Hermit’s Countdown to Christmas: December 10, 1943. Cool and quite somber. At Beauty Parlor. I Read.
The Cold River hermit’s Christmas Countdown Continues:
December 10, 1943.
Cool and quite somber.
At Beauty Parlor. I Read.
Noah never felt time was heavy on his shoulders. He kept himself busy throughout long stretches of isolation tucked back in Cold River valley. His daily post for today indicates he was recording from the Beauty Parlor.
Anyone who knows a little about Noah is aware he named his tepee fashioned woodpile. The interiors served a real purpose. The Beauty Parlor was where trail-worn ladies sat while the hermit freshened their make-up. In this picture Mrs. Rogers Jones sit while Noah applies what will help her emerge with a fresh makeover following her thirteen-mile hike.
Noah had a wide-range of subjects he was interested in. Astronomy, mathematics, political history, biology, the classics, religion to name a few. Some of Noah’s relatives still owner a few of his well-worn books with notes he jotted in the margins. Noah was a self-education man who could- and did, hold his own in on almost any topic.
It wasn’t what Noah called local “paloticks” or his own self-defeating behavior or problems with a game warden that prompted Noah give up his barbering profession ate age 33 and walk out of Coreys, NY and into the mountains permanently. It was the loss of Schoenheel’s camp and of everything in the building that he owned.
Archibald Petty, then a high school student in 1929, wrote this note in the Petty “Corey’s News” home journal.
“A small cottage which was occupied by N.J. Rondeau was burned to the ground Monday afternoon about 4 o’clock. Sparks from a small stove caused the blaze. Rondeau lost all his belongings among which was a valuable camera and typewriter.”
Peggy Byrne reported that when she asked Noah about the fire that razed the Rustic Lodge, it was obvious from the sound of his voice that he was sorry his earliest diaries had been destroyed. “My diaries are like my poems, poor scribble… Early in 1929 I lost diaries of 11 years and they were well written in Cold River style {code}.”
Craftsmen and professionals used to hang out shingles symbolic of their particular trades; cobblers would hang out an oversize boot; barbers, a painted pole with swirls of red and blue paint; and a medical doctors office a black bag with a stethoscope and some bottles of medicine. Up in the mountains around Cold River, Noah erected a variety of banners heralding the entrance and exit to Cold River Hill. He even created a new footpath by blocking off the Northville-Placid trail where it curved around the base of the hill below the Big Dam lumber camp, redirecting foot traffic onto the spur trail that led travelers smack dab into the middle of camp. It was the equivalent of standing by the road and flagging down passersby.
But all that happened over time. By October 1929, the month the stock market crashed, Noah had relocated back at Cold River, going Outside infrequently only for supplies and his hunting and fishing licenses and during the Christmas holidays to spend time with Albert and Ester Hathaway at Pine Point Camp on Upper Saranac Lake. Theirs was a permanent invitation he accepted faithfully from the winter of ’29 until the winter of 1943-’44. At the age of 55 and for no reason other than that he wanted to, Richard Smith supposed, Noah gave up this routine long-standing retreat from living outside Cold River from Christmas to March or early April.
Throughout December, letters Noah wrote suggest some reading time was spent looking back at his earlier diary entries. His year-end 1942 entries and New Year preamble contain remarks about the weather, some hermit humor, childhood memories and his usual political jibes, but nothing about his decision to stay back at the hermitage throughout 1943.
William “Jay” O’Hern has written extensively about the life of Joah John Rodeau, the hermit of the north country.