While we were living in Canton, St. Lawrence County, NY, St. Lawrence University was building a new building on their campus. A sturdy wood structure had been built as an office for the contractor and the Clerk of Works. When the university building was completed, I noticed an ad in the local paper indicating that the wood structure that had been used as offices for the contractor was up for sale. The man advertising it was the Clerk of the Works, Roy Saucier, who had just moved onto our street, Pearl Street. I did not know him at the time. I phoned him and over the phone bought the building for $200. He said it had to be moved off the site within just a few days. As area supervisor of Parole for the northern district, 5 northern counties, I was friendly with the NYS Police in Canton. One of them told me that the wife of one of the troopers worked at the office of the St. Lawrence Power Authority which had been responsible for building the Eisenhower locks which enabled large ships to travel the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes.

In this Project it was necessary to flood many acres of land causing many miles of new St. Lawrence beaches. The State Power Authority was leasing large plots of land along the new beaches. The leasee was given a twenty year lease which was renewable indefinitely for ten or twenty dollars a year. I phoned the State Police Lieutenant's wife and was able to get a large plot of land going from a road right down to the water.

I then had to hire a helper and then we had to build a foundation for the building we purchased from St. Lawrence University. We built a foundation without any cement by laying down two parallel foundation walls with a sufficient number of layers of cement blocks so that things could be stored underneath the building. We layered the cement blocks with pieces of wall insulation board.

Then we hired a company to move the building from the campus to our lot on Wilson Hill, St. Lawrence River. It was 29 miles. It was quite a project to move the building. It was jacked up and placed on a long trailer and some overhead wires along the way had to be pushed up. When it arrived at Wilson Hill, the truck pulled right through the parallel rows of cement blocks that we had placed for a foundation and lowered the building onto the blocks, a perfect fit.

The next problem was that we had to have a septic tank before any further work could be accomplished. As I remember the legal requirements was there had to be at least 15 feet of pipes for each person in the household so that was a lot of pipes, 15 x 13. The piping was a special type with perforated holes in the bottom of the pipe. We hired a helper and we all dug the lines for the pipes and the hole for the septic tank.

The next thing was to have water for the house. It was too expensive for us to drill a well as the actual water to drink would be many feet down into the earth and the supply was unknown at that time. So we laid a pipe from the house to the St. Lawrence River or lake as the area we were in is now called. That was also a lot of piping needed for that, a fairly long distance. We bought a small clorinated type of unit that would drip drops of clorine into the water as it was piped up to the house.

Mom especially wanted a bathtub because of all the kids. So that was a priority. We installed a large hot water tank that was sufficient for hot water for baths. All the kids were helpful in doing things to make liveable at the Lake and especially the older ones.

We wanted to make a good beach so Mom assigned everybody to pick up 5 stones each time they went swimming. We arranged for a large truckload of sand to be delivered from Canton to the Lake to help us have a sandy beach. A State Police Sargeant borrowed a truck and he and I shoveled the sand onto the truck and then shoveled it when we got to the beach. He drove the truck.

I was teaching at St. Lawrence University at the time and a student of mine, a hockey star, wanted to get rid of a motorcycle he had. It was a small cycle but very satisfactory. I bought the motorcycle, it was a Jawa, 50 c.c. Norbie drove the bike a lot. He worked summer as a lifeguard at a state park on the St. Lawrence and drove the bike to and from work and also around town. There was no thought of helmets in those days so we didn't use a helmet. The motorcycle could seat two people and I liked to drive it also. A neighbor friend, Kaye Reasoner, asked for a ride. I remember driving her around town. Norbie's Godfather, Bill Grandon, whom I met at Fordham University, visited us at camp and wanted to try out the motorcycle. He lost control and wound up with the bike in the St. Lawrence.

One day we had the bike in Potsdam and Frank wanted to ride it in a large parking lot as I recall. Somebody opened a car door as Frank was passing; Frank hit it and broke his leg.

We had a lot of fun at the camp and I stayed there most of the summer not only for my two week vacation but I commuted back and forth from Canton to the camp. In the morning I would load up the car with dirty laundry and drive to work and put all the dirty laundry in a wash machine in a laundromat which was across the street from my office. Then I would go to work and would leave work for a few minutes to put the clothes in the dryer and after work would take the clean linen and clothes back to the camp.

One day I met a man who became a good friend to the family at the laundromat. His name was Bob Beismiester. He and his wife Jean became good friends in Canton and later in the Albany area where both families eventually moved. One day when I went to the laundromat in Canton from the office there was this man, Bob Beirmeister, putting his laundry through a wash machine. The problem was he had put too much soap in the washing machine and sods were coming out of the machine onto the floor. That's how we got acquainted.

Mom and the kids and I had a lot of fun at camp; Father Francis and Helen and Grandma Woods spent a week or so with us. While they were there Father Francis would say an early Mass in a small town a few miles from the camp. He would drive there in his car and I would drive there in our car with Anne who was in high school and helped teach a religious class I believe at St. Mary's elementary school. I would serve the Mass and when we left the church Uncle Francis always handed me an envelope which the pastor of the little church had left for him. It contained $5 and Francis would give this to me. I would take Anne to the school in Canton and I would go to work.

One day Harry Donaghy, our friend from Schoharie, flew an airplane from Schoharie to Massena to visit us at camp. He had his daughter with him. Another friend from Schoharie, Billy Vedder, visited us in Canton.

We had a lot of fun with our 14 foot aluminum boat with a fairly large outboard motor. I think it was about 40 hp motor. We boated to Upper Canada Village with the family a few times. We think it was probably about 15 miles from camp. We would buy a loaf or two of bread and jam at the village and eat that as we went through the various little programs there. Upper Canada Village was like Sturbridge Village. We also got to ride in a bateau, a very long old type of boat that would hold several people.

Back at the water near our camp we did a lot of water skiing. One day I took the boat out by myself and just a few yards from the beach I was fooling with the motor trying to get it started. It started suddenly and threw me out of the boat. While going over the side I was able to catch my right big toe under an aluminum seat. The boat kept going in circles while I am just holding on with my big toe under a seat. I could feel the aluminum cutting into my big toe but that way I could keep my body from going into the propeller of the boat. It circled several times but then I could pull myself into the boat and got control and got back into the boat.

Another time I was taking one of the older kids skiing and he put the tow rope around his neck while skiing on one ski with his hands out extended and one foot in the air and all of a sudden he fell. I was able to stop the boat before he got strangled.

I remember at the camp we were able to buy second hand a big riding lawn mower and I would attach a little red wagon to the mower and pull several kids around the large piece of property while cutting the grass.

We had good neighbors and friends next door, the Dutchers. He was a contractor/developer from the south who did work on this St. Lawrence Seaway. He had his own plane and would fly to and from Massena to other jobs in other states. The Dutchers would take two minority underprivileged kids from New York City every summer and our kids enjoyed playing with them. The Dutchers had a large boathouse with a room upstairs and the kids would have fun playing in that room playing the piano and dancing and so on.

The children were very helpful to each other and to us. There were a few humorous and or dangerous incidents that took place.

One evening our Joe had to do number one in the middle of the night and me being lazy grabbed an empty glass and Joe used that. The next morning I thought it was a glass of cider and started drinking it. Another day I was taking Joe somewhere and we were in the car in our driveway at the camp when I left the car running and ran into the camp to get something. Joe, only a baby, somehow put the car into drive and ran into the camp breaking through the outer wall. Thank God he didn't get hurt and I learned a big lesson.

Another day a bad incident occurred because of my carelessness. I left Joe alone for a minute in the car. He got into the glove compartment where I had a bottle of some kind of diet pills as I had been trying to lose weight. Joe took some of the diet pills; we didn't know how many. Anyway it kept Joe up all night and us too as Joe was wide awake and babbling all night long. At the hospital they gave him coca cola syrup and it worked and there were no long term bad effects from this incident. It was one of the worst days of our lives. God was and is still as are our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph very good to us. I did many things wrong and learned by experience.