CAROL ELEVITCH RETIRES
10964 wishes to congratulate and thank Carol Elevitch on her retirement from the newsletter she helped to found and perpetuate. Her contribution to it and to the community is without measure and we wish her all good things as she begins her next chapter.
This is perhaps a good time to review some of her achievements. She brought to the newsletter an extensive background in the business of writing and publishing. With an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and with her husband, Morton Elevitch, she established a paperback bookstore on Cape Ann in Rockport, Massachusetts, produced a literary magazine, First Person, out of Boston and New York, and joined the newly formed organization, Literary Magazines of America.
Carol came to Palisades because of a song. In graduate school, she had been struck by Mabel Mercer’s rendition of Alec Wilder’s Did You Ever Cross Over to Snedens? with lyrics describing white houses clinging to the hill, so when she and Morton were ready to move to the country, they drove out to Palisades to scout out the territory. Carol felt that a good way to tell if a house was for rent was to see if there were curtains in the windows – no curtains suggested no one lived in the house – and as they drove down Washington Spring Road, they noticed there were no curtains in number 82. By chance, they passed a sign for Margaret Anderson’s Realty and learned from her that the house was indeed for rent. They made a deal that day and have stayed in the house ever since.
Her passionate interests in the community, in particular, the Palisades Free library, school affairs, and citizen engagement in politics, led her to what was first an informal role in 10964’s inception in 1977 and then a formal role as editor at the time when there was only one editor. She considered the newsletter a vital source of information for the community and credits it with helping to save the hamlet library from absorption into a large, regional library, the school from being sold off, the triangle from development, and getting people out to vote. Until her retirement, she was an active, even crucial presence on staff, and the one we all went to with questions.