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It may be a bit early for New Year resolutions but here is one you might want to consider putting at the top of your list. It promises to reduce stress, improve concentration, enhance clarity of thought and help you become more positive. What could be better in these perilous times?

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On August 24, 2018, Sophie Breer suffered a cardiac arrest in her hometown of Minneapolis and passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving family and devoted husband.

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“Follow your bliss, and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” —Joseph Campbell

As she put it herself, Joan was a child of the atom bomb. The blast made her deeply aware that scientific advancement was outpacing society’s moral and spiritual development, and inspired her to devote her life to the pursuit of ideas. However, the way did not come to her in an atomic flash, but from years of living, first as she was supposed to, and then as she determined to, in a relentless quest to know herself and what it meant to be alive.

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Name: Santhosh.

*What’s your official job title?*
Mail Carrier

How long have you been working in Palisades?
11 Years!

Each Thursday until frost you can find Joy Macy’s beautiful floral bouquets for sale at the Nyack Farmer’s Market. They are grown on her Bluefield Farm in Blauvelt.

Kathryn Shattuck comes from hardy pioneer stock, growing up in southwest Kansas on a cattle ranch in her family for generations. “We’re an hour’s drive from Dodge City,” she says. In the early 1880s, Enoch Austin Shattuck, her great grandfather, left Erie, Pennsylvania and headed west to Tombstone, Arizona where he formed the Erie Cattle Company. Butch Cassidy was on his payroll. He eventually settled in Kansas where it was greener and the weather kinder.

Lydia Ratcliff, by all standards, was a driven woman, well ahead of her time. Born and raised in the Captain John’s House in Snedens by her parents John D. Ratcliff and Marie-Françoise Tonetti, Lydia’s first exposure to farm animals was attending to several goats owned by her mother. Graduating from the Palisades Grammar School, Lydia attended Nyack High School for two years. Thereafter, she enrolled at the newly founded Putney School, an alternative, co-educational school in Putney, Vermont. Early educational programs at Putney not only included core subjects, but also required students to actively participate in running the farm owned by the school. It was this early exposure to farming that eventually led Lydia to her second career.

Neil has been described as a virtuoso. He is principle trumpet for the New York Pops and the Mostly Mozart Festival and co-principle trumpet for the New York City Ballet. He made his solo debut at the Kennedy Center in 1991 and has been a soloist on “Live From Lincoln Center.” He plays for Broadway shows, the opera, big band and with chamber music groups. He records for television, radio, commercials, major motion pictures and with numerous ensembles. He even played rock for Peter Frampton in 1979 in front of 60,000 screaming fans.

It started out as a quest to find a new home in the country. Hiroko and Keizo Tsukada were living in a condo in Jersey City with their three-year-old retired Greyhound racing dog, Gavin. When Gavin broke an ankle and had to be carried up and down flights of stairs, the idea of a home with a backyard was alluring.

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Carol Lee Kageff grew up in Detroit, Michigan with her parents Bertram and Charlotte and younger brother Burt. She graduated high school Valedictorian in 1946 and went on to earn her B.A. at Wayne State University and M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Michigan, winning a Hopwood Graduate Short Fiction Award for her novelette The Hovering Gulls. In early 1956 she met Morton Elevitch, also a University of Michigan English grad student/writer. By August they were married.

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When Faye Fleming drove down Washington Spring Road that day six years ago, she knew she’d found home. A perfect place, she said, to garden, raise chickens and write novels. This is something coming from a woman who has lived and worked all over the globe in the fast paced, glamorous world of art.

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On October 7th, a beautiful Indian summer day, we celebrated the marriage of our daughter Alexandra to Jacob Klein of Baltimore, Maryland. Allie, who wanted to be married at home on Ludlow Lane, asked that the ceremony be held in front of the majestic Magnolia grandiflora, which was planted to commemorate her birth. The wedding party of nine groomsmen and nine bridesmaids was family and close friends. Katie, Allie’s sister, stood as maid of honor; Jake’s best man was his brother Sam. Cantor Tracey Scher of Larchmont Temple officiated the vows.

Thomas Joseph Wentland passed away October 17 at the Bronx VA hospital. He was born to Cyril F. Wentland and Pauline E. Sawinski at Nyack Hospital on July 28, 1949. He was a life long resident of Rockland County, having lived in Camp Shanks, Nanuet and Palisades. He attended Nanuet public schools and graduated in 1967. Tommy was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Germany and Vietnam with the artillery unit from 1969-1971.

David Wolk will tell you that he doesn’t believe in all his own opinions, but in this case, his excitement about his new collection of photographs is shared by people in a position to know. “I will never walk on sand the same way again,” they say. And now he has blown the whole thing up.

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Our historic Palisades Cemetery is a beautiful place, and I have learned some fascinating stories about its residents. If you haven’t yet visited it, open the gate one day and take a look around. Everyone is welcome. One of the most poignant recorded events is the death of ten-year-old Sarah Pennoyre. On October 11, 1836, Sarah, whose family lived in New York City, was visiting her grandmother Betsy Scudder in Piermont. The Palisades diarist Nicholas Gesner, who was Betsy Scudder’s brother-in-law, recorded what happened. “A Terrible Accident — one of Cooks boys with a pistol to Day (Afternoon) shot Pennoyres young Daughter in the Side, was at her grand Mothers New Landing — the poor Girl said she would die, requested her Grand Mother to pray for her and others, but none could pray. Garret Onderdonk was sent for, talked with her and prayed." She died that night.

Team of 77 who went to Pueerto Rico. Tony Vero is fourth from right, front row
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On September 29, one week after hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, while power was still out over most of the island and many people were still lacking food, water and shelter, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sent a team of 75 men and two women, comprised mostly of airport maintenance workers, to San Juan International Airport, at the request of Governor Cuomo. Their job was to help restore the infrastructure at the airport and at the port itself. Tony Vero, who lives on Horne Tooke Road, was one of three airport managers who led this group of plumbers, electricians, roofers, air conditioner mechanics and other construction specialists, and answered a call for volunteers to help in Puerto Rico’s dire situation.

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William Anthony Gerard, called Tony by friends and family, lived in Palisades his entire life. Throughout his 63 years, Tony Gerard lived life his own way, with a driving force that impressed everyone who knew him.

How Judy Tomkins came to live in Palisades is worth repeating. When a teenager living in Nyack with her mother, she was invited to go trick-or-treating with her friend Caroline Lalire, nee Abel, who lived on HeyHoe Woods Road. On Hallowe’en, the two girls walked down Washington Spring Road and crept around to the back of the Joshua Martin House where the young architect Rex Allen lived with his mother. They peered through the dining room window to see Mrs. Allen seated at the piano, dressed in a long black gown. She rose suddenly from the bench and turned slowly and stiffly toward the girls, who panicked and ran screaming back up the road. Once at a safe distance, Judy said to her friend, “One day I will live in that house.”

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“In 2006, I was challenged by a friend to computer-plot the 384 major battles of the Civil War,” Don Bracken relates. “At the time, I knew nothing about computers nor the Civil War but I accepted the challenge and learned a lot about both.”

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Cristina Biaggi, age 19, sold some jewelry her father had given her and with the money, flew to Turkey. She then boarded a bus where she made friends for the afternoon with a young man who asked her, probably with the intention of seducing her, where she was going. “To the Bosphorus. I’m going to swim it,” she replied. “Would you like to come with me?”