Vacation
Ferrin Homestead, Au Sable Forks, New York
[/caption]I must have looked and acted as if I needed a vacation after the Portfolio went off to the printer. My husband and his father were going on a genealogy research trip to upstate New York and swept me up with them. Humm, I don’t suppose the years I spent running the research department for a few newspapers in Michigan had anything to do with that. My husbands family settled in Au Sable Forks, New York prior to 1850: it’s about 24 miles east of Lake Placid. The Au Sable Forks area is really beautiful but, as with many areas of our great land, suffering in this economic downturn. The local hardware store recently closed-a hardship for a rural/agricultural area.With the help of the town historian, an 1873 atlas and an old painting of the property, we found what we believe, with a very high degree of confidence, is the old family homestead (pictured left). And just to show that it wasn’t all the grind of researching local records-here is a picture from the hiking trail we traversed in the Au Sable Chasm. I will be back in the studio on Monday, rested, refreshed and ready to start the new cycle of my yearly activities. Hope you are all doing well, wish you were here.
