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Historic Preservation Committee

Oral History -- Marion Rohrer

Interview of Marion Rohrer (MR) February 28, 1995 Interviewer (INT) unknown, but likely Ruth Harrison. [Amplifications] and corrections made by Marion’s son Robert L. Rohrer and her brother John ‘Jack’ Brown on January 19, 2007.


INT: I'm interviewing Marion Rohrer of Boonton, New Jersey. It's February 28, 1995. Mrs. Rohrer, when and where were you born?
MR: Buffalo [New York].
INT: Okay. And when did you move to Mountain Lakes?
MR: I think it was ‘22 or ‘23. [It was late 1922] I'm not quite sure.
INT: Are you married?
MR: Yes. Not now [Husband deceased in 1953].
INT: And you had children.
MR: Two. [Boys: Bob 1939, John 1942]
INT: And when you lived in Mountain Lakes, you lived in Mountain Lakes from about when you were about how old to -- for about how long?
MR: I think I was going into the fifth grade.
INT: And then after you were married you lived in Mountain Lakes for a while and raised your children in Mountain Lakes as well.
MR: Well, we lived in Washington for a while and then we came back because my husband's time on the job in Washington -- see, it was Depression [1936], and when the job was over, his part of the job, they'd have to let him go. So we lived in Washington about six months.
INT: But then you moved right back to Mountain Lakes?
MR: Yeah.
INT: And your children grew up here too.
MR: No. Well, they lived -- we stayed with my [parents] -- when we came back I called my father and he said come home, you know, something happened. And so we lived there from that time. It was Christmas time. Nice time to lose your job.
INT: Yeah.
MR: But he connected in February with Socony Vacuum, [an amalgamation of the State Oil Company of New York with the Vacuum Oil Company] which is now Mobil Oil Company, [now Exxon/Mobil] and that's where he was for the rest of his life.
INT: I see.
MR: Which wasn't very long. [died February 14, 1953]
INT: So basically, you lived most of your years in Mountain Lakes, your years growing up.
MR: Well, I lived across the street from Brackin’s. Did you know the Brackin’s [on Intervale Road]? [Tom Jr. still has an insurance business on the Boulevard at the Boonton entrance to Mt Lakes.]
INT: No, I didn't. Where did you live when you were in Mountain Lakes?
MR: Well, the first house we lived in when I was going to school was on Morris Avenue, and it's right at the foot of Briarcliff Road. And we used to come down the hill
INT: Do you know the number?
MR: Four.
INT: Four?
MR: It changed over all of those years.
INT: That's right. They have. And it's right at the foot of Briarcliff Road?
MR: Yes, and it has a circular driveway in the front, and it has pillars. You know, big pillars on each side of the driveway. And they extended two lots, and my father bought two. So we had 200 frontage and 400 deep. [home now torn down, lot subdivided and multiple homes in that location.]
INT: What were your parents' names?
MR: My father's name was John Brown, John Nelson Brown, and my mother's name was Eleanor. Ella, they called her, E-L-L-A. And you mean her maiden name?
INT: No. That's -- [her first name]
MR: It was Edwards. [maiden name]
INT: Tell me a little bit about them. What did your father do and --
MR: Well, he was -- [a New York Mercantile Exchange commodity broker in NYC]
INT: Why did they decide to move to Mountain Lakes?
MR: Oh, because he knew a lot of people that lived in Mountain Lakes, like the grandfather of Skip Watts.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: And he lived next door to that school that they built. [In the following confusing exchange, my mother means the middle school on Briarcliff Road. The Watts house was right next to the school. When I was in high school in 1955, Grandmother Watts still lived there.]
INT: On Larchdell Way? [No]
MR: Yeah.
INT: The school. [The old High School]
MR: Not the -- the old high school.
INT: Okay. On Lake...
MR: On Briarcliff Road.
INT: Okay.
MR: And then they lived right next door.
INT: Oh, I see.
MR: And we came out to see them. He also knew some other people, two or three that moved out here. I can't think of their names right now. And so we came out that day --
INT: From Brooklyn?
MR: Uh-huh.
INT: Uh-huh.
MR: We were in Flatbush [in Brooklyn] at that time. [Decades later she realized that my Mountain Lakes best friend’s mother was her best girlhood friend in Flatbush -- Grace Kettle, of Tower Hill Road -- a small world] And oh, I just fell in love with the place. Lakes and swimming? Oh, that was for me. Ice skating? And so we came out another Sunday and we just looked around and Mr. Watts said, "You like it here, don’t you?" And my father said, "Yeah, I love it" He said, "I got a house." So he said, "I'll show it to -YOU." So we went down the hill, to the bottom of the hill, [house on Morris Avenue at the foot of Briarcliff] and it was empty. And we went all through it. And my father stood there and made a cash check out.
INT: My gosh.
MR: Those are the days when you paid for your house and that was it.
INT: And no mortgages.
MR: Never had a mortgage.
INT: Would you mind telling how much he paid, if you know?
MR: I think it was $10,000.
INT: Which was probably a princely sum in those days.
MR: In those days, yes, sure. Well, what he did --
INT: And were you the first family to live in the house?
MR: No, there were people there that -- oh, they were drinkers. We thought we’d never get rid of bottles that were all over the place, down the cellar, on the windowsills. Oh, it was terrible. And so I enjoyed it so much, the day we did come out the first time when we were getting ready to go home Mrs. Watts picked a few what I thought they were sticks, and she gave them to my mother." And she said, " Now, when you go home you put these in a vase with a little warm water and you will see something in a few days." Of course it was forsythia, but I had never seen forsythia before. And we were all excited about the flowers. So we got ready to move. And my father just started to fix everything up there, get the yard in condition. And we had so many boulders in that backyard. They never did -- they just lived there. They were alcoholics. So my father had to have seven of them blasted with dynamite. And we had that place all fixed up. It was so nice. He closed in the side porch. I can show you the pictures. And we just thought it was heaven, you know, to be able to just go to school and come home and go to the post office. And I had a boyfriend in school, [Robert Turner] and we used to go down to Yaccarino’s and get the mail. You had to go down to the post office to get your mail.
INT: And was the post office down near where the market is now, where Yaccarino’s was?
MR: Yes, there were more stores down there. There was a meat market, and Mr. Barbaro, he lived on Lake Drive, it was his meat market. And his son drove the truck to bring the people their meat. But then there was a little notion store, and then the post office all the way down. And we would walk to the post office but I didn't dare walk with a boy. Oh, that was terrible. So he used to walk through Howell, and I would meet him right down near where the post office is.
INT: Where your mother couldn't see you?
MR: All we did was walk down there. And then we walked down and around instead of climbing the hill, and when we come back, all that -- where the library is -- no, not the library. [The Mountain Lakes Library was not there then] The post office.
INT: And the library too.
MR: Yeah. I mean, down further. It was so smelly. They had skunk cabbage growing there. Did you ever smell it?
INT: Yes.
MR: Oh, it's awful. We used to go by there like this. [Holding her nose] And my girlfriend lived in the house that's across the street. [Her girlfriend’s name was Mary with the later married name of Cohen. The house was directly across from today’s Post Office and library. Mary Cohen stayed in the home after her parents died and raised a daughter there named Betty who was in my class. Mrs. Cohen later was secretary to the VP of Finance at Aircraft Radio Corporation in the Valley. I was Advertising Manager in those days (1966) but I only knew her as Mrs. Cohen] She was a class ahead of me. And so she was my friend too. And she just sold a house on -- oh, the road that takes you to Morris Avenue out of Denville. And she's --
INT: Oh, 53?
MR: Yes, and she's put herself in a home. I don't know why she did that, but she did.
INT: That's such a difficult decision. So you had some brothers and sisters?
MR: I have one brother and one sister.
INT: And could you tell me their names and are they older or younger or what?
MR: I was the oldest. My brother is [John (Jack) Nelson Brown Jr.] -- I have a picture. I'll show it to you.
INT: He was a little younger than you. But you had a brother and sister. [Norma] And do you have any special memories of growing up as a family here, what it was like?
MR: Well --
INT: ...Or, I should say, what are your special memories?
MR: Well, I don't know, sleigh-riding and ice skating and swimming and things like that. And I don't know whether you -- Betty Danamann that's her maiden name, she lived on Morris Avenue on the hill as it goes down towards Powerville, and we used to go out at night and go sleigh-riding because hardly anyone had a car even. It was really funny.
INT: How did you get around, you walked?
MR: Oh, sure. I walked. But if I was going somewhere my father would take me, and he would come and get me.
INT: In a car?
MR: Yes.
INT: And did he go into New York to work still?
MR: Yes. Yes, he went on the train.
INT: And I guess he went in on the train.
MR: See, he was in the butter and egg business. And he was on the exchange, like the stock market, you know. [The New York Mercantile Exchange] They have to go down and bid for stuff like that. And Mr. Watts was in the butter business, see, and all of those business people got on the -- it's like a stock exchange, you know, the building where we were in, my father was, later I worked for him.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: And so it was very interesting. Then of course there was two or three families, like Skip's father and his brother were in with Mr. -- the elder Mr. Watts, and --
INT: And would you say that most of the men at that time did commute into New York City?
MR: They did.
INT: Does anyone recall how long it took them to get there?
MR: Oh, the same as the train now. [That would have been the 7:28 AM express to Hoboken, ten minutes on the ferry, and then about a ten minute walk to the Exchange]
INT: I don't know, an hour or so each way?
MR: Pretty much. Maybe three-quarter's of an hour to an hour. Then you had to take the ferry across.
INT: When you talked about coming out here in fifth grade, where did you go to school?
MR: In the little grade school next to the club. Grade school. [Lake Drive School, still there and called the "Stone School" for its appearance.]
INT: And do you have any memories of that? What was it like?
MR: Oh, yes, I had wonderful memories because you knew everybody and you had -- one day we got to school, and we had a terrible snowstorm and they didn't blow the whistle. They used to blow the whistle at seven o'clock, and that's when I would get up. And I got to school and I saw two girls from my class. And she said, "Hurry, there's no school today." So I said, " This is my chance not to go home."
INT: You were a devil.
MR: Well, I didn't -- I wasn't a devil really because I was scared to death of my mother. And I said, She will never know because she doesn't know anybody in town.
INT: Because you had just moved there.
MR: Yeah. So we went...
INT: So what did you do?
MR: We went over to one of the girl's houses and we put the phonograph on, and her mother was bowling at the club or something. Nobody was home. And we danced all afternoon. And we brought our lunch box with us.
INT: So you had lunch.
MR: And I had a service of milk and my sandwich and fruit, and we had a wonderful time.
INT: Did your mother ever find out?
MR: Nope, never told her.
INT: Did you all belong to the club?
MR: That's a story. My father said, "Well, you live in town, you join the club." So he joined the club. And he had a friend from Detroit [Charlie Hoben] that was in the same business. And he was on a business trip. And he had a beautiful voice. Tenor voice. And so he came out and spent the weekend with us, and my father said, "We'll go to the club tonight, have dinner, and they're having a dance tonight." And he said, "I will not wear my tuxedo because you don't have one and I don't want you to feel out of place." So they went to the dinner and all of these other people, they didn't look at him because he didn't have his tuxedo on. So he resigned. He said, "That's a stuffy place." So he went over and joined Rockaway. So that's where he went.
INT: Which wasn't as stuffy?
MR: No, it wasn't stuffy. And he loved to play golf, so he was over there playing golf.
INT: Did you miss not belonging to the club? Was it sort of the center of social activities for the young people of town?
MR: Well, for my age, no. No, there wasn't anything for kids. There wasn't any bowling alleys. They hadn't put them in. It was you could have a meal there or something.
INT: But it was mainly for ...
MR: And tennis, which I hate. [My father could play tennis. He tried to teach my Mom but she could not return the ball, which is why she disliked it.]
INT: Are there any special events that stand out in your mind? And I don't know what they mean by this question except for maybe a special Fourth of July parade or --
MR: No, we didn't have that then. [Those activities did not start until during and after WWII]
INT: Memorial Day? Nothing like that? Are there any special people that you remember?
MR: Oh --
INT: A teacher, a neighbor, a very good friend?
MR: Oh, I had some of the famous people in town, did you ever hear about ... I didn't know them, but she lived up in the house with the chains on the Boulevard. [The family was the Corbin’s] Did you ever hear of the story about her? [Those chains may still be there and they were famous because they had been taken from an old World War I battleship that had been scrapped.]
INT: No. What was her name?
MR: Oh, gosh, I can't think of it right now because I never knew her.
INT: Was she -- she was famous?
MR: She was famous in a way.
INT: Was she an actress?
MR: Well, she used to go into the theater a lot. She had a little two-seater car. And of course Route 6 was Route 6, not 46. Two lanes. And she was going down the hill to get to New York to the show, and she had a friend visiting her, and something happened with the car that turned over and burst into flames.
INT: Oh, no.
MR: And she was killed. And Harry Dennis was the policeman. And it was only a short time ago when I was talking to Eisenbott. [Heissenbuttle] You know Eisenbott. They lived here and they had two boys. [Walt and Siebert] And the older boy just died. And he was up in the hospital when I was there. He was in the next room. And I went in to see him because he went to school with my brother. And he died. And his wife lives out in the Township. But that was a terrible thing. And I stopped to talk to him when I was walking on the Boulevard, and we got to talking about old times. You know, all of the old timers are gone. And so I said to him, "Wasn't that a terrible thing when Harry Dennis ... you know, he was there and he couldn't do anything. And he said, "Yes." And he told us because he lived on -- not the first road, not Kenilworth, but the one in between [Hanover].
INT: Melrose? [No]
MR: Yeah, I guess that's it. And he lived up there on Melrose. [No, Hanover] And right near the corner. Not on the corner but in from the corner. And he said, "She screamed to 'Please shoot me.' He said, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it." So that just brought all of those memories back again. I could remember just getting down the hill when I heard this fire siren go. And I thought, "Gee, that's a long fire whistle. They keep blowing and blowing. And that's what happened.
INT: You only had the one policeman in town at that time.
MR: Two.
INT: Two?
MR: Harry [Dennis] was the chief. [Charlie Van Duyne was the assistant followed by Art Guinter when Charlie was relieved. Charlie then went in the garbage collection business]
INT: I heard that Mountain Lakes had some very famous movie stars from the silent era that lived here. Did you ever know any of them or see any of them?
MR: No. [One movie star was Pauline Fredricks]
INT: And there was a feminist, very famous woman suffragette, Belle DeRivera.
MR: Oh, yes.
INT: Did you know her?
MR: No.
INT: Did you ever see her?
MR: I might have seen her at a woman's club meet in the Community Church window or something. But she lived on Dartmouth Road.
INT: Yes, I know she did. And I wondered if, you know, if you saw her.
MR: I knew her daughter and her granddaughter, but she was grown.
INT: Oh, yes. I just wondered if you had any memories of her.
MR: No.
INT: Well, you've already told me where you went to school first at what is now the Lake Drive School, and then through about eighth grade -- over to now what is Briarcliff Road to the high school.
MR: It wasn't there.
INT: Oh, the high school -- that's right, it wasn't there. Where did you go to high school?
MR: We went to ninth grade in high school there, and then you went to Morristown.
INT: And where did you go to?
MR: I went to St. Elizabeth's. My mother was Catholic.
INT: I see.
MR: We didn't get along very good.
INT: And where did you and your family shop?
MR: Well, my mother never did learn to drive.
INT: Not the Rockaway Mall, I'm sure.
MR: No. No, she would go all the way to Brooklyn.
INT: Really?
MR: I don't mean for food, but I mean if she wanted to get a coat and all that, we went into Loesher's and A & S's in Brooklyn because that's what she was used to. But for going to the store my father had to take her, and so they spent a whole day practically going from one -- they would go to Boonton, over the hill. And there was a National Grocery Store there. And my father used to like to go in and talk to Mr. White and he would say, "How's the butter today?" He said, "I think it's pretty good." And he would take a knife and take a little smidgen out of it. He says, "Yeah, that's 93 score." And he would say, "Give us about six pounds." My father ate butter like cheese. And that's what killed him, so, because he got too much butter. Butter and eggs. And I don't know how he ate a breakfast like he did. He just ate so much and he wasn't fat.
INT: Well, I think people walked a lot more.
MR: Oh, he walked to the station because I couldn't drive then, and he walked to the station, walked home, and then when I got my license I would meet him at night, but he liked that morning walk. And then he had to walk when he got in there to the place where his office was. And of course he was a young man. He was only 53 when he died. He would be out there cutting grass. He would have a man doing work with the plow --
INT: You still were living in Mountain Lakes at that time?
MR: Yeah, we were living on Larchdell Way then. But that's when we left Mountain Lakes.
INT: Okay. So when you first moved to Mountain Lakes you lived on Morris Avenue, and then when your father died you moved away from Mountain Lakes?
MR: No, he didn't die then. [Died in 1938]
INT: Okay. Then you moved away for awhile, and then you moved back. And when you moved back you lived on Larchdell Way? Which house on Larchdell Way? [Number 21]
MR: Where Skip [Watts] lived. I hate what he did to that house.
INT: So on the canal?
MR: Yeah. And if you had ever seen that yard in back, it was beautiful. He [my father] had gorgeous flowers.
INT: Your dad did -- or your parents did, or did Skip put that in?
MR: Oh, no, he just lived there. I went in there and I said, "Oh, God." We had ten willow trees in the back, and each one of them was about this big around in one tree. They separated; you could sit between them. And we had a canoe and a rowboat there and a nice dock. And he kept the yard so nice and everything. But then he -- Skip, and I don't know, there were a couple of other people in there too before that, and he bought that house and he just let it go. That's the way I felt about it. I think he put a deck or something on the back. But he was not a person that wanted to work out in his yard and have it look nice. I go this way [holding her nose] when I go by there.
INT: Was it fun living on the water? Was it important to be able to live on the canal and be able to use your rowboat and canoe?
MR: Yeah. Yeah, we used to -- I have a-friend that lived right in the back of Dr. Hammerman.
INT: Oh, yes.
MR: And poor dear, she's got Alzheimer's. Beautiful girl. And the Houston’s were very, very much into activities. They were here when I -- they were here when I lived on Morris Avenue. But I wasn't allowed to walk anywhere. They were so afraid that people were in the woods and would grab me or something, you know, coming from the city.
INT: Well, yes. But probably in reality it was a pretty safe place to grow up.
MR: It was perfectly safe. But they just would not let me do that.
INT: Would you say that was typical of a lot of the parents or just of yours because they came from the city?
MR: Mine. Mine were very different. My father would come and pick me up, and we were over on Hanover Road. And she was my best friend at that time.
INT: Who was this?
MR: She was Elizabeth Allerdyce. Did you ever hear that name?
MR: No, I didn't. Well, she lived -- after she got married -- she married a fellow by the name of Bohrer, B-O-H-R-E-R.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: That was funny. And I didn't see her much after that. You know, when I came back and was married, and so I got very close with the Houston family. [The Houston children that were my Mom’s good friends were John and Mary. She stayed in touch with them for the rest of her life. I took her to visit John and his family in Long Beach, CA (1969) and Mary came to visit us when we lived in Nashville and my Mom was visiting (1982). Mary’s husband, Tom Martin, was then the head of food service at the famous Callaway Gardens in Georgia.] They were just wonderful. And so that was the house right in back of Dr. Hammerman. And then the Llewelllyns lived up in the first house. [She means the first house built in Mountain Lakes]
INT: That's right. Did you know the Llewelllyns?
MR: Oh, yes.
INT: What were they like?
MR: Well, I didn't know the mother and father, I just knew the girls, and they came to all the things that we have had. And
INT: All the things. All the parties?
MR: No, the things that once a year or something, you know, they would come out from wherever they lived. I didn't know where. He was the inventor of the Lilly cup. [There were a lot of large picnics in those days. That was the big thing to do, have a picnic]
INT: I know.
MR: And then of course we had Arthur Stringer.
INT: Who was he?
MR: He was a writer. A famous writer, books. And he lived up near where Cathy, who is our secretary.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: Yeah. And the house --
INT: On Laurel Hill Road, I guess?
MR: Uh-huh. And right from where this -- you come out of the church, [St. Peter’s] the house that faces the Boulevard, my best friend lived there. And I lost track of her. And I was so anxious to get a hold of her because she married very young because she had a father that was a dentist in New York. He took care of Mary Pickford and all of the big people like that. And he was also into rum down in the islands. And he was Spanish or Cuban or something like that. And by the time I met her in school she I things that we have had.
INT: All the things.
MR: No, the things that once a year or something, you know, wherever they lived. couldn't move. The mother was -- she was almost as old as her sister, this girl. And she bossed those kids.
INT: The mother did. The mother was very strict?
MR: Well, she wasn't their mother. This was his third wife. And --
INT: Oh, I understand, who wasn't much older than the girls themselves, but she was very strict.
MR: That's right. Well, she wasn't strict, she just wanted to keep them under her thumb so that they wouldn't disturb anything in the house. And she hated that woman so.
INT: But they lived on the Boulevard?
MR: Yeah. And I found her through a friend of a friend of mine, and she said, "I think I can reach Sylvina for you."
INT: That was your friend.
MR: Sylvina Ros, R-0-S. [It was spelled Ross and Sylvina’s brother Oszvaldo was in Jack’s (Marion’s brother) class] And so she found her for me. And she said she didn't find her for me, she said, "I have her sister's name. She lives down outside of Paterson somewhere." So I called up the number she gave me and I said -- I told her who I was and that I was a friend of her sister's and I wondered where she was. She said, "Well, she lives in California but she's visiting me right now."
INT: Oh, my goodness.
MR: So we made plans to meet each other in the -- oh, where you get the bus, you know.
INT: In the Port Authority?
MR: In the Port Authority. So I was there first and I was waiting, watching the escalator, and I saw her. She hadn't changed except her hair. She had jet black hair and her mother dressed her funny, you know. Or she wasn't her mother. She just hated her. And then she had a sister that was born by the mother that she was from. I think she married a fellow from Mountain Lakes that lived on Esplanade.
INT: Really. Do you remember his name?
MR: No, I don't. It might come to me but those things are gone. But she, as far as I know, she hadn't written to me that she's passed away. But they were millionaires. She married this fellow just when plastic was coming in. So she sends money to Sylvina. But she did marry again. She had three children. She had two boys and a girl, and I can show you the pictures that I took when I saw her out in California. She said that -- she stood on the corner and she said, "If you ever get to California," she said, "you be sure and come and see me." I said, "Oh, I'll never get to California." I was widowed then, see, because my husband died young. And so that was that. So we still correspond, and she calls me up on my birthday. It's just so nice. [I lived in California from 1968 to 1977 and Sylvia was our houseguest several times. My mother saw her on almost every visit.]
INT: Do you keep up with other friends from around here that you grew up with, other Mountain Lakes, folks?
MR: There aren't any here that I grew up with. They're all gone. I mean, they're in other places, so
INT: What were the roads like; were they paved?
MR: Potholes.
INT: Were they? And the lakes; were the lakes nice and clean and good to swim in?
MR: And I've got all of the pictures of the lake. Well, we had a beach on Wildwood.
INT: Oh, really? Where was that beach?
MR: Well, you know, the school is here, and there's a wall. [No, it is the dam that runs along Glen road that made the lake]
INT: Yes. A retaining wall.
MR: A dam. A dam. When you get to the end where there's a house that goes up. Did you ever know the Bacons?
INT: No.
MR: Well, they've gone. I think she died. And I don't know, the boys were in my son's class. [Tony] And they're gone. But that house, Mr. Miller lives there. And she died a couple of years ago. And I used to tell her she smoked too much. She just could not give it up.
INT: But that's where the beach was. Was this a hangout?
MR: Mr. Leonard owned that property, and he made a beach there. And there's a wall. And they fastened seats for people to sit on and watch the children. And then up higher he had more seats where people could get in the shade. And so that's where we used to swim.
INT: So that's how you spent your summer days?
MR: Oh, yes.
INT: Was really, was on Wildwood
MR: Yeah.
INT: At the beach?
MR: Yeah.
INT: And I guess was there a beach at Mountain Lake, too, or you just didn't go there?
MR: No, there wasn't any beach there. That developed later. [It was Island Beach that came later, there was a beach at the Mt. Lakes Club]
INT: And I guess Birchwood as well would have been after?
MR: Oh, that was way after. And the second lake, as you go out past the Catholic church, you know, those houses there on the lake, that's where the first picnic that we had at the end of the season -- end of school.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: So I was to go on the picnic. And my mother said, "But you can't go in swimming."
INT: And why was that?
MR: She was afraid I'd drown. And so I had to sit on the beach and watch them all swimming. But I could go over to Wildwood.
INT: I guess, was it Birchwood Lake?
MR: Oh, that's beyond that.
INT: Oh, yeah, I know the name of it. Is it Crystal Lake or something like that?
MR: Something like that. And there's another lake, when you go up through Baida Nelson's that other lake is there. And there's a little island out there. And then I was talking to my brother one day and he said -- what's his name? Do you know Betty Corley?
INT: No.
MR: Well, she married Bob Corley. And she lived on Hanover Road. She was a twin. And she married Bob Corley. He was in my brother's class. And oh, he drank quite heavy. He got a bulgy stomach. He just died. It was sad. But she's around all the time. She's around.
INT: Were the Fourth of Julys here anything special? Did you have fireworks?
MR: Just in your own house. Not inside.
INT: Did you have any ...
MR: No.
INT: ...community fireworks, did you swim races or anything like that?
MR: No, not when I lived on Morris Avenue.
INT: And a little bit later when you lived on Larchdell?
MR: Oh, yes, then they started going around collecting.
INT: And when was that do you think? The latter ‘20s or the ‘30s maybe?
MR: No, it wasn't in the ‘20s. I really don't know. [It was the mid 1930’s, and the Borough would take up an annual collection to fund the fireworks] But I remember my father invited people to come out and go and see the fireworks, and it was very nice. And you know, he would invite people to come out on a Sunday and then they thought they had just stayed long enough and he said, "You can't come out here and leave without having supper." And I thought, you know, we always had supper but we would get our own. After the maid was gone, why, you used to eat cereal at night. I don't know. I know somebody said to me, "Your folks eat funny." I said, Well, if we had company, we had a big spread. If we didn't, why, I just -- we'd come and eat some cereal and that satisfied me because we had a big dinner at one o'clock. So that was finished. And I don't know how we ate so much. I really don't.
INT: You walked.
MR: Yeah, I guess.
INT: And went swimming. You didn't jump in the car for everything.
MR: And we used to go out -- oh, that was another thing. My father built a garage for that house on Morris Avenue, two-car garage. So he bought a car for my mother.
INT: Who never drove. [Her mother]
MR: No. But he thought he would buy a car for her and then she could learn to drive and go do her shopping. Well, I don't think she wanted to drive, she was very nervous, and so he sold the car. She never learned to drive.
INT: Was she typical of women of that age?
MR: No, they were all driving.
INT: Did many women drive at that time?
MR: Yes. Did you ever hear the name Castner?
INT: No, but tell me about her.
MR: Well, she was -- she lived way down [on Morris Avenue] almost to Powerville Road. That's another story. Every night we'd go down sleigh-riding down there. And we would put our feet in the sled behind us.
INT: Like a train.
MR: Yeah. But the one that was -- the last one he said, "Don't forget, if you hear a car coming, put your feet out and get over to the side." Well, we never had to do it. Nobody ever came. And then there was one house down there on the slope, and I'm going to see her [Helen Dietz] when I go down to see my brother next week. She's down there in the same area.
INT: Oh, in Florida?
MR: Yeah. And my brother went to school with her brother, and he was just down to see his sister and he came over to see my brother, and he wrote -- she wrote to me and said, "His visit with your brother was the most that he enjoyed down here." You know, he was just so glad to see him because they were great friends. But my brother got more out of it than I did because being a boy he just -- you know, he was a good kid. He never got into any trouble. The only time he got into trouble was the time he was -- had been up to scout camp and he had made a bow and arrow and he jumped out of the car when my father brought him home and he said, "Oh, dad, I've got to show you what I made, and I'll show you how it works." And he pulled the thing and it went right across the street at the Davis's house. That was before --
INT: Did it hit anything?
MR: It broke the window.
INT: Oh, no.
MR: There was just two people, Mrs. and Mrs. Davis lived there. And my father said he went right over and he said, "I'll get the glazier to fix your window. Don't worry about it." You know, it was nothing. But that's the only thing I could ever remember my brother getting into any trouble, and yet he was a real boy and he's a wonderful person, but does he hate the Bishop. [John Spong was the Bishop of the diocese of Newark. Jack did not like him because he was one of the leftists who started the breakup of the Episcopal Church]
INT: Well, that has nothing to do with Mountain Lakes.
MR: I know. I shouldn't have said anything about that.
INT: Were you -- do you have something to say? I was going to ask you, were you aware that Mountain Lakes was sort of a special community?
MR: Oh, yes.
INT: Or different in any way? You went to school at St. Elizabeth's?
MR: By that time, yes.
INT: Did many of your friends go to St. Elizabeth's? I guess I was going to say, you must have seen what it was like living in other places too, and what made Mountain Lakes different.
MR: Well, it was just like black and white, you know, the city was terrible.
INT: And it was so lovely to be out in the country, in the suburbs?
MR: When we lived on Morris Avenue, there weren't any houses across the street there. The first house was on the corner of the first row that comes out down by the post office.
INT: Oh, Elm Road?
MR: What's that?
INT: Elm Road?
MR: No, it goes into Elm. Elm goes up. I forget the name of this one.
INT: Ball Road? No, Briarcliff?
MR: No, Briarcliff.
INT: Ball Road? Howell?
MR: Howell. That's it. That's where the people from our church moved.
INT: The Boyds?
MR: Yeah.
INT: Yes, that's right.
MR: But that's where I'd stand, especially when the trees were in leaf, and I could talk to my boyfriend [Robert Turner]. He would go down this way on Howell because he would go in the back door. His front door was Morris Avenue. And my folks would like to go out for a ride every night. My mother would be sitting in the house all day and my father would come home and she was crying. And he just couldn't stand it any longer. So they moved back to Brooklyn.
INT: And you were -- okay. And you were about how old then?
MR: I was going into second high school.
INT: Okay. But then you came back to Mountain Lakes. And when was --
MR: Well --
INT: Morris Avenue, back to Brooklyn, then back to Larchdell Way?
MR: Yeah. Well, we weren't there a year, [Brooklyn] I'll tell you that.
INT: And you came back?
MR: We moved in February and I went to James Madison High School, which was -- you're not familiar with Brooklyn.
INT: Not too.
MR: But it was out on the Coney Island area. And oh, 7,000 students. When the bell rang I had to go from a math class to a Spanish class, and the stairways were clogged. You couldn't move. I came home with a headache every night.
INT: So it was a real relief to get back to Mountain Lakes?
MR: Oh, it was just like heaven. And for the short time we were there my brother had to go to school and then had he had to -- he was maybe first grade or something like that. And he brought home the measles to my sister. And she was a baby. And she got mastoid [ear infection]. And that's what my mother brought upon us all. She -- you know, she had it made out there, and she didn't want to learn to play bridge or she didn't want to do this and she didn't want to do that.
INT: That's what I was going to ask you. Were there a lot of clubs out here for women and activities?
MR: Oh, and when somebody moved in, why, you had a little silver tray, and if you weren't home the maid would go to the door and you would leave your card on the tray. But some people came over one night to teach them how to play bridge and they played some --
INT: You still play bridge, don't you?
MR: I don't play anymore.
INT: Okay. Because I thought I saw you. I'm sorry. Go on. There was a lot of bridge playing. It was important.
MR: I played 500. Golly, I lost my thought. But we didn't have much -- there weren’t many people with cars. "You have a car?" I said, "Who doesn't have a car?" You know, we always had a car as far back as I could remember. And the first car my father ever had was a little Maxwell, and he wanted to bring somebody home that night. He said, "I'll drive you home." He just bought it, he didn’t have a license, he didn’t have anything, he just got in it and drove it. And it stopped. And they got out to see what was wrong with this little car, and they didn't know what was wrong. So finally the other man said, "I wonder if you have any gas." And that's when you had to open it and put a ruler in it, and it came out dry.
INT: Where would you get gas?
MR: Gas station.
INT: I know. But where would the gas stations be? I guess there weren't any in Mountain Lakes, were there?
MR: Well, this was in Brooklyn.
INT: Oh, I see.
MR: Before we ever came to Mountain Lakes. And they had a big thing about this big, and they would wheel it over to your car and take a hose.
INT: That was the portable gas tank, I guess?
MR: Yeah, and then they would give you the gas.
INT: So you must have moved back to Mountain Lakes to the Larchdell Way house about the time that the Depression was starting -- [My grandfather also owned the lot next to the Larchdell Way house. After my mom married in1936, he offered her that lot as a gift. She turned it down. Later, when she told me her reason was "what would I do with a lot -- we would just have had to pay taxes on it" ?!]
MR: Yes.
INT: ... for the rest of the country. Do you remember the Depression affecting Mountain Lakes in any way?
MR: Yes, I do.
INT: In what way did it do that?
MR: People were losing their homes. We didn't have to worry about that because we -- my father paid cash for the house.
INT: Did you know any people personally that had to leave Mountain Lakes because they lost their jobs or their houses?
MR: Well, I really -- the McGruders over on Kenilworth Road, they were in a very bad state. And Mr. McGruder died. He used to take care of all of the money at the church.
INT: At St. Peter's Church?
MR: Yes. Mr. McGruder. He was such a nice man.
INT: Does anything else remind you from the Depression; do you have any memories?
MR: Well, I know that friend of mine that has the Alzheimer's, her father was an insurance man and nobody was buying insurance. He had three kids in college. And the Huston’s were wonderful people. And Mrs. Huston taught up in St. John's.
INT: In Boonton?
MR: No, St. John's. It's the Wilson School now.
INT: Oh, okay.
MR: And she was a lovely person. And they had a tough time. And this fellow John that I told you about, Griffy [Griff Morris] lived down the street from him. And they were inseparable. Because my mother used to say, "There goes the dolly sisters." And I went out with both of them, and they were perfect gentlemen. And they were very nice boys. They were both at my wedding. And when I went to visit my son in California I went and spent a week with them.
INT: Really?
MR: Uh-huh. He and his wife.
INT: If you grew up here and lived on Larchdell Way, after you were married you lived in Mountain Lakes too?
MR: Well, we lived on the Parsippany side of the road across from Brackin’s, if you know where that is?
INT: Parsippany? On Intervale Road?
MR: Yeah. Did you know Sally?
INT: No. I'm sorry. I've only been here ten years.
MR: Oh, well. See, she was here ten years ago and she sang in the choir. And her brother has the Brackin Real Estate. [on the Boulevard mentioned earlier]
INT: Oh, really?
MR: And insurance. Yeah, they're old timers.
INT: When you were growing up here, did you go to St. Peter's Church? [She was married there in 1936, and attended that church for the rest of her life. My father’s funeral service was held there in 1953. And at my Mom’s request, I had her service and interment in the memory garden there in 1999 after her death in late 1998. She is listed on the Plaque there with all the others who have made this same decision.]
MR: Uh-huh.
INT: What was it like? Is it a lot different now than it used to be?
MR: Well, we met up in the school, you know, the St. John's School, had Sunday school there. And my teacher was -- do you know Sally --
INT: Spinosa?
MR: Yeah.
INT: But that wasn't her name.
MR: No, she was -- I forget what she was. She was my sister's friend.
INT: Uh-huh.
MR: And her mother was my Sunday school teacher. And do you know Jean Jones? [It was Jean Jackson] Jean Spottingswood.
INT: I've heard the name Jean Spottingswood, yeah.
MR: Yeah. Well, she was in my class in school. And then Sunday school. And Margie Orgain too. And she lived on the Boulevard. And they all went to St. John's. Everybody told me -- I said, "Why don't they go to the public school?" She said they can't make it in the public school. That's what -- that was what the kids all said, that's all I know. But they were taught to curtsy, and the boys had to bow. And Jack Hildreth went to the school up there. He had to bow to the teachers. And then they went
INT: And this was the school that later became the Wilson School?
MR: Uh-huh. Yeah, Mrs. Wilson.
INT: Theresa Wilson. Did you ever know her?
MR: Oh, sure. Very much so. She was the principal up there. And we had church up there in that school.
INT: Oh, and I guess Mr. Wilson was the rector?
MR: Rector in Boonton.
INT: In Boonton. But he was instrumental in getting St. Peter's Church started too.
MR: Well, it was some -- my father was on the vestry when they started, and they all put some money into the church. I don't know whether they gave bonds or what. I wasn't listening to that kind of stuff then. We also had church over in the Masonic Hall.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: Uh-huh. No place to kneel. And then we finally got -- I don't know whether it was Bishop Washburgh. [Washburn] I was already confirmed in Brooklyn before we came out here. My mother didn't -- I don't think she ever came to my confirmation. [My Grandfather was an Episcopalian but my grandmother was Catholic and in those days they did not enter a Protestant church] But eventually when she got back into Mountain Lakes, then she started making friends and her best friend was Lou Whitting. Did you ever know the Whitting’s?
INT: Gee, they were descendants from the hardware store in Dell's Village?
MR: That's --
INT: That's a Whitting family. Is that them? I know --
MR: Dick.
INT: Dick. And I can't think of his wife's name.
MR: I don't know.
INT: I know who you're talking about.
MR: Yeah. Well, Audrey was the daughter of the Whitting’s, and they lived on Ball Road. This side. And my father was very active in the Masonry, and he was a Shriner and all of that, so he got into the Shrine more and with the men and everything, and then she met the wives, and they all drove, so they picked her up and she had it made. So then she had -- she would make me take her to do her shopping. So that's the way that was. But then she was really happy so my father got sick, and he was -- Halloween they brought the kids down to Brooklyn to see the parade.
INT: Oh, really?
MR: And then my father took my brother and my sister to have ice cream, you know. So he says, "You're not going out and destroying anybody's property." [It was Halloween] Because I know one boy that went to school with my brother, and oh, boy, he did some terrible --
INT: What did he do?
MR: Well, there was a family that did live on the end there where that child was killed? That's why they made it a one-way street.
INT: Oh, on Kenilworth?
MR: No. No.
INT: Larchdell Way.
MR: Do you remember that?
INT: No, I don't remember that.
MR: Oh, you don't? I don't know how many years it is now. But that woman, she just -- she was drunk and she killed this child. And so she lived right near Ruth Watts, if you know where she lives.
INT: On Pocono Road.
MR: Yeah. And she got that car up to Dover fixed up and all, and nobody knew what happened. And it was the man who owned the drug store down in Dell's Village. Not Dell's Village. Down behind the stores.
INT: In Mountain Lakes there was a drug store? [The druggist’s name was Dr. Boooze]
MR: Yeah. Yeah. There was. And he owned it. And it was his child because he lived in that house. The child was coming home from school. That was a very terrible thing to have happened.
INT: Yes.
MR: And so they started to drive a little bit fast before we even left going through there. At night I was in bed and I would hear "shooo" right straight through.
INT: They go pretty fast down the Boulevard.
MR: Do they?
INT: I think we're almost out of tape so I wanted to ask you one last thing. How do you think Mountain Lakes has changed over all the years that you've been seeing it?
MR: Oh, I think it's changed in a lot of ways but I just don't know how to -- I just don't know how to say it.
INT: Well, are the families different?
MR: Well, I guess back in the old days they probably left kids, because I know Grandma Watts, the one that got us out, she used to go up -- because Skip's father lived on the first street, when you turn to go up there. The first street. And it comes out on Pocono, you know, you go up that street and then you go up further and
INT: Oh, East Shore Drive?
MR: I don't know what the name of it is. Shore Road or something like that.
INT: Yes. Yes. East Shore Road.
MR: And they lived in a house up there. And they used to just put him in bed and go dancing. He was a baby. And you know, we didn't have a good fire department then. When we first moved out here my father said, "Well, if I'm going to move out here I'm going to be a help to them and I'll go and join the fire department." So he joined the fire department. We had a big fire down at Morris Avenue somewhere. I can't place it. I know where the house is. A big white house On that side of the street. And it was a girlfriend of mine's father's house. He was a doctor. And my father got up and, Where are my shoes? Where are my socks? Where is this? Where is that? By the time he got there, they got the fire out. He said, "I guess I'm not a fireman." So that's the way that went. But it was -- in those days it was known as ten-cent millionaires.
INT: Oh, really? I've never heard that phrase.
MR: Because everybody charged down at Yaccarino’s. Rudy Yaccarino.
INT: And maybe then they weren't too quick to pay?
MR: They ducked out in the night.
INT: Really?
MR: Oh it was terrible. So when we moved we took milk from Stickle out in the township and oh, his milk was so wonderful. And it would have cream on it like this with the -- you know, the cap was being pushed up in the winter.
INT: I remember that.
MR: And you could whip it.
INT: Yeah.
MR: His milk was wonderful. So they found out about Stickle. And she was taking the milk from him, and she grabbed him one morning and she said, "You haven't left me a bill." "Oh," he said, "don't worry about it," he said, "everybody has a bill." She said, "Well, what do you mean, everybody has a bill?" She said, "I want to pay you every week. "Oh," he said, "that's too much trouble. So they worked it out that she would pay him every two weeks. And that was the big thing then. People were losing their homes and, you know, trying to keep up with the Joneses. That was the answer.
INT: There was a lot of that.
MR: Oh, yes.
INT: A lot of people get at the club dressing very fancy and buying things that they couldn't afford?
MR: Well, I don't know because I wasn't going to the club then.
INT: Well, I don't mean necessarily, but, I mean, you know.
MR: No, we joined the club, my husband and I joined, he liked to bowl, and he used to take me over there on Sunday to watch them, you know, practice. He said, "Come on, try this." So I got up and I tried it and I didn't like it, this big old heavy ball thing. And every one I tried went down the gutter. So I said, "Forget it. I'll just sit here and watch you." And then shortly after that I got pregnant [1938] and then I had a good excuse. I don't want to bowl.
INT: So after you were married did you raise your children in Mountain Lakes or in Parsippany, on Intervale Road?
MR: Yeah. And then I lived over where Mary Bell lives because my father knew the man that owned that place because he made sort of a little summer place of it, and he lived on that Shore Road too that I spoke about. And he was the inventor of the crossword puzzle. [The entrance of 202 is still called Bell Road. I started kindergarten when we lived at Wynn’s in 1944, and we caught the school bus at Bells Service Station on 202. The little building is still there.]
INT: Oh, really?
MR: Yes, and he went to our church.
INT: Really? Do you know his name?
MR: I did. It will come some time. I don't know when. But Wynn.
INT: Winn, W-I-N-N?
MR: I think it was spelled differently.
INT: W-Y-N-N?
MR: You might find it in the church books. That big book.
INT: He invented the crossword puzzle?
MR: Yeah. He was a nice man. And I knew his wife and his children. And so they had that house. And I lived on York Road at that time. My second child was born in Mountain Lakes. [John] Well, he was born in Morristown, but in the hospital of All Souls. Then we moved from there. We stayed there a year. And she's up in that Hackettstown place.
INT: Oh, Julie Campbell? No?
MR: No, this is way back. She's been up there for years. The only person I can think of was Julie Campbell from our church who has been up there.
MR: I don't know.
INT: Well --
MR: Anyway, there were two people that were from our church. And we had -- I'll tell you who lives in the house that I lived in. Now I can't think of his name. His wife is on that bulletin board. She has long hair. She was a Franklin.
INT: And she lives -- where was this house?
MR: Yorke Road.
INT: Yorke Road. [Off Intervale Road on the way out to 46. A left turn just past where Midvale runs into Intervale. Maple Way is first and then Yorke Road.]
MR: It was -- we had rented it and it was cold, it had casement windows. It was so cold.
INT: And when was this about? Was that in the ‘40s?
MR: Yeah. And oh, I just couldn't wait to get out of that place. I said to the milkman, "If you ever hear of anything for rent, let me know." So he came back and he said, "I got the best place for you," and he told me where it was. And I said, "Oh, I know that place. I'm going to write to Mr. Wynn." And so I wrote to him and he said -- I explained to him that I was John Brown's daughter and so forth. And he and my father used to go. We had an organist for the church, [Jean Wycoff] and I guess they gave us some money, I guess. I don't know. But she didn't lead the choir or anything like this fellow does. He's wonderful. And my father could play any instrument and he didn't need my music. And so Mr. Ramsey would call him up.

End of Interview

Scanned from paper transcript by Andrew Bulfer, edited (for typographical errors) by Margarethe P. Laurenzi, January 2007.

Minor corrections and [amplifications] made by son Robert L. Rohrer and his maternal uncle, John ‘Jack’ Brown on January 17, 2007. I would simply add my mother was already advancing into dementia at the time of this interview. She passed away just three years later here in Winston Salem, North Carolina, where my wife Jonnie and I were caring for her. She was an intelligent, well-spoken woman, but I can see the confusion in many of her responses here. I still found it a priceless piece, and both my Uncle Jack Brown, 86, and still living in Florida, and I learned a couple of things we did not know. I have also provided the below chronology to clarify many of the dates my mother is attempting to relate.

EARLY CHRONOLOGY OF MARION ROHRER AND GEORGE ROHRER
By Robert L. Rohrer
Year 
1922  11 year old Marion Brown moves to Morris Avenue, Mountain Lakes.
1923  Living on Morris Avenue.
1924 Living on Morris Avenue.
1925  Living on Morris Avenue, Brother Jack enters first grade at the Stone School.
1926  Moved back to Brooklyn.
1927  Moved back to Mountain Lakes to the house on Larchdell Way.
1928  Living on Larchdell Way.
1929  Living on Larchdell Way, and, of course, the start of the great Depression.
1930  Living on Larchdell Way.
1931 Marion and George first met at Mt. Lakes club dance; met again Masonic Temple Christmas dance, says he will call.
1932 Mom sees him working for Borough in the Canal on Lake Drive, finally calls February 27 or 28, proposes May 22.
1933 Father works for Borough of Mt. Lakes ‘31 & ‘32; rooms at Mitchell’s, 21 Cobb Road.
1934 Father leaves for Venezuela February 1, and is stationed at Ciudad Bolivar, Gulf Oil Company.
1935 Returns May 31; living in Boonton; Mom said he went to NY almost every day looking for work.
1936 Married June 27; working for George Peterson, Albany, NY and Washington, DC; Job ends in Dec.
1937 Living in Boonton apartment; father starts job with Socony Vacuum Oil Company, 26 Broadway, NY.
1938 Move to Intervale Road, Parsippany; My maternal grandfather dies March 21.
1939 Living on Intervale Road, Parsippany across from Brackin’s. Bob is born in Morristown.
1940 Move to Cobb Road, Mountain Lakes next door to Art and Alice Granzen.
1941 Move to Larchdell Way, Mountain Lakes with Grandma Brown.
1942 Grandmother moves back to Buffalo; Parents move to Yorke Road, Mountain Lakes; Brother John Born.
1943 Move to Wynn’s on Manor Lake in Parsippany. Rental home owned by Mr. Wynn.
1944 Living at Wynn’s; Bob starts Kindergarten.
1945 Living at Wynn’s. Wynn sells house.
1946 Move to 444 Cornelia Street, Boonton.
1947 Living in Boonton.
1948 Move to Room Road Towaco.
1949 Towaco.
1950 Towaco.
1951 Towaco.
1952  Towaco
1953  Towaco. Father Dies on Valentine’s Day, February 14; Morristown Memorial; 3 months short of 49.
1954 Mother moves back to 17 Maple Way, Mountain Lakes, located in the development that had been nicknamed "Diaper Village" after world WWII. Bob goes to MLHS until he leaves for the USMC in 1958. Brother John does as well until he leaves for the USAF in 1959. Marion lives there until she moves to a retirement apartment in Boonton where she was living at the time of this interview. She passed away in North Carolina on November 20, 1998 at the age of 87.



 Oral Histories and Recollections