SOME PROVIDED CARE
Some Provided Care by Pat and Tom Willis, photo of display taken 2/2009. Click on the image to enlarge the display.
Murray Oliver
Because his mother was killed in a car accident Murray Oliver was born prematurely. A sickly asthmatic child who also contacted polio, he was raised by his uncle and aunt. When an adult, married and with four children, his condition worsened to the point that his doctors recommended he leave the humid climate of his St. Lawrence home and get away from the dust of farm work. They suggested the Adirondacks, so his family moved here in 1936.Murray worked for Paul Smith's Hotel for about a year, then went to work on building the road to Malone. After the road was finished, he became too sick to work anymore and had to spend his last year in bed. He succumbed at age 38. Although his wife, Lena Secord Oliver, said that he seemed to breathe better in the Adirondacks, he still didn't live more than six years after moving here.
Ruth Oliver Tucker
Ruth was one of Murray and Lena Oliver's four children. She was four years old when the family moved to Brighton. When her father died, the family had to go on welfare and mother Lena worked for the Hobart family. Ruth and her older brother Don went to work at 14. Ruth paid for their fuel, and her brother paid the rent. Ruth got a job at Gabriels San where she worked her way up from waitress at Rest-a-While Cottage, next as cook at St. Margaret's Convent, then to preparing special diet trays for patients during her last two years at the Infirmary. Ruth remembers her career at Gabriels San gratefully as a very good place to work. Today (2002) she helps run the Tucker farm (formerly) the Hobart Farm). She keeps the books, plants and cares for the vegetables and flower gardens, and keeps house for her farm family. Over the years she has also been very active in the community in Church, Cub Scouts, Grange, Camp Gabriels and Town Government affairs.Francis E. Martin
Francis worked at Gabriels Sanatorium in the fall, winter and spring of 1945-46. He writes: “During the school year, September 1945 through the end of June, 1946, I was employed at the cafeteria-dining room of Rest-a-While. I only worked weekends, because of school, mostly Saturdays and some Sundays. My job was cleaning, mopping, washing pots and pans, and scrubbing and drying of some dishes. For our work we had our meals in the separate part of the area for the help.This was after WWII, and some veterans came there to recover. One I remember was Joe Catalano, who stayed in the area - Saranac Lake and married and lived there with his family. At the time we, our family, had moved from Bloomingdale (1940-45) to Easy Street, not too far away, in July and August. While at Easy Street, our house on the hill had been the Herb Tyler home. Our family lived there till the early 1970’s and today the Leflers have it.
The summer of 1946, July and August (summer vacation from school) I worked at Paul Smith's as a laborer to get the buildings ready for the fall and first semester of Paul Smith’s College which opened in September 1946.”
Rachel Vivlamore Cummings: Memories of Gabriels Sanatorium 1928-1945
My family moved to Gabriels, July 24, 1928. I was fourteen years old. My Dad was an engineer. I walked to the two room school in the eighth grade and took the bus to high school in 1933. When I was sixteen I waited tables for four ladies' vacation. I worked for Sister Mary Paul in ’33-34 and again in ’42-43 for Mother Brenda and Dr. Hayes. Living in Gabriels San was the happiest years of my life. I was away from Gabriels from 1943 until I returned to Saranac Lake to take care of my dear mother. She died in 1983.
While I was away forty years, Gabriels San changed to a nursing home, then Paul Smiths College and now a prison, but the precious memories of doing these lists—I have lived each one: of being with the Sisters of Mercy, the patients who were also friends and those who worked there.
| Sisters of Mercy: | The Buildings: | |
| Mother Xavier | Mother Brenda | The Round House—2 men |
| Sister Mary Paul | Mother Consolata | St. Elizabeth Cottage—4 workers |
| Sister Anita | Sister Enda | Mary D'Arcy Cottage—family (ours) |
| Sister Visitation | Sister Philitas | Loretta Cottage-patients |
| Sister Perpetua | Sister Madeline | Knights of Columbus Buildings (Infirmary |
| Sister Pauline | Sister Thomasina | Unit #3—member patients |
| Sister Vincent | Sister Thomas | Unit #4—member patients) |
| Sister Raphael | Sister Lucy | Rest-a-While—women patients |
| Sister Theresa | Sister Martin | Old Convent—St. Therese |
| Sister Alexander | Sister Winifred | New Convent—St. Margaret |
| Sister Helen | Sister Martha | Beautiful Chapel |
| Sister Geraldine | Priests Bungalow | |
| Sister Alexis | Kerin Cottage—men Post Office | |
John W Genaway
According to deeds in the Franklin County Clerks Office in Malone, New York, John W.and Madge C. Genaway bought property on the esker at the Southwest end of Rainbow Lake in 1905. They had a camp there until 1929 when they sold to the Carl E. Whitneys.Mr. Genaway was a prominent attorney of Malone, holding important positions in legal, civic, service and fraternal organizations, including the Masons, the Kiwanis, and the Independent Order of Foresters 1. For a time Mr. Genaway acted as business manager for the Rainbow Sanatorium. 2. Perhaps it was he who in 1910 influenced the Foresters to locate their TB Sanatorium on the shore of Rainbow Lake.
Brighton History Days have been held one weekend each summer since 1994, sponsored by the Brighton Architectural Heritage Committee.
Footnotes
1. Malone Telegram, Genaway obituary, 2/21/55, courtesy Davis Minnick, Wead Library, Malone
2. Rainbow San Annual Reports, 1925
