Peaceful Day On A Lake

I have no idea where this was taken but it looks like the time period was in the late 40s based on his looks. I like how he seems content just sailing the boat and hanging out on the lake.
When he was not engrossed in a project at home or processing pictures he definitely liked to be any where in nature.

Mt. Katahdin, Maine

Sometime in his early years (late 1940s?) Adolph went with a friend to Mt. Katahdin, Maine for a hiking trip. Mt. Katahdin marks the end of the Appalachian Trail and is a pretty rugged and remote mountain by Eastern standards.
I Googled the trip and by modern day standards it would have been an 11 hour trip so I assume it was at least a 15 hour or more trip back then

It appears they stayed at the Togue Pond Camps. I can't find this on any modern maps but there are old post cards and fliers of this camp from the 30s and 40s.

I don't recall a lot of details about this trip in my father's stories but he did share more than once about how they hiked to a lean-to just below the mountain and then experience a huge lighting storm in the night that was striking the ground near by and shook them out of bed.
This mountain has a narrow ridge to climb...very impressive and something you would find more out west.
Adolph on top.
Some good fishing some place near by. Looks like he and his buddy got at least 18 trout. I assume from fly fishing since that was his favorite kind of fishing. I can just imagine the enthusiasm he must have had for a days catch like that and an amazing hike under their belts.
Hiking Katahdin some day is on my list of things I must do.

1939 World's Fair In NYC

This is Adolph in front of the Kodak Exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. He would have just turned 19 years old. He loved photography and chemistry and had tried to work at the Kodak plant in Rochester, NY. He even traveled up to get an interview but it did not work out. He ended up working for Ansco, later GAF, film company in Binghamton, NY for 46 years.He more than likely hitched hiked there and stayed with relatives. Does anyone know who he went with and where he stayed? At this age he often traveled with his childhood friend, John "Pete" Podany.

Dad's Self-Portrait Age 16, 1936

Adolph gained an interest in photography at age 15 after seeing a friend at the local pool hall taking photos. That year he built a darkroom in his parents' basement and obtained chemicals at a discount through a friend's mother who worked at a local film company. Below is a self-portrait he took with a pin-hole camera. For those of you that don't know, a pin-hole camera is nothing more than a box with a pin hole for a lens and a sheet of film taped on the inside of the back of the box. The shutter speed is determined by how long the hole is uncovered or the lights of a dark room are put on.

Below is the darkroom he built. This was done completely with hand tools. Later he moved the entire dark room to the one and only house he owned at Keenan Drive. It was under the stairwell. I could not bare to trash his work and now have most of it at my house put to other uses.

Paul, What a great job you did with this. Thanks so much for taking the time to do it. Love, Mary

One of Dad's Special Places

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my dad's death. To reflect on his life I climbed my favorite mountain and made a special place for him. The rock in the middle is officially now one more of Dad's special places. The others are on my other favorite mountain which I try to hike once a week and on a mountain over looking Missoula, MT. I put something personal of his under this rock and on the other mountains. This rock sits on an overlook I rest at when I back country ski each winter. Even when he was in his early 80s he insisted he would get in good enough shape to hike this mountain. That was not something his body would have ever been able to do but he still wanted to think it would. Even to the end he really still saw his body as something that just needed fixing up. He never accepted that it was simply and old body and was not able to do the things he thought it should. I think the day he died he went quickly because he finally did recognize that at best he would never be in the minimum health he thought one should have to be living. I believe for him living a prisoner in your own body was something worse than death. His next step had he lived longer was to go on dialysis - he was still debating whether he would do it or not.

Below is the view looking out from the rock. In the distance is Lake Champlain and the Vermont Mountains.In the end Dad had been in good enough health to still drive and get around. (Not that he should have been driving) All within a couple of days he went from that to death. He had no desire to die and planned to live a lot longer despite numerous health problems and few medical solutions, but how his last week of life went was just how he would have wanted it to go...and he did almost make it to 88 years of life. He had also told me in the weeks prior to that he had a blessed life and all anyone could have hoped for. He loved his family, his jobs, his friends and many passions...all that mattered to him.

Adolph's Desk

Adolph is sitting at the desk he made by hand. He shared with me that he used all hand tools to cut, router, drill and screw it together. I am sure he said he made it when he was a teen. I can only imagine how much time it must have taken since it has many compartments. In addition to the actual desk, I still have the old desk lamp which also looks a lot like the one he had a work.
[Looks like the calendar is from November or December of 1946. It has a little Christmas decoration and is leaning up against a candle.]

He loved to read and was very much self taught on many subjects. He told me many times that all one had to do to learn something new was to read up on the subject. I can make out a ski book and a manual for his speed graphic camera. Two of his many passions. Knowing how he was I can imagine he spent hours engrossed in one of his passions and reading all he could on the subject. When I cleaned his old books out of his house I found everything from learning German (he said a lot of chemistry was in German so he needed to know some of that) to Aeronautical books (something he never did do). Because he was a diabetic since age 15 he also had numerous medical and health books. He always would become self taught on a health issue rather than simply trust the doctors. I am sure many a doctor was annoyed by him telling them what he thought they should be doing.]

I love this picture. It was processed by Adolph and is of him working at Ansco Film Company. The calendar in the back seems to indicate it was April 9th 1945. It looks like the dates prior to the 9th were crossed out. He did not have an opportunity to go to college but did very well in high school and loved chemistry and photography. He started work at Ansco when he was about 18 or 19 and worked there for 46 years. He loved his work which was mostly chemical research. Technically he was a chemical technician, not a chemist.
Blow up of the calendar in the background.He had the mind of a chemist and it seemed he picked the right job for himself.