Whitbeck, Ward

JS This Is Jodi Stone on the 29th of September, I960 Interviewing Ward Whltbeck In his home on Indian fountain Road in Lakeville. As I said, Ward, what about the Whitbeck family?

WW: Well, I’ll tell you, I can remember back just so far. My grandfather and grandmother, my father’s and Sam’s father and mother, they lived here about sixty years. Sam’s father was a painter. He and Mr. Erickson used to have old Master bicycles. Used to get up early, about six in the morning, and ride from here to Millbrook or Litchfield, paint all day, come back at night and they each had a big garden. How where the Knife and Handle Is on Factory Street, they lived In this house owned by Warners for sixty-two years, I’ve forgotten which, find they’d get up In the morning, early, ride to these different outpost towns, all way around, and paint six days a week, come back In the evening, five or six o’clock, work in the garden, When they had a garden years ago, everybody raised their own vegetables and fruits. They’d work in that from six probably ’til nine or ten o’clock at night.

The drugstore at that time used to be open until ten or eleven at night, because we never had electricity and we’d go up to, Gene Spurr and I In an old Model T, go up to where the House of Herbs used to be. It used to belong to old Dan Willard, who was the owner and head of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He’d get these hundred pound cakes of Ice, bring ’em down In an old wooden tub and chop ’em all up fine, take a baseball bat and pack it around the ice cream, six in the morning, six at night, twice a day, seven days a week.

That was when I was… Well, when I first started in the drugstore, I was about eight, ten years old. In the summertime I’d work all summer for my uncle. Gene Spurr and I and, let’s see, there was AI Ong ley at that time, and Mil Coons, Gene Spurr’s wife, Who else was In there?

JS: Sam was your uncle?

WW:My father’s brother, yeah,

JS:Who was your father?

WW:My father was Charles Whltbeck. He was two years older

than Sam. He was on the New Haven & Hartford Railroad for fifty-seven years, one job. He was telegraph operator, first off here in Salisbury and all over Connecticut. He also was a trainer for men who took up this for the railroad. In Salisbury, at that time we had flue and six passenger trains through here a day. He had trains in the summer that had the

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open-air fringe on the side where people would get out and look at ’em. When you rode through Twin Lakes, everybody had a wind mill at that time, to pump their water. Everybody would come runnin’ up to the tracks to wave as it went by. Bein’ only a kid and my father, of course, bein’ with the railroad,

everybody that belonged to the railroad could have a pass, so I used to ride with the engineer. Everybody would come and wave.

At that time, Twin Lakes…. Oh, they also had one down here in the Lakeville Lake with the fringe on the side. It carried about ten or twelve people and for twenty-five cents you could ride around the lake. I can’t tell you exactly the date and year ’cause it’s so far back. I can remember so such and that’s It, you know.

Between the Lakes was the post office at that time. It wasn’t In Taconic. They had a big pavilion. They used to have dances on the weekend. The post office was there and they used to sell odd groceries and stuff like that. Once a week they’d have a dance on the weekend.

My father was from Salisbury, he had to go up to Twin Lakes. He had to alternate, not Twin Lakes, but Taconlc. Taconlc used to be called ChaplnviIle at that time. The old Borden milk factory was right beside the station. Everybody here at that time had a horse and team. We didn’t have state roads that early, black tops. But they would go early in the warning with a team of horses and carry the milk up there, even in the wintertime on sleigh. It would be shipped out. They’d process it at the Borden factory. Then out it would go.

Another thing I can remember, very vivid. We lived in a house right above the station at that time. I think Harris [Indistinct, Ed.) Ilves there now. Ha, ha. I can remember that, my father and mother couldn’t find me one day and I was outside of the house. I had stripped down just to my diapers and I was slttln’ right underneath that [Indistinct, Ed.) and the water was pouring down my head. I can remember that because I got an awful lickin’ for It. Ha, ha, ha.

Then, another Instance that went on at that time was… my father was missin’ some money in the station and so he stayed up all one night and he caught, about three o’clock in the morning, one of the O’Hara boys was breakin’ in after money. So he finally got hlm. He happened to have a gun and he took hlm with the horse and buggy all the way to Winsted to

 

Court, to jail. That was in the middle of the night. I can remember. My mother told me this. What happened to him? I couldn’t tell you. He said he had been missing something like two, three or four hundred dollars. Something like that. He finally made up his mind to see what he could do about it,

Is this goln’ on a long time?

JS: No. You want ae to turn it off?

WW: No.

JS: No, It’s Just runnlng. It’s just running.

WW: I think what you have to do is pick out the best.

JS: Ho, we want it just as it comes.

WW: It was so long ago, you know. Well, I’m seventy-five now and to remember way back…,

JS:Now tell me about… You said you went to school in what’s now the Court House.

WW:That’s where I first went to school. See, my father was switched all over the state at times. Where I went to school the longest was In Seymour, Connecticut. I’d come up hereand I’d work all summer long in the drugstore for Sam: then I’d go back to school in the fall.

JS:Was the drugstore always there? Where it is now?

WW: Yeah, It used to be owned by… Before Sam got It, I’m trying to think. Sam had it about sixty-three years, I think. Chalm Clint.

JS:Sam bought it from him or worked there first?

WW:Yeah.First Sam was…. He was learning to be a druggist. He used to take care of the Leverty.

JS: Doc Leverty?

WW: Doc Leverty, yeah. He was druggist there for him for a number of years before he bought the Salisbury Drug Store.

JS: It was always called…I’ve never heard It called anything but Whltbeck’s. It’s never called the Salisbury Drug Store.

WW: Well, It’s Salisbury Pharmacy.

JS: Whltbeck’s

WW: He had it when it was just a snail building. One side of the drug stone was the post office, on the night-hand side. That went on for a few years ’til the post office where It Is now was built.

JS: what was across the street?

WW: Across the street was Kimmerle’s Market. Mr. & Mrs. Kimmerle and their son, Charlie Kimmerle, ran that stone. Charlie Dubois, Jimmy Dubois’ father, was butcher.

 

Let’s see, who else? That was the only store: it took care of the whole block, the whole block there. Where the Trotta store was, that wasn’t there. The house I lived in for thirty-three years In Salisbury was right beside Kimmerle’s Market. It used to belong to Charlie Spurr. He was professor of something up to Hotchkiss for a number of years. He had a son and a daughter. I think they’re still alive In Washington. When Trotta built the market, that house was moved up In back, remember?

JS: Yes. I remember now.

WW: Okay.

JS: It’s the something apartments.

WW: Well, we brought up a large family, seven boys and four girls. So, we had to stretch our pennies, you know. So we got that for, oh, a minimum way, not too such money. Anyway, we didn’t have to pay for it. Of course, we had to practically rebuild it on the Inside. I built all the walls all around it. When I was with Fuller Brush for seven years before I [indistinct, Ed.) hauled stone from all over In my travels. I built upper wall and the one down below on account of the drainage, to keep the water from goln’ down. Mr. Trotta was very good to me. We used to have a large sewage connection, but it was always plugging up. He allowed me to build three drains: they filled up

and I built three more, I think, after that. He told me to build all I wanted back there, I Insulated back there, a secret job. Finally, we got sewer. You know, the sewer came through, Well, I put a new sewer, I put a new roof on that place. I put a new heating system, hot water heating system all through. It had a full-sized attic, a full-sized cellar, four large bedrooms, bath and downstairs a large living room and dining room and two fireplaces. That house was oven one hundred and some years oId.

JS: When you got it,

WW: Yeah

JS: Now, you’re Bam’s nephew?

WW: Right

JS: Bam, what’s his reaI name?

WW:What’s his real name?Nelson

JS:Nelson! That’s right. Okay, then Walt Is Walter.

WW: Walter Samuel, he’s named after his father.

JS: And Anna. They had three children.

WW: That’s right.

 

JS: Bam is married to Audrey.

WW: That’s right.

JS: Okay. Is there another generation of Whitbeck’s coming along from Audrey and Bam?

1414: Well, Audrey and Bam have a boy and a girl.

JS: Going Into the pharmacy business?

1414: No, no.

JS: So, this drug store is going to go, when he retires, it won’t be Whitbeck’s.

UU:That’s right. When Bam goes,

JS:That’s it.

WW: Anna is not a druggist there: Walt was never a druggist. It’s a shame about Walt, though. Walt was always very close to his mother, first wife. She was a wonderful person.

JS:Whose first wife?

WW:Sam’s first wife,

JS: Who was that?

WW: She was a Marston, She was a wonderful person. She died in her forties, I think.

JS: Do you remember her first name?

WW: Carrie.

JS: Carrie,

WW: I think she was forty-eight when she died. Dr. Peterson. Remember Doc? He was after her for this one operation for years and so was Sam. But she would never go: it finally hit her. I think it was a tumor. It was a shame because everybody thought them [Indistinct, Ed.]The only trouble, Walt went to…,Let’s see, he got all his credentials for advertising,

JS: So, he wasn’t a pharmacist either.

WW: Nope, He went to Boston, got his license to be in advertising. I tried to get hlm to go to New York where most of it was, you know, at that time. But he wouldn’t go, He always hung around. He was always close to his mother. He never got married. He was in the service before that. But, of course, now he’s not too good.

JS: So Bam’s the pharmacist in the family.

WW: Audrey’s one, too,

JS; Oh, I didn’t know that. Is she?

WW: Uncle Sam, I always called him Uncle Sam, he sent both of them: put both of them through pharmacy school. (Wrong, GI bill & work Ed.)

JS: After they were married?

 

WW: Yeah. Both of them. Bam was in the service for a while, but after he got out.

Now what went on around town at that time?

WW: Well, I’ll tell you. Long before the ski Jump was built, and that was built about sixty-three years ago, we didn’t have any state roads much In Salisbury, no lights, no electricity. But in the winter time, this was before the jump was ever built, up at the top of Selleck Hill, way up at the top: we used to start In the evening. In the evening on a winter night, when there was plenty of snow on the ground, there‘d be a hundred people on that street or more maybe two or three hundred. Howard Knickerbocker had a big ripper and where George Selleck’s will used to be, my grandmother’s house was the one down below there.

JS: Now, where was this mill?

WW: Right on the corner, right where Bam lived. Remember where Bam lived? That corner? That’s after the [Indistinct, Ed.] bought this place, bought the Selleck place. Where the old mill, red mill was. Do you remember where that was?

JS:No.Is it beyond Salisbury Artisans?

WW:Oh,yeah!

JS:You keep goingthere.

WW:Yeah.

JS: You don’t go to the old dump then?

WW: Oh, no, the old dump Is…

JS: It’s at Erickson’s way up there. So you bear left.

WW: Well, you go right, around the cemetery.

JS: Yeah.

WW: That corner has been cut short about twenty years ago. But years ago, when we’d come down it, we’d hardly be able to make the turn. Now, in the wintertime we used to take snow and pack it maybe twenty feet high,pour water over it at night and let it freeze so we could make that turn there.

Because if we didn’t, we all went about…. Oh,I think the ripper held about twelve. One evening we landed in the brook

‘way down below, because we couldn’t make the corner. So that’s what we did. We all got together, and put this big pile of snow there. There was a small house right there. You couldn’t see the house: we had it built so high. So when we came around that corner, it was all ice on that, you know. We’d make the corner and go on down. We used to end up down on the ball field. Then everybody’d be slngln’ and laughln’

 

and jokin’ etc. – walk all the way back up to Erickson’s and come all down, maybe four or five times a night,

JS: So you came down from Erlckson’s. My word!

 

WW: That’s right, way at the top, way up to Lion’s Head, way up to the top. That’s where we’d start. There’s a ride on a sled!

JS: Now, what? It was moon light then?

WW: Yup.

JS: It would have to be or you’d be killed,

WW: Now, In January years ago. You don’t see it anymore. In January years ago used to have a warm spell, and the snow would melt, We’d have two or three foot of snow on the ground and that would melt Into a crust, Now, right down below that curve that we used to go,,,, There used to be what we called Jenny Dexter’s house, set down In where you cross the bridge, Now that lot over there, the center of it, there’s a crevice in it like this and when you got across in the rain, that would be hard as a brick, So there’d probably be fifty or seventy-five people at nights over there, just sIidin’. You could start to slide and you’d slide all night. We used to slide in dishpans,

JS: The way kids use trays today.

WW: Yeah. The only sleds you had were the ones that you moved around like this. You were liftin’ it up as you went around a corner, swerved, you know, and leaned. We didn’t have no Flexible Flyers. They came out afterwards. But everybody had a good time.

JS: Now, you said you only went to school, kindergarten, in the old courthouse, but you must have come back here to live if you were sledding in the winter.

WW: Yeah, sure, sure. I was here ninety percent of my life, in Salisbury. Used to go away to school In the winter time, that was all, My father was switched from one place to another, He ended up charge of New Haven, all that traffic that goes in and out down there.

JS: So you lived here in the winter a lot.

WW: Oh yeah.

JS:Where’d you go to school here?

WW:Academy Building.

JS: And then what?

WW: That’s all we went to school here. I started here. No, in the winter time where ever Dad was stationed, I’d have to go for the winter, to go to school, it could be Cheshire. We were

 

In Cheshire for quite a bit. He was In Waterbury for quite a spell. So If I started naming all those towns that he was in and I was shipped around to school – ha, ha.

JS: How old were you when you did all this sledding?

WW: Let’s see. When I did the sleddin’, I’d say about ten, twelve, thirteen- something like that.

JS: Uh, huh.

WW: When they built the ski jump, I think I was sixteen.

JS: Did you ever, is a child, go over to Lakeville?

WW:Oh,yeah.

JS:You did?Swim in the lake?

WW:Oh,yeah,sure.

JS:Youdid, The kids In Salisbury did get around, with the kids In Lakeville.

WW:Oh,yeah, everybody walked down.Never thought of going by car.

I can remember my grandfather’s first car. He had this Model T, Oh, yes, and the taxi man was old Dan Ashman. He bought the first Model T Ford. I think my grandfather was second,

JS: You mean Ashman on Undermountain Road? Where that new housing is? Charlie?

WW: Yes, but I’m not talking about Charlie. I’m not talking about his son.

JS: Charlie was Dan’s son.

WW: Old Dan Ashman was an old man. At that time we lived up over the garage, right beside the White Hart Inn. There used to be a house on top of that garage, and that used to be owned and run by, what was his name? Ralph Britt.In those times,

years ago, to advertise the tires, they used to have a baby alligator In the window, splashing around. That was to advertise Goodyear and Firestone, how tough they were. Now, we lived In Waterbury one year that I was down there and went to school out towards Cheshire. There was a farmer that raised these alligators just for this purpose. I used to go…. My sister, Elizabeth, and I- she’s still alive, but I lost my youngest in my family. There was a brother that I lost in the service about forty years ago. There was two boys and two girls, I’m the oldest, We used to watch this famer feed these alligators – business, selling them to the tire business,

JS: Now the White Hart, of course, was there,

WW: White Hart was there. Now I’ll tell you where the stores were In Salisbury. Right next to the drug store where the bank is

 

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now, that used to be a dry goods stone: my Aunt Connieused to manage it. Next to that was the barber shop, wherethat little antique place is. Then there was George Clark’sgrocery store.

Which Is where the Connecticut Yankee is.

That’s night. Now he used to have a white mare and every weekKim Doty and I, we’d go up one day and deliver another day,two days apart. We’d go up four and a half miles up to thetop of the mountain and go to all the camps to take orders.On a Thursday we’d go out and deliver ‘em. Old George Clarkwould give us a great big heapin’ bag of candy and a lot ofdoughnuts and stuff like that to eat on the way up and the wayback. Ha, ha, ha.

Do you remember who had camps up there then?

Yes, sure. There were the Bordens. There was Griggs.There was McCabes. There was Wells, of course.

Warner?

Warner, yup. One winter I took care of all the camps upthere. I think it was before I was married. I was marriedwhen I was twenty-one.

How did you get up there with all that snow?

Well, I could go up and down that. At that time I had aFranklin, air cooled, twenty-one inch Wheel base. I couldwalk up and down no matter how deep the snow was. I had these[Indistinct, Ed.] They had a twenty-one Inch wheel base, youknow, then they had these long spiked tires on them. Theycame from Spiegel’s years ago – never used chains.

At that time I had charge of all the kids here In towngoln’ to ski jumps, Old D.J. Warner would pay me to take themevery Sunday. He’d come over to the drug stone and “Here’stwenty dollars. Take ‘et all,” We’d go to Bear Mountain,Fishkill, Lake Placid, all over.

What kids? Just kids hanging around?

Just so they’d begin to learn like Harvey Decker, Jr. andJohn. Oh, I forget all of them who started in. I canremember when Satres first came over here. The Mainstreet at that time, then Klmmerles was on the other side, thedrug store, where it is, and next to it, as I explained, wasthe dry goods store and a barber shop and George Clark’s.Well, across Main Street years ago the iron that was made,chain and everything, was made up’ on Mt. Riga at the oldfurnace up there. It was on the left hand side, just beforeyou get to the dam. The ore that was made up there came

 

down. They made this chain that went across from George Clark’s all the way over as far as the Congregational Church. It dipped like that. It had these solid, with a ball on top, a fence, you know, When the Satres first came over here, John and Olaf, they were the first two. John went to work for D.J. Warner at that time. Well, they lived In back of the barber shop and they would get on their skis. Everybody in town, we didn’t know what skis were at that time. All we used was barrel staves, you know. So, they’d get on them and they’d go just like…. You might say they were going fifty miles an hour, a streak of lightning: they’d go straight down Main Street, from one post to another, jump, jump, jump, jump. Just like that, a streak of lightning.

So that got everybody in town, all the kids anyway, interested in skis, Well, I remember Sam giving me my first pair of Northland skis. I can remember following John Satre and Olaf around when they first broke in the race course down in back where the jump is, up over the hill in back down to the village that way. I never forgot, first time on skis, up over that mountain, trying to follow their tracks and every once In a while they’d stop and see, look around to see if I was any where’s near. They probably were a mile ahead of me. All of a sudden they’d cone skiing back to get me to keep on going. So I did. When you got comin’ down towards WiIlards there, there’s a barbed wire fence. They put their hand on the post and jumped. I’d see that and I got down to that fence and I couldn’t do it, ripped my pants and cut my legs all up. What a ness I was. I remember that.

JS:Did you get to be a good skier?

WW:Oh, yes, sure, I ski-jumped, raced and everything afterwards,

sure.

JS: So they taught you.

WW; Yeah, they taught me all right.

JS: So that’s why you were picked…

WW: Years ago, moon light nights, up around the golf course, up here to Hotchkiss..,. Maybe you, let’s see, you were there quite a long while.

JS: Yes

WW: Blrger Torrisen? Did you ever know him?

JS:No, I didn’t, but I know the name.

WW;He worked in the kitchen up there. He was a good skier, too.

He was from Norway. He’d cone up there and ski all over the

 

place up around there in the woods, come back down to the school, have a bite to eat and go home,

JS: Interesting. What was the Ragamont when you were a kid?

WW: That used to be [Indistinct, Ed.]

JS: But an Inn.

WW: Yeah, Mr. Kelsey owned that. His name was Kelsey. But I’ve forgotten what happened to him.

JS: Tell me about canvas ceilings. I don’t know what they are.

WW: Well, they’ve got to be stretched. They’re like the cloth. You have to put so much paint or solution with them and stretch ’em tight. When you pull them, you can’t have a wrinkle in them.

JS: Why would you want canvas? Because it’s fashionable?

WW: Yep.

JS:Here they painted a color or were they just canvas canvas?

WW:They were white. It was like a sheet. It was like a sheet

when they did it.

JS: Did a lot of people have them?

WW: Oh, yes, sure.

JS: So it was the style.

WW: Every man couldn’t do It. Every painter couldn’t do it. There was only a very few that ever could do It.

JS:So this was Hr., you just said his name.

WW:My wife’s father was Pitcher.

JS: And

WW: He used to do all the Buckley’s work.

JS: Erickson.

WW: Erickson, Walter Erickson. You know Walter Erickson? They’re all his sons and Harold Erickson, the oldest.

JS: Now what are Master bikes?

WW: It’s a regular bike, men’s bike with a bar across ’em: that was the name of them years ago.

JS: It was the trade name?

WW: Trade name, yeah,

JS: And they pedaled these things all the way to…

WW: Yeah, they were made for tall people, see.

JS: And they went all the way to Litchfield on them?

WW: Yup. They used to ride, paint all day, and come back. They’d go to MiIIbrook and ride the bicycle back. That’s when they had all dirt roads. They never had cement or blacktop then.

JS: Carrying their paint with them?

WW: They had their lunch palls tied to their…. in front of them. If they were probably a distance, probably, they’d probably had,

 

whoever owned the place was having it done, they had to buy the paint and they did the work. That’s probably it. I’ve never seen my grandfather, Tom, put a pail of paint on the handlebar, I’ve never seen that. I’ve seen him tie lunch pails to ’em. Then afterwards, when they each had a Model T, then they had a car, That was my first car, was a Model T. I got mine from Gene Spurr’s father. He had one and the one I bought had been to California and back twice. I paid twenty dollars for it, my grandfather, when he bought his first Model T brand new, only cost four hundred and ninety-five dollars, Brand new !!

JS:When do you think the roads started being paved around here?

WW:I think, I won’t say for sure, but I’d say around, I think it

was around 1923, ’24. Something like that, at that time, I remember, they were building Scoville’s mansion. Also, after that, right after that just before they put the cement road through, they started to change the curve halfway down Smith Hill. Opposite that, the drive that goes into the Harris’, I remember when that was being built. They were nice people, Mr. and Mrs. Harris.

JS: There was a curve there?

WW: Yeah. Well, the road went to the right, then down. Then they cut that off so it comes up more straight, you know.

JS: The Whltbeck family, well-known in town for being very kind to people, supportive of people. Isn’t that true?

WW: Yeah.

JS: People would go into the drugstore…

WW: Of course, there are Whitbeck up on Mt. Riga, you know.

JS: No.

WW: Didn’t you know that?

JS: No.

WW: Why sure. Well, there’s only one left, young Jim Whitbeck. I worked with his father during the war at American Brass in Torrington for five years. Then I was up to [Indistinct, Ed.] for five years after that.

JS: Who’s he?

WW: Jim Whitbeck, no, he’s not my age, he’s about fifty some, I think. His mother died last year. She used to write for the Mt. Washington News. Then, his father, Merv Whitbeck, he worked with me during the war. Then, there was Ezra. He took care of the fire tower up there. Well, anyway, there was four or five of them Whitbeck. Merv knew the mountain from A to Z. One of them, his business was

 

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catchin’ rattlesnakes up there, He used to come down and I’dsee hlm when I was a kid. I’d go over and look at ’em, walkover to him and stare. In the back of a Model T, he had

chicken wire all around, all enclosed top and bottom. He hadthat loaded with rattlesnakes, alive. He used to drive allthe way to New York In that Model T. Come off the mountainand sell ’em. Business was good. That was very delicatemeat, for the restaurants in New York City. He made a goodliving at it. That was his business, catching rattlesnakes.Now, what is that branch to Sam, to you?

Now, I asked my father once. He thought there was some sortof a cousin. I could never figure it out. I never had achance to….my grandfather died when he was only in hissixties. So I never got much of a chance to ask him.

I remember Sam staying up all night with a lamp, studyingto be a druggist.

Can you?

My Uncle Sam, who had the drug store, and then he had to go toHartford to pass the examinations, I remember my grandmother,“Sam,” I’d hear her hollering, “You get to sleep. You got toget up in the morning.” Sure, all night long, just studying.

Do you suppose Sam moved here because of the mountainWhltbecks or the other way around?

Oh, no, no, no. Sam was brought up here In Salisbury. Therewas Sam and my father and Edna, She was In charge of theFleischman estate on Wells Hill, where Lufkin Iives now. Shedid all the cooking and had charge of everything, took care ofthe maids and everything. She was a good cook. That’s as muchas I can remember there.

…had at least thirty-five or forty thousand people herethis weekend. Now, that’s no lie, that’s the truth. MaybeI’m way off on it because we’d have cars on both sides of theroad from Lakeville to Salisbury parked. We have all the backlots down there. Down where the town garage and the(Indistinct Ed.) used to be: that was all open with cars, jammedfull. House of Herbs, that was all full, full the way up anddown on both sides of the Under Mountain Road and all the lotswere all full of cars.

Why? Why not now, then?

Why? Because we had real good jumpers. We had all the Satres.There was Olaf, Magnus, Sverre, and Ole Hegge. These were allnational champions. They were sent over here. Then our localones. There used to be Harvey Decker, Jr. who got to be very

 

good. He was trained by the Satres. There was John Decker and Harold Smith. He’s my cousin, Edna’s boy. I’m trying to think, all the Ashman boys, they were all good at It. Well, there- was a number of kids around here but really….

JS: What you’re saying, ski jumping was a pretty normaI thing in those days which Is why you drew crowds.

WW: That’s right, it was. Because I think that it first started more or less in the eastern part than it did out in the west. Of course, out towards Lake Placid came up next but it all started with the Satres coming over here.

JS: Who built the jump? The town?

WW: Yup. I helped work to build that jump. That was built about it’s all sixty-two or sixty-three years ago now. It was enlarged somewhat. Then we started off with down below on the right-hand side of the junior jump, when the Satres started training the young kids in town. Everybody must have had participated. But crowds – this town was jammed. You couldn’t move around this town years ago.

JS: Didn’t Mrs. Roosevelt?

WW: Yeah, Mrs., Roosevelt’s been here, giving out cups. We’ve had a lot of well-to-do people, she used to give out a lot.

You see, you had jumpers that were real jumpers, you know what I mean? They taught the younger generation up here and that’s what made Salisbury. People come from all over. Television; we had big write-ups; showed pictures of them jumping and everything.

JS: Thank you Mr. Whitbeck.