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Saturday, December 30, 2017
1150. Iraqi Savory Dill Biscuits
These Iraqi dill biscuits significantly exceeded my expectations. We Iraqis love to dunk things.. cookies in tea, bread in soup, cake in coffee... so this savory biscuit delighted us all. Even when fresh out of the oven, the biscuit gives a hint of its toughness. As they cool, they dry into an almost stale consistency, but this is all the better for the dunking!.
Posted by Maryam at 4:52 PM 3 comments:
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
1149. Best Chocolate Loaf Cake
I by no means take lightly the claim that this is the best chocolate loaf cake. This coming from a year heavy in chocolate cakes (Kinder Chocolate Loaf Cake, Cocoa Bundt Cake, Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake, Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake, Courgette Chocolate Cake), I would urge you too to take this claim seriously.
Posted by Maryam at 9:34 AM 2 comments:
Thursday, December 21, 2017
1148. Mushroom Chicken Pie
I was gifted a newly released 5 ingredient cookbook, and considering our affinity here at MCW to mushrooms and pies, making the chicken mushroom pie was the first recipe that popped out to try. The result was not a fail, but it was not a success by our standards either. You see, sticking to the limit of five ingredients resulted in what felt like sauteed Chinese mushrooms topped with crusty puff pastry. In short, not something you want from a pie.
Monday, December 18, 2017
1147. Cherry Kebab
This is such a sophisticated dish that is so complex in flavors. A tasty kebab mix is seared, before the most amazing fresh cherry sauce is made in the pan drippings. Savory, with a tinge of sweet and a very pleasant pucker of sour from pomegranate molasses and lemon.
Posted by Maryam at 12:50 PM No comments:
Friday, December 8, 2017
Jerusalem is Ours
Posted by Maryam at 8:10 PM No comments:
Thursday, December 7, 2017
1145. Date Bran Muffins
Bran muffins are one of my favorite excuses of felling better about having cake for breakfast. There are already one or two bran muffin variations on MCW, and this is a well deserved addition to the collection. As a self-admitted affectionado of the date fruit, I was particularly happy about adding that distinct sweetness and mega nutritional value to the already nutritious muffin.
Posted by Maryam at 5:14 PM No comments:
Friday, December 1, 2017
1144. Creamy Mustard Chicken with Mushroom
Tender chicken pieces cooked in a creamy sauce is a favorite classic world-wide anywhere. This specific version has the addition of sauteed mushroom and whole grain mustard to the sauce. The fact that skinless, boneless chicken breasts were used makes this dish express.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
1143. Chickpea and Roast Pepper Salad
Yet another chickpea salad is not what most people seek out, but you'll have to try this one to decide for yourself if this is the best chickpea salad ever. There is a combination of elements that make this salad outstanding, and totally worth the effort, as this makes a giant batch which you will be very happy to have leftovers with.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Time and Again Part 6
There is no order or leading trend for the sixth installment of the Time and Again series so many of you are fond of. Obviously, Iraqi food hold a greater majority presence, but if I had to label, I'd call this a collection of very homey recipes, to very chic ones.
Posted by Maryam at 3:00 PM No comments:
Saturday, November 18, 2017
1141. Chocolate Courgette Sheet Cake
There must be something in the air demanding chocolate cake! Come to think about it, isn't there always something in the air demanding chocolate cake? In any case, I am a late comer to the trend-turned-classic courgette chocolate cake. I'm not sure if this is an American thing, or they simply popularized it, but oh my this is moist to a crazy level.
Posted by Maryam at 6:39 PM No comments:
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
1140. Harissa Roast Chicken
The Moroccan harissa is not to be confused with the Iraqi or Arabian Gulf harissa. The Moroccan harissa is a spicy paste made of dried chilis and combined with a medley of spices and flavorings. It is spicy (obviously), abut also slightly tangy and oh so fragrant. Note that the heat of the spice varies from one manufacturer to another, ranging from mild to light-your-head-on-fire hot.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
1139. Roast Sujuk and Vegetables
I cannot give justice to this tray bake on how much I loved it. I loved it so much that I hated having to share it. A dish chock-full of vegetables, roasted alongside medallions of spicy sujuk sausage, to a golden perfection, and has minimal hands-on? Count me in.
Posted by Maryam at 6:03 PM No comments:
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
1138. Sweet Potato Peanut Brownies
Food that appears to be what it isn't is all the fad right now, if you've noticed. Cauliflower masquerading as rice, cashew as cheese, and chia seeds replace eggs. A particular favorite food to meddle with is brownies. I have seen black bean brownies and pumpkin brownies, but I had a hanker for peanut butter and decided to go with this sweet potato brownie recipe.
Posted by Maryam at 5:08 PM No comments:
Friday, November 3, 2017
1137. Beetroot Hummus
Hummus being the ultimate and original dip, countless variations have popped up over the course of years as serious contenders. One of my unabashed favorites is the pea-mint dip of a while ago. Mama ganouche is not to be confused with beetroot hummus; the former's bulk comes only from beets, whereas the latter's comes from chickpeas and beets.
Monday, October 30, 2017
1136. Steak on Beans and Mushrooms
Quick meals need not compromise health nor flavor. This is a steak lunch healthified. Instead of the loved yet heavy side of fried potato, the steaks are served on a bed of nutritious bean and mushroom saute, further enriched by a reduced stock sauce.
Posted by Maryam at 8:44 PM No comments:
Thursday, October 26, 2017
1135. Isfahan Loaf Cake
Isfahan is the dessert combination of rose, raspberry and litchi, resulting in an amazingly fragrant and sophisticated dish coveted by master patissieres around the globe. This here is an almond pound cake flavored with these aforementioned ingredients and glazed in a rose-white chocolate concoction perfect for any ladies' gathering.
Posted by Maryam at 5:40 PM No comments:
Sunday, October 22, 2017
1134. Special Roast Turkey
While a whole stuffed and roasted lamb on a bed of jeweled rice is quite the feast, a whole roast turkey is also festive and perfect of an intimate gathering between family over Eid, or graduation, or engagement parties. This roast turkey is no ordinary turkey though. It takes a full 24 hours of brining, and another 24 hours drying, before the ultimate 3.5 hours of cooking and 30 minutes of resting to achieve this unbelievably succulent, tender, and juicy turkey.
Friday, October 20, 2017
1133. Chestnut Dressed Rice
This is a very festive rice that can be the bed for a roast turkey or roast leg of lamb alike. In the West, they serve this rice for their thanksgiving or christmas dinners, but only because chestnuts are winter fruits. When you find them conveniently peeled, boiled, and frozen, there is absolutely no reason to not make it for any festive occasion throughout the year.
Posted by Maryam at 12:56 PM No comments:
Labels: rice
Sunday, October 15, 2017
1132. Superfood Breakfast Bars
The previous "regular" muesli bars version here easily replace packaged granola bars in my opinion. Totally customizable, and just as moreish, they are definitely one of my favorites. This version is Nigella's "healthified" breakfast bars, which are chockful of all things good for your body. Healthy does not necessarily mean food good for losing weight, and eating too much from these will not aid your weight loss journey, but they do promise to be a healthy breakfast or snack.
Posted by Maryam at 7:51 PM No comments:
Monday, October 9, 2017
1131. Kale Sauce Spaghetti
It all started with the classic basil pesto coating a dish of pasta. This eventually morphed into a short-lived avocado sauce pasta. Now it's all about the kale. This pasta is coated in an intense kale-y sauce, giving the dish a vibrant green color.
Posted by Maryam at 6:50 PM No comments:
Labels: pasta
Friday, October 6, 2017
1130. Fried Egg and Dukka Bagel
There are two types of dukka: the Palestinian and the Egyptian. I have previously shared the Egyptian one on MCW; it consists of a hazelnut base with a predominance of coriander and cumin seeds. Now the Palestinian dukka, usually a product of Gaza, uses toasted wheatberries as the base, combined with spices similar to those found in zaatar which include sumac and sesame.
Monday, October 2, 2017
1129. Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
It took me months of on and off contemplation before actually pulling the trigger and trying out this mayonnaise cake. While the idea of mayonnaise in a cake might seem off putting, it might help to remember what mayonnaise is made of: eggs and oil. Not-so-strange ingredients in a cake, eh? The result is a fluffy and moist cake that few will believe did not come from a box.
Posted by Maryam at 5:43 PM No comments:
Friday, September 29, 2017
1128. Carrot Curry with Kale and Paneer
This curry breaks the mold for every generic curry. It was so strange to us, but so strangely good too. For me, this has become a new favorite indeed. A flavorsome base including pureed carrots and sultanas is bulked up with coconut milk and roughly shredded kale. The seared paneer cubes are totally optional, but totally worth the extra effort.
Monday, September 25, 2017
1127. Chocolate Berry Cups
Barely a recipe, these impressive dessert cups are simply a realization of assembly. Got chocolate, dulce de leche, and fresh berries? Then you're set. Silicone cups make life easier in making the chocolate cups, but lacking these, just use cupcake liners.
Friday, September 22, 2017
1126. Russian Potato and Mushroom Saute
Discovered through an impromptu conversation about food, someone told be about the Russian potato dish that is basically a comfort food closely associated with many if not all homes of the region who are blessed with mini woods and forests. They would go every fall mushroom picking, and besides pickling their natural harvest (mushrooms just pop up, they are not planted), they would make this saute.
Friday, September 15, 2017
1125. Applesauce Cake
Every once in a while, I like to buy at least twenty golden delicious apples and make a couple jars of compote with them. I enjoy my compote for breakfast or even a light snack. Sometimes, I have a surplus, and this cake makes wonderful use of that. Combining oats, yogurt, and applesauce, I am almost tempted to call this a healthy cake, were it not for the bits of flour and sugar rendering it a healthy-ish cake.
Posted by Maryam at 8:28 PM No comments:
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
1124. Grilled Mushroom Toasts
A hearty vegetarian meal done right will make you forget all about meat. It does help that sauteed mushrooms are somewhat meaty in and of themselves, but piling them up high over some rustic crusty toast with wads upon wads of cheese doesn't hurt either.
Friday, September 8, 2017
1123. Oat Pie
Chewy oat cookies are some of my favorites. I have a couple of reciepes here on MCW, and honestly cannot pinpoint my favorite. There is the one with raisins, another with M&M's... and now this giant oat cookie, served as a pie, swerved with a thick layer of butter frosting.
Posted by Maryam at 12:55 PM No comments:
Friday, September 1, 2017
Eid Al Adha 1438
Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim family. May Allah bless and unite our Islamic Umma, grant a steadfast victory to our brave mujahideen around the globe and award us a life and death in His pleasure only.
Posted by Maryam at 1:39 PM No comments:
Saturday, August 26, 2017
1121. Chicken Fritters
"It smells like Mc Donald's, and that's a good thing." That was the first thing I was told as I was making these fritters. I think it may be the seared cheese seeping from the chicken patties into the hot pan and grilling up its magic. I had to try this recipe to believe how tender and juicy the chicken breast turns out in the cooked fritter.
Friday, August 18, 2017
1120. Quick Vanilla Cookies
I needed a quick cookie recipe that is oat-less, does not require refrigeration, nor any special tools like cutters, pressers, or the sort. Sweet, short, simple, and most of all, appealing to the kiddies. This soft-yet-sturdy cookie fit the bill on every level.
Saturday, August 12, 2017
1119. Bolognese Sauce
One would think a bolognese sauce recipe would be one of the easiest things to come across, but in fact it is one of those things that is so much of a classic that it just had to be messed with. So with all those variant recipes floating around, I believe I have finally found and adapted my personal favorite version of spaghetti bolognese.
Posted by Maryam at 2:54 PM No comments:
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
1118. Iraqi Honeyed Dates
Being blessed with abundant date fruit, us Arabs cannot have enough different ways to get creative in their consumption. These Iraqi honeyed dates (التمر المعسل)are actually an ancient technique driven from a necessity to preserve dates while keeping them moist and chewey, as dried dates can sometimes get a bit tough.
Posted by Maryam at 6:26 PM No comments:
Friday, August 4, 2017
1117. Grilled Chicken over Minted Quinoa
A well-rounded, healthy, and satisfying meal is a bare 30 minutes away from your reality. Grilled chicken breast is far from my favorite, usually being stringy, dry, and tough, but this defies all past experiences in its tang, tenderness, and taste. The quinoa, although a purportedly ancient South American grain, is basking in popularity lately, and for good reason, as it has a very high protein factor and doesn't weigh you down like rice would.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
1116. Chocolate Cornflakes Clusters
If you haven't tried chocolate cornflakes clusters, you're missing out. Top famous chocolatiers sell them behind shiny glass vitrines for easily 90 euros per kilo. Which frankly, is rather unnecessary, as you can see, even a toddler can make them.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
1115. Kale Panzanella Salad
This salad skyrocketed to the top of our favorite salads list from the first bite. I have been having a kale moment for a while now, and while I do enjoy it cooked in stews, I also thoroughly enjoy it raw and finely shredded in a salad. It's just so hearty and substantial. Paired with toasted garlic croutons made from my go-to artisan bread (no-knead, overnight), the lemony dressing made this an almost daily treat for the last couple of months.
Posted by Maryam at 6:19 AM No comments:
Labels: salad
Thursday, July 27, 2017
1114. Yemeni Marag
I realized the term marag has different connotations between the Iraqi and the Arabian Gulf. You see, a marag to the Iraqi is a hearty stew. The consistency of the liquid is just bearely thinner than a soup, and usually has a vegetable and some meat or chicken. To other Arabs of the Gulf, a marag is a broth, which is essentially meat-flavored water used as a base for stews or soups. Now for the Yemeni, marag is a dish in its own right.
Posted by Maryam at 6:52 AM No comments:
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Time and Again, Part 5
The fifth installment of the Time & Again series holds a veritable mishmash of favorite dishes, spanning the realms of Iraq (of course), India, Turkey, Sweden, Qatar, Palestine, Portugal, South America, France, and beyond.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
1112. Arelettes
Arelettes are a genius French cookie, very, very similar to the palmier cookie, yet very, very different in method and structure. Similarities are that only puff pastry and sugar are used. Differences are in the out-of-this world caramelization and crisp of the cookie.
Monday, July 17, 2017
1111. Sundae Bar
Setting up a sundae bar for dessert is a very fun and easy way to end a meal, requires no cooking, and is interactive where everyone builds their own sundae. All you need is a good tub of ice cream and arrange all the various fixings and toppings.
Friday, July 14, 2017
1110. Qatari Chicken Machboos
We've seen how fragrant and delicious Qatari desserts can be (remember sago and ageeli?), now it's time to try their equally fragrant, perfumy, and delicious chicken. The medley of spices almost seems random, until you give it a taste and see for yourself the magnificent outcome. Onion and garlic do form the base, but the heaps of dry lemon, saffron, ginger, turmeric, and others make the chicken sing.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
1109. Mini Fustuqia
For such a simple dessert, the result was fantastic both in presentation and flavor. I would almost consider it a cheat's fustuqia, because compared to my (also amazing) pistachio mafrooka of five years ago (!), the pistachio crust consists of three ingredients versus the classic eight. The "secret ingredient"? Powdered tea biscuits.
Monday, July 10, 2017
1108. Aubergine Kishk Dip
Baba ghanouche comes of as a very tame relative to this pungent and ferocious aubergine dip. Slowly caramelized onions merge with fragrant seeped saffron, which melds with sauteed garlic and plenty of dried mint, all to combine with silky roasted aubergine flesh. But that's not all.
Friday, July 7, 2017
1107. Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake
I think this cake should be renamed to Brown Sugar Cake, but that is no where near as attractive as chocolate cake. I got two reasonably-sized loaves of cake from this recipe, all of which contains a grand total of only 100 grams of dark chocolate. Therefore, what really gives it that special texture and taste is the ratio of brown sugar and butter.
Posted by Maryam at 5:51 PM No comments:
Monday, July 3, 2017
1106. Frozen Yogurt Bark with Berries
While the overly-healthy concept is enough to throw most people off, this dessert must be given a fair chance. I for one, had to google how to eat yogurt bark. Making it was less of a problem than eating it. Sure enough, the gone-in-three-bites serving size is recommended to avoid messy fingers and face.
Posted by Maryam at 8:28 AM No comments:
Thursday, June 29, 2017
1105. Quick Oat Bread
This is a near instant oat bread that barely requires kneading, and absolutely no rising time is involved. Baking powder is the leaving agent, and to add on to how easy the bread is, it is also a very forgiving dough. Too dry, add milk or yogurt. Too wet, add oats or flour.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
1104. Date Rahash Tart
Eid al Fitr 1438 mubarak to all my Muslim family everywhere, especially the blessed muhajireen and mujahideen. May Allah bless our Umma and unite us under His name.
This date rahash dates is a masterpiece. It combines the two favorite Arabian flavors of dates and sesame halva in a tart, held together by the softest and kindest pie crust you can come across. Add some crunch in the form of pecans and almonds, and you've got a tart fit for Eid.
Posted by Maryam at 12:42 PM No comments:
Friday, June 23, 2017
1103. Matar Paneer Curry
I may have mentioned before that curries are numerous and vast in nature, soaring beyond the borders of India, merging with many cultures, each lending their own flavor to the dish. The Thai green curry is so vastly different from the Indian coconut curry, which in turn bears little resemblance to the Iraqi chicken curry. This vegetarian curry features the Indian cheese paneer, and green peas.
Monday, June 19, 2017
1102. Courgette and Lebne Tart
This tart has all the components I love together. A flaky butter crust, topped with a tangy herby luscious lebne, and a gorgeous array of slightly overlapping courgette circles, grilled to perfection. To make it even better, there is not a tart tin in sight.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
1101. Ageeli Baked Donuts
We wanted some saffron-infused ageeli cakes this Ramadan, but in a new bite-sized form. Que the mini baked donut tin. This Qatari cake is perfume to your tastebuds; the luxurious combination of saffron, rosewater, and cardamom will have you feeling like you are feasting in Aladdin's tent.
Posted by Maryam at 11:12 AM No comments:
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Stillness: Biodynamic Cranial Practice and the Evolution of Consciousness
by Charles Ridley
Random House/North Atlantic Books
"It is a book about consciousness from beginning to end... An inspiring and helpful book for beginner and advanced practitioners alike."
-Hugh Milne
author of The Heart of Listening
For books, ebooks, and audio:
"Blending didactic instruction with experiential practice and group processing, Charles creates an environment conducive to learning at the deepest levels of comprehension."
~ Elizabeth Pimentel, ND
"Studying with Charles as he teaches biodynamic cranial work has taken my work to a new level. Charles has challenged me to extend my skills and relax my 'I'll fix it' attitude that I have carried for so long."
~ Steve Schumacher
"Charles Ridley is one of the most authentic practitioners I have ever met in 45 years of working in this field. He is also an explorer and a courageous one."
~ Hugh Milne, author of Heart of Listening
"Thank you for the lifetime developing this work. Even more for the generosity of sharing it so freely. Your classes have no padding, no jargon, no hype, and just delivered again and again in deceptively simple words and actions."
~ Selma Lewis, Ph.D.


text:
Over the past 10 years, Vicki has become one of the UK's leading family & child photographers. Based in the Farnham / Haslemere area of Surrey, Vicki photographs happy families across the whole of Surrey & and parts of SW London & Hampshire.
Vicki also teaches dynamic photography workshops to parents who want to take better photos of their own children.
Find out more about Vicki here.


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Follow the money (The Netherlands) (Human Needs series)
When I took my mother to the shop of the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam she thought she was in a department store. Her reaction inspired me to create this piggy bank, at the same time a diorama. Looking through the slot we can see the most popular painting by Van Gogh: The Almond Blossom. The more money drops into the slot, the less visible Van Gogh becomes.


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During each of our waking hours our minds are either paying conscious or unconscious attention to something. The sensory information that you see, hear, feel, smell or taste in the present moment is what your conscious mind is aware of, while at the same time everything else that's going on in your environment and in your life is what your unconscious mind is aware of.
Here's the twist: your unconscious mind is not unconscious, only your conscious mind is unconscious of what your unconscious mind is conscious of!
When you experience a negative emotion relating to a past experience or anxiety relating to a future event, it's your current internal representation of that situation that you're paying attention to. While you're focussed on that, you're deleting everything else that's going on in the rest of that context and your life.
It's our fixation on internal representations which cause us to feel bad that creates our Hell. The good news is that Heaven is always there in the background. Here's how you can bring Heaven into your foreground:
When you experience an unwanted state identify what it is that you're putting your attention on. This is your foreground.
Now kind of woosh out your awareness, so that it expands to include everything that was in your background in that context. What was your previous background is now your foreground (what you're putting your attention on).
Again, woosh out your awareness, so that it expands to include everything that was in your background (like the rest of your life). What was your previous background is now your foreground.
Again, woosh out your awareness, so that it expands to include everything that was in your background (like the rest of the universe). What was your previous background is now your foreground.
Keep going until that original thing you were paying attention to is seen from a completely expanded awareness (as far as you're comfortable going). Eventually you'll realise that in the greater scheme of things, you don't actually have a problem. Heaven is infinitely bigger than Hell.
This can be a fun and very powerful exercise. Once practised often it becomes something that your awareness does automatically each time a problem arises. In other words, you'll eventually be able to forget about using the technique because Heaven will effortlessly engulf Hell each time Hell comes knocking.
In fact, you may as well invite Hell in, because in so doing it becomes part of Heaven for ever.
Can you hear the angels singing?
Written by Jevon Dangeli – NLP/Hypnotherapy Trainer & Coach
PS: If you'd like to receive Jevon's monthly Personal Development Tip and gain access to his articles, videos and audio programs…all for free, opt in here.


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As I've mentioned before, my daughter Julia is a millennial bootstrapping entrepreneur. When I spoke to her this week, she told me that she is moving forward with one of the scariest parts of being an entrepreneur: walking away from her regular salary and depending on her new business to pay the rent. I call that "Jumping Off The Cliff."
I've done it twice in my life, but in neither case was it as scary as what she's going through. I had the good fortune of a venture capital windfall as a giant cushion below my leap. Still, the leap into the financial unknown creates an adrenaline rush no matter what your financial situation is.
That emotional sensation is actually an important benefit of bootstrapping. If you can channel the fear component, Jumping Off The Cliff creates great focus on what is really important.
Cash, soon, coming in from customers rather than going out all the time to pay expenses.
The big leap into financial uncertainty can stir creativity. "Necessity is the Mother of Invention," but Jumping Off The Cliff is a parent to Necessity.
Sometimes the invention is a Big Idea, but businesses need a lot of little creative insights too.
In Julia's case, she is providing education consulting for Chinese students who want to attend US schools. That means a lot of flying back and forth to China. Which can be very expensive if you aren't creative.
Here's one of her little creative things inspired by the Great Leap Off The Cliff (pun intended). At the end of December she is losing the free housing that came with her job. And she lives in greater New York City, which is pretty expensive.
Inspired by the Big Leap, she'll spend three weeks in January in Vietnam, flying on a $440 round trip ticket (!) and staying for free with a Fullbright Scholar friend who has a three-bedroom apartment in Ho Chi Minh City. And of course food costs are very low in Vietnam. So it's much less expensive than staying stateside! Warmer, too.
And that super-cheap flight happens to go through Shanghai, so she'll be able to take a little time and do some business. In other words, find customers who will pay her cash, soon. And since she's already mastered international communications with clients on the cheap, she can move the business forward from Vietnam while keeping expenses low.
February? Still tbd. Like lots of other things with an early stage business, 3+ months from now is a long time, and she will figure it out. She's figured out a lot of things so far in her 31 years, so she's confident that the housing situation, too, will be figured out.
It's important to note that this isn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. Jumping Off The Cliff didn't just happen – she's been working towards this moment for well over a year. Like lots of entrepreneurs, she's had the salary job and a side project. And like lots of entrepreneurs, she's reached that moment when she had to make a choice because the status quo was not sustainable.
So she's Jumping.
What's your Jumping Off The Cliff story? Please share it to help inspire others who are coming close to that edge.


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"Iron Bowl 1961" - Alabama Football vs. Auburn
Alabama 31 | Auburn 0
Bama held Auburn to zero for the third year in a row. "I'm tremendously proud of this Alabama football team, and tremendously proud of the seniors. They had enough confidence in their in state university to go all the way. They came there four years ago when the football was at a low ebb. They came with a purpose. And I think it's very fitting that they should graduate with a national championship, if they win it," Coach Bryant exclaimed. The Crimson Tide went on to defeat Arkansas in the 1962 Sugar Bowl and win the National Title.
The Tide's Lee Roy Jordan (#54) heads off Auburn's QB Bobby Hunt (#12).
The Regular Edition is limited to 111 prints (12¾"x 17") and is hand-signed and numbered by the artist. Please allow 7-10 business days for completion of custom framed items.


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Recent Posts
torsdag, mars 27, 2014
be calm and dream on ....
Lagt inn av gudrun
CALM and DREAM, at the One Little Word blog.
Make sure you join us this time, get inspired, create and share. There are some pretty awesome prizes to be randomly shared this time. ;-)
so pop over to OLW to soak in all the wonderful inspiration by some great artists.
see you..
Etiketter: art, Art journal, OLW ·


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Oral History — Elsa Mueser
Interview with Elsa Mueser by Ruth Ramel for the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. Date of interview unknown.
|Thank you very much, Mrs. Mueser, for granting me this interview. I'm Ruth Ramel, and have been appointed by the Environmental Commission (sic) in Mountain Lakes to do oral histories, in order to capture more extensively the spirit of early times in this community. At the present, we have no intention to publish any of this material, and would simply like to keep it for our archives. However, If you're willing to let us use the material, you could include a statement to that effect after you have given us your full name, date of birth, if you wish [Laughs], where you were born, and when you came to Mountain Lakes. Please?
|Well, I was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1894, on July thirteenth. And I lived several other places, went to college in Boston, and came to Mountain Lakes after living in New York, about 54 years ago. First we rented the house, and then we bought this property and built this house, my husband and myself, and we had one little girl, a two-year-old. And I have lived here ever since.
|You've lived here ever since.
|Except for many trips. So, you want me to go on?
|I must be more continuous, yes?
|No, not at all. What I would like you to tell us, if we may use the tape or the information on it.
|Yes, you certainly may use the tape. I don't think I have any skeletons in my closet, and if my voice is good enough, and the material is interesting to other people. I will say that Mountain Lakes has changed a great deal, some for the better, much for the worse. [Laughs]. We came here, the roads were not paved. There was no winter collection of snow. There were only one or two policemen. Our taxes were very low. We shoveled coal for twenty years, and used the ashes to build up our grounds at the lake. My husband and I carried down four barrels of ashes all winter long, and covered a swampy spot, and then we put topsoil on that, and we have a very good piece of grass there.
|Yes, I would imagine.
|And it was from doing it, and we also planned our garden. Because we had no level spot, we managed to buy some sand rather reasonably, and built up this south lawn, so it was nice and plain, and could make a nice flower garden. Although I then had a nearly ten-year-old son who said, "Oh, what a wonderful football field this is!" Of course I never did let him play football on it, but we played a good many other games, it was good for play. But we worked so hard, we didn't play so much! We also [unclear] a lot of plants, and from very ignorance, we started to learn, and learned what would do well, and decided that we didn't want to look at the road, so we planted rhododendrons in front.
|You planted those?
|We planted all those rhododendrons, and it made a complete barrier to both noise, and to people, and to the road around it, which later we paved, and made it ideal for little neighbors even today to go bicycling on, and running their little things around the pavement. And it's stood up all these years, was well done, but as my husband was an engineer, we didn't do any cheap work around here.
|Mrs. Flitflet said Mountain Lakes was a community of engineers.
|Well, that was to some extent, though the beginning, before Mrs. Flitflet came–Mr. Hapgood had planned this place and built a great many large houses. Unfortunately, this drew a number of people from New York that wanted a cheap, big house, and they thought they could put a sanitarium up on the hill, and many other things. And that did not always work. [Sentence unclear]
|What year did you come to Mountain Lakes?
|We came '21, but we built in '22.
|So before Mountain Lakes became a borough?
|Oh, yes, yes. We were here when Mountain Lakes became a borough, and we had one school, the one called Lake Drive now, which went through nine grades.
|Was it built?
|Yes, it was built.
|Was it built before you arrived?
|Yes, it was built before we arrived. There was also a railroad station, and trains much better than today [Laughs]. But we did not–we had to go to the Post Office for our mail, which was rather pleasant, you met all your friends. In winter, the streets were not shoveled, so we put up our car on stilts, and didn't use it for three months.
|Oh, really?
|Because you really couldn't get through. But my husband went down on skis to the railroad station, which is very near, and he commuted to New York for twenty years, and later to his factory, which was built in New Jersey. By that time he had to use a car because the buses were so fixed that you were not allowed to get off anyplace in New Jersey. It's a rather ridiculous thing that you can't use any of our buses.
|I know, I know. We can't go to Denville.
|It's ridiculous, but that's how it was. So, we lived here. I was just a little bit lonely, I had only one-oh, first we lived in a huge house opposite the railroad station because we came from New York, and rents had gone up from 75 to 125 dollars a month.
|In this house?
|No, down at the railroad station. No, in New York. It was in New York. And I met a friend of mine on the street who had a little girl whom I knew from Chicago as a little girl. And she said, "Oh, we're trying to move into the country." I said, "Come with us, we'll go to Mountain Lakes." And we went here, and we found any number of large houses that would accommodate two families, because we couldn't afford the rent of a big house. So we bought, we rented the big white house above the railroad station with the friends.
|The two families?
|The two families.
|You can't do that any more today, can you? It's illegal, isn't it?
|Well, I don't know, we had only one kitchen. [Sentence unclear] She and I worked out a very comprehensive system. She took care of the little girls one week, and I took care of them the next week. We did our own breakfast. She and I had lunch together. We cooked our own dinners and ate them separately with our husbands, one in the-at one end of the house, and the other at the other end of the house. Alternately, doing the cooking and the pots-no dishwashers, no thing like that. And we worked very amiably for a year, which was the time of our rent. And she did all-the other gentleman did all the grass cutting, and my husband did a very good vegetable garden at that place. So I was from the city, and I didn't know anything, but I learned. It worked out very well. Well, things separated, we each got a little house, and they moved away. And she had another little girl, and I had another little boy. We rented houses up on Tom Road for as long as we could. We were thrown out of there, and this house was being built. We had bought this land from a Dr. Cohen who lived next door. It was hard to get land on the lake. The real estate agents were not very good about it, and we paid really too much money, but we got three lots here, and later on bought two more. While we were building, our building architect and our building contractor went bankrupt, and we were left with a skeleton, no stairs going up, and no heat, no electricity, no nothing. But finally, after living around in other people's homes for about three or four months, we moved into this skeleton. I had the new baby, and I slept in the garage with the new baby, and my husband and little girl went up the ladder to the second floor. And we lived there for, until winter came a little bit sharply, and got heat, and a big coal-
|It was real pioneer living. [Laughs]
|Well, in a way, and for the while, we had to get water from the lake, to build. I remember bathing the baby in the little breakfast room, because that was the sunniest place in the house. I had to wait for the sun. By that time we got electricity, we got everything but a staircase.
|Did you get a new contractor or did you assign the jobs to some other people?
|Well, no, we-my husband then finished the contracting, because we could not then let any workmen into the house that had been here before, because of very certain penalties of the law. See, some people managed to collect double, you know, they collected from the contractor and from us, so we were very careful by that time. I can remember getting the staircase by going over to a man that built staircases. My husband and I picked out the staircase to go up, which wasn't put in for almost two years. So baby crawled up the steps after the steps were in, and little girl never minded. We were cheerful about it, we were young. I was a little bit lonely here. We were very busy, and my husband went everyday, even Saturdays, to work. He's an engineer. At that time I put a little ad in the newspaper that anybody that was interested in college graduates should come to tea some afternoon. [Several words unclear] And so I fixed a rather elaborate tea, and I had about thirty people from Boonton and from here. Some affiliations with college were that their husbands had been to college, some went to colleges that were not then on the approved list, which was a very approved list. But others were very interested, and from that moment on we made the College Club of Mountain Lakes, which has been very-two hundred members, now, and a very up-and-coming organization. Now, I made a lot of friends that way, friends in Boonton that I never would have had otherwise. Half of them-most of them are dead. I've outlived most of my contemporaries. [Laughs] But then we went along, and as I say, I learned how to garden. My husband did a lot of the-he did all the work outside in the yard, except occasionally he had an Italian mason that came and put in a rock wall. And that paid fifty cents an hour, and from 7 a.m. on these Italians worked, and worked very well. That's why we have so many old stone walls in Mountain Lakes. And they were built in that time.
|And they're not easy to build. We have tried to do it.
|Oh well, [several words unclear] and so on. I'll stop a minute. Have you anything special?
|Well, not-
|This may not all be interesting.
|Yes, it's very interesting. I'm really interested to know which organizations that you started in Mountain Lakes. And I would like to know something about education.
|About what?
|Education, the schools. Perhaps, you know, you told me you had started the College Club, and maybe you can tell me what other organizations-
|Well, at that time, I had one little girl who went to St. John's at that time. That's the Wilson School Kindergarten. And this little baby. I worked in the scouts. I had the Brownie scouts and I was 25 years in the scouts. Not organizing it, it had [unclear] been organized, but keeping it up, and going through the motions, and liking it until I came to the point where I stopped dealing with children, but dealing with other adults, trying to make them be scout leaders, which was not so interesting to me. So, my children were growing, I had another little girl by that time, and-
|How many children did you have?
|Three. Two girls and a boy.
|And Roland was born in Mountain Lakes?
|No, in New York City, but in Mountain Lakes. We went into New York to have him.
|Yes, but you were living in Mountain Lakes at the time?
|Right, living in Mountain Lakes.
|That was a long trip.
|Well, in those days it took over two hours, and it was the beginning of the Lincoln Tunnel, and we were able to go through the Lincoln Tunnel. And so we went to a hospital there. We got to the hospital about three in the morning, and they said, "We're sorry, we have no room." They sent us to a [unclear] hospital. My poor husband worried terribly, but I wasn't particularly worried. And we had a nice healthy little boy. But in those days we had no baby doctor out here. For many years I carried two or three children into New York for care of one kind or other. And if we had any real difficulties, we always went into New York. But we did have one doctor in Boonton, Dr. Peck. I'd like you to have the name. He was a darling. He was a general practitioner. He came day or night-two dollars a visit, and he knew a great deal. But if anything difficult was the matter, he wanted us to go to New York. The other possibility was to go to Morristown, or Paterson. Morristown had fairly good doctors, but had one or two that were very poor that we had heard about. So we stayed away from Morristown, and we never did go to Paterson. So we had started in New York, we just kept up going into New York with three babies.
|What would have happened if you had suddenly had a birth, where midwifery was not-
|I don't know, but Dr. Peck was called. He was the one that they-plus a trained nurse, they were [unclear] you know. But people that went to the Morristown Hospital–Dr. Mill's private sanitarium-doesn't exist any more, had many bad experiences there. We were leery of it. So, on the other hand, the other two hospitals were probably pretty good, we just didn't try everything you know.
|Morristown Memorial-
|Morristown Memorial was in an old building, and it was certainly much better than Dr. Mill's private sanitarium, where most of the women went to have their babies. Used it really for that purpose, it was a private hospital. But he really-old fashioned, and didn't do too well. Nobody had their babies at home, it wasn't stylish. So, we lived through that period. I worked for the Girl Scouts. Then later the Garden Club started, and they asked me to join. Well, I didn't go to the first meeting, so I'm not a-what do they call it?
|One of the founders.
|I'm not a founder, but I've been in the Garden Club ever since, and enjoyed it. And then at that time I joined the League. And I worked at it, it always conflicted with something else. And probably I wasn't too interested in politics, not like Mrs. Banfield and some of the others, who are shining lights. But I did work in it. I learned a great deal.
|Now what year was this, because it must have been around the Depression time, was it?
|Yes, it was getting towards Depression time. And we had one or two that were very good about it. And we met around in houses. I should say, it could be '28 or '29 when the League started. There was one woman that's still living, Mrs. Johnswood, who was very interested in politics. She was always trying to push us. I guess we didn't like to be pushed too much. But then there were others. There was a Mrs. Gannett, who now lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina, who still keeps up her League, and who was the President, and I happened to have been the Vice President. I was never any good at it. I didn't really–I wasn't too interested.
|Did one-were many of these women "women libbers?"
|The term "women's lib" had not been thought of in those days, but many people were liberal in their outlooks, and many of us were very old-fashioned. Now, to get back to the times when Mountain Lakes had been established, which was about 1911, wasn't it? And a good many of these, we called them Hapgood houses, had been built, all by the main man Hapgood, who could not oversee other things. He had a lot of vision. But he had many poor workmen. They built houses only on the front of a street, and got a mortgage on it by a mortgage company, I think in Paterson and Newark. They brought people out here to see houses that they would lead them through one street or another, showing them sometimes the same houses, and getting mortgage money on them. The workmen, who like workmen everywhere sometimes didn't want to work, would burn up certain parts of the houses, and claim they couldn't go on because they were missing material. When we came, eleven years later, there were perhaps a dozen houses that had never been finished, some good, some not so good. Others had been very well built, and he had escaped what is now the scourge of Mountain Lakes, building on the swampy sections. Mr. Hapgood had planned that there would be more lakes. There was to be a lake on Morris Avenue, beyond the first three houses after [unclear]. There was going to be a lake, and if you see it now it's just a great many trees, swamp, rather ugly parts, no value to anybody. But that was planned for a lake, and probably could have made a very good lake. The canal had been dug and was quite satisfactory. The three lakes that now belong to Mountain Lakes, Crystal Lake, Birchwood Lake, and Sunset Lake, were not considered part of the Mountain Lakes community. There were no houses, but the swimming out there was excellent. And these lakes had been built many years earlier, for the ice, for selling ice in winter, and there was an icehouse up there, and into these houses big chunks of ice were sawed and packed in sawdust. This ice was shipped to the south, and even as far as India. This was a very good supply, and the house had–the icehouse was well thought of, it had places for the ice to be put down in trucks, and things like that. And we, ten years later you'd [unclear], because after the ice was thawed, [several words unclear]. In summer those lakes were clean. Crystal Lake is very deep, and makes excellent swimming. Our lakes here, which had no chemical treatment, had a lot of algic life in August and were not so pleasant. Later on that [unclear]. Now Hapgood, as I say, had gone bankrupt, and had escaped to South America, and this place was run over with mortgages, and banks that couldn't collect on it. Many places were sold very reasonably, and we had some riffraff come up to Mountain Lakes from New York that did not do too well. At that time next to the Lake Drive School, our only school, nine grades, was the country club. Not the country club we have today, which is [several words unclear]. But a very adequate country club with a bowling alley, and the drinking riffraff often congregated there. We did join for a while, hoping to find more friends, but not finding so many people to our liking. So-
|Well, you mentioned something, or I heard people say which was sort of interesting, you said riffraff. Do you mean by that also some men who were married in New York and had a-
|Well, I called it riffraff. You could call it anything if you wanted to.
|Yeah. [Laughs]
|Well, there were a good many people that bought the house–
|Oh, yes.
|But you can cut it off?
|If it isn't interesting. So, we established quite a good community, and at that time we were part of the Hanover Township. [Unclear] men said, "Mountain Lakes is a distinct community. We will leave Hanover Township, have the sale of our old school, and become a community.
|The school was built-
|The school had been built long before.
|And it had grades one to nine?
|One to nine. Oh, I think kindergarten, too. And after nine, the children were accepted in Morristown or Boonton, and were transported to Morristown by bus for high school.
|Yes. You preferred to send them to Morristown, I believe?
|It was more-college?
|It was considered [several words unclear]. That's where they wanted to go. So they spent three years in Morristown, which at that time was not overcrowded and was considered a very good school. So the town-
|What were the aspirations of the people who moved to Mountain Lakes? What were their goals for their children, I mean, what did they dream of, what did they expect?
|[Unclear] At that time [unclear] more uniform than some communities because in 1920 we already had forty people that worked at the Bell Laboratories. That's why your friend said this was a town of engineers. And these Bell Laboratory people were far-sighted, they were college-trained, and they wanted the best for their children. Also, there were many other-there were no factories or jobs in the near surroundings. Ninety percent of the people went to New York every day. And our trains really went in forty minutes from Mountain Lakes to Hoboken, at which point you got a delightful-
|You were telling us about the train trip to New York.
|The trains were advertised forty minutes, and they pretty near went forty minutes then, any number of trains during the day. It cost, I think, fifty, sixty cents a ride. And we got ten trip tickets for less, and our husbands' commutation [several words unclear] was much less than it ever was lately.
|Did you often go into the city for-
|My husband and I went every Friday, we went to a theater, if we could leave our children and so on, we'd love the theater guild, and we had-
|Did you have baby sitters then?
|No, we didn't have baby sitters, we generally had a maid. There were live-in maids in those days, and that's what we did. We had a meal for 75 cents or a dollar, [several words unclear] and we really enjoyed ourselves. Generally Friday nights, when there wasn't the crowds. Most in New York were very poor in those days. Forty-six was two lanes, or rather unpaved. The other way was going across twenty-three bridges and tunnels, through Paterson and Mountainview, [unclear], Montvale, up to here. And either of them took over two hours driving. You didn't really drive into New York often unless you had a group, so you could sit and [unclear] together, why, you sometimes drove in.
|How did you go to the theater, then?
|In the subway. First of all we took the ferry boat. There were three ferry boats. There was a ferry boat way downtown, Cortland Street. Then, Bell Laboratories all took the ferry boat in the morning. It went directly to the middle ferry, out of-I don't know the name, because that's where their main offices were. And that's where these Bell Laboratory engineers worked. The other way of going into it was there was another ferry to 23rd Street, which we did not take so often, but there was also a tube that ran either to 33rd Street or down to Hudson Terminal. They were ten cents, but the ferry boat was free. [Sentence unclear]
|I see. When you left, now, to go to the theater, you took the train or a bus?
|We took the train-there were no buses.
|To Hoboken?
|No buses.
|How did you get back in the evening?
|At twelve-fifteen was the theater train.
|There was a theater train?
|Theater train. There was one theater train, went to Morristown, and one theater train went to-
|There's no theater train now.
|No. And at 3:30 in the morning there was the milk train, which luckily we never had to take. The milk was probably taken from upper farms to New York, see, that's where the cows were. Are you looking at something?
|I have another question. What services were available in Mountain Lakes?
|Well, first of all, we had quite a few workmen that would come for fifty cents and hour. We had quite a few cleaning women that came, white and black.
|Did you have a white maid or a black maid?
|Generally white. But I was lucky, I generally had a German girl, one for eleven years, and one for many other years.
|That's right, you told me you went to the Post Office. When did this change?
|I wouldn't know exactly. We went to the Post Office. Are you on this? We went to the Post Office for our mail for many, many years, and paid only one cent if you were sending a letter in Mountain Lakes. And then we decided we would have our mail delivered. First of all, we didn't want to bother about a box, and as we often were away from home it meant that mail would come to the house, I mean right here. Other services were for daily milk delivery, rather reasonable. Unpasteurized milk. There were also grocery deliveries.
|Did you have to go to the store, pick out the food, and then deliver, or did you call them?
|Well, having a car, I very often went to the store. But we had in Mountain Lakes the place where now the grocery store is was a combined grocery and butchery store. And next to it was the Post Office, and a needle and thread, five-and-ten-cents store. And there was a third store that I think was real estate. Two of those stores burnt down. On top of the grocery today are two or three very nice apartments, renting for very little money, seven rooms or something like that. And in those days they were considered more for the grocer, but today people always live there, and like it. And there's very few really cheap places to live around Mountain Lakes.
|Did you have a barber here originally?
|There is one here in this area-
|Now there is, yes. Those four stores were built probably twenty years ago.
|Did the grocer in Mountain Lakes deliver the food, then?
|Yes, he delivered. Called Yaccarino, and he delivered to the big houses, and the milk was delivered to the big houses, and they always moved out on him without paying their bills. That really is what made the grocer go bankrupt, unpaid bills.
|Really? But for people today in the surrounding communities who are always a little envious, I think, or feel Mountain Lakes is a snob community, that they tend to say that Mountain Lakers don't pay their bills.
|I don't believe there is much trouble today. I don't believe there's anybody that gets away with more than a very little bit, and you know there are remarkable computer ways of discovering people that don't pay their bills. If you buy at Epstein's, or a store like that, they have all the bad numbers, very quickly. And also in New York. Of course, we bought everything in New York. We didn't go to Morristown.
|Except for food.
|Well, I used to carry grapefruit home. There was a market at the ferry, the Cortland Street ferry, there was a great, big, central market, that had cheese and butter, and oysters and crabs, and every kind of meat, and every kind of vegetable. At that time there were no grapefruit out here. I could always remember carrying four or five grapefruit from New York.
|That must have been fun, to go to the market.
|Well, we'd go to the market. My husband used to stop there and get half a dozen oysters. I think they were 25 cents or something like that for a dozen oysters, and things like that. And a man named Watts who was here before us, he died this winter and his wife is still living but you're not supposed to visit her.
|On Pocono Road, is that-
|Her name is Mimi Watts.
|Does she live on Pocono? No, that's Ruth Watts.
|No, Ruth Watts is younger. Mrs. Watts is the original butter and egg Watts. They had a butter and egg stand-I don't know if it was butter and eggs-butter and cheese.
|Where does she live now?
|I think it's on Pollard Road. [Unclear] and her name is Reed. I'll look to see if the telephone book is here. It's in the kitchen, I'll have to get it later.
|So, the cheese stand is where you got your cheese. Did you go and get it there?
|Yes, we brought it home. We carried home butter in little tubs, nice fresh butter. That's also a [unclear] delicacy we didn't have out here.
|Did you, where was the cheese stand?
|It was in the Washington Market, which was opposite the Cortland Street ferry.
|They lived out here, but their cheese stand-
|The lived out here, and later they had an apartment in New York. I think butter paid, paid off very well. They always had an apartment in New York, and they went to all the musicals and so on. And they're quite [unclear].
|Yes, there were a group of people in town that were interested in music.
|Yes, there always were, and at one time they started. A man named Halsey Frederick started a chorus here, a men's chorus that was very good. And his wife started a female chorus, which was not quite so good. But the results were a musical society at that time, the Choral Society, to which I did not belong, which was good-very, very good. And then there was the–later on an orchestra was formed here. And we had, the College Club started a celebrity series, by having-I can't think quickly her name-one of the very well-known actresses came out and gave a dialogue here, and they paid her I think three hundred dollars. And we charged for all the seats from one dollar to two dollars.
|It was a lot of money at that time.
|And we made over a thousand dollars, and we were very, very proud of ourselves. And then they had a celebrity series which ran for five consecutive-which ran through the war. Different people, we had Graham dancers, we had lectures of all kinds-
|Martha Graham?
|Dancers came out here?
|And so on. In those days, they were still sent by a firm in New York, but they were not as particular you know, they were not as difficult to get as they are now. See, the man [unclear]. So everybody went to the celebrity series, and throughout the war years we didn't have much gas, and you walked in an evening dress over to the celebrity series, snow or ice.
|Where were they held?
|That was held in Briarcliff's, by this time. First in the church. Second in the Community Church. I'll have to give you a little history on the churches in a minute. And then when Briarcliff had been built, [several words unclear] that's-
|Never mind, I can find that.
|All right. Let me just digress a minute and talk about the churches, because originally we had only the Community Church here, and the Christian Science Church. Christian Science Church was always up-and-coming in a private home. Are you on?
|They never came to the community for money. They always took care of their own. Then the Community Church took in practically everybody else. Some Episcopalian, some, mostly, were Protestant church, and was very good, and was very social, and so on. [Unclear] Episcopalians that wanted their own church, and somebody gave them this very poor piece of land on the street, [several words unclear] very, very proud of St. Peter's, you know, up here. And they built that, and [several words unclear] the clock tower, you know, and other things. So there was competition. And the Episcopalians tried to leave the Community Church, and sometimes stayed back, sometimes they didn't. Then, a number of years ago, I think after the war, the Archdeacon of the Catholic Church in Paterson decided this was to be a good Catholic center. And they bought a very good piece of land over here. There was already at that time the St. Francis [unclear] corner up in Denville. But they had very few Catholics, oh perhaps, not over a hundred, see. But these houses attracted a great many Catholic families, and this very well-built Catholic Church with a-otherwise, they were not such good Catholics, I think, but they brought in a great many people. And today, I think we have forty percent of our population is Catholic.
|Yes, I think it's practically fifty-fifty.
|Fifty, you say. Well, you heard that from other people.
|I don't know exactly.
|I don't either. The Catholics have become more Protestant, and the Protestants have become more Catholic. [Laughs]
|Yes. So it was after the war that-
|Yes, this came after the war.
|The Second World War.
|And they did really a very nice job other there, and for once the church was given with enough grounds to make good parking places, and so on. Which neither the Community Church at that time, nor certainly the St. Peter's Church had, see. And in the meantime the Christian Science Church bought a bigger house, and is still in the same place, and still going strong, and attracting a large number of Christian Scientists.
|From all over, not really from Mountain Lakes alone.
|Well, nine-tenths I think are Mountain Lakers, I don't know.
|I don't know either.
|I really don't know. They don't talk so much. But they're always good citizens. Now, I digress on the churches.
|Going back to the services, we spoke of the grocer and the Post Office. Now, you had dry cleaning services, did a dry cleaner come around?
|I think we went to the dry cleaner. We went to Boonton for everything.
|And there were no vegetable men that came?
|No, no vegetable men came.
|And for instance, in gardening, there were no landscapers that sent out gardeners here?
|Very little. I can remember going to gardeners and ordering landscaping, and the hope was always to do it yourself. It's the Garden Club that started the better gardening around here.
|But they would deliver what you ordered?
|Yes, yes. Delivery was pretty good.
|And you had an iceman?
|In the summer.
|Yes. People were not as-today, you know they wish you a happy day, and everything else, but that wasn't it. You know, they weren't this-they hated Mountain Lakes. They got their money from Mountain Lakes, but they didn't like us.
|They didn't like you.
|No, everybody's affluent. Mountain Lakers go to New York for business, and so on. But a few people worked in Boonton, but very few. Drew and Company was already there, the biggest margarine company in the whole world at that time.
|Margarine? Oh really?
|Yes. [Unclear], and now, I don't know where they got their [unclear], I think they got it in Texas, in [unclear]. At that time, they'd had good and bad managers, but like anything else, and I think just now they're in difficulties. We also had the Van Raalte knitting mills.
|Right. They have closed down, too, now.
|Yes, they closed down but there are other mills down there. But more second hand business.
|Yes, and cheaper products. Van Raalte was a rather good product.
|Yes, it was an excellent product. And at that time, a great many people in Mountain Lakes, plus the people in Boonton wanted the Boonton streets widened. Main Street, the one with the [several words unclear].
|That's right, we used the trolley to-
|There was a trolley, for five cents went from Boonton to Denville. And it ran up and down the Boonton streets, which made it almost impassable, you know, [several words unclear] like that, and at that time there were quite a few storefronts that needed renewing, there were empty places, and so on. But the Boonton people voted it down, they weren't going to have us come through there easily. So they did narrow the sidewalk, and made the street a little wider, took out the trolley, and then the bus, which was 116 and came from Newark, and did take people all along the line, even to Boonton, came along. And much later, the Mountain Lakes bus. And they said, "Oh, that will never make any money." And after riding on that bus, it was put in by a local man up on Laurel Avenue, I'll think of his name later if you don't know it, and we said, "Oh, he'll never, never get his money back." And there were only three, four people on the bus. Now, it's crowded all the way back and forth. [Unclear] very well.
|Oh, that is that bus?
|That's the same bus, Lakeland bus. But 116 did take us to Newark, see, in those days. I don't know-I think it still goes, but it takes three hours.
|There is a Newark bus, yes, that still comes.
|Now you're looking around, would you like–
|Well, I thought I heard a cat. I thought I heard a cat, you know, but I guess it was just the wood.
|Well, sometimes there's children come through here on their bikes, and things like that. I'm not the deepest [unclear], you know, you can come back if you have to-
|I have very many questions to ask you, but you must tell me how long you can-
|Well, I'll talk until let's say, eleven o'clock, how's that?
|That's fine. Well, telephones were installed pretty soon-
|Oh, they were installed, and we all had party phones. And it wasn't very agreeable, but it was quite cheap, and we did not have anybody on our free list. We had to pay ten cents for Morristown. You could telephone to Boonton, that was about the only place. Now-
|You couldn't telephone to New York?
|Well, it's thirty-two cents. Thirty cents, in those days. I guess it's still thirty cents, I don't know.
|No, it's more now, I think sixty or-
|But we could phone-free phone was only Boonton, and around Mountain Lakes, this was always local. It was quite-I don't think my bill was more that three or four dollars a month, you see, in those days. So it seemed like a very good investment. And people were on the phone just like you are today, and the children had a heyday on the telephones, so, just like-
|Especially the girls [Laughs]
|[Laughs] I don't know [several words unclear]. But now, I'll just go back to the schools as you want me to.
|That's what I'd like.
|Now, we were increasing in population. A lot of people wanted things to stay just so. A lot of people wanted things to even go backwards a little bit. At that time we had Mayor Wilcox and he was very foresighted. He saw all this land, this free land belonging to private people, and to the government, and things like that. And he said, "If we let all these people build houses, every time they build five houses we'll need another policeman, another fireman, another school." Not quite that way. But, at that time, the land-we voted to spend money and buy up this land, which now cannot be built on unless you have very special permissions.
|This was when, approximately?
|It was under Mayor Wilcox.
|Yes, and I can look that up.
|Yeah, you can look that up. It was really a very good thing, because on the whole, we were expanding a little bit quickly. There had been a time when old Day the auctioneer came out here and auctioned, tried to auction off all the free land and all the empty houses, of which there were many-Depression time. Poor Mr. Day put us up a tent with free coffee over here, and all us old timers went over there and said we'd do him out of town. Well, he didn't think we could do as well. I think he sold one lot in a whole day's auction. And that was a commercial lot near the stalls. That's the only lot he sold, and no houses. So after that, other companies did come in and built three or four houses, or individual builders came and then built houses. But on the whole, growth was slow and continuous. But now, we have come to a place where the big Catholic families are still here, but they're probably not quite as numerous, and a great many Protestants have only two children, or none. So we had overbuilt our schools. We had built Briarcliff, with nine-tenths of government money in the Depression years. We had built the Wildwood School on our own money, before the war, for mainly little children. And then, within the last ten years we built the high school. Now the high school is still filled. The other schools can come together and have [several words unclear]. If we ever gave up the Lake Drive School, sold it for-wouldn't be allowed to sell it for a factory, but if they sold it for some other building, we could never again gain it as a school. So they have taken it as a building for children that have ear trouble, or that are poor readers, blind children, or even crippled, I think.
|I think they should not give it away too quickly, because there is talk about the children that were born in World War II, or right after the war, that have now-and it's a large section of the population that are now having children, and these children-they believe in an increase in population. Although the population has sort of stabilized, they believe in the coming years there will be an increase again.
|Strictly as schoolhouses to be sold.
|And it's not necessarily true that we will not-
|No, well in the mean time, having children come in from Boonton and from Montville, and from townships to this school, by bus, that need special teaching, they're getting enough money to pay for it. And now rearranging the other schools all the time. But now they say the Briarcliff School, the children have to walk up steps. That isn't good for them. Might be made into a recreation center, I don't know. Those things may come after I'm dead, so I shouldn't worry about it. [Laughs] But, in the mean time, we have four schools, and we certainly spent too much money on the number four. And now we have the great desire for athletic ability. This town was very college-oriented. It meant that perhaps ten percent of the children would really not do well in college. So they ought to have something else. Athletic ability, musical ability, painting ability, or something to make their life interesting in school. So the school does cater to that, a little bit, music. And, it's a good thing, because not all of those should go to college, certainly.
|Was there any-now this discussion about giving, also the discussion has arisen that we should have some vocational training because not everybody-was this type of discussion, did you have this in earlier times, too?
|Not quite so much, but we did send some up to other training schools. There was a training school in Paterson in those days, and of course there is now in Denville, the great big school that takes in people, for which we have to pay them. But it might be cheaper than for us to put in our-there are students here that go only for one or two classes. I think there is even a class that goes up to Route 10, to number 10, to the county school.
|County [unclear].
|County [unclear].
|Now, people wanted really for their children to go to college. Were there any disagreements, I mean was there any problem? Were there any two factions in town when it came to educational ability?
|Well, I think the college faction was just too strong, and we tended to almost-people that moved into town that had children that were not college material very soon left. They really left. Of course, if you had one non-college child, and three good ones, you stayed. But on the whole, college was the thing. [Unclear] over exercises all little bit. Because some people surely [unclear] shouldn't go to college.
|You say some people left town. Did they feel then-were the taxes high, is that why they left?
|They were very high. They are now probably among the highest in the state. Because we are small, we have no industry, and we are unable to really take care of all the things we want, with roads, with assemble places, and of course I don't think we have the volunteers we had originally. Today, a woman like yourself, who is able to, is going to get a job. In those days, we were volunteers. In Switzerland today, women still are householders and volunteers, the women.
|Yes, I'm Swiss.
|Oh you are? [Sentence unclear]
|No, no. This is Switzerland, you don't mean Sweden?
|Switzerland. No, Sweden is very different. But I had Swiss friends here the other day, and she's a very up-and-coming woman about 45 or 50. She wouldn't think of taking a job. She has two grown sons. She might do volunteer work. She goes climbing with her husband, and things like that. That's why we have over employment.
|Yes, I think that also, you see-I believe that in America today, and I think it might come in Switzerland, too, the living standard climbs very high, but with inflation, of course people don't want to go back. And a lot of [unclear] apply for colleges. And you just-I think many women in families have felt that in order to keep up their standard of living, they need to work, in order not to-you send your children to college, and you want to be able to pay for it. In order to stay in your house, your wife maybe could help earn some money, too. I think a lot of it is economics. I don't think-
|It's also style.
|It started out being style, but today I don't think it's style anymore, I think it's economics.
|Except that you as a working lady add to your husband's tax, by increasing the amount of income.
|But if your income isn't high enough for you to, as a lady of leisure, to do the things you would like to do, like to go into the city, to go to the theater very often, to take a vacation-that you enjoy. I think then you wonder whether that extra money wouldn't provide you, even though the taxes go up, that wouldn't provide you with that extra-
|But now take Sonya Bartleby. She is a dedicated worker because she feels she was trained, and she isn't very [several words unclear]. Also, add to it that you buy everything in packages. We buy so many foods-I don't-that are ready-cooked, and things like that, that it makes a big difference.
|Yes, that you can-
|And now look, as a trained nurse she gets fifty, sixty dollars a day. That is very worthwhile, you know.
|But I think that in Switzerland of course, they're still-their standard of living is higher than here now, they claim. And people live very, very well. And inflation-they've managed to stop inflation, but the jobs, many people have lost their jobs for the first time in years. So I don't know how long Switzerland can, you know-
|Well, it'll come. It's partly style. It'll come to the point where a woman feels isolated in her home working by herself.
|Yes, especially in the suburban environment. It becomes-
|And with perhaps one or two children.
|Yes, that's right, rather than a large family.
|But we can't solve the whole world. [Laughs]
|No. [Laughs]
|I've enjoyed this very, very much, and if you ever want to know any more-
|I'm sure I have a lot of questions I could ask you, but we can't do it all at once.
|No, and perhaps you would go see Mrs. Watts. There is in Boonton a Mrs. Hill, who was born here.
|I have a few names. I would like you to include a few names of people you think should be interviewed. A Mrs. Hill?
|Hill, in Boonton. She's on Sheeps Hill Road, I think. I don't know her husband. In Boonton, who with her daughter, who's just moved to California, her name was [unclear] by that time, [unclear], were born in this town, a Mrs. Baumgarten, who lived opposite the grade school.
|I see. She was born here?
|These two girls were born here. Now Mrs. Hill is now in Boonton, but she was born here. And probably would tell you quite different stories.
|Yes. Do you know Mrs. [Unclear], who was the foreman-who lived in the foreman's house?
|Mrs. Who?
|[Unclear] Do you know Mrs. Post in Tally Ho?
|Yes, I don't know if you can get anything out of her any more, can you? Try. Tally Ho has a good many of these old ladies-
|Did you know Estelle Crane?
|Yes. Hooking. In my old age, why, we hooked rugs. I made that one there. And once a week we'd meet at people's houses.
|That's fun.
|Well, it's good for old ladies.
|You have lots of friends, still?
|Yes, I have groups of friends, mostly younger than myself. Most of my age group are a little more stationary, perhaps. I do play bridge once a week. And I don't play with a real fast group any more, that got me nervous, I think. I play with rather, I would say almost second rate players. But we enjoy it, we play about once a week.
|One custom that I really am curious about-during the Depression years, what actually did happen in Mountain Lakes? Did many people lose their jobs?
|Yes, some people lost their houses and their jobs. And that's when women started to go to work: teach, nurse, all sorts of things like that.
|Can you recall what types of jobs were not needed any more? What types of jobs were lost?
|Well, I know of only the Dow chemical, for instance, that let people go, you know. And as I say, Bell Laboratories simply brought everybody to a four-day-and I think eventually even a three-day week, and made their salaries much smaller. My husband was very fortunate. He had been teaching at New York University, and he got called back to a job he'd had a few years before. And so we were naturally well-off.
|Didn't he have his own business?
|Yes. He originally went to this company expecting to own it, and the man there was seventy then, and he kept on and on and on, and so my husband got tired of it and did something else. And then, they were in a bad fix. In 1932, they called him up on the twenty-ninth of February, and said, "Would you come down and straighten us up." And he went back as Treasurer, then to Vice President, and immediately became President. And owned the company. And so, until his retirement when he was about sixty-eight or nine, or seventy, something like that. So, we were not hard hit, but we were always careful people. We didn't stick our nose out. And that-my mother and father were here, and this nephew lived with us, so we had a-and you know you couldn't get servants anymore.
|Yes, really? Already at that time?
|I had a girl for ten dollars a week, she said, "What's the use of my coming, ten dollars a week, I can get for unemployment [unclear].
|So this was already then?
|This was already the story. And the teenagers were sent to work. They worked for the railroad, they worked for the town. They did dirty jobs, but they did a good job.
|Yes. The young people in town-there was no, was there drinking, and that type of thing?
|Well, there is always a drinking bunch. There's always a drinking bunch. There's always a drug [several words unclear]. They claim there isn't much in school. You rarely hear of a really pregnant girl in [unclear] but there must be some that they take care of somehow or other. My children never told me anything like that. They didn't like mother to know.
|I know, children are like that. It's very annoying at times. I'm really interested in one thing. You did mention, or I think I heard somebody mention, that at the time, that abortions were available, that there was somebody in the area who did perform abortions.
|Yes, I think so. [Unclear] I can't think of his name, it wouldn't probably be good to [unclear]. He was from Morristown, and I know of a person that had two or three. Some people even went to Cuba and had an abortion.
|Yes, you could get abortions in Cuba very reasonably.
|Uh-huh. Sweden was known to-major times. People would go to Sweden, I think.
|I don't happen to know. See, they keep those things a little bit quiet.
|I know, those things are kept secret. There's another question that I realized, can I just name these organizations in town, and perhaps if you would, if something comes to mind. Now the Historical Society, I think that was founded by, wasn't it Dr. McFarless that started the Historical Society?
|It could be. But a number of people had worked at it, but not too hard. I mean, it's not been one of our best aids, but they have wonderful material.
|Then there's the Red Cross. Was that established during the World War?
|Well, we had Red Cross, around here always collecting a dollar [unclear]. And I remember my husband was head of the Red Cross for a number of years, only because it was so difficult to get volunteers, and so on. And the Red Cross wasn't in too good a flavor for a minute. But we did have first aid classes, very well done, by doctors and nurses. And we had the home nursing course, which we had downstairs. So, and then they went up to Dover, and of course Mountain Lakes was too highbrow to go to Dover. Is that on? All right, I [unclear].
|[Laughs] That's all right. Well, you spoke about the celebrity series. The McDowell Club was-
|The McDowell Club was a very fine musical club, but it had perhaps stronger membership than it is now.
|Yes. And the Glee Club?
|The Glee Club is on a-is still going, but pretty soft.
|Yes, but it was originally the Men's Choir, I guess. And you had the Women's Choir, the Dramatic Guild-
|Dramatic Guild.
|Oh yes, well that became the barn theater, I think, yes, and the Women's Club kind of took over plays.
|Yes. Then there was a poetry group.
|Oh, see, I don't know.
|And an Art Association.
|And the Home and School.
|The Home and School are running very strong.
|Yes, when did that originate?
|Well, that originated-Parents and Teacher's Association. And they couldn't get anybody to go. There was something in that word that kept people away. There would be three people go to an audience. They closed it, and started it up under new leadership, and are very good and strong.
|Yes, today certainly-
|Very good and strong.
|Then there's the Parsippany chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution.
|Yes, ah, there's one in Morristown, too. [Unclear] very few people.
|What do they do?
|They have luncheons, and generally have a card party.
|And then the Masons.
|Well, this building opposite us was built by the Masons, and the women's Eastern Star used it. But the men were busy, and the Masons were not typical for Mountain Lakes, let's say it that way.
|Right, it wasn't just a flourishing thing in Mountain Lakes?
|Then there was the American Legion?
|Yes, well that of course was veterans, and that went to Boonton mostly.
|Yes. Ah, the Garden Club, the Flower Guild-
|Well now, the Garden Club is very, very strong. And very, very good. The Flower Guild probably was one of the initiators of the Garden Club. They don't like to admit that. But the Flower Guild was not as knowledgeable, but they did more charity work. And that is honestly out. It has only a few old ladies. I had them here last year for lunch. I don't belong but I had them here, and they were really almost in wheelchairs. [Laughs] So there's just a few left.
|Yes. I also have here the Charitable Guild.
|Yes. Well, that was-is still somewhat strong, and they get people in it that like to sew, and work for the poor, and they try and get a new member or so every year. They're limited in membership, and they're not as strong as they used to be.
|And the Needlework Guild?
|I don't know.
|You didn't hear-what was the Junior Auxiliary?
|Well wasn't that the Junior Women's Club?
|I suppose it might possibly-
|You see, the Women's Club became a club of too many old people. And at a certain age, people were supposed to go to [unclear] Women's Club, and they didn't want to, you know, too many old biddies. So they had a Junior Women's Club. But now they've combined. I don't belong any more. I did once, but not a lot.
|Finally, did you or your husband serve in Borough government?
|Well, my husband was on the School Board, I think, six years, but I don't remember exactly how many years. He was always on committees, he was on the first Chowder Commission, and things like that. I really didn't do that kind of work, I did more club work.
|Yes, so, and you're responsible for the College Club. Did you-what was your, you were obviously a college graduate?
|Yes, I was a college graduate and I wanted to meet other college graduates-
|What area?
|I went to MIT [she graduated in 1916; ed.] and to Radcliffe.
|Yes, and what was your major?
|Chemistry. And I met so many nice people, I still have friends from there. But after all, then the nucleus came down, and the AAUW got hold of us and said, "You have to have graduates of a certain standing before you can admit them." Well, we admitted, occasionally we admitted a one-year student or a two-year student, and now the AAUW-a few of those are left in the college club, but mainly it's four-year graduate students of colleges with a certain standing.
|Accredited, yes. So, that's that.
|Yes, I was always asked whether I wanted to join, but with a European education, I always felt I'm kind of sneaking in through the back door. But people said no, I would probably be-
|I'm not sure that they would accept you.
|That's right.
|Because in those days, they had few people that said, "Oh, I'm a doctor, M.D. from so and so." And nobody looked them up, and they had never gone to college. So nowadays, everybody has credentials. Oh, there are so many college people now.
|I know, I know.
|And some are [unclear] good, and some are not good. [Laughs]
|]Laughs] Yes. Well, Mrs. Mueser, thank you so much. This has been very interesting. If you have any, anything that you would like to pass on-
|Let me write down your telephone number, I'll mark it in my book, and-
|I will. If you have anything like, any documents or artifacts that you would like to donate to the Historical Society-
|I've pretty near given everything to the Historical Society. I have a cute little picture of a horse and buggy going down to the railroad station, my grandson took the picture. [Several words unclear] I'm not a good keeper, I throw out. I don't have so much. If I do, if you could mark your name in that little yellow book, how's that?
|Fine, thank you so much.
End of Interview
Transcribed by Tapescribe, University of Connecticut at Storrs, 2003, edited by Margarethe P. Laurenzi, coordinator, Oral History Project of the Historic Preservation Committee of Mountain Lakes, October 2003.


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