- Carol
"Campers from Camp Woodland met with the Claude Yerry to talk about local history. He was among the many Catskill folk who extended their hospitality and kindness to us campers. The October 22, 2008 posting on the Woodland Valley View has several photos of Claude Yerry. The last is a detail of a photo of a meeting between campers and Claude. The full photo is attached along with a follow up photo of the campers who used information gathered from Claude Yerry to write and perform a small dramatic work about Woodland Valley. Please see the text.
Photo A, taken in the summer of 1952, shows the group meeting with him. I was a member of the group (although not in the frame of the photo) and have a reasonably clear general memory of the meeting. I was impressed with the warmth he showed to us and how we feasted on the stories and lore he shared with us."
- Bill Horne
Test Below Photo:
Gathering Material For A Play
Group 3 spent an evening chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Claude Yerry up Woodland Valley. Mr. Yerry is an old resident of the Valley, and his memory goes back to the bustling old days when the lumber mills and the bluestone quarries still gave many men employment. He told about the Snyder tannery that stood along the Woodland road.
Out of this trip and several others they had taken to Samsonville, the children had reconstructed a picture of the changing valley, from the days of the tanneries through the quarrying period to the present time.
Text below Photo:
Acting Out The Past
The Children made a play about the history of Woodland Valley, centering their story around an Irish family that emigrated to America to escape the potato famine, and came to work in the Synder tannery. The family experienced the many changes in the valley and finally sold their land to the founders of Camp Woodland.
In this scene the family discusses what to do next, now that the tannery has moved away, due to the exhaustion of the tanbark supply.
Blogmistress Note: I asked Bill Horne where he got these pages. This was his reply to me.
"The photos are from the 1952 Camp Woodland Year Book. Camp Woodland had a year book for almost every summer season. In my 11 summers there I never made it into the yearbook although I came close, as in the Claude Yerry photo."
Thanks for sending us this history Bill.
