of nice things, service projects and trips. We had an English teacher from Salisbury Central School who was just here for 2 years from Montana-Barbara Maronic. She led our troop for those junior high school years; she and a fifth grade teacher Miss Lamb who was from Boston. They took us to Boston for at least a weekend; I think it was during a vacation so it may have been three full days or even a little bit more. We did the whole Freedom Trail and all of that. We stayed at a Girl Scout camp out on the outskirts of the city; but I do remember it was early in the spring and it was a little cool to be sleeping in tents, but we did and we managed. We ate in Friendly’s and places like that. We didn’t try to cook out because there was too much sightseeing to be done. That was a very nice trip. We were about to have American History in our senior year. I don’t think we did it during the spring of our 8th grade year which would have been really nice.

We raised the money by doing the Fishermen’s Breakfast for opening day of fishing season at the Town Grove which was a lot of fun the scrambles eggs and the bacon and all of it. Some of them stayed overnight in the Grove building and got right up and got things going. I don’t think my mother was too keen on that; she said. “You can walk down there; you don’t have to stay over.” So I didn’t stay over. We just served breakfast food right up until one o’clock. We did it for quite a few years, maybe 4 or 5 because until another troop was interested in doing it. It was really supposed to be passed down to another cadet troop. They really didn’t have leaders that wanted to take that responsibility on. We were willing to do it, so we got to raise money that way for quite a few years. After a couple of years we decided we would even serve hot dogs all afternoon. We made a lot of money selling hot dogs after one o’clock. We just kept going right up until we thought the last fisherman had his body in from the lake whether they caught anything or not. We stuck a few potato chips on a plate with the hot dog and they were so hungry after being out on the lake that they were happy with that.

JM:How many girls were in your troop?

NW:We always had big groups of everything; it wasn’t hard to come up with. As I said we were in the largest class that ever graduated, 165 at least to start with and we graduated with 153. At that time it was the largest class they ever graduated. There were so many kids born in in 1955 that my class at Salisbury Central School always had three sections, and all the other sections around us were just two sections. Whatever it was, whether it was the junior choir at a church or any kind of youth program, nobody ever had to scrap the bottom of the barrel to come up with kids. There were always kids. I think that is part of the problem now when you go to do things, there aren’t enough people. We probably had every girl in the class who participated so I would say about 40. The earlier age groups we

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met in the Fellowship Hall at the Methodist Church because we could just walk down the sidewalk from the Lower Building. Later on when Miss Maronic was our head leader and Pat Gomez was one of the assistants, we met at the Grove building, but we met in the evening on a Wednesday evening, or something like that about 6:30 to 8 o’clock. That worked out for her. Pretty much all of us stayed in it until the junior/senior high school, then there was only a few of us. Sophomore year we went on the Bermuda trip.

JM:Tell me about that.

NW:It was for the western Connecticut Girl Scout Council; it was very inexpensive. I think I saved up a couple hundred dollars from my baby sitting money. It was somewhere around $200 and we went for the whole week. We camped and once again it was early spring; thank goodness it was not that warm in April, but we were camping on what was for them a National Park. It was on Ports Island right in Hamilton Harbor and there were a ferry would come and take us into the city of Hamilton. We just had a blast. Sandy Gomez went on that trip, Barbara Peck went on that, Lisa Moss; we were a smaller group by then since it was sophomore year in high school. We had just a fantastic time. That was a really nice experience.

JM:is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to add to this.

NW;I could probably go on for years. It was a very nice experience to grow up in Lakeville, Ct. We were very fortunate; it was good as a family. The bishop made a good match when he sent my father to Lakeville. My father was very excited to be coming to Lakeville because he had been in Hillsdale, New York and was very familiar with Lakeville. At that time Lakeville was in the district, you know they changed the district. If the UMW had a district meeting sometimes you might all meet in Lakeville, Hillsdale and Copake people would be there. So he was very familiar with this area, and he was so happy to be coming back to the area after spending 2 years trying to get straight through seminary and finish up his work there. It was in bits and pieces when he was in Hillsdale, he would try to take the train down to the city; then he transferred to Hartford, but that was quite a drive. That was better than the slow boat to China that the train was to the city which stopped at every station, although he could study. He got some graduate courses from SUNY Albany as a required level in Educational Psychology. I know that 2 graduate courses came from there, so he had assembled enough credits to make up one year to transfer, but if he had kept up at that pace, he never would have gotten the 90 plus credits. He was trying to find a seminary where he could have churches and close to the seminary. That just doesn’t work most places because if the seminary is in a city, they are not going to give a student a big city church. So you are either an assistant, meaning that you are not going to have a parsonage or place to live for your family. Alfred University still had a seminary at the time which they closed. My father was in the last graduating class. They could no longer afford to keep it open since seminaries have to be totally financed by the University. They chose to go only with programs where they got their matching Federal funding and state funding. He got straight through his 2 years and had a couple of churches at the same time which were only 20 minutes away so it was really easy. I can remember him working on

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his thesis and everything. That was a project, but he didn’t have all that time that went by the wayside, just traveling.

JM:It was a good match for him and it was certainly a good match for Lakeville.

NW:he just loved being here and so did we.

JM:Thank you so much.

NW: You’re welcome.