THE THINGS WE DO...: Mountaindale: going back in time (07/18/04)

THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Mountaindale: going back in time

It is true what they say about taste and smell bringing back memories. With the first lick of that strawberries-and-cream Campino candy, I was again about 9 or 10 years old, and back in Mountaindale, N.Y.

With my newly found friend I was picking and eating strawberries, really big, ripe, wonderful strawberries which just happened to be waiting for us in the garden. Neither she nor I realized that these were not ours to pick, that they were in her grandmother's garden, and grandma had other plans for them. Of course, she would have shared them with us, but it was not up to us to pick and eat as many as we could stuff into our mouths straight from the plants.

My family spent two summer vacations in Mountaindale; it was an idyllic time in our life. My sister, Nusia, was about 1 12 years old that first summer, and had just learned to walk. No, not walk, run! At times, none of us could catch her. It was dangerous, because at the end of the yard and garden was a small stream. We were staying in a large white Victorian or Queen Anne-styled home, with a porch all around the house. There was a summer kitchen in a separate building alongside the main house where my mother prepared our meals.

My mother met the owner of the house at the SUM camp in Ellenville, where I had been at camp. This older woman and my mother struck up a conversation. She was from one of the earlier immigrations to America, and had somehow wound up in Mountaindale, a small resort town on the way to Monticello. She was a widow, with a daughter and granddaughter, had many rooms in her big house and welcomed summer guests.

So, the next summer we piled into the car and, with quite vague directions (and my mother didn't clearly remember what the woman looked like), we found our way to Mountaindale. It is southwest of Ellenville, just on the other side of the Ulster/Sullivan county border. I do not remember the babusia's name, nor that of her granddaughter. But I do remember Snowflake, her large white collie or husky. (I guess for that time of my youth, he had made more of an impression on me.) Memories can get clouded, embellished or remain vague. But some also stay crystal clear. I am surprised how some images of those two summers still remain with me.

For the second summer in Mountaindale, we had company. My mother told another family about the lovely place, and the Holowchaks joined us. Our two mothers cooked together, our fathers listened to the radio and discussed politics. The Hungarian Revolution did not begin until the fall of 1956, but already that summer something was brewing, because I vividly remember our two fathers huddled over the short-wave radio in the summer kitchen, listening intently to something about troops or a crisis in Hungary.

Many years later I met Chrystia Holowchak-Debarry again, and - from my memory - she did not look that much different from the friend I played with in Mountaindale. Already then she was an artist, and painted during her summer vacation. I still remember the painting of the two chickadees on a pine branch that she just completed and how impressed I was with her talent.

The grandmother had a daughter, with a child my age. We played together, but I do not remember her name anymore. We picked those contraband strawberries, and we played in the creek at the end of the very long yard. From MapQuest, I found out that this was Sandburg Creek. This is where I first caught pollywogs and minnows, and wondered about the shell imprints in the stones - we were in the mountains, so how did the shells get here? Many years later I studied sedimentary rocks in Geology 101 and got the answers.

One day our two mothers decided to make pampushky, or jam-filled doughnuts. This was a fascinating example of how the grass is always greener on the other side. Each mom made her version of the pastry - her mother made the deep-fried round ones, and my mother made the flatter, not-so-deep fried ones with the pale ring around the edge, where the oil did not touch the dough. I gulped down the other mother's doughnuts, while my friend headed straight for my mother's pampushky. Each of us had never had the other kind.

In searching for information about Mountaindale, I came across its website, www.mountaindaleny.com, presented by the Diversified Realty Services of Sullivan County. The whole area is booming, according to the realtors. The "Living History of Mountaindale" page is something that could be emulated by Soyuzivka, Oselia SUM, Hunter, Plast and other places and organizations.

This is a discussion page, where people reminisce about spending summers in the various bungalow camps and kuchalains (bungalows with summer kitchens) in the area. These were the Jewish/Yiddish camps of the Borscht Belt. On this webpage, long-lost friends find each other, catch up on decades of news and discuss the history of Mountaindale.

Alas, there was no reply to my query about the lady who owned Snowflake. I think she was the only Ukrainian living there. Imagine how many old friends could be found on a "living history" site for Soyuzivka after all these years, or maybe a Ukrainian Catskills site that would encompass the whole area.

One of these days, I will drive through Mountaindale again, and see if the white house with the big porch is still standing. My summers there were really special. All I have to do is pop another Campino to remember even more.

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