The Kingston Daily Freeman from Kingston, New York • Page 23

THE DAILY FREEMAN, KINGSTON, N.Y., WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1975 LIFE TODAY The old lighthouse at Kingston, built in 1856 near the Rondout Creek mouth, was abandoned in 1913 and later torn down when a new structure was built nearer the channel. The present light has been closed since 1954. 'A Depth of Focus' Saugerties Author's Book A Magic Mirror Reflecting the Pageant of a Bygone Era By Tobie Geertsema The thing about history as viewed from a nostalgic standpoint is that it compares the past with the present, for better or worse. And, as it emerges in and Legends of the by Saugerties author Ruth R. Glunt, it is for the better.

To Ruth Glunt, history is not a long corridor dotted with dusty dates, but a living thing, full of sound and fury signifying something. One senses that, in dealing with historical subjects, the of istory is very important to her. She obviously believes that it should not be left out (a belief in which this reviewer concurs). To her, history be properly presented without a sense of the emotions surrounding the event. And, so, in her memoir of Hudson River life, she gives us not only the detailed data of the lighthouses, but also a feeling of closeness to the keepers and their families who lived in these little ivory towers.

Even the legends touched upon her title are not the ghostly myths one might true-to-life anecdotes with a relevence for today that no fairy tale could possess. Additionally, the colorful days on the Hudosn are brought to life in a magnificent collection of never published making the book a virtual magic mirror wherein we see reflected not only our own lives, but the whole pageant of a fascinating and bygone era. The wife of a retired lighthouse keeper who manned Turkey Point Station for 28 years, she knows her subject well; has documented it for easy readability. The result is a book that impresses as a series of family albums. Albums combined to allow readers a glimpse of the nine lighthouses once manned round the clock on the Hudson; that gives them insights into their workings and the personalities of those who lived and labored within.

That returns them to the era of ice harvesting, fishing, Day Line boats, ferries and outboard races on the river. And, while the book is mostly concerned with things marine and nautical, there is a totally delightful chapter in which Mrs. Glunt recalls the vacations of her each summer at the Overlook Mountain another on bluestone quarrying and hauling. In retrospect, it is author Glunt who best describes her own book when she notes, consider this book Depth of It is all that her memories of the past are very sharp she places those yesterdays in close up detail for the enlightenment of her readers. The book is, in essence, a full of vignettes as a carefully produced film.

Now on sale at most local and area book stores, and Legends of the bears the publishing imprint of Library Research Associates of Monroe. Author Ruth Glunt and her husband, Chester, with an old lighthouse flag. Many years ago, all lighthouses were supplied with such flags to fly on special occasions. The burned at her dock in the Lsopus in 1903. Today, the 200 foot long timbers and iron pins of its wreck can still be seen at low water, despite its many years of battering from ice.

Saugerties Lighthouse is the oldest such structure still standing and the most easily reached by land at present; has been closed since 1954. When a man could make his living as a commercial fisherman on the Hudson, Claude as one of the best along the river..