Historic Preservation Committee

Oral History

Interview with Henry Popp by Beth Suereth for the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, March 10, 2003.
SUERETH: My name is Beth Suereth. I'm here with Henry Popp at 11 Crystal Road in Mountain Lakes. It's March 10, 2003 and, let's see, Mr. Popp, when and where were you born?
POPP: New York City, January, 1918.
BS: 1918? January, all right. And when did you come to Mountain Lakes?
HP: 1930.
BS: All right. And you've been married to the girl who waited for you?
HP: Yes, I married the girl from Mountain Lakes who waited for me when I got back from the war.
BS: And her name when, her maiden name?
HP: Whiting.
BS: And her first name?
HP: Audrey.
BS: Audrey Whiting. And you have two children?
HP: Right.
BS: And they are Tom and Beth --
HP: Lizzie.
BS: Lizzie, all right.
HP: Elizabeth.
BS: Elizabeth. And they were born when you lived here? [Laughs]
HP: Lizzie will tell you.
BS: Okay, we'll come back to that. And you have three grandchildren.
HP: Yes.
BS: Two who are seniors --
HP: Twin boys in Minnesota and one boy here.
BS: All right, living here with you and your daughter at 11 Crystal Road, and your parents, did your parents live in this house?
HP: What's that?
BS: Did your parents live in this house when you were growing up?
HP: No, they lived in 32 Condit Road.
BS: Okay.
HP: The Tompkins live there now.
BS: Okay.
HP: When I was growing up, yes.
BS: And have you lived in any other houses in town?
HP: Oh yes. Well, there's 32 Condit Road. When I came back from the war, there was no houses available in Mountain Lakes, but we were able, we got married, and we--well first of all, well, I went to my father's house, but then we got married and we moved up to the third floor of Malcolm Clark's house on 15 Crestview Road.
BS: Oh.
HP: And then they were building the houses down in the village, and after two years we were able to buy a house down in the village. And then--
BS: What was the address in the village?
HP: 22 Maple Way.
BS: Okay.
HP: And uh...but meanwhile, we were able to purchase from my father-in-law, who had purchased all the property around Crystal Lake, the last lot that they had. It's not the most desirable because it's got a large frontage on the road and it was pie-shaped. It narrows down to about 70 feet on the lake. But, after all, for 1,500 dollars to get a lake front lot's not too bad.
BS: [Laughs] Not bad at all.
HP: And, I'd saved my Army pay and everything like that, and we put up this house.
BS: Oh, so you built this house?
HP: There we lived happily ever after.
BS: Oh, very nice. So what year did you build this house?
HP: Forty years ago. Forty years ago. 1950.
BS: Wow. Okay, let's see. So, can you tell me about your school? Where you went to school?
HP: Yes. Well, as I say, I graduated from Boonton High School and -
BS: In what year?
HP: 1934.
BS: Okay.
HP: And, I went to the, for two years to the American Institute of Banking in New York, AIB, but I quit that after I changed my job at the bank and then got fired for going out for a coffee break [Laughs] and, can you imagine, no coffee breaks in those days?
BS: Oh.
HP: [Laughs] And you had to hold up your hand I guess to go to the potty for all I know, but anyhow, and I went to work for the American Locomotive Company in their accounting department 'cause that's what I studied and, I stayed there. But I mentioned I joined the National Guard and when they were called up in October of 1940 I waved goodbye, and I didn't get back until April of 1946.
BS: Oh my.
HP: And I married the girl that waited and we built our--we lived on this, as I say, on this third floor for a couple of years, built the house on Maple Way, and then we were able to acquire this lot here, and, oh, it was a wonderful thing. You have to appreciate when, in 1946 or '47 we built on Maple Way, the house cost $11,000. Complete, and we stayed there as I say for three years, and we were able to purchase this lot from my father-in-law, so we put our house at that time for $25,000, which was quite a step from the $11,000 we paid. I remember Tom Brackin, you know the real estate man, he says "Henry you know you'll never get it, pigs don't prosper."
BS: Ah.
HP: We got it. [Laughs]
BS: Oh wow.
HP: I don't have to tell you. Then we had this house built and that's where I live.
BS: So your father-in-law, Mr. Whiting, what was his first name?
HP: Jesse Flynn.
LIZZIE POPP (HENRY'S DAUGHTER): There was a death and a remarriage.
BS: Okay.
LP: My real grandfather died and my grandmother remarried.
HP: Jesse Flynn. He was the undertaker in Boonton.
LP: It was the Flynn Funeral Home on Washington Street.
HP: There's still a funeral home on Washington Street.
LP: He retired probably in 1962.
BS: Oh, okay, all right.
LP: [Unclear]
HP: Oh, this was a funny thing: [Laughs] My father belonged to the Masons in Mountain Lakes, and he got into a fight. It was something or other with the Masons, and he quit, and joined the Masons in New York. But Audrey's father was a Mason in Mountain Lakes. One of the ones that my father hated. So when we got engaged when the war, before we went away to the war started. I told you, Lizzie, what Father Popp says. He says, "I won't object to it," he says. He'll probably get killed anyhow [Laughs]. Is that right? I couldn't make up a [unclear] story like that.
BS: Oh my.
HP: Well but I lived anyhow and we got married. [Laughs] And I'll never forget, he was thinking I was making a big mistake and after the wedding we were hanging around down Flynn's house, and he came over and he says, "Don't hesitate to come to me for advice." [Laughs]
BS: I see.
HP: Not money.
BS: Aha.
HP: But I fooled him. I never had to go him for advice. [Laughs] But anyhow as I say we lived here. Audrey passed away 10 years ago and I'm still here, Lizzie is here. Tom is in Minnesota.
BS: Okay. Now it was your--
HP: Oh yeah, well, let me see. I for many years, oh for almost 25 years, I was charged with civil defense, or later became emergency management, and as I say I told the town manager I was [unclear] quitting. I says, "I'm getting this old, if I had to go out in an emergency I'd fall down the steps and break my leg." But I've been a Trustee of the library for well, 25, 30 years.
LP: You also ran the Memorial Day Parade.
HP: Oh yeah, and for about the same length of time I ran the Memorial Day Parade.
BS: Oh, I didn't know that. I always knew that you were there when I was a kid growing up--
HP: Well, it was a questionable-- it was a big deal but I had it all written out, you have to inform all the outfits that are marching, the Police, the Fire Department, you know the ladies' clubs and the men's clubs, and everything like that. Well, you know, you've seen the parade.
BS: Yes, and now there's a whole committee that does what you did by yourself.
HP: Yeah. And you have to arrange for the band, for the high school band plays the music, and--
BS: I marched, when I was in band.
HP: And you have to put up the P.A. I have the P.A. system, which we still used to put up.
BS: It's your P. A. system that's used during the parade?
HP: Did I what?
BS: Oh, I was talking about the P.A. system, you said long ago it had been your P.A. system?
HP: Oh yeah, that's my P.A. system. It's still here.
LP: He was also president of the American Field Service for a number of years, you know the exchange students in the high school.
BS: Oh, I didn't know that.
LP: In fact, they had a couple of students stay here.
HP: So anyhow, so now I'm all quiet, just my trusteeship at the library. 'Cause people say, "What do you do?" I say, "I do nothing," I says, "and I don't have to pay any overdues, either." [Laughs]
BS: Ah. [Laughs] Special treatment, huh?
HP: Yeah, special treatment. Actually we don't really charge overdues at the library either.
LP: Oh yeah they do.
BS: I've paid my share.
HP: Do they?
LP: Yeah, they do, you just don't have to. They erase yours. [Laughs]
HP: Oh, well what the heck.
BS: I said special treatment, obviously.
HP: Well anyhow, that's about where we--
LP: It's the only perk that comes with the job.
HP: That's about where we are. I collect certain things, I showed you these plates.
LP: Henry, look at your notes. There's a lot of stuff you thought of in town from when you were younger.
HP: Oh, okay. Here. Memories of Town: Are you ready?
BS: Yes.
HP: I told you about the trolley that ran out through Boonton and came along here and went up to Denville. Snowy weather: there was not very much traffic on the Boulevard, and we used to tie onto the back of the car with our skis, and go pull ski drawing on the Boulevard.
BS: I don't think you could get away with that these days.
HP: No, we couldn't do it today. As I say, high schools, half went to Boonton, half went to Morristown.
BS: How was it, do you know how it was decided who went to Boonton and who went to Morristown?
HP: Well--
LP: Morristown was the party school and Boonton was the scholastic school.
HP: Well, they--
BS: Oh really?
HP: It was see, I don't know what would happen. If your brother went to Morristown, you went to Morristown. If your father, you know, but my sister had gone to Boonton, I went to Boonton.
LP: [Unclear] Morristown--
BS: Oh really?
HP: But that was much better, because if you were up in Morristown, and there's no school, and there's school activities, what are you going to do, how do you get, see 'cause they only had one school bus going back at 3 o'clock.
BS: Oh.
HP: So what do you do if you have something like that? They had to hitch hike home, something like that, whereas if you were in Boonton you just took the bus back home.
BS: Okay. So were you dating your, the girl you married, were you dating when you were in high school?
HP: Well, yes, but not the same girl. I dated her sister.
BS: Oh really?
HP: Yes.
BS: Oh. [Laughs]
LP: The whole thing was very incestuous.
HP: But the sister made the mistake of her life. She turned me down and married the other guy.
BS: Aha.
HP: Aha. But, there was--
BS: And what was her name?
HP: Lois, Lois Whiting.
BS: Lois, Okay.
HP: And my wife was Audrey Whiting. And her brother Bert was active in town, he had been president of the Mountain Lakes Club, and he was in a lot of things, but that's a long time ago. They lived on Lake Drive.
BS: You mean the girl's brother?
HP: Whiting.
BS: Lived on Lake Drive? Which house on Lake Drive?
LP: [Unclear]
HP: I don't know the number, but you know when you drive down Lake Drive, you know, coming from the Boulevard, and you pass, the road down to the village--
BS: Midvale?
HP: They lived in the next house on the right on the lake.
BS: Okay. Next to the boat dock?
HP: No, they uh--
LP: [Unclear] about ten houses from the boat dock.
HP: They, I can't remember the name, but they were about two houses off on the right, on the lake.
BS: Okay.
HP: Yeah, I don't remember, see I don't know the numbers of those houses.
BS: I don't either.
HP: But they lived on the lake. And what can I say? Want more of interest? Okay?
BS: Yes, please continue.
HP: Oh, when we were first here when we were kids, farmers used to come down from Rockaway Valley with horses and buggies. This is no kidding. And you know where the Boonton Pharmacy is, just below Cornelia Street?
BS: Yes.
HP: The drugstore. They had a hitching post there.
BS: Oh really?
HP: Yeah, and they'd tie up the horses at the hitching post. That's no kidding.
BS: And did they sell their fruits and vegetables nearby?
HP: No, they just came to Boonton for shopping.
BS: Oh, I see, oh.
HP: What the farmers grew then in the valley, and mostly still do, is corn.
BS: Okay.
HP: But they didn't sell their produce there. They still do, they have stands out there on the road by the Rockaway Club. You've seen the vegetable stands
BS: Yes, yup.
HP: There are two of them. Arrowhead. I got an arrowhead I found up here.
BS: Where did you find the arrowhead? Just for the record.
HP: On the road up to the Tourne, on the trail up to the Tourne.
BS: From Birchwood, from...
HP: Well you know that the Tourne is up there.
BS: Right.
HP: And we used to march, hike up there and have a picnic.
BS: Okay, from here, from Crystal--?
HP: And one day, this is absolutely no kidding. I don't know for what reason there was a boulder with a little overhang. For some reason I put my hand under the thing to see if there was anything there and there was an arrowhead.
BS: Huh.
HP: And the only reason I could figure it was there: an Indian must have been hunting with bow and arrow, and he shot the bow, the arrow rather, and it flew off, but it skittered under this rock, and he couldn't find it. Because he would have reclaimed the arrow.
BS: Right.
HP: And I reached in and there was the arrowhead. I could show you, it's upstairs.
BS: Oh, what a find.
HP: And, anyhow. Now let me see.
LP: [unclear] it was beach, it was just a lake [unclear]
HP: Oh, we had a big controversy in this time, back in the late--
BS: Actually, can I interrupt you for one second? Do you know what year it was that you found the arrowhead? What year it was?
LP: How old were you roughly Henry?
HP: I was in either, twelve, thirteen, something like that.
BS: Okay.
HP: As I say, we were just marching up to the Tourne and I reached under this rock and pulled it out, there it was. I'll show it to you upstairs.
BS: Okay.
HP: Oh, in those days, in the late 20s, early 30s, big controversy. The farmers selling milk sold raw milk, they didn't pasteurize it. And they had a big controversy about unpasteurized milk. Of course, you wouldn't know about that, raw milk. I'm not being funny.
BS: No, I've heard of it though.
HP: Yeah, but the farmers claimed that the milk was tested regularly for bacterial content and they said it was Okay. But what are you going to do? The law is that you've got to have pasteurized milk, and that was the big controversy. Oh, Okay. Fun and games. On the Newark-Pompton Turnpike down on Route 23, was the Meadowbrook, have you ever heard of it?
BS: Uh--
HP: Have you every heard of the Meadowbrook?
LP: It was a dance club.
BS: Yes, I have, yes.
LP: [unclear, in background]
HP: Yeah, the Meadowbrook. And we used to go there on Saturday nights. Big deal, they had a dollar cover charge.
BS: Oh, wow.
HP: Yes, well that was easy, you know you order a couple of beers and [unclear] and they had the big bands there. I mean the Big Bands. I mean Tommy Dorsey, Eishem Jones, Guy Lombardo.
BS: Oh, wow.
HP: And you know, you hear these wonderful bands, and we wouldn't dance, we'd just stand at the bandstand and listen to them play. It was great fun.
BS: Now this was when you were how old? What year was this?
HP: Oh, high school age, you know, 15, 16, like that, 17.
BS: And you could drink when you were in high school?
LP: [Laughs]
HP: Who's counting?
BS: I see.
LP: He also claims that he has no personal knowledge as to who put the skunk gland in the air conditioning duct at Boonton High School.
BS: He was telling me about this at the library a couple weeks ago.
LP: He, he swears to God it wasn't him.
HP: Saturday night was a big dance night. They had bands in the Park Hotel in Butler. And we'd head up to Butler and have a good time dancing up there.
BS: What was the drinking age when you were in high school? Was there, there must have been a drinking age, right?
LP: There must have been. I would think. I don't know if anybody cared or not.
HP: I think it was like it was today. Eighteen or nineteen or something like that.
LP: Oh wait, wasn't that during prohibition?
HP: But anyhow, in those days--
BS: I don't know.
LP: It was in there somewhere.
HP: We had, Boonton had a fairly large Italian and Polish foreign population, and they made wine.
BS: That was your source, your alcohol source?
HP: Yeah, what they would do is, a truck would come up from South Jersey loaded with grapes. And they would make their own wine.
BS: Oh wow.
HP: My father made his own wine. We had a wine press in the cellar.
BS: Really?
HP: Yeah, a big tub with a screw top, you know, and it squeeze the grapes and things like that.
BS: So this was in--
HP: And he had a bottling machine and a bottler with a bottling machine, you know, push the corks in.
BS: And so which house was this? The house on Condit Road?
HP: Yes.
LP: He also had a chore when he was a kid 'cause this is, I don't know if it was before oil heat or what, but they had a coal furnace, which was common back then.
HP: Oh God. I have to tell you. This is a thing that leaves scars. My father had a belief that if you went out on a date, any thing that happened after 12 o'clock was very, very bad.
BS: I'm with your father. But go on.
HP: You can see that, you can understand that. So, in any event, so to be sure that I came in after a date, we had a coal furnace. I don't know if you know what this means, do you know what it means to bank the fire?
BS: Not really.
HP: Well, at night, you would pile coal on to the fire just before you go to bed, and turn the drafts down, so that the fire burned very lowly, very lowly. Well anyhow, so father's thing to be sure that I came in, he wouldn't bank the fire, and if you came in too late the damn furnace would be out.
BS: Oh. So then you would have to restart the furnace? When you got in?
HP: Well, yeah well anyhow, so you come in, 2 o'clock or whatever, you know, some horrible time, and you'd open the furnace, and either there was [Laughs] no fire, or maybe two or three coals burning. Well, in those days, you had a coal bin, and to put the coal in you had to shovel, go [makes sound], like that, scrape it along the floor, open up the furnace doors, throw the stuff in. This makes a lot of noise.
BS: [Laughs]
HP: The only way to avoid making noise is to pick up the lumps of coal one piece at a time and toss them in. Slowly.
BS: And you have experience with this? I take it?
HP: Oh yes, yes, yes. I was a real sneak.
LP: There's a reason he knows this.
HP: I was a real sneak. I, you know, if you're in after 12 o'clock God help you. Anyhow, so very slowly I would do that, and my sister and our bedroom, this was an old Mountain Lakes house, was on the third floor. The damned stairs creaked. So the folks' bedroom was on the second floor. So you had to, from long experience you knew which steps creaked. And the big thing is, on a creaking step you don't put your foot down in the middle, you put it down over on the side, where the nails are. Slowly upstairs. It's [unclear]. Well anyhow, so my room up on the third floor was the furthest away from the furnace, and that was the last place to get the heat.
BS: Oh.
HP: And the first place to lose it if the furnace went out. Because you know the steam rises, all through the second floor and third floor, and anyhow. So you'd wake up freezing cold at four o'clock or five o'clock or six o'clock in the morning. [Laughs] I have to laugh when I think of this myself. Anyhow. So, when your nose is ice cold you know there's something wrong with the furnace. So I'd get downstairs and open up the furnace to see if anything was happening, and sometimes the fire was just a dimly glow and you'd throw some coals in and go back upstairs, being careful to step on the sides of the steps, not in the middle, so they wouldn't creak. Well anyhow, every once in a while it didn't work so good. So I'd get downstairs and the furnace would be out and I'd, oh God, I had to chop wood and make a whole new furnace. But the heat sometime--Oh, so to make the heat, the folks slept in a cold bedroom, they'd come downstairs to the dining room, you know downstairs, and to get the heat there first you unscrew the valves on the radiator, and you know why?
BS: Why?
HP: 'Cause it steals the steam from all the other radiators. See, because the valves are off and the steam comes up and stays in that radiator, doesn't go upstairs. And just before the folks would come downstairs I'd come back down, screw the valves back on the radiator--
BS: [Laughs]
HP: And we had a thermometer downstairs in the hall. I'd look at the damn thermometer, it said you know, 55 degrees, you know [Laughs]. So, just before the folks came down, so help me, this is--I'm going to roast in hell [unclear] for this. Just before the folks came down I get a match and I hold it slowly up under the thermometer. [Laughs] But you had to be careful, you don't want to send it up to 70 when it's only 55, you send it up to 65.
BS: [Laughs] Never even would have thought of that.
LP: [Laughs] He skipped two years in school. Clever little thing.
HP: Father would come downstairs, "Little cold down here this morning." I'd say, "yeah, the heat didn't come up too fast."
BS: [Laughs]
HP: [Laughs] Match under the thermometer, oh dear, I'll roast in hell for this.
BS: [Laughs]
HP: Well, anyhow, but that's what happens when you're supposed to come in at 12 o'clock and you don't get in 'til 2:30. [Laughs] Now am I bad?
BS: You're a naughty boy.
LP: One time he and his sister went into the city--
HP: Don't tell your own children, they get the wrong idea.
BS: Trust me, I wouldn't.
LP: Henry, tell her the story: you were in the city with Ellen, his sister, and you missed the last bus/train/whatever back.
HP: Oh God. Well, anyhow--
LP: They were like, high school.
HP: I belonged to the seventh regiment in New York, and we'd have dances and parties.
BS: In the city, you mean?
HP: In the city, yes. Half of the time I had to take my sister. This was a real date, with your sister, because my mother and father's idea was if I take her to these dances maybe she'd meet somebody, you know, to get married. 'Cause my father hated everybody in Mountain Lakes and anybody she went out with was no good. This is no kidding, you know that. And, so I had to take her to the city, see if she'd meet somebody. Well, in any event, the last train to Mountain Lakes left at 12:20, in the evening, you know, after midnight, and if you missed the train, the next train was at 6 o'clock in the morning. The milk train, they called it, which it was.
BS: Oh.
HP: So, any event, we'd get the milk train and it didn't stop at Mountain Lakes, it stopped at just a couple of places and we had to get off at Towaco, you know where Towaco is?
BS: Yes.
HP: And thumb a ride home.
BS: Oh. First thing in the morning?
LP: I don't know, what about the time you missed it and you had to hitch with [unclear].
HP: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The last ferry was a certain time, and we missed the last ferry, so the next ferry, we were waiting around, was like at 4 o'clock in the morning, and we see this truck get on, and we asked him, and we saw he had a sign that said Towaco on the side. They were picking up restaurant waste, you know, old bread, you know, garbage to feed the pigs, swill to feed the pigs.
BS: Okay.
HP: So, we didn't know that, but we saw Towaco on the sign, and we asked him if he'd give us a ride. He says, "Well, it's all right," he says, "but this is a garbage truck." We found out. [Laughs] Flies all over the place, so we got off at Towaco and were able to hitch a ride home.
BS: So Secaucus was pig farms?
HP: Yeah, there was pig farms in Towaco.
BS: Wait, in Towaco or in Secaucus?
HP: Well no, this was here.
BS: Okay.
HP: Yeah, they had pig farms, and the farmers-I'll tell you where the main pig farm was. You know where the church is in Montville? You know the white church?
LP: The big reformed church? The big white--
BS: The one on Church? Oh yeah, that's where my son is right now as a matter of fact, at nursery school.
HP: Well just down the road from that was a pig farm.
BS: Oh, okay.
LP: Henry you had more notes, more things you were thinking about.
HP: More notes, more notes. Skiing on the boulevard. I told you about the buggies hitching up on Main Street. And the fight between raw milk and pasteurized milk. I told you we went to the dances at the Meadowbrook with the big bands. Let me see what else I got here. Oh, Fourth of July in Mountain Lakes. You'd wake up, I don't know, there was about six guys with big salutes, and they would send the salutes off starting at like six o'clock in the morning, one from each different house all around the lake up there, they're: bang, bang, bang, bang, this would go on for an hour to wake up on the Fourth of July.
BS: All on Mountain Lake?
HP: Yeah.
BS: And how old were you when this happened?
HP: We were just kids.
BS: When you were kids? Okay.
HP: I [unclear] the salutes, they had, I don't know whether the borough did it, or whatever, but they did it, and they were--oh, the movie in Boonton, which is no longer there, but did you ever? No, you wouldn't remember--
BS: I actually did go to the movies there when I was a kid.
HP: Don't you remember you'd enter under the screen, and of course the light from the screen would reflect on the faces so you could see the people there, so if you wanted to avoid or if you wanted to sit with them. Of course, the fare was 25 cents. Oh, my old days. You know, the Postmaster used to be a political appointment, did you know that?
BS: No.
HP: Yeah. The local Post Office political appointments, and we had one Democrat, I think, in town. Well you know, Mountain Lakes is Republican. Maybe there's some closet Democrats, but there was one known, the O'Hanlon's, and she got made the Postmistress.
BS: Oh, and when was this?
HP: Yeah, very good.
BS: Was this when you were a kid?
HP: Yeah.
LP: Henry, you were also saying that the theaters used to be stops on the old vaudeville circuit.
HP: What's that?
LP: The theaters used to be stops on the old vaudeville circuit.
HP: Yeah, oh yes, up on the corner of Boonton Avenue was another theater, and they had, it was a--
LP: The vaudeville house.
HP: Yeah, oh Okay. They had early try-outs for people, you may even remember, you've heard of Jack Benny?
BS: Uh-huh.
HP: He had try-outs there. You know, this wasn't the big time, this was the small time. Burns and Allen, they were there. And, you know, all these old vaudeville acts would appear at that theater at the corner of Boonton Avenue.
BS: Was it at the corner of Boonton Avenue and Main Street?
HP: Yes.
BS: Oh, Okay. Where the hardware store is now, where the Newberry's was?
HP: Yeah. I forgot, isn't there a barbershop at the corner there now, yeah?
BS: Yes, Okay.
HP: Anyhow, I told you about the farmers parking their buggies on Main Street.
BS: Yes.
HP: And the fight for the raw milk versus the pasteurized. And we went to the big bands at the Meadowbrook.
BS: Uh-huh.
HP: And dancing: Park Hotel on Saturday nights in Butler.
LP: Hey Henry, how many towns did Boonton draw from for the high school?
HP: What's that?
LP: How many towns did Boonton draw from for the high school?
HP: We drew all the way down to Lincoln Park, Towaco, Montville, Boonton, Boonton Township, and Mountain Lakes.
BS: Oh wow.
HP: All went to Boonton High School.
BS: How many kids were in a grade? In high school, in each grade?
HP: About 80.
LP: His high school class, Class of '34, in 1984 they decided to have a 50th reunion, and they had such a good time and such a good turn out that they still have one every single year.
BS: Oh wow.
LP: They used to just have a cook-out in somebody's back yard, but now everybody's like in their mid to late eighties, so now they rent a room over at Zeri's Inn, and they have one every year.
BS: Oh. Every June?
LP: Oh God, sometime. Henry, when's your high school reunion, when does that come around? You have it every year.
HP: We usually have it in June.
BS: Okay.
HP: Yeah, there's a few of us still around.
BS: Really? How many people came last year?
HP: Oh, what did we have, about 30, 40, of course this includes husbands and wives. But we're still hanging around.
BS: Oh, that's fun.
LP: For the Class of '34 it's an amazing turn out.
HP: Oh, one of my friends in Boonton is Ray Dawson and they had a hardware store. There were two hardware stores in town, Barton's and Dawson's.
BS: Was this is Boonton?
HP: Yes, in Boonton. And they'd been there for a million years. Well, Ray Dawson was a friend of mine, and [unclear] he used to tell this story: one time he went down into their basement, there was all kinds of junk there. And they opened some of the boxes, and you know what was there? Coach lamps.
BS: Oh.
HP: You know what a coach lamp is, the kind they have...
BS: Yes, took me a minute to figure out what that was.
HP: These were real coach lamps.
BS: Wow.
HP: They still had a price on them, 3 dollars. In old boxes, they must have been a hundred years old.
BS: Wow.
HP: Of course, Ray wasn't stupid, they sold them to an antique store. They were designed for kerosene. You had to electrify them. But they were wonderful. Three dollars apiece. What do you say? If I knew then what I know now.
BS: Yeah.
HP: Coach lamps for 3 dollars, yeah.
LP: Henry, wasn't there some story you told me once about somebody in town paid you guys to put together tea bags, or something?
HP: Oh yeah, yeah, yes. Smitty. Al Smith. His father, he didn't patent it, but he invented the tea bag.
BS: Oh.
HP: Yeah.
BS: And this was the father of a classmate of yours?
HP: The father imported tea in bulk, and people would buy tea loose, and you know, they'd pour it through a strainer like people still do, or percolate it, or whatever. And he invented the tea bag, and he never patented it.
BS: Wow.
HP: But -
BS: But he sold lots of them?
HP: No. He, the kids in the family would be there tying tea into tea bags, and he sold it that way, never patented it.
BS: Wow. Did he sell it in Boonton?
HP: He sold it to grocery stores, yeah.
BS: Oh, local grocery stores, oh wow.
HP: In those days, believe it or not, there were 5 A&P's in Boonton.
BS: Really? Wow.
HP: Yes, there was one on Myrtle Avenue, off the street. There was one at the very lower corner, by Lathrop Avenue. And there was, but the big one was up near Boonton Avenue, that was the big A&P.
BS: How far up Boonton Avenue was it, a couple of blocks?
HP: It was right on the main street, yeah. People went there because before, there was separate butcher shops. They had a butcher shop. You wouldn't believe it, you had to go to a butcher to get meat. We had a maid, Rosie, and she used to go to the butcher shop, you know, shop at the A&P. I have to tell you about [unclear]. And in any event, so she didn't have a car. We had a car, but it wasn't for her. So she had to take the bus to Boonton to do her shopping. And she would come home, you know with the family shopping, she'd have three bags like this. So I had an arrangement, I would meet her at the bus stop, and take one or two of the bags, and she would take the others, and we'd go, you know Martin's Lane, by the church?
BS: Uh-huh.
HP: I would push her up the hill. Rosie was a little fat lady about this big--
LP: She was about four feet tall--
HP: and I'd push Rosie up the hill [Laughs].
BS: [Laughs]
LP: Henry, tell Beth who your mother was.
HP: Oh, my mother was a very famous designer of ladies lingerie.
BS: Oh.
HP: Yes, and if you look in the New York papers now, you will see some lingerie ads, and they say "Lingerie by Olga?" Well, of course Mom's been dead for many years, but she was Olga.
BS: Oh really, oh my goodness. Wow.
HP: Yeah, and she used to, we used to be sitting watching the radio, not the television, and she would be sketching. You know how you put the lace onto slips and things like that? Different arrangements and things like that.
LP: It wasn't underwear, it was lingerie.
HP: She did slips and gowns, that's nightgowns.
BS: Oh, Okay.
LP: He has horrible stories when he was a kid, you know you'd take the teacher a Christmas present.
HP: Oh God. Oh God. I don't know if you ever did it when you were in school, did you ever take the teacher a Christmas present?
BS: Sure.
HP: Mom would give me several packages of pink lacy stuff. I tell you, I could have died. You know, the teacher would say, "Oh, how nice!" and I would, "Oh God, underwear." [Laughs]
BS: This is right in front of the whole class?
HP: Yeah, right in front, she'd open the presents. Oh God. I think I'm still blushing.
BS: You are. [Laughs] What's your mother's maiden name:
HP: Wish, W-I-S-H.
BS: And her first name was Olga?
HP: Olga.
BS: Oh, Okay. Wow. Can I ask you just one or two more questions about that?
HP: Oh fascinating. Her brother, Fred, was the first person, he was in advertising, and he had his own agency, Fred A. Wish, Inc. And he syndicated artists and cartoonists. The first one to do it for advertising.
BS: Oh.
HP: You've heard of Ripley's Believe it or Not?
BS: Uh-huh.
HP: He had Ripley doing, believe it or not this cost two dollars and fifty cents, Toonerville Trolley. That was, oh you didn't know Toonerville Trolley?
BS: No.
HP: He had Toonerville Trolley, he had Maggie and Jiggs, and that was his job.
LP: He had Charles Lindbergh, too.
HP: And in any event, during the Depression, he was doing all right. He and my Aunt Kathleen. But, when the war came along, there was an excess profits tax. And the reason was, to prevent people from exploiting war shortages to make a lot of money. So what they would use was a base figure, what they made in 1940 shall we say, and over above that, if you got a lot of money over that, they would call that excess profits, and the government would tax it.
BS: Oh, I never heard of that.
HP: Well, it would prevent an inflation. Anyhow, so these companies would be making a lot of profit, and rather than turning it over to the government in taxes, legitimately they could spend it for advertising.
BS: Oh.
HP: So they were all advertising.
BS: Which would you pick?
HP: And my uncle Fred, who was in the advertising business--well the whole thing started when the war started in Europe in 1941, December of '41, he had made enough money, because of the war in Europe and everything like that, and a lot of stuff like that. He made enough money. He was going to retire. But the war came along. He was a patriotic American, he was too old for that, he says, "If you can't fight, you should work." So he stayed in the advertising business, and that's what these guys were spending all their excess profits on, advertising. He made a lot of money.
BS: Huh.
HP: Oh, I don't have to tell you, advertising agents skims ten per cent off the top. So he waited until after the war to retire. Well, of course he was right, if you can't fight you should work. Good old Uncle Fred.
BS: Oh.
HP: He and Aunt Kathleen had no children. But they had me.
BS: I was going to say, they had a nephew. [Laughs] That's a fun kind of aunt and uncle to have, I'm sure.
LP: The reason he ended up with Charles Lindbergh as a client was after Lindbergh flew the Atlantic--
HP: Oh, yeah.
LP: He was inundated with offers, and he was just like this farm boy--
HP: Uncle Fred was very, very legitimate, and when Lindbergh, you know, flew to Paris, and he came back, everybody wanted to say, "Lindbergh uses my hamburgers" and a lot of the stuff would have been derogatory to a character like Lindbergh. So the government asked Uncle Fred to handle Lindbergh's publicity.
BS: Oh, wow.
HP: Yeah.
LP: His reputation [unclear]
HP: Because he was an honest man.
BS: He was a what?
LP: An honest agent, almost an oxymoron, he really was.
HP: Yeah, because you can imagine these exploiting of, "Lingbergh uses Post Toasties," you know, "Lindbergh drives my car," things like that.
BS: Oh, fascinating.
HP: He was a very legitimate guy.
LP: Will Rogers was one of his clients, too.
HP: My mother's side of the family were small people. They weren't midgets or anything like that, but Mother's short, Uncle Fred was short. He was so skinny and little that they couldn't draft him in the army in World War One.
BS: Oh really? Oh wow.
HP: Yeah. They said, "You could never carry a pack."
BS: Oh. It was probably true.
HP: Yeah.
LP: He was about five-two, weighed about a hundred and ten dripping wet.
HP: See, a pack, a full pack in the Army in those days weighed about 70 pounds, then you added a rifle with ten pounds and ammunition, you'd have a load of about ninety pounds.
BS: Oh.
HP: He only weighed ninety pounds, you know what I mean? Something like that.
BS: Oh. What else have you got on your notes there?
HP: Oh, well this was wonderful. You know the white house where the Equitable Fire Insurance Company used to have a employee's vacation spot?
BS: No.
HP: Oh, you didn't know that?
BS: No.
HP: Going out from Boonton toward you know, to go to Boonton Township and Rockaway. You'll still see it, there's the big white house on the left. And the Equitable Insurance Company, which my Aunt Kathleen worked for, had a employee's vacation spot there, right along the Rockaway River, you know, very beautiful.
LP: Is that the Tally Ho now?
HP: Yes, that's the Tally Ho.
BS: Oh really? Oh.
HP: Yeah.
BS: I didn't know that. My grandmother actually lived there for 8 years. I never knew that.
LP: Didn't work for Equitable, either. [Laughs]
BS: Nope. Wow.
LP: Henry, what other notes do you have there?
HP: About the movie, yes. Fourth of July with the bangs going off. The one Democrat in town was the Postmaster. Oh, my father-in-law purchased all the property around Crystal Lake for 900 dollars in back taxes.
BS: Oh wow.
LP: There were either no houses on it then or maybe one, so you had all the lots.
BS: So who had owned it, who hadn't paid the taxes?
HP: The Belhall Company, I think it was.
BS: Oh, it was from the Belhall Company, Okay.
HP: Yeah, they didn't pay their taxes.
BS: Oh, wow. Nine hundred dollars.
LP: I'd have got nine fifty for it myself.
BS: [Laughs]
HP: It couldn't be--we got the last piece that he sold. He sold them all. Cost us a big fifteen hundred bucks for lakefront, well you know, what the heck, spend it all.
LP: Henry, when you were a kid, I just remembered, didn't some of your classmates used to hunt beaver and muskrat and sell the pelts?
HP: Oh yeah, Walt Hillman, yeah. Does the name Myrtle Kingsley mean anything to you?
BS: Yes.
HP: Well Myrtle Kingsley was a Hillman, and her mother was town clerk, and my buddy Walt Hillman, her son, he used to trap. And they'd trap muskrat, and skunks. And the big thing with Walt, you had to skin an animal, and Sears, Roebuck would buy the skins.
BS: Okay.
HP: I don't know what they worked out, but Walt was the only one who knew how to skin a skunk without dying.
BS: [Laughs]
HP: And that's what he did.
BS: That's quite a talent.
HP: Yes. [Laughs] I couldn't make up a story like that, skinning skunks.
LP: Well, now we know where the scent gland came from.
HP: Oh yeah, you know no matter what you do with a skunk. You ever see a skunk coat? No? It's a very nice fur.
BS: No, I haven't.
HP: Yeah, they still smell skunky.
BS: Do they really?
HP: Not horrible, but it's there. [Laughs]
BS: Uh. That does not sound pleasant.
HP: Yeah, poor Walt. I can see, he was driving home and he was visiting his sister Myrtle Kingsley, and he fell asleep at the wheel on the Boulevard, and just before Lake Drive it was, you can still see the scar. He ran off the road and hit a tree and killed himself.
BS: Oh, how awful.
HP: He wasn't drunk or anything, he just fell asleep.
BS: Oh, how awful.
HP: Yeah.
BS: And this was on the Boulevard--
HP: On the Boulevard, on the right, just before you come to Martin's--Larchdell Way, I forget which road it was. But if you look closely at one of the trees, there was a scar, it's mostly all closed up now. Ran into a tree.
BS: Oh. When I was a teenager a girl had also fallen asleep at the wheel along there and crashed and was killed. How awful.
LP: A lot of those trees are scarred. You go down, it's almost like every other one, or every third one, or whatever. A lot of accidents along that road, over the years.
BS: Oh.
HP: Those were the days. It was fun growing up here.
BS: Now, did Walt have anything to do with the skunk glands in the high school?
HP: Yes, it was Walt! [Laughs] How did you know about that?
BS: You had told me little bit about this at the library last week and--
HP: Yeah, he busted the skunk gland, climbed up to the roof and busted them in the vent-top of the ventilating fan.
LP: This was when the Boonton High School was what's now John Hill School, by the way.
BS: Good point, I'm glad you clarified that.
HP: Well, you know they also did rotten things in the Lake Drive School, too.
LP: They'd never--
HP: I didn't do it, I would not do this. But the Borough did and still does I think put herbicide into the lake, you know to keep the seaweed down, and if they put the dose too strong it would kill some of the fish. And the fish would drift up to the shore by the Lake Drive School. And some of the rotten kids would pick up a rotten fish, and put it in the bottom drawer of a teacher's desk.
BS: But you would never do a thing like that.
HP: No, no.
LP: But he heard about it. [Laughs]
HP: I swear I did not do it.
BS: I believe you [Laughs]. Where did you go to school here in town?
HP: Where did I go? Lake Drive School. There was no high school there in those days.
BS: Did you go from--
HP: Yeah, it only went up to ninth grade.
BS: Okay, so what grade were you in when you moved here? In 19--
LP: If you moved in when you were twelve you--
HP: Oh, I don't know about fourth grade, something like that.
BS: Okay, so you were twelve when you moved here.
LP: But you started high school when you were eleven.
HP: Oh, but I'm going to tell you something. This is absolutely the truth. The Mountain Lakes School was so rotten, I mean it was really bad, everybody was fooling around. And the parents were having parties. Nobody cared. So when we graduated, they went up to ninth grade, and they wouldn't accept my credits in Boonton. I had to repeat ninth grade.
BS: Oh that's right. You had mentioned that in the library, too.
HP: Yeah.
BS: So what grade, you were in fourth grade you think when you got here?
HP: Yes.
LP: Henry, I thought you skipped two years of elementary school in New York, though?
HP: Well, that's because my parents were traveling, world traveling.
LP: Well, I know, but weren't you already ready for high school when you moved here?
HP: Nnn-yes, ninth grade, but I had, I came here on a half-semester, so they couldn't promote me until tenth grade, so I had to go back to ninth grade again.
BS: So you only went to Lake Drive School for one year?
HP: Yes, then I went to Boonton.
LP: To repeat ninth grade.
HP: Yeah, 'cause I had to repeat-well, see New York schools work on a six-months period, so you matriculated in December in one and June in the other. So they wouldn't accept my credits. Well, I had no place to go. But I was so young then it was to the advantage because I had skipped so many grades.
LP: His sister did, too. Henry, didn't Helen skip a couple of grades, too?
HP: Helen?
LP: Yeah. Or not? I thought she did.
HP: Nah, nah, she didn't skip anything.
LP: [Laughs]
BS: How many siblings did you have growing up?
HP: Just my sister and me.
BS: Okay, and is she older or younger?
HP: Older. And you know, I'm going to tell you something. She was so rotten, she used to beat me up when I was a little kid. And, when I got big enough to beat her up-you can't hit girls. This leaves scars.
LP: She's an eighty-nine year old little old lady in a nursing home, he's still upset about this.
HP: Yeah, she used to pound up on me.
BS: So she's six years older than you.
HP: Yeah, yeah, I was just a kid, but as I say, you got big enough to beat her up, you can't hit girls. I took it out on her, though. [Laughs]
LP: All the time.
BS: [Laughs] You have to take it out on somebody, I guess.
HP: That's a bad rule, you should hit girls. Particularly the ones that beat you up.
BS: Exactly.
LP: Anyway, since both of his parents worked, they had the housekeeper in the house, an Irish lady--
HP: Oh, Rosie, yeah.
LP: He'd come home from school, wouldn't have anything to do, 'cause homework was easy, so he'd hang out in the kitchen with Rosie. And he learned how to cook, he's a terrific cook.
HP: Oh, yeah.
LP: He really is. When--
HP: She taught me how to cook and I taught her dirty songs.
BS: Oh, that's an even trade.
LP: Worked out well. I don't think my mother could boil water. He did all the cooking when we were kids growing up. In fact, she prided herself on never turning on an oven.
HP: Not only that, but when I got into the Army, the Junior Second Lieutenant was always the mess officer. And I got interested in it because when I got to be a Captain we had two professional cooks in the Army, I mean real professionals, they weren't from the Army schools. One, Ray Myers, was a chef at this restaurant in Hollywood called The Pig and Whistle. And Dodder, the German, was a professional baker, and between the two of them they could convert this lousy Army grub-very unimaginative-to good things. And the big thing was, with the baker, you had to get yeast, and the big thing was that the Army didn't issue yeast because it wouldn't keep, but the Navy had refrigerators and they had yeast. So, Dodder, we would trade to the Navy ships that came in. We'd give them a Japanese rifle you know, for so much yeast, and things like that, so we could make-and oh God, it was wonderful, you get up-the Army has a term for waking up and going to sleep, and it varies for the time of year. BMNT: Beginning of Morning Nautical Twilight. That's when the sun is just ready to rise over the horizon. And of course EENT was End of Evening Nautical Twilight. So, the Army, that's how they based their schedule. You'd take off at BMNT, and you end operations at EENT, as it varies. But, in any event, to have a German baker. All these other guys were getting all kinds of lousy stuff like Australian corned beef which came in these big square cans and was half fat-I mean really was terrible stuff. But I was lucky in two ways. I had a bunch of West Virginia and Kentucky guys, they were hunters, and they would go out in the jungle and shoot wild game. And we'd get deer, and sometimes because of the war, cattle would run wild, and they'd shoot a cow. It was very good.
LP: These Army guys are still in touch with him.
HP: Oh yes, but all these guys were getting this lousy Army chow. I mean it's still not too good, but they're working on it. But we would go into combat and Dodder would come up with a truck full of rising dough, cinnamon buns, and coffee.
LP: In the foxholes.
HP: I mean, we were living. [Laughs]
BS: I bet that was a major treat. You know, I'm just worried about getting all of my information before my tape ends here. Can I ask you a couple of more questions before I run out of time? Can you tell me about the trolley stops along the Boulevard? How many of them were there along the boulevard?
HP: There was one down by where Worman's Liquor Store is. The station 19 was at Lake Drive School. And then there was another one just before you exit at the exit of the Boulevard into Route 46.
BS: Okay, so one on each end and one in the middle?
HP: Yeah.
LP: Henry, how did the trolley run, was it electric, or did it have a motor?
HP: Yeah, it was an electric thing, and they had a electric line running overhead and they had this wheel-you know, you've seen the trolley cars, they have the arm that goes up. We'd hide behind the bus stop at station 19 and Lake Drive, and the trolley would stop, and we'd sneak out, and we'd pull the rider down, so he couldn't get it started. See the post, it was an arm like this, you see, that would rise and fall, and ride along the electric current. And it had a rope on it, to pull it down. And we'd pull the rope down, disconnect, and he couldn't get the trolley started. He--oh God, you should hear the dirty words the guy would say.
BS: [Laughs] And you did this while you were on the trolley?
HP: No, no. We'd hide behind the bus stop building.
BS: Okay, so you would cut off the electricity supply?
HP: Yeah, you've seen those bus stops, little shelters, we'd hide.
BS: Okay, I've got it.
HP: So shoot me, what can you do? But if that's the worst we did-no, the kids were pretty good at Halloween and times like that. That's because the Police were always patrolling.
LP: Henry, what other stops did they have? They had one by Worman's and one by Lake Drive. Was there another stop down by 46 or someplace?
HP: Probably stopped at Borough Hall. The, you know, at Briarcliff [unclear].
BS: Okay, where the old Borough Hall was, that's now that little park.
HP: Yeah, they had a stop there, and a stop at Worman's.
LP: That's where the Christmas tree is.
HP: As I say, then I'd meet Rosie with her bags of groceries and push her up Martin's Lane [Laughs].
BS: Do you have classmates from school here who are still here in town?
HP: Yes we have a reunion once a year. Well, hmm. Nobody from Mountain Lakes there this year except me.
LP: What about Tom Case, isn't he still around?
HP: He's from Boonton. Martha Webb didn't make it. Annie Visher used to make it, she didn't make it. Tom Trenholm of course didn't make it. I was the only one from Mountain Lakes that's left.
LP: He's the youngest in the class and he's 85, so [unclear].
HP: Well, after all it's a long time between 1934 and 2000, believe me.
BS: Long time.
HP: Sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm shaving, "Are you still here?"
BS: My mother said she wakes up every day and she looks at my father and she says, "Oh, we're still here, what fun!"
LP: [Laughs]
HP: She's got the same idea.
BS: Did you cover everything on your notes? Or was there anything else?
LP: Henry, what about the planes going overhead when you were a kid? You were talking about that.
HP: Oh, this is absolutely no kidding. Aircraft Radio out in Boonton Township. It was Luff Meredith. He was an Army captain, of course Army Air Force in those days. And he used to fly the plane, you know, testing the radios. And so help me God, the plane would fly over and people would come out and "look, there's an airplane."
LP: [several words unclear] [Laughs]
HP: [Laughs] Reminds me one time we were on Maui in the Pacific, and we had landed after one of the big ba

End of Interview

Transcribed by Tapescribe, University of Connecticut at Storrs, 2003, edited by Margarethe P. Laurenzi, coordinator, Oral History Project of the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, March 2004 and June 2005.



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