My deepest thanks to everyone who assisted with [the book “The Hermit and Us, Our Adirondack Adventures with Noah John Rondeau”.
My deepest thanks to everyone who assisted with this project. Many hours of conversation, writing and e-mailings, telephone conversations, searching family paper records and photographs came together as I researched the historical background portion of The Hermit and Us often with my wife, Bette driving on trips to make this book a special memoir.
This book would not have been written without the interest, support, and full cooperation of many willing contributors. In this respect, I feel especially fortunate for the generous response of the large number of persons listed below who have provided unmediated access to private papers and permission to use detailed information about their lives and early days in and about the Seward Range of the Adirondack High Peaks, and in many instances, have likewise loaned their cherished pictures, most of which were very old and consequently greatly prized by their owners.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to The Adirondack Museum for per-mission to reproduce from MS 61–7: ALS Noah John Rondeau to Robert Bruce Inverarity, July 20, 1961; Typed Letter Robert Bruce Inverarity to Noah John Rondeau, April 24, 1962; ALS Noah John Rondeau to Robert Bruce Inverarity, April 28, 1962; Typed Letter Robert Bruce Inverarity to Noah John Rondeau, May 7, 1962.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Peggy Byrne for permission to print Noah John Rondeau’s April
28, 1962, letter to Robert Bruce Inverarity.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Richard Smith for the use of Noah John Rondeau’s 1943, 1944, 1949, and 1950 journals, now property of the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY; and for permission to print material from Noah John Rondeau’s scrapbooks and photo albums, now property of the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY;
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the North Elba-Lake Placid Historical Society for access to Noah John Rondeau’s diaries.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Dan Lucca for permission to use his photograph of Noah and friends on the Dedication page.
I am indebted to my friend and editor, Mary L. Thomas for her invaluable support and constructive advice in making this book happen. She has been my invaluable second right hand from the onset of the manuscript’s development.
Neal Burdick edited portions of the final draft.
Courtesy of Richard J. Smith, from Noah’s photo album
Uncle Noah, former Cold River Hermit of Wigwam City, Population 1.
The following businesses and people helped me in ways both great and small. To those who consented to be interviewed for this book, thanks for sharing your memories: Adirondack Life magazine; Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake; Donald “Jack” Anderson; Bob Bates; Robert E. Brindle, vice-president of programming at WGY; Neal S. Burdick; Oscar Burguiere; Harvey Carr; Maitland C. De Sormo; Adolph Dittmar; Mary Colyer Dittmer; Madeline Dodge; H. P. Donlon; Dr. Roger D. Freeman; John Hasenjager; John Hickey; Rob Igoe, president of North Country Books, Inc.; Bertha N. Irwin; Nancy and Frank Johnson; Miriam Kondroski; Chris E. Latimer; Dr. C.V. Latimer, Jr.; Donald Latimer; Helen Colyer Menz; Edward Miller; Erwin H. Miller; Bette M. O’Hern; Tony Okie; Pete and Alice Pelkey; Jerry Pepper; Jeff Pescia; Adam Piersall; Ruth Prince; Fredric C. Reeves; Edwin A. Reid; Shelby Payro Richardson; Chester Rock; Steve Rock, Burton Rondeau, Charlie Russ; Earle Russell; Dorian St. George; Jenny Rondeau Kelton Scully; Richard J. Smith; Judy Sorrell; Peter Reeves Sperry Fred R. Studer; WGY Schenectady Radio; Syracuse University Press; Mary L. Thomas; Eleanor and Monty Webb; Clarence and Stacia White-man; Cynthia and Holly C. Wolff, and Paul Wollner. Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use Philip G. Wolff’s “Knowing Noah John Rondeau: A Young Man’s Tale of a Hermit’s Hospitality.” Original material that appeared in Adirondack Life, May/June2010. The story, “Noah John Rondeau, Hermit of Cold River,” was written by Adolph G. “Ditt” Dittmar and taken with permission from the Forty-Sixers book, The Adirondack High Peaks and The Forty-Sixers (The Adirondack Forty-Sixers, 1970).I have made every effort to acknowledge the assistance of everyone who helped; any omission is an unintentional oversight