New Jersey Memories by Betsy

The place of my origin is New Jersey. I spent the first 15 years of my life in a community called Mountain Lakes. At age 15 my family was forced by circumstances to leave this lovely place and move to the deep south to a totally different existence. I have had no ties to New Jersey since I left there--left no relatives behind, and lost touch with school chums. But I do have memories and lots of them. I have not had reason to put them down on paper until now. So I am happy for today’s topic. Isn’t that what telling your story is about--recording memories?

I have no idea what Mt. Lakes is like now. But in the 1930‘s and 1940’s in spite of the Great Depression and the Second World War, Mt. Lakes was an idyllic place. I did not realize it at the time since I had never lived anywhere else and had nothing else with which to compare it.

There was a mountain there (by Colorado standards, a hill) and two lakes--the Big Lake and Wildwood Lake. Located about one hour by rail from New York City, this was a middle class community of business men, housewives, and their two and one half children. There was an elementary school and a Jr. and Sr. High school, a couple of stores down by the depot,a post office, and a gas station. Otherwise it was strictly a residential community.

Our home was the perfect place to play and to have adventures. We shared the end of a cul-de-sac with two other houses. We had huge back yards and beyond that was the lake. On the other side of our street Fernwood Place was a woods called the Bird Sanctuary. The cul-de-sac was at the top of a small hill, so to get to the lake or into the Bird Sanctuary I always was going down hill.

At the edge of the lake my father had gardens. Flowers and vegetables. Some of my happiest memories are of the hours spent “helping” my Daddy in the garden.

This is also where my Daddy taught me to split logs. (Charlie McConnell was not one of the business commuters to NYC. Rather he owned a lumber mill in nearby Rockaway.) I was a rather puny child, but I learned that splitting the largest logs had less to do with size and strength and more to do with technique. Daddy taught me that technique which I have never forgotten and often have put it to good use.

Our neighbors on one side were an elderly couple, the Moores. On the other side was the Noyes family. Their two older children, boys, were my age and my brother’s age. The three boys avoided me as they did most girls, except for when they got it in their heads to play a game about pulling each other’s pants down. Then they would come looking for me and I was no where to be found.

Among the other enlightened activities we did that I remember was to go to the Moore’s back yard which had quite a steep hill, lie down at the top and roll all the way down. This sport usually took the form of a competition. Being the puniest, I usually won. I remember Bobby Noyes throwing up everything he had in him on the Moore’s lawn at the end of one of those episodes.

Going to and from school required a walk of a little over a mile. I would start out through the bird sanctuary, follow the stream then turn left at the bottom where the stream met the road. I loved the Bird Sanctuary. It was a wonderful place to be alone or play with friends. I do not remember ever being taught anything directly about caring for the natural environment, but we all seemed to grow up with an innate sense of respect for the wonders of nature which could always be observed in the Bird Sanctuary.

I had a rowboat, my brother had a canoe. It was my job to caulk the seams of my beloved boat and paint the thing every year. That was a hard job but I was mighty proud of my boat because it was mine.

I must have learned to swim early in life because my mother gave me quite a lot of freedom on the water. I give her credit for this. She had lost her brother to drowning when he was 11 years old. She must have had to face fears both rational and otherwise. I do remember well, though that there were no non swimmers or not even poor swimmers in that community.

Fishing was one of my favorite things to do. I would rise at sunrise, go to the kitchen, take out a piece of uncooked bacon, grab my fishing pole and down to the dock I would go. This was not a sportsman’s lake full of wild fish. But there were fish there. Out in the middle and deep down there were bass. Closer to shore there were perch and sun fish. I could look down over the edge of the dock and see the sunfish nests. Perfect circles on the sandy bottom, with depressions in the middle. I would hang my bacon-baited hook right over the poor baby’s nests and almost always catch something. They were usually big enough to keep, so I would take two or three of them (they must have been the parents) and prepare them for breakfast. I was quite proud of myself and had no compassion for the poor babies left parentless. What WAS I thinking. I loved the feeling of self-sufficiency. Sun fish are pretty tasty too. I think I got the fishing out of my system. I have never enjoyed fishing in my adult life.

In the winter the lake froze over. At least that is my memory of it. The reality is that in my 15 years there the lake probably froze over maybe a few times, not every year. But I have fond memories of skating on that lake. The school was at the opposite end from our house. Between me and the school were various friends and school acquaintances. On weekends we would gather out in the middle of the frozen lake somewhere and play crack the whip. Being small I was usually put at the end of the line or close to it, and at the crack of the whip, screaming gleefully, but holding on tight, I was catapulted across the ice at great speed.

Then we would go over to Powell Street with our Flexible Flyers. The street was blocked off for sledding. Up and down, up and down all day long.

Every summer my parents would take us to the beach at Cape May in southern New Jersey. We would stay for about a week. That must be where I fell in love with the ocean and the surf. I loved to body surf (I still do). I think today Cape May is a gambling Mecca, but back then the boardwalk and the beach and the surf were magic to me. The Jersey shore was paradise.

As I grew into adolescence in Mt. Lakes even though I lived in this setting, with parents who loved me, friends, security, etc. I began to realize that I was not like my girl friends in that I did not find the boys exciting at all. The girls were exciting, but, I sensed that’s not how it’s supposed to be. The rest is history, either told in other stories or to be told. But I will always be grateful for those first 15 years of my life living in a place where I could learn to love the outdoors, have adventures, take risks and survive, and develop values that have stayed with me my entire life.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.