Frank Family Chronicles
Crystal Lake, Carbondale, PA - Where It All Began
Leonard J. Weiss (2000)
In the early 1930s home air conditioners were many years away and w e had no fans. Spending the summer out of New York city was the height of luxury. The first summer that I can remember being out of the city was 1934, when I was seven years old.
The Grossingers, who founded a large resort in the Catskills Mountains of New York, had come from the same shtetel as our partents. They might even have been distant relatives.
One of their employees owned a boarding house adjacent to the grounds of the hotel and it was through the Grossinger connection that the Druckers and the Weisses spent a summer at Anna's Boarding House in the Catskills.
I can thank Shep Fields
Sidney and Eugene Drucker and I were forced into retrieving lost golf balls for a man named Shep Fields, the bandleader at the hotel.
My mother, realizing how terrified I was of Shep, decided to make other plans for the following year.
Cottages on the lake
Uncle Harry and Aunt Fanny suggested that the two familes should rent a cottage for the summer at Crystal Lake. This was a no brainer for my mother since she loved her oldest borther, Harry.
We rented a cottage from a man named Klein.
It was located about the equivalent of two or three blocks southwest of where the Spitz cottages are.
After a few years the Franks rented a cottage from Strassman and Klein's cottage became the summer home of the Druckers, Weisses and Biniks. It was a bit crowded but in those days it didn't seem to bother anyone.
Life on the lake
Our cottage was rather primitive. The only toilet facility was an outhouse about 50 feet behind the cottage.
We also had to hand pump water out of a well that was on the back porch. Naturally the water was ice cold.
The only bathing facility was the lake itself. We loved the lake and all the activities that it offered. The summer flew by and we couldn't wait to go back the following summer.
In the years that followed, the Druckers, Uncle Louie and Aunt Esther with their families, the Biniks, the David Kornfelds, the Louie Kornfelds, the Diernfelds, the Rossinows, Irving Frank and the Dudas became regulars. With all the kids there was always someone to play with as we went from one activity to another.
In addition, other family members came to spend a day, a week, a month or an entire summer. There was never an empty bed in any cottage. Eventually, we left Klein's and began to rent a cottage from Joe Spitz. We now had an indoor bathroom and hot running water. What luxury!
When the weather was nice we swam, fished, boated, played ball and did all the things that youngsters enjoyed. Our mothers were almost always back at the cottages cooking, cleaning and working away.
One of the other imporant activities in good weather was huckleberry picking. Celia Drucker and Fanny Frank, followed closely by my father, Shlome, were the leaders of the berry picking crew. Baking, canning and more cooking of course followed the picking.
When we were confined to the cottages on rainy days, we learned to become card sharks. Taught by Celia Drucker we became avid poker and pinochle players, using matchsticks as money.
On Sunday, it seemed as if all of Scranton emptied out and came to the lake. The tables were bursting with food. The serious pinochle games started and I can remember watching in awe as they played for real money.
My last summer at the lake was in 1943 when I was 16.
By the mid 1950s, the next generation of kids began spending sumers at the lake. Of course, the "tantas" Mary, Esther, Fanny, Celia, Gussie and Blanche, and uncles Harry , Louis, Morris, Shlome and Victor were still there. But the grandchildren wer now a presence: Sherry and Barbar Binik, Judy and Nancy Rossinow, Mark, Lesley and Howie Spindler, Lea and Howard Chartock, Mindy and Sara Kornfeld.
Because of the Crystal Lake Experience, our family decided to start "The Cousins Club" in 1959. And today's Frank Family Circle dates from that first reunion in Kubel's barn on Route 247 in Crystal Lake, PA.
With the changing times however and the family spreading out, fewer and fewer Franks were going to the lake. In the late 1960s and 1970s it was primarily Sidney and Eugene Drucker who kept the tradtion alive, buying some old Spitz cottages and fixing them up.
By the 1990s a large contingent of Druckers and Lea Chartock were spending all or part of their summers at Crystal Lake with frequent visits from Lenny Weiss from Honesdale and the Spindlers, the Artie Franks and other family members who live in the area. In fact, Crystal Lake has actually become quite fashionable in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
So as we enter a new century the Frank Family has been a presence at the lake for over sixty years. Among our newest generations, there are many who have never been to the lake and some possibly may never even have heard of it. I therefore wanted to share with everyone my own reminiscences of the lake and the reunions that began there.