February • 2011 • NEWSLETTER

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Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

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Our February forecast calls for colorful valentines, interesting reading and comfort food, all of which are included in this latest newsletter. Just a reminder that the best way to navigate through our newsletter for optimal enjoyment is online by clicking the “Click here” link after “Can’t view the images?”

As always, feel free to forward our newsletter on to a friend or family member. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like a copy of your own each month, just clink this link to sign up yourself.

—John Burlingham at Reminisce

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In this issue:

• Bergen Pines Was Home in Era of Tuberculosis
• Picture from the Past
• Stirring Up Memories
• Off the Bookshelf
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

West Virginia’s Mountain Railroads

All aboard! Rail fans will love this trip through the mountains of West Virginia on five historic railroads: Cass Scenic Railroad, Durbin Rocket, Cheat Mountain Salamander, Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad and Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Get an up-close look at mining at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine and learn about horse-drawn vehicles at the Thrasher Carriage Museum. Revel in the scenic beauty of the area and marvel at the spectacular New River Gorge Bridge. Relax at the luxurious Stonewall Resort in Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park. Come join us for a relaxing and fascinating rail adventure!

Click here for more information .

Bergen Pines Was Home in Era of Tuberculosis

By Terri Cook
Vista, California

One February morning in 1937, the three children in our family were taken by our father to a place we later knew as Bergen Pines Hospital in Oradell, New Jersey, where we were ushered up to the second floor of the Children’s Preventorium.

I was 10 years old, my sister, Bette, was 9 and my brother, Billy, was 4. We did not understand why we were leaving our childhood home, although Dad probably told us it was to be near our mother, who was in the same hospital. I later found out we were “positive tuberculin reactors,” or victims of tuberculosis.

We were placed in a large room, the top half of which was made of glass. For 14 days, we were quarantined from about 60 other children who lived in the separate boys’ and girls’ dorms, divided by a nurse station. When we joined the other children, our previous room was sealed off with brown sticky paper and fumigated with a sulfur candle.

Windows lined the dorms, and an outdoor balcony ran along the entire length. When we were quarantined, we had to greet our visitors from the balcony. There was also a schoolroom containing all the grades, although we spent more time on crafts than studies.

We had a bright dining area with tables that seated eight, plus games and a Victrola. Both girls and boys ate there. We became familiar with routines and accepted our lot. We soon learned to make our beds in hospital fashion.

We had chest X-rays numerous times, traveling by tunnel to Building Four. We were also subjected to three painful scarlet-fever injections plus other shots that caused fever and pain. We were given some pills that tasted like parsley. At times, we received sunbaths under batteries of Alpine lamps in order to absorb ultraviolet radiation.

We found out that our mother was in Building Four, which was visible to us across a grassy, treed area. She had tuberculosis and had lost five sisters to the disease. When Dad came to visit, he would take us to talk to Mom, who was up on a balcony. In later months, she could visit with us on the grounds.

For our playtime, we were taken into a wooded area, where we moved logs and rocks to form rooms to play house. Once in a while in the summer, we’d frolic under a tall shower placed in the driveway.

We looked out on celery fields with black soil, and sometimes a worker would bring us a bunch. We would let down a string to bring up the celery.

Once in a while, someone from the outside world sent us toys and gifts, and one elderly man made wooden puzzles for us. We also saw some films and attended religious services in Building Four.

After 18 months, we went home. Mom stayed at a convalescent home in Verona for a while but eventually came home. Later, Mom was very active and lived to be 82.

Click here for nostalgic stories .

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Pictures from the Past

Kay Huffman of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, shares with us these wonderfully elegant valentine postcards from the past.	View larger image View larger image
View larger image

Click here to see more Pictures From the Past.

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Stirring Up Memories

Apple and Onion Beef Pot Roast

In the middle of winter, what’s better than a slow-cooked meal to stick to the ribs? Check out this great slow-cooker recipe and other great offerings at Taste of Home, and take a look at how slow-cooking used to be done in the story below.

By M.V. Stivison
San Jose, California

I wonder how many people who grew up in the 1920s and ’30s remember the fireless cooker, which was basically a 1-1/2-foot square box with a hinged lid. A nest or hollow in the box containing some good insulation was just big enough to fit a round pan that came with the cooker.

The final component was a heavy round stone that fit in the bottom of the hollow. The stone had a wire hook in the top so it could be lifted and carried when it was hot.

A pot roast or stew would be started in the round pan on a kitchen range at the same time that the stone was being heated. When the stone was hot and the stew was boiling, the stone was lowered into the cavity of the box, the pan of boiling food was put on top of the stone and the lid was closed.

At suppertime, a delicious slow-cooked meal was ready for the family. In this way, the kitchen range didn’t have to be kept going all day. This type of cooking was so popular that the first electric stove we bought in 1930 had a fireless cooker built in, with an electric element replacing the stone.

I still recall how the fireless cooker could tenderize “the front leg off a racing steer,” as the saying went. I could make baked beans that were the talk of the country and turn out brown bread that makes my jaws salivate even as I write this.

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Off the Bookshelf

By John Burlingham
Senior Editor

The Cold War’s ability to feed paranoia, inflate corruption and destroy personal lives in the 1940s and ’50s is eloquently portrayed in Phantom Spies, Phantom Justice by Miriam Moskowitz, whose life was forever damaged by a questionable rush for justice.

Moskowitz takes the reader from the astonishment over her arrest to a trial so full of inconsistencies and contradictions that it’s a wonder the lawyers and judge involved were not reprimanded and witnesses charged with perjury. The worst of it, Moskowitz recalls thinking while first put in jail, was that she would “be unable to overcome the distorted view the world would be fed of who I was.”

The author provides a very personal account of how she felt unjustly persecuted and makes the case that the trial gave opportunistic lawyers and an injudicious judge a grab at notoriety and a warm-up for the now famous Rosenberg trial. The portion of the book involving the trial sometimes bogs down with detail, but the heavy reliance on testimony is necessary to expose blatant contradictions and prejudicial rulings.

After many years of tracking down documents and digging up information, Moskowitz has written a revealing book about justice gone awry during the Red Scare. While the book is certainly a personal crusade to clear her name, it is also an engaging exposition of the skewed logic, trumped-up charges and overzealous attacks that sometimes accompanied the hunt for Communist sympathizers.

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Time Capsule Trivia

Love is in the air as Valentine’s Day approaches, so your task is to match the clues below with the movie titles containing the word love that follow.

1. Fast-moving 1961 comedy in which advertising executive Doris Day tires to get account away from rival Rock Hudson, not realizing that the products doesn’t exist.

2. In this lighthearted 1938 film, a high school boy tries to juggle two girlfriends, and what girls—Judy Garland and Lana Turner!

3. Maurice Chevalier plays the private-eye dad of Audrey Hepburn, who is pursued by Gary Cooper in director Billy Wilder’s 1957 comedy.

4. This star-studded 1960 musical has Yves Montland trying to charm Marilyn Monroe by hiring Bing Crosby to help him sing, Milton Berle to teach him comedy and Gene Kelley to teach him dancing; director George Cukor’s film also stars Tony Randall.

5. One of the longest and most thrilling fight scenes ever staged is included in this 1963 British spy film.

A. Love in the Afternoon; B. Love Finds Andy Hardy; C. From Russia with Love; D. Let’s Make Love; E. Lover Come Back.

Click here for the answer to Time Capsule Trivia.

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A Thought to Remember

It’s never too late, in fiction or in life, to revise.

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