My Mom-Marilyn Farber
Picture an eighty something woman swimming to” the Point” and back with a beautiful smooth crawl. Now picture her having a quiet paddle by herself early in the morning. Lastly we see this woman walking with determination to the Shoe Tree and home once again.
This community and our cottage and the North Country was the place of the heart for my Mom. This Love Affair started when she was a very young child and it never left her.
Quoting from her memoirs: “When I was nine years old my parents sent my brothers and me to camp in Fryberg, Maine. There I fell in love. The love of paddling a canoe, tripping and sleeping under the stars.
Tripping became “my first love”. We learned to make camp-lean-tos, cooking fires and camp fires. I would dream of getting married and spending my Honeymoon on a canoe trip.”
My Dad did not share these particular dreams of my Mom, but knowing how much she missed the North Country, after her camping days were over, he surprised her by buying our lovely cottage on Oxtongue complete with her own canoe! Her happiest times in the summer were taking the canoe out before breakfast or going for a paddle just before sunset, following the call of the loon or watching a duck with six or seven ducklings trailing in a line behind her. For Mom this was a childhood dream come true.
She spent her last summer on Oxtongue Lake, passing away only when she knew that she could not be at her beloved cottage anymore. She was much loved by all who knew her. She will be missed but not forgotten.
Janie Tizel