Recollections of Lenox Dale, Massachusetts We moved to Elm Street in Lenox Dale (next to the fire house in the early 40’s from Great Barrington. It was a quiet place and while I don’t recall exactly what the population was, I was told it was less than 500 people. The town had two churches (Methodist and Catholic), two grocery stores (Avery’s and Steinhilbers), two gas stations (Richfield and Socony-Mobil), a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership, a package store (which opened on Sunday Morning to sell newspapers as The Berkshire Eagle did not print a Sunday newspaper), a bar (the El Dorado), a barber shop (Stringer’s), post office and a coal supply company/heating oil distributor (Eddy Girardy, also known as “peasoup”). There was also a fire station and an elementary school. The school was part of the Lenox school system, yet taxes were paid to Lee. At my early age I thought nothing about this but in retrospect it seems like an unusual scenario. Town water was supplied from the Lee reservoirs and was free. There were no water meters but they were eventually installed. Besancons Field - There was a large field next to our house (on the left as you face it). The houses that are now there were not there in the early 40s. Most of the kids in town played in that field at one time or another but mostly in the winter. The field went uphill and there was a shaper rise at the top which was great for sledding. If you had the right kind of snow you could make it all the way down to the road (or almost to the road as they used to put up snow fences where the houses are now). From the top of the hill you could see practically the whole town. In the distance on another larger hill you could see a large X. We used to call it the X. Im not sure what it was but my guess is that it was just a formation of trees in an X design. I had thought about trying to find out exactly where it was but never got around to doing it. Once you got to the top of Besancons field, you could continue on and after crossing several fences there was a small pond with a dam at one end, I suppose it was one of those ponds that you often find on a farm as there was a farm not too far away. My father used to take me up there when I was small and later when I got older I would go there by myself as it was a nice peaceful place with only the sound of the water over the dam. The water over the dam ended up in the Housatonic River after going under Crystal Street. On the other side of our house (right side as you face it) there was a smaller field. In the late summer when Goldenrod was 5 or six feet high, we used to go and trample down stalks to make a trail(s) through them. Once you trample them down they stay down. Goldenrod grows straight and if you break one off at the base you can strip the leaves off with your hand leaving a long stalk. If you put a notch in the end of the stalk you could shoot them like arrows with a bow. You had to be careful in the field as once in awhile you would come across the Black & Yellow field spider. They can grow quite large with a web up to 2 feet across and while they are harmless, they could really scare you as you usually didnt see them until they were right in front of your face. Church Area On Crystal Street - The Saint Vincent DePaul church was under the direction of a Father Mullen who was replaced shortly after we arrived there by Father Timothy Champeaux. Father Champeaux was an unusual individual (at least unusual to the average person living in the town at the time). He spoke a number of different languages fluently including Latin which in itself was amazing to us. At our First Communion Breakfast which was held in the rectory, he spoke on the phone in Latin (presumably to another priest). There was only one Sunday service at 8:30 AM. Father Champeaux was there for many years and ultimately was transferred to Hatfield, Mass. The church had 2 bells, one was rung every Sunday for Mass and the other was used only for funerals. I had the opportunity to ring the bell on a few Sundays just before Mass began. I also played the organ there for awhile on Sundays when the regular organist was not available. It was a Hammond Church model (2 keyboards). It was kept locked but whenever I wanted to play it I would go to the rectory and they would give me the key. I also played the pipe organ at St. Anns church in Lenox on occasion. Across the street (Crystal Street) from the Church there was a wooded area, the railroad tracks, the Housatonic River and on the other side of the river was “The Gravel Bed”. There were no structures on the East side of Crystal Street in this area. If you walked North in this wooded area to where Elm Street joins Crystal, you could find what we called “Glass Caves”. These weren’t really caves at all but rather what looked like small concave brick lined tunnels with 2 openings. Most of these were deteriorated and partially collapsed but some were still intact and you could actually crawl through them. I suspect they were some sort of glass firing oven as the insides were usually blackened. It was easy to find chunks of green glass in this area. I always wondered why the glass was green, we never found any other color. If you crossed the railroad tracks in this area, you would have found what we called “The Catwalk”. It was a large tar covered pipe that went across the river to the “Gravel Bed”. There were wooden boards on either side of the pipe and a metal cable holding the whole thing up. I have no idea what the pipe transported but I presume it was water. For those of us who dared it provided a short cut to the “Gravel Bed” where you could spend hours playing in the huge piles of dirt and stones. Crossing the catwalk on the boards required a fair amount of courage especially if you didn’t swim. The river was quite narrow at this point and probably quite deep. Fortunately, none of us ever fell in! Next to the church on the South side was DeCoste’s house. This house and the rectory were the 2 nicest looking homes in the area at that time. Mr. DeCoste (Jimmy) was the only town law enforcement person and Mrs. DeCoste taught 3rd and 4th grade in the elementary school. They also had a daughter Mary Lou. The Post Office – This was one of my favorite “hangouts”. Bob Liston was the postmaster and everybody liked Bob. Mail travelled by train in those days and it seemed more efficient than the way they do it today. If I wrote my grandmother (who lived in Lenox), a letter in the morning and brought it to the post office, Bob would wrap it up with other letters and put it in a mail sack that had a special locking mechanism. We would then take the sack out in back of the post office and hang it on a wooden structure alongside the tracks. When the train came through a bar was extended from the mail car that grabbed the sack. A few minutes later that mail was sorted and put in another sack that was dropped off at the Lenox train station just a couple of miles up the track. Within hours my letter was in the Lenox Post Office ready for delivery. Today that letter would be shipped to Springfield-50 miles or so away and then shipped back to Lenox, likely taking several days to make the short trip to Lenox. When the train came into town you could always tell if it had packages to drop off for Lenox Dale as it would be going very slow and the person in the mail car would hand the package to the postmaster or other designated person along the tracks. When there was no package to be delivered the train sped through town grabbing the outgoing mail sack and throwing the incoming mail sack on the ground. Entertainment - I can remember listening to the radio before televisions were common. Some of my favorite programs were “The Shadow”, Nick Carter-Master Detective, and The Mysterious Traveler. One of the first televisions in town was at the El Dorado Inn. After school, a lot of us would run down to the Inn and look through the bar room door to watch the television. Television ownership grew quickly and when we finally got ours, my father spent a lot of time on the roof turning the antenna to get the clearest picture. Wind would sometimes rotate the antenna which required that it be readjusted. The wind also vibrated the metal antenna and it would make a weird sound that could be heard throughout the house. You don’t see many of these antennas today but they were very common back then and almost every house had one. There was only one channel available from Schenectady, New York-WRGP on channel four. I think it was later moved to channel six. On Sundays WBRK in Pittsfield had a polka hour and I have fond memories of eating dinner while listening to the radio. Halloween - There was a Halloween parade that started at the firehouse where they served us cider and doughnuts. The Lenox High School band usually played for it. After the parade there was a cartoon show at the hall over the car dealership. Trick or treat was also in vogue back then but it didn’t seem to matter whether you treated or not as any cars you had outside got the windows soaped and any leftover pumpkins or cabbage left over in your garden would be thrown against the front door. About the worst prank I can recall was a bicycle that got hoisted to the top of the flag pole down by the bridge. Dog Tracks – Since we had wide open fields on both sides of our Elm Street house, there was lots of room to do things. We used to call it Besancon’s field and it seemed to go on forever. Once you went over the hill, there were fields all the way to East Street. There were a lot of dogs in the town and I knew them all-Captain, Trixie, Beauty and more. They pretty much had the run of the town back then. There were no leash laws. If you sat on your front steps, sooner or later a dog would come to say “hi”. Winter seemed to come earlier back then and we usually had snow on the ground for Thanksgiving. I liked to follow the dog tracks in the snow and got so good at it that I could identify which dog had passed through by the footprints up through Besancon’s field and beyond. It was interesting to note that the dog never retraced his steps and while he might return to where he started out, it was always a circuitous route-never the same way back. The Gravel Bed – While this was actually in Lee on the other side of the river, a lot of us from “The Dale” would ride our bikes over there where you could amuse yourself for hours. There was a large stone crusher and distribution system there. We would climb up on the structure on weekends when it wasn’t in use. We would walk out the long conveyer belt and jump off into the pile of sand below. There were also a lot of dirt roads that went all over the place which made for great bike riding. Steal the old dog’s bone – In first and second grade, we would play a game called Steal The Old Dog’s Bone. I’m sure they don’t play that anymore because it was too dangerous. Someone would volunteer to be the dog. A chair was put somewhere in the aisles which surrounded the desks and the dog would sit there blindfolded or with hands over the eyes. A blackboard eraser was put under the chair. Someone would sneak up quietly behind the chair, grab the eraser (bone), and yell “woof woof”. They would then run around the room with the bone and the dog would have to catch this person before he made it back to the chair. If the dog was able to catch the person with the bone than it was that person’s turn to be the dog, if not, then they had to be the dog again. Running around the corners of the room was dangerous and it was not unusual for someone to slip and fall but I don’t remember anyone ever getting hurt. The floors were wooden and could be slippery especially if they had been recently waxed. Cork - I haven’t ever found anyone that has ever heard of cork. We used to play it outside the school building. We used to use those large corks that came with a thermos bottle. You also needed a bat. Not a bat like they use in baseball but a shorter wider one ( about 4 to 6 inches wide). Three lines were drawn in the sand, parallel to the building. The closest line to the batter was a single, the next closest line a double, and the last line closest to the building was a triple. The batter would stand about 15 to 30 feet from the building (depending on how difficult you wanted to make it). A pitcher would toss the cork to the batter who faced the building, the batter would hit it (with a bat that wide you hardly ever missed!), and depending on where the cork landed you earned a single, double or triple. If you hit the building with cork, you scored a home run. This is harder to do than it sounds because it seems that no matter how hard you hit the cork, it rarely would hit the building. With this game you don’t have to worry about breaking any windows. Giant Steps – Another great outdoor or indoor game was Giant Steps. Someone would volunteer to be the “teacher” and the rest of the players would line up at some distance from the teacher. The teacher would name someone and say for example, “Billy, take 2 giant steps forward”. If Billy took the giant steps without first asking “May I”, he would be penalized and have to back to the starting point. Other options for the teacher included baby steps and backward steps. If someone succeeded in getting close enough to touch the teacher, they then became the teacher. The secret here is to take baby steps as small as you possibly can and giant steps as large as you possibly can. The War Years – We moved to Lenoxdale from Gt. Barrington in 1942 and I can remember air raid drills there. When the sirens went off you had to shut off all your lights in the house and /or pull down all the shades. If you were driving at night you had to pull over, stop and shut off your headlights until the all-clear sirens sounded. We didn’t have those drills in Lenoxdale but I remember standing up in back of our garage and watching hundreds of airplanes flying over (always in a northwest to southeast direction)and I saw this several times. The trains through the Dale often carried military equipment and in Lenox on the Lenox-Pittsfield road there were often long caravans of military vehicles always going in a south to north direction (rte 20). Not sure where they went but I suspect into New York State. The School – Most everyone in town walked to school each day. If you were lucky on bad weather days you would get a ride. I don’t remember the school ever closing because of bad weather. We had grades 1 to 6 at the Dale school. Grades 1&2 taught by Miss Bennet, grade 3 & 4 taught by Mrs. Decoste and grades 5 & 6 taught by Miss Hogan (also the Principle). Each room had 2 grades and were taught by the same teacher. Since we were all in the same room, those of us in the lower grade could hear what the upper grade was being taught which made it a lot easier for the next year when you would be in that grade. This system seemed to work quite well. The school also had grades 7 & 8 when my father went there but by the time I got there, that room had been converted to a Library and grades 7 & 8 took a school bus to Lenox High School where grade 7-12 were taught. The school bus always ran and was never canceled because of snow. They’d just put chains on the bus and that worked just fine.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:46:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015