This Spring when my cousin, Sharon, and I took our annual nostalgia trip to the “country”, I planned to spend some time focused on the Decker Brothers. Although Sharon went along for the ride and, might have found my pursuits mildly amusing, I was, for sure, the Instigator. Maybe it is an aspect of my aging process, a “ winding down of my life” type of review . Maybe it is the simple joy of reliving a coming-of-age, innocence, first love experience. Whatever it was I wanted to see the Decker story to “completion”. Thanks to the kindness of a perfect stranger who lives in the hills beyond Lake Oquaga, I was able to track down the Decker Brothers. As you may remember from reading my Decker Brothers Story on my Boomerfrontrunner Blog, we ( Sharon, Dorothy and I) met Golden, Lyle and Stanley Decker in the summer of 1961 and we all shared a brief moment of life, and a brief moment of innocent teenage “love”. I venture to say that oftentimes these youthful experiences are powerful and moving.
Sadly, my pursuit of the Decker Brothers led to Information I didn’t want to know - both Lyle and Stanley were gone! Gone, as in dead. Strangely, even though I had no part in their lives after our brief summer rendezvous, hearing they were dead, caused me to experience a stage of grief and mourning.
A Facebook search led me to Holly Decker, who turned out to be none other than Golden Decker’s firstborn child. My connection with Holly eventually led to her father, Golden, and finally to the luncheon rendezvous Sharon and I shared with Golden at the Delphi Diner.
We stopped at the Hamden Cemetery so I could pay my final respects to Lyle.
We parted ways with Golden at the gate of the cemetery and Sharon and I continued our annual nostalgia trip to
“ the country”. First we went to Lake Oquaga and wandered around Scott’s Lakehouse (which this past June 2018 was the site of the filming of Season 2 episodes 4,5 and 6 of the Amazon Prime award winning series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. It was also the site of our romantic adventures with the Decker Brothers back in 1961. Sadly, now it is a deteriorating relic of a bygone era that is sorely in need of repair.
We drove to Friendsville, Pa and the cemetery where our grandparents, TJ and Margaret O’Donnell and their two single daughters, Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Anne, are buried. We visited my parents’, Rita and Charlie Fries, final resting place in St. Joseph’s Pa. This is also the burial place of our great grandparents, Thomas and Annie O’Donnell and many other ancestors we only got to know through the “telling”.
Our original plan was to stay overnight at a motel we stayed at in our previous nostalgia jaunts. When I entered the address into my GPS back at Lake Oquaga I was a bit shocked to see it was still over 80 miles away! Being a bit tired already, I hesitated. “Should we do this”, I asked Sharon, but after a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to go for it. After all this was our once a year adventure together. The place we like to stay is in Towanda, Pa and it is called The Riverstone Inn, 47 Leisure Drive, phone # (570)265-8882. I am sharing this information in case you are ever in the area and need a room for the night. The attached restaurant is lovely, the place is quiet and clean and comfortable. I also included the information here because I don’t want to forget it!! This year I put the wrong motel name in my GPS and Sharon and I found ourselves at the wrong motel. Lucky for us, Sharon remembered the name of “our motel “ and when we put into the GPS we discovered it was only a couple of miles away from where we were.
We had a lovely dinner, a peaceful night’s sleep, a private breakfast ( included in the price ) and then headed out to continue our adventure. Our first stop was nearby in Stevensville, Pa ( Bradford County) to visit the grave of our Revolutionary War ancestor, Amos Northrup and his two wives ( only one of which is our ancestor - LOL). Shortly before she died, my mother insisted we track down Amos. She dragged me kicking and screaming ( figuratively) to Bradford County, which by the way, is in the middle of nowhere. We eventually found this little country cemetery in Stevensville, Pa. My Mother said she “thought “ this might be the place we would find Amos Northrup. We had never been to this particular cemetery before ( and believe me we had visited oodles of cemeteries over the years ) and although it is in the country, it isn’t all that small. I can remember saying to my Mom with irritation in my voice, “ This cemetery is huge, it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack; this is a total waste of my time!” My mother didn’t pay any attention to me but instead, opened the car door, got out and started to look around. In good conscience, I couldn’t leave her alone as the terrain was uneven and she was up in years and unsteady on her feet. I took a hold of her arm and we walked together in the grass looking for our forefather. We walked about 6 to 7 feet, and there he was !!! I couldn’t believe it; he must have wanted us to find him. I must admit, I was pretty excited to see that old tombstone with Amos’ name on it.
This time, when Sharon and I stopped at the Stevensville Cemetery, I knew right where to find him. It didn’t take long to say a quick”Hello” to Amos and then I jumped back into the car and we were on our way. We weren’t exactly sure where we were going since that is basically the nature of these little nostalgia trips Sharon and I take every Spring. They are mystery adventures, even to us.
