Told by Ruth Stauffer to Melanie Williams
Ruth Stauffer was born in 1922, in a small farm town outside of Zurich Switzerland. She has known her husband Ed, since she was two years old she met him at her neighbors house. They married after Ed finished college, and some time later - in 1954, they moved to the United States.
Ruth has many stories to share; she has begun her tales in 1970, after five out of her six children were born. She gives the readers a glimpse of their family vacations and experiences. Look forward to Ruth sharing more stories about her past.
In 1970 we went for our second furlough. We went to Switzerland by ship. My husband had to go back for company business. He deposited us on a mountain, in a chalet where we rented some rooms. The lady that rented the rooms cheated us out of a living room. We had been there before and had a living room. She gave us much less space and two of the children even slept on the porch. The irony was that it rained every day. We had to go outside and walk in our galoshes and ponchos because it was impossible to stay indoors, in the kitchen all day.
We had four children at the time. With four children it was really a task. My family was here, in Switzerland. I couldn’t go to them because I had four children. I didn’t have a car or anything else. I would have had to go by bus or train. My mother, niece and sister came to visit us.
One thing had happened: Just as we arrived in Switzerland, my father-in-law died.
He had expected us and had made arrangements at a restaurant to have a dinner for everyone, including my mother and sister. Right after our arrival there was the memorial service. My husband and his brothers divided up the inheritance and with the money we bought a vacation home in Highland Lakes, New Jersey.
We found a homey cottage right on the lake with large Rhododendron bushes. We had to cut them back because it made it to buggy to keep them so big. But there were large clusters of flowers that bloomed in June. They were beautiful! We had a deck that went to the lake and even a raft, and rowboat and canoe. The rowboat leaked, so we had to buy another one. We later bought a Sunfish for sailing. We spent many summers up there, actually eight summers. We sold the vacation home after these summers, and used to money to send three children to private colleges. It was a lot to send them all to school.
Within these eight years we moved to Princeton from Little Falls. The children had a lot of fun swimming, boating, sailing, and being together with their friends all summer long at the lake. I had a lot of fun picking berries: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and boysenberries, you name it. When the children were swimming, I had a little time to fill the jars. We had fresh berries each night for desert.
We also invited our friends from Princeton up for whole Saturdays to join us. This was a lot of fun. I made a large batch of pancakes for lunch. I had a double plate on the stove, which I could heat up and make pancakes. They wouldn’t stick at all. I could just pour the batter on top and get full pancakes; one batch right after the other. It was an easy way to feed the crowd.
We had a bedroom for the parents, and one for the girls. The boys slept downstairs; there was another bedroom in the basement. We had a large living room and great room. We had a picture window that faced the lake. We could watch the sailboats. Ed watched through binoculars and caught the boatmens mistakes he would tell them later what they did wrong.
One of our boys slept on the porch, we ate our dinners there. We had bats in the attic and once they came through the chimney.
In fall, we could just go up for an afternoon or to stay for the night. In the winter, the lake froze very easily, and we could go cross-country skiing on the lake in the woods. There were a lot of possibilities. We would turn the heat up from 55 degrees to seventy-two, and then go outside and sled, skate, or ski. Then we would come in for dinner, and I would make ravioli and a fresh loaf of Italian bread. The children regretted it very much when we had to sell the house, especially the older ones. They wanted to know why we never went anywhere other than Highland Lake. After we sold the house, we rented a mobile home and saw many states. I always said I didn’t want to go tenting, because I didn’t want to housekeep on my knees.
About motor homes: It is entirely a different chapter. We rented motor homes, and later we owned a motor home. We went to Quebec, Guspe Peninsula, then across to New Brunswick, to Nova Scotia, New Found land, and to Prince Edward Island. We always found beautiful parking places especially in Prince Edward Island. We were on a beach and just arrived, and no camping places were available. If you were self-contained, you could park on a cliff. The place we parked, we could see the sunset on one side and the sunrise on the other; it was glorious! The sand was a very, very fine pink color.
It was daylight for a long time during sunset. Everyone wanted to walk alone just to soak up this beauty. The sun would rise on the right hand side.
We also enjoyed going to the Blue Ridge Mountains, which was very beautiful, too.
By Melanie Williams
Published U.S. Legacies February 2004
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