Photo on left - Joseph Fries, Sr, Charles A. Fries (my Dad) and Joseph Fries, Jr. I am not certain but I think the photo might have been taken up at Garrison. I love my Dad's double-breasted suit.
Photo at bottom - Bob Buchner and Charles Fries looking for the infamous key outside of the gym at Garrison when Bob & I and my father and mother stopped there on Jan 15, 1995 on our way back North to Albany after a trip to Long Island.
Here is page # 3
"Upon arrival at Garrison in September I soon realized that this was one place where they meant "business". The school program was much larger then those to which I was accustomed. All students were required to take eight subjects during their first year and more in each successive year. The school days were long; broken only by a short recess at lunch hour. At first I thought that these and many other regulations were too severe, but gradually I became accustomed to them so that by the end of my first year I was hardly aware of their existence.
When I returned in September I missed my mechanical diversions which I had during the summer. although I got along as well in my studies as in my first year, nevertheless I was very restless. Whenever possible I borrowed physics books from older students and read them in both free & study periods. On one occasion I made a master key out of an old belt clasp for the benefit of a small clique of which I was a member. We used it to open each other's lockers when we wished to borrow a ball or bat, or to return something we had used. However, we enjoyed the benefits of the key only one week when the Rector learned of its existence and summoned us to appear before him. I was told to give all my attention to my studies and not to waste it on such foolishness. After this incident my mechanical desires remained suppressed until I returned home for my second summer vacation.
Although I never returned to Garrison, yet it is to this place that I owe my education. Here I learned the meaning of responsibility and the value of education. Just before entering Glencliff College I had no interest of continuing my schooling beyond the second year of high school. When I left, however, I was eager to complete high school so that I could enter college. This change was due to the strict & Individualistic supervision which was given to me. If I had been left without such guiding influence, I would have never completed high school."
Some of my own thoughts:
This autobiographical narrative that my Father wrote when he was 19 gave me a glimpse into his thoughts that I never had before. I did not even know this little autobiography existed until a few days ago. I heard his story about the creation of a master key many times throughout my life but I was surprised to learn that my Dad only had use of it for one week before he was discovered. It obviously made a big impression on him since he shared this story so many times and with so many people. He also told us that when he got wind of the fact that the Administration was aware of its existence and, my Dad's involvement, (sound like he was the master mind of this operation to me) he ran outside of the gym and quickly buried the key in the ground in order to hide the evidence. About 9 years ago a large group of his family accompanied my Dad to a reunion at Garrison and we looked in vain for the hidden key ( I will have to go back sometime with a metal detector ). When he spoke to us about his time at Garrison, he always sounded like it was a marvelous time in his life. He spoke about the wind-up record player(that had to be cranked periodically to keep it going)that was used at recreation time and about sledding in the snow and about taking the train from Manhattan up to Garrison. Back in those years the electricity that ran the train engine did not go all the way up to Croton/Harmon/Garrison area and at some point outside the city area, they would have to switch to a steam engine. Throughout his life, my father loved trains and really seemed to enjoy this type of travel.
I was also very surprised to hear him say ".....all my plans for the future provided for a more adventurous and exciting life." He always seemed like such a home-body and appeared to want something very safe and secure not only for himself but for all his family. He had may fears and I believe they held him back from soaring. I wonder what would have happened had he not gone to Garrison. Would he really have quit school after eight grade or would he have become an inventor of sorts? Interestingly, he never once mentions that he went to Garrison/Glencliff to pursue a vocation to the priesthood. It was as if that thought didn't even enter his mind. I always thought he must have felt saddened or abandoned at having been sent so far from home at such a young age. I would not have wanted to go to a Boarding School right after graduating elementary school. He sounded like he was delighted to go away from his home and family - at least initially.
This is the story I heard at some point - My father had an Uncle (his father's brother) and his name was also Charles Fries. He was studying for the priesthood and a very short time before he was to be ordained (something like a month or two) he died of flu pneumonia in the epidemic of 1918. If I remember correctly my Dad's grandfather, Jacob Fries, also died in that same epidemic that killed his son, "Uncle" Charlie. The family was devastated that they lost their "family" priest right before he was to be ordained and it seemed that they were very hopeful that my Dad (Charlie also) or his older brother, Joseph, would fill this spot. My Uncle Joe Fries went to Garrison for 4 years and then left also. Actually, this was the reason my father was familiar with Garrison as he had been up there when his brother was in school.
My father told me that one of his Uncles took him back up to school in September of his third year of High School (for some reason his father could not make the trip with him) but before his Uncle left to come back home to Brooklyn my father announced that he had decided not to stay. My Dad came back home to Brooklyn with his Uncle and my Grandfather had to scramble to find a school placement for him. He was enrolled in Bushwich High School in Brooklyn and it was here that he met his first life-long friend, Joseph Mule'. Two years later at Brooklyn College, he met the 3rd Musketeer, Nicholas Pascarelli.
No comments:
Post a Comment