* Excerpt from Edna McGonegal’s Story (upcoming book)

The next day, Bob brought Edna to the beautiful village of Saranac Lake. The two of them stayed at a boarding house in the Potter Block at the corner of Broadway and Bloomingdale Avenue. The Potter Block was decidedly not known for its fancy accommodations, but the price was right. It was a somewhat misleading start, as she expected she would find living quarters similar to those on Long Island.

They took their meals across the street at the Alpine Hotel, a respectable, tile-floored, and clean establishment, located where there is now a public parking lot on Broadway across from Bloomingdale Avenue.

>The Alpine Hotel served as the first dormitory for Paul Smith’s College students, and later as quarters for the famous and popular Mummers of Philadelphia who had stayed there the year they came to march in the Winter Carnival parade. (Mummers refers to the thousands of men who nearly every New Year’s day  since 1901 have paraded through Philadelphia  in wild array, spray-painted from head to foot [1]). A modern seven-storied steel and brick building with a sprinkler system, the Alpine Hotel was at one time the tallest building between Montreal and Albany. Because of its triangular shape, it was dubbed the flat-iron building, after the famous structure in New York City. Eventually it fell into disrepair and, in 1978, was pulled down. Frank and Audrey Casier had bought the hotel around 1951, remodeling, refurnishing, and running it successfully for several years. One amazing story that Frank tells concerns Ben Banker, a roofer. After indulging at the bar for a few hours, Ben took it upon himself to climb up a string of lights that outlined the Alpine Hotel, (using the bulb sockets as footholds). The lights ran from street level, all the way to the roof, along the roofline, and down the opposite corner. Ben clambered up, across, and down without incident. He astounded a sidewalk crowd who watched aghast, holding its collective breath in anticipation of a major tragedy. These recollections come from Frank Casier and Robert McKillip. <

Not yet ready to buy a house, Bob McGonegal had lined up a realtor to show Edna available rentals. The only sizeable apartments were in the Thompson Block, which had offices on the second floor and a restaurant and store on the street level. Edna did not intend to live in a business location. Other apartments were in large private houses which showed distinct signs of deterioration and neglect.

 Everything was pretty old and shabby compared to housing back home. Edna was absolutely floored that a realtor would even dare to show such dilapidated places. She went back to the city without renting anything. Big mistake!

Before she returned again, Bob, excited about a great find he had made, told her he had rented a huge house that only cost $75 a month. Pleased with their new home, he couldn’t wait for Edna to see it. She finally moved up here in October and was horrified. When she first saw the house, located on Shepard Avenue, she practically wept. “It’s a chicken coop,” she moaned in despair. It had been a three story cure cottage and consisted mostly of porches and windows. It was for sale for $2,000 and Bob had envisioned buying it, fixing it up, and renting the upper-floors as apartments. The only flaw in that plan was that neither Bob nor Edna, city folk that they were, had ever fixed up anything, and didn’t have the least idea what that entailed.

>The prosperous days of the health industry had just ended, and the value of real estate had plummeted. Many cure cottages stood empty, some stripped of plumbing, appliances and wiring. There was little money to make repairs on houses, many of which were unoccupied, as the economy had started into a decline.<

Edna remembers friends coming to visit them in their new abode and complaining that their beds were practically blown clear across the room, there being little or no insulation, and the windows fitting quite loosely into the walls. One of the bedrooms was on an enclosed porch projecting out on the side with no foundation under it. When temperatures reached 20 degrees below 0, the floors warmed up only by a few degrees, and were unbearable to walk on in anything less than wool slipper socks or heavy fuzzy slippers.

The kitchen was heated by a wood stove, with gas on one side of it for cooking. Edna’s background had hardly prepared her for pioneer life. When the fire went out, either in this stove or the furnace, which was a coal stoker in the basement, she could never quite get the knack for starting it up again. Old electric wiring snaked through the walls leaving Edna in constant fear the place would burn down (appropriately, so it turned out).

Gamely, Edna tried to make it more civilized by having carpeting installed, and hiring a local woman to make drapes for the window in the dining room. She spent a lot of money on cosmetic improvements, but they didn’t overcome the basic problem. The building, impossible to keep warm, had too many other faults.

A little over a month later, Edna couldn’t wait to go back downstate for Thanksgiving.

She had wanted to live in Lake Placid with its upscale stores such as Peck & Peck, but Bob preferred Saranac Lake. She really hated the village, found it old and “shacky” looking. She remembers being aghast on entering the Woolworth store to find it had sawdust on the floors, and few clerks around to wait on you. In fact, during the first few months, she found exactly what she had looked for and expected. (A shortcoming most of us have been guilty of at one time or another). Back in New York City for the holiday, she thought twice about returning to Saranac Lake, but married to such a great guy, she didn’t want to desert him, so back she came to try and adjust to her new life.

Then winter set in with a vengeance. Temperatures inside the house dropped so low that the bitter cold forced them, on returning from an outing, to just hop in bed with all their clothes on. Eventually, it got so bad it became funny, and she learned to laugh about it. Laughter, as always, can save the day. It helped them endure then and through many future events. That kind of an outlook keep things in perspective, helping to heal from a lot of trauma.

But even humor has its limits. On one occasion, when friends from New York City were visiting, one of them leaned on the bathroom sink and, to Edna’s horror, it fell right off the wall, the water flooding the room. Good sport that she was, that was the final stroke for Edna. “Bob, I can’t stand this place anymore,” she said.  They lasted until February, then decided to move out.