Farnsworth Family Gathering in Washingtonville

Marguerite "Pat" Farnsworth Memorial

16-19 Aug 2013

When C.J.'s mother passed away several months ago after a long stretch in a nursing home in California (and a longer stretch in Florida being cared for by C.J.'s brother, Rob), Ginny had a service for the few who could attend. For the interment of her ashes in the Tuthill family plot in Washingtonville, NY, Ginny invited everyone who could get there. C.J. and I made plane and hotel reservations in July as soon as we heard what the plan was.

16 Aug, Fri - Actually we left home on the night of the 15th so we could drop the Sorento off at Extra Car around 2230 for our 0020 flight. [Again we got a good rate at Extra Car through aboutairportparking.com, but we found out that the rate is considerably higher if your stay starts on a Friday.] We flew US Airways overnight to Charlotte, NC, and then on a commuter jet flight (two seats per side) to White Plains/Westchester County Airport/HPN arriving around 1130. [We gate-checked our rollaboard bags all the way through to White Plains at no charge as they were short on stowage space in the cabin.] [HPN was much farther from Washingtonville than Stewart/Newburgh would have been but the fares were considerably higher for Stewart, and the rest of the relatives arriving by plane were using HPN, too.] We picked up a Chevrolet Cruze from Budget and headed out to follow the byways through small towns like Chappaqua, Millwood, Ossining (where we hit Rte 9) and Croton-on-Hudson. We'd been ready for some lunch since we landed; there had not been even any peanuts for snacks on the flights. So, when we spotted Tenampa, a Mexican restaurant with a pleasant-looking patio just north of Croton, we pulled in and shared a good meal of Caesar salad and couple of tacos al carbon, flour tortillas filled with skirt steak strips. Continuing north we passed Peekskill and took the winding mountain road high above the Hudson that had given me the heebie-jeebies when I was a young kid in the back of the family car. The narrow, twisty part of the drive was much shorter than I remembered it and soon we were crossing the Bear Mountain Bridge. I headed south on 9w and then onto the Seven Lakes Parkway passing the Bear Mountain Inn and the new indoor play area with its carousel. The road climbed the flank of Bear Mountain passing the entrance to Perkins Memorial Drive and descending to the Palisades Interstate Parkway. We took Rte 6 across Harriman State Park then Rte 293 through the USMA (West Point) reservation passing several ranges before reaching the Old Storm King highway with its steep cliffs on one side and a stone wall separating the road from the drop to the Hudson on the other. We made a couple of brief stops for views and interpretive signs before passing through Cornwall-on-Hudson and joining 9w toward Newburgh and then west to our Super 8 motel and a nap. Dinner that night was with Pat, Rob, Mary, Dave, their son Matt, and a very pregnant Jennifer with her husband, Kevin, at the Tuthill House near Gardiner. The restaurant was situated in an old grist mill and had excellent, if moderately expensive, food. I had a NY strip steak while C.J. had the cioppino. Ginny and Wally didn't make it because Wally's flight had been delayed and they would not have made it all the way to Gardiner from HPN in time for dinner. [Ginny had arrived on Wednesday to do all the arranging with the funeral director, the church and the Vinum Cafe at the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville.] Rob, bless his heart, picked up the tab for all nine of us. [I later tried to give him the $80 or so that C.J. and I had rung up as our part of the bill, but he wouldn't take it.] It was about a half hour back to the motel and we were glad to get to bed to catch up on our rest.

17 Aug, Sat - Breakfast at the motel was less than satisfactory. The motel was  full due to some event at West Point and most of the breakfast fruit and yogurt were gone, as was the batter for making waffles. But we managed to get some yogurt anyway and had a bowl of cereal. We were a bit late getting to Ferguson's Funeral Home where Ginny had arranged a display of some memorabilia. Tom, the funeral director, led a couple of prayers and then we all drove over to St. Mary's church, or rather, to the parish hall which was being used for services while the church was being renovated. Father Paul, an elderly priest, celebrated the funeral mass with lots of incense, and a vocalist and organist provided several hymns. Once mass was ended, we drove the short distance to the cemetery where Fr. Paul blessed the polished wooden box containing the cremains and it was placed in a heavy vault which would later be buried in the family plot. There was some discussion about the stone marking Aunt Pete's and Uncle Jack's grave not having Aunt Pete's name on it. Ginny decided to either have the stone redone or have a new one made. Then we drove across the road into the Brotherhood Winery (oldest one in America) and had lunch in the Vinum Cafe, Jail Island salmon or chicken in puff pastry. After lunch we wandered around the winery for a while then headed up to New Paltz. We parked close to the north end of the SUNY campus and walked around. The only building I recognized (the name at least) was the Sojourner Truth library. C.J. and I were pretty sure that the Cuykendall (sp?) building was the home of the science department but the name was not at all familiar. Then we drove down to Huguenot Street where C.J.'s apartment building was still standing although minus the balconies. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the old Grand Union was gone but Rock and Snow was still in its place, plus there was a R&S Annex. After a couple of false starts and some creative programming of the GPS we found Station Road where Chris and I had lived while I was attending SUNY but the building was not obvious. Heading south we decided to return to Tuthill House in the daytime to get some photos that showed the exterior before stopping at the bed and breakfast (Bucks) where Ginny, Wally, Rob, Jennifer and Kevin were staying. While there we decided to meet later at the motel for "home movie night". That evening Greg (with his girlfriend Mara) brought a bunch of old family super8 videos to the breakfast room at the motel. I stayed for a while but the quality of the film was so bad that I couldn't make out much detail. It must have been more interesting to those who were in the movies because people watched them for a couple of hours before breaking up and heading to their various lodgings. Since we had had a late lunch we only ate some nuts and bread while we watched the show. Wally had chosen to skip the films and went out to eat with Jennifer and Kevin.

18 Aug, Sun - For some reason (perhaps I didn't push the "save" button) my phone did not give the wakeup call so we woke up late at 0705. We rushed and made it to the B&B in Montgomery not much later than the planned 0730 breakfast time. After breakfast the Farnsworth siblings, missing only Bill who can no longer travel long distances, and Greg who was late having stayed the night in Pompton Plains, had a meeting to decide what to do about the house in Florida and the rest of the trust fund. After that Rob brought out several boxes of jewelry and souvenirs for them to choose among. Jennifer and Kevin had already left, Mary, Dave and Matt left soon after and so did Pat who had to check out. Mary had mentioned possibly going to an outdoor sculpture park near Cornwall so after we said goodbye we headed down that way also. Along the route, somewhere between Salisbury Mills and Vails Gate there was a unique view out over a valley that was crossed by a long, tall RR trestle. As we approached the entrance to the Storm King Arts Center, the weather deteriorated to light rain. Since we were ready for lunch anyway we drove on to Cornwall-on-Hudson and found the Hudson Street Cafe which served a pretty good burger and BLTA. The sun was out by the time we left so we drove directly back to the art center and paid the senior fee at the car entrance. Since the art center covered 500 acres we didn't expect to see everything but we started off by climbing to the top of Museum Hill past many monumental, modern, Calder-like (in fact there were five Calders in the area) sculptures. We did a quick walk-through of the small museum building (which was concentrating on Thomas Houseago) and then caught the tail end of a tour for families. The guide told the story of Noguchi's Momo Taro (Peachpit Boy) which really enhanced my appreciation for the sculpture. We could have gotten Acoustiguides, but we just used a map instead so we could cover more ground. Some of the most memorable sculptures were Calder's Five Swords, Goldworthy's Storm King Wall, Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield, Zhang Huan's Three Legged Buddha, and Tal Streeter's Endless Column. Other notable pieces were Roy Lichtenstein's Mermaid and George Cutt's mobile Sea Change. We walked more than 2.5 miles and covered the major works but definitely did not see everything. As we were heading to the North Woods section we ran into Wally and Ginny who had arrived and rented bikes for a short time to be able to see more in less time. Ginny was particularly interested in sculptures by David Smith; there were nine of them on Museum Hill. By the time we had returned from North Woods we were pretty beat and it was close to closing time anyway. [The Thruway runs along the west side of the sculpture park and we were glad we weren't heading toward NYC on Sunday because southbound traffic was already moving slowly.] We went back to the motel for a shower and then made reservations for dinner at the Tuthill House again since Ginny and Wally had not had a chance to eat there. It was just the five of us this time and the dining room was uncrowded but the food was just as good. This time C.J. had the rack of lamb and I had some excellent lasagna. I figured it was our turn to pay for dinner and grabbed the check, but Ginny saw it differently and had Wally wrestle it out of my hands so Merlin Flight School bought us all dinner (Thanks, Wally!).

19 Aug, Mon - We had breakfast at the now less-crowded motel. Then we went back to our room and worked on the editing for HG&PG magazine until it was finished and uploaded to the USHPA server just about at checkout time - 1100. With the car all loaded with our minimal luggage (mostly laundry), we headed south for our first stop. The New Windsor Cantonment and Purple Heart Hall of Honor had a modern museum with some info about the last Continental Army Winter Encampment (7500 underpaid/unpaid soldiers in 32-man wooden structures), and a gallery of Purple Heart-related items. A computer database quickly found my name and date of wounding (May 11, 1969) - I was surprised that I was in the database. Outside, a gravel path led into the woods where there were several of the old buildings from the cantonment, and a memorial monument. Unfortunately the costumed interpreters are not on duty Mon-Tue. From there we took Rte 9w over Storm King, then at Bear Mountain turned onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Around Haverstraw we cleverly exited to avoid what we later found out to be the non-existent toll on the Thruway between the intersection and the TZ bridge. However, there was a traffic jam on the link to 9w so we made a U-turn and returned to the Parkway, the Thruway and crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge ($5 toll eastbound). The GPS and decent signage got us to HPN early enough to get the car turned in, get our boarding passes and then find a place to get a great corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich, with a berry smoothie for dessert. Our flight this time was a short one to Philadelphia on a turboprop. We had a minimal wait at PHL before boarding but then there was a problem with fueling and we had to get off the plane and walk across two concourses to a different gate to go through the boarding process again. While waiting I grabbed several Philadelphia soft pretzels to tide us over until we got home. We were a couple of hours late getting in to SEA but we had no trouble getting our gate-checked bags and hopping on the shuttle to Extra Car where our car was ready and waiting for us. (No extra charge for being an hour or so late.) For a sad event like a memorial service, it was remarkably upbeat and even fun. Who knows when the Farnsworth siblings will once again all get together.