The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 34

Cl-Palm Beach Post-Times, Sunday, September 1, 1971 .3 They Live In Fear Of Bulldozer Squatters who have taken over homes in the area for a controversial dam project in Pennsylvania sit on porch where many of the young persons wound up during one attempt to bulldoze the homes. ifnPTT 7 OT Illpi nm mm II.IIMIM Till i.tL.trw AP Wirepnoto Squatters 'Moved Here in Desperation' from it because the government doesn't pay taxes." "We moved here in desperation," Mrs. Dramm explained while neatly folding freshly washed laundry. Her small son Stefan clattered around the pine-paneled living room chasing three dogs. "We had been living in one room in the cellar of my folks' house, but it was too much with two children and a dog." "We are living like others, but we simplify." explained her husband.

"They (the townspeople! see someone cooking in a fireplace or a wood stove and they say that's dirty. The old people understand us because they probably spent 20 years of their lives with wood stoves." "This is a good place for people to show an alternative way of life." says Wayne Mitchell, an actor and set designer who arrived four years ago with a theater group from New York and stayed on when the group returned to the city. "We have some of the finest soil in the country here," said Ramon Figueron. "We all came from the cities. I've been in and out of the Poco Mountains for the last five years.

I want to escape the imperialist structure of the cities. Now I just think about getting through the winter. Someone burned down our barn with all the food the women had canned." Figueron grew up in a welfare family in Spanish Harlem. A spokesman for the Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia said it hopes to start construction of the dam in the spring. But it has called a temporary halt to the bulldozing because of what one official called "a very complex social situation." A Corps of Engineers official said a review of policy probably would be made.

The dam, five miles above the Delaware Water Gap between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, will create a 37-mile -long reservoir. The National Park Service is planning a recreation area with the reservoir a central attraction for swimming, boating and fishing. The corps says it will take eight years to build the dam, which is to be for water supply, flood control and electric power supply, in addition to recreation. The squatters oppose the dam, and say they should be allowed to lease the houses at least until actual construction begins. The corps signed trespassing complaints against 17 of the 41 squatters and they appeared in federal court in Wilkes-Barre last month.

The case was continued to Sept. 18. Ten of the squatters are on public assistance. The others work part-time as mechanics, in stores or odd jobs, and all try to make some money by selling their vegetables. "I was working," said Wayne Harkins, 24, "but this harassment by the government has forced me to stay home to protect my wife and child." Harkins says the house was broken into many times while he was working at a nearby inn.

Joyce MacDonald, 24, a former secretary who moved here from New York two years ago said she has moved her rugs and most of her valuables out of the house because she is afraid of the bulldozers. One of the first persons to have his home bulldozed Sept. 3 was Glen Fisher, 44, a former soil conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and now an opponent of the Tocks Island Dam. Fisher has been living in a sleeping bag in front of the rubble that was once his home.

He has been in the Tocks Island area for 12 years and took up residence on the river about three months ago. He says he probably will build some kind of a structure with the lumber from the bulldozed houses. STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) The youthful squatters along the Delaware River where the federal government is planning to build a dam and 37-mile recreational lake live in fear of the bulldozer. The squatters, many of whom are artists, musicians, college professors, mathematicians, secretaries and engineers, have lived there for three years.

They moved into houses vacated when the Army Corps of Engineers bought them to make way for the controversial $259 million Tocks Island Dam and Recreational Area along the upper Delaware River. They have set up an agrarian counterculture, living on homegrown vegetables, cooking oii open fires or with wood-burning stoves, canning their own food, baking their own bread and making their own wine. The squatters have been drifting into the fertile valley along the Delaware River that separates Pennsylvania from New Jersey for several years. Most come from New York. Some had been leasing houses from the Army Corps of Engineers, but when their leases began expiring in November they officially became squatters.

Others began arriving last spring. "It was really weird. People just were drawn here." said Uwe Dramm. 21. a former missionary in Canada.

"It was mystical. Once they came here they loved it." On Sept. 3, federal marshals armed with a federal court order, made a pre-dawn raid in two bulldozers. They gave the squatters a little time to remove their belongings, then demolished eight houses, two bams and a plastic tent. Dramm.

his wife Denise and their two young sons climbed onto their roof and refused to come down. Their house was spared. "They are trespassing," said Robert Lee, assistant project manager for Tocks Island. "They don't have proper facilities and they are causing some problems. They don't pay taxes and they get free benefits.

Even if they leased, the town wouldn't get anything Rubble Of A Demolished Squatter's Home Being a Princess Is an On and Off Matter Mrs. Frank McMahon, with her daughter Francine, has just returned to their home in British Columbia after spending several weeks in Chile. Well known in racing and social circles here and abroad Mr. and Mrs. McMahon will return to their Palm Beach showplace shortly.

jjCliafles Van Rensselaer Jacquie Obolensky, a princess no mo' after divorcing her second husband, Palm Beach Prince Obie Obolensky, has remarried her first husband in Texas. Got it? Jane Obolensky, a princess once mo', has divorced her second husband, Dean Rucker and taken back her first husband's title and name. Got it? Meanwhile Kappy Obolensky, Prince Obie's second wife who doesn't give a damn about titles, may be about to marry a tall dark stranger she met for the first time this summer in Saratoga (strangers no mo-). Got it? The abbreviated September lunch menu at the Beach Club doesn't keep the beautiful birds of paradise away. Why should it when chef Bob Robertson still puts out the best Eggs Benedict in town.

Brownie's accumulation was stolen. Crunch. Everybody struggled around stopping payment on the uncash-ed bits of paper which had paralyzed their bank books for months. Problems! Problems! The other day proved the point nicely with Edwina Atwell Martin just back from a visit with her son at his chateau in France and adorable daughter Serena Sanchez, Travis Cannon, Pat and Tony Dowell, Trish Hilton, Joan and Jim Russell and those ubiquitous Heckschers. "They're more pilots than palms down here" is the way William E.

Hutton III explains his new business venture, an art gallery on Worth Avenue. He's showing bis faith by placing an ad as big as Wally Findlay's in Jne yellow pages. That's some ad, believe me. hll Willy, scion of one of the foremost investment banking clans in America, was a broker himself in Manhattan until he decided to give up the hassle and south to Palm Beach. It's nice to be rich! With over 3,000 hours of flying time under his belt he thought surely he could get a job as a pilot.

He's very sanguine about the whole thing, happily. His gallery will show stunning graphics and oils. His own. Don't let the big ad fool you. His art shop isn't as big as the cockpit of a 747.

Did Donald Leas, ex of Fernanda Wanamaker Leas, wed luscious 20-year-old Jo Snyder today in Southampton? Tune in your local friendly newsmonger later in the week for the exciting answer. The incomparable Hildegarde, who's been a pal of mine since I first saw her at the Persian Room of the Plaza when I was a teenager, will open the Palm Beach Round Table's season Sept. 28. Frank Wright is giving 1971-72 subscribers four bonus evenings and he picked this great one to start with. To some, Hildegarde with her dainty lace handkerchiefs, roses, long gloves and fabulous evening gowns seems a bit of an anacronism in 1971.

In point of fact, she couldn't be more up to the minute with her great songs, elegance and simplicity. Drop by the plush auditorium of the Rosarian Academy in West Palm and take a look-see. You won't be disappointed. On the same bill with the incomparable one is "America's first lady of yoga," Eve Diskin. These two health fiends will discuss the various methods of avoiding tension.

What's tension, Mommy? A patron membership for the Round Table will set you back $100 but it's well worth it because these members get invited to many social affairs during the season. A hundred smackers for two, that is. Straight membership for two is $70, and if you are a lonely single it will set you back $40. 1 A tall distinguished gentleman walked into Elsen's Bookstore in Royal Poinciana Plaza last week. Dorothy Brock, the nifty looking new proprietor and her stately assistant Florence Van Landingham just knew "he had to be somebody." His dignity and bearing gave that away.

"Don't wrap it. I'll just take it," he remarked with a smile. As he left he clicked his heels and made the two ladies a courtly bow. "That," Mrs. Brock told Mrs.

Van Landingham, "is Winston Guest." Guest is a well known conservationist and an officer of the World Wildlife Fund which explains in part his interest in such subjects as birds of prey. Breeding will tell almost every time. A fascinating fact gleaned at the bridge table: Mrs. Earl E. T.

Smith, wife of Palm Beach's popular mayor, doesn't spell her first name Leslie as I've spelled it nor Lesley as adorable Donna Heckscher spells it. She's got a snappy way all her own-Lesly. What fascinating things do you learn playing cards? I'll tell you what Brownie McLean SHOULD have learned. Cash all those checks you've won rich people never carry money. Don't toss them in a pile and forget them.

X' Jacqueline Obolensky Where has she been? She's been Betty McMahon to Portillo.Toski-o! a princess no more.