from: Thomas Rue to: Senator Charles E. Schumer date: Jun 5, 2024, 11:09 PM subject: "Build Back Better" infrastructure support for Skinners Falls/Milanville Bridge
Here is another digitalized version of my grandmother’s (Opal Brooks Rue) photo album. The original is in my possession. This digitalized version is posted here: 1930-1931 Album of Opal Avarilla Brooks Rue, documenting her years with Arthur Rue who passed through the New Mexico town where she lived with her widowed mother. Arthur was traveling the country on trains after losing his hearing as a consequence of malaria when he and Opal first met. He had been a seminary student at Smith Bible College, followed by two years at Philips University in Enid, Oklahoma before dropping out without completing a degree due his hearing loss.
Opal was born in Giles, Texas on September 26, 1909 to Clara Ada Morrow Brooks and Joseph Winfield "Jay" Brooks. Her father was struck and killed by lightning in 1913, after which life was not kind to her mother.
Opal and Arthur married in Kansas City, Kansas on August 3, 1926, at age 16, still married to a man twice her age named William H. Crosby with whom she had first tried to escape life under her mother's roof in Tucumcari. Crosby beat her with a rope and a razor strap and forced her to drink mash whiskey, she told the Quay County District Court. Meanwhile, Arthur's travels took him to Tucumcari where he met Opal while staying with a pastor named Rev. Grace for whose child Opal babysat. Opal and Arthur hitchhiked to Kansas City, where they tied the knot. Her divorce from Crosby was finalized a year after she married Arthur on August 27, 1927, which may in part explain why she never mentioned the brief first marriage to the family she and Arthur later raised.
This album focuses mostly on the couple's life in Cleveland, where Opal completed school after giving birth to her first son on August 15, 1930 in that city. Opal graduated from Cleveland Central Junior High School, June 1930. She finished at the Detroit Practical Nursing Center in May 1960 and worked as an LPN at Plymouth State Home with developmentally disabled children.
Like Opal's brief marriage to Crosby, also not mentioned in two her albums (or to their children as they were growing up) was Arthur's first marriage to Ana Galan Sara, whom he wed on December 19, 1925, in New York City (less than a year before he married Opal), in a marriage that was never formally dissolved and of which no one at home ever spoke during the rest of his or Opal's lifetimes. Opal and Arthur were together for 46 years when Arthur died in 1973. Opal died six years later during 1979 in California. They are interred together in Livonia, Michigan where they spent most of their lives together.
In February 2024, I received an email from Christian Mericle of the Tucumcari, New Mexico, pointing me to the high school era Scrapbook of Opal Avarilla Brooks Rue, which had been created by my grandmother as a young woman. Christian had generously placed scans on his Google Photos account (see link to view the full book).
He explained: "The album was purchased from an eBay seller by Gary Gholson, who donated it to our collection because of the Tucumcari photos. If you’re interested in the seller’s name, I can find that for you," and asked if I had more "Tucumcari-area photos or other history you would be willing to share..."
I replied that I was curious as to the seller’s identity, recalling that my grandmother showed me this particular album when it was still in her possession about 1977 at her home in Livonia Michigan, during a visit on my way to college in a western state. Although she gifted me several other contemporary albums and papers at that time (which I also still have), I recalled, she told me that this one had special meaning and she was keeping it. She allowed me to take the album to the local public library at the time to make rather poor-quality a black and white photocopy, which I still (2024) have in my basement.
In response to the email, I felt pleased to know that local historians in her area had come across my grandmother's missing album and were preserving it, but the email did leave me curious how one of my grandmother's most valued personal albums found its way from her possession to Ebay. It had been my assumption that my uncle, Jim Rue, who provided close and loving support and care to his mother in her last years, probably had the missing photo album. However, that was not true. Someone else may have come into possession of it at one of the facilities where she was treated for leukemia and perhaps it ended up at a thrift shop before landing on Ebay. According to Christian, who found me on Google, via related genealogical information on this website, contacted me to share the album via this link, the seller was from San Juan Capistrano, California. I'm just glad that the album landed in a place that it is being preserved and shared with interested historians and genealogists. How it got there may remain a mystery.
A few months after this, in May 2024, Christian Mericle emailed me with this offer: "I spoke with the gentleman who donated Opal’s album to us. While having such an item in our collection is a privilege, we wanted to give you a chance to bring it back home to your family. If you’re interested, please let me know what you feel would be a fair donation."
Regarding its plans for the future archiving of the album, Christian Mericle introduced his group as Historic Tucumcari, as "...a fledgling historical group associated with a local church. The church’s vision for the program is to serve the community, not use it to proselytize. Unfortunately, we do not have the facilities to provide high-level archival care (e.g., climate-controlled vaults). Tucumcari’s oldest and most firmly established historical organization, Tucumcari Historical Society/Tucumcari Historical Museum, also falls short on this front. As to the album’s availability for researchers, it is available for viewing (currently, by appointment only)."
With gratitude for the digital images of the album that have been shared here.
MILANVILLE - Walking along the road to Damascus from an agreed upon starting point of the Milanville General Store on a beautiful spring day. Our only mission: Bagging things on the ground that do not belong there. The initial Damascus Township litter sweep kicked off a series of similar Upper Delaware Council events on April 16th held in various locations along the river corridor. Pictured: Volunteer coordinator Evan Padua, who represents Tusten on the UDC; his father Michael Padua of Tyler Hill; UDC member Jeffrey Dexter representing Damascus; retired NPS supervising ranger Don Hamilton; Jill Padua and Tom Rue of Narrowsburg. Contact the UDC for more information at upperdelawarecouncil.org
“For a few blissful minutes, anyone who happens to be in the path of today’s eclipse will experience an elation more intense than any other celestial experience. Stars will emerge. The universe will be visible. The Earth and all life on it will come into sharper focus. The cosmos will feel complete.” —Robert Reich
Amid the recent reports of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Route 695 in Baltimore, one email I received from USA Today pointed to the database (see National Bridge Inventory) documenting the condition of bridges throughout the country. Filtering for my own neighborhood, my attention was caught by the description of a small bridge in Narrowsburg around the corner from where I live and work.
History of Freemasonry in Sullivan County, NY
Upon recognition of R.W. George J. Dexheimer for 70 years of service to the Masonic Fraternity
Liberty Masonic Building, 7 Eagle Drive, Liberty, New York
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 6:30 pm dinner, 7 pm meeting
by W.: Tom Rue, Historian for Sullivan Lodge #521
Most Worshipful Grand Master and Grand Lodge officers, Worshipful Master, and assembled brethren and friends, together my beloved partner Jill:
It is my privilege to share a bit about the history of our craft in the former Sullivan Masonic District at this event honoring RW George Dexheimer who has lived more Masonic history in his 75 years as a member of this ancient and honorable fraternity than anyone else in this room. Now 94 years of age, initiated, passed, and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason during the fall and winter of 1954 in Liberty Lodge #561. Our brother George served as Worshipful Master and all of the line offices in his blue lodge, including Tiler, Lodge Brotherhood Chairman, and now serving as Chaplain of Sullivan Lodge #521. Like that of Brother Dexheimer, the history of this fraternal order is made up of the accumulated stories of millions of men who have met for centuries in a place like this representing the unfinished Sanctum Sanctorum of King Solomon’s Temple in order to engage in civil discourse without politics or religious doctrine to divide, bound by shared oaths and society.
Having been raised 30 years ago in Monticello Lodge No. 532, I ask the forbearance of the Orange and Rockland contingents of the Orange-Rockland-Sullivan District. I suspect it is entirely true in all three of our counties that Freemasonry has been engrained and carried on in the local culture from long before the founding of our republic. I point you to the portrait of Wor. Bro. David Starr, the first Master of Monticello Lodge No. 532. His image formerly hung in the Tyler's room of the Lodge Hall in Monticello, and is now suspended above the Junior Warden in the West in this worshipful lodge this evening.
The earliest recorded lodge in Sullivan County was Sullivan No. 272, warranted at Monticello, January 2, 1817. This Lodge and Bloomingburg Lodge No. 310, which was warranted June 24, 1818, both existed during James Monroe's "Era of Good Feeling" and enjoyed prosperous days until the Morgan affair and Anti-Mason groups caused membership to dwindle and interest to wane, to the extent that Sullivan Lodge failed to report to Grand Lodge after June of 1829. Four years before, Bloomingburg made its last report. Grand Lodge was patient and waited until June 1835 before it passed a resolution for forfeiture of the Sullivan charter, and June 1833 before it took similar action with the Bloomingburg Lodge.
These were the only lodges to exist in Sullivan County until 1858 when Lodge 460 (the one to which Monticello Lodge No. 532 is the successor), was chartered. They were: Callicoon Lodge No. 521; Mongaup Lodge No. 816 (which two lodges merged to form Liberty Lodge No. 521). Delaware Lodge 561, Livingston Manor Lodge 791, and Fallsburg Lodge No. 1122 all originated since that time. Monticello, Liberty, and Fallsburg lodges merged in 2019 to form Sullivan Lodge #521.
Monticello Lodge #532 began meeting in that village during the year 1862; immediately succeeding Sullivan Lodge No. 460 which was chartered in 1858. The area's initial Masonic Temple, atop the old Curley Hotel (also known as the Victoria Hotel) at the site of the former Nowhere Bar across from Village Hall (Broadway and Pleasant Street), housed Sullivan Lodge #272, upon which construction commenced in 1805 -- only months after the first house here was completed. The first Temple, demolished in the blaze of 1909 which took much of the village, was replaced by the present structure that same year. According to what our late friend and brother, the venerable former Historian of the Sullivan Masonic District, Bert Feldman, told me, there is an inscription around the foundation. I searched the northeast corner of the outside of the building for one but did not find it.
Bro. Joseph Brant
Chief Joseph Brant, formerly in the Masonic Lodge in Hudson, NY, now in the DAR offices there. (Photo by Kenneth Skyer.)
One notable Masonic figure was the Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (1703-1843), one of the most famous and renowned Native American chiefs in the 18th century, a Mohawk military and political leader based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario. Chief Brant was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Chief Brant was received by King George III in 1775 at St. James's Palace. While in public, he dressed in traditional Mohawk attire. He was accepted into freemasonry and received his ritual apron personally from King George. Permit me to share an excerpt from "Chief Joseph Brant: Mohawk, Loyalist, and Freemason" by George L. Marshall, Jr.:
"We now turn to two incidents which are often cited by Masonic writers in reference to Brants association with Freemasonry--his saving the life of Capt. John McKinstry and his attempt to save the life of Lt. Boyd.
"After the surrender of the American forces at the Battle of the Cedars on the St. Lawrence River in 1776, Brant exerted himself to prevent the massacre of the prisoners. In particular, one Capt. John McKinstry, a member of Hudson Lodge No.13 of New York, was about to be burned at the stake. McKinstry, remembering that Brant was a Freemason, gave to him the Masonic sign of appeal which secured his release and subsequent good treatment. He and Brant thereafter remained friends for life, and in 1805 he and Brant together visited the Masonic Lodge in Hudson, New York, where Brant was well received and on whose wall his portrait now hangs.
Gen. John Sullivan, Freemason and namesake of Sullivan County
"The American general Sullivan, also a Freemason, ambushed the Indians and Loyalists at Newtown, New York in 1779, resulting in the flight of the Indians and a march across the state by Sullivan to the Genesee Valley, destroying the Indian villages and the power of the Indian confederacy. During this campaign, a certain Lt. Boyd, a young Freemason and scout for Sullivan, was ambushed and captured along with a soldier named Parker. In the words of John Salmon, who was a friend and fellow-soldier of Boyd, the incident continued as follows: "...When Lieut. Boyd found himself a prisoner, he solicited an interview with Brant, whom he well knew commanded the Indians. This chief, who was at that moment near, immediately presented himself, when Lieut. Boyd, by one of those appeals which are known only by those who have been initiated and instructed in certain mysteries, and which never fails to bring succor to a distressed brother, addressed him as the only source from which he could expect a respite from cruel punishment or death. The appeal was recognized, and Brant immediately, and in the strongest language, assured him that his life should be spared."
Thank you.
W.: Thomas Rue Lodge Historian, Sullivan #521 Liberty, New York
Benjamin Homan is said to have been the first European to set himself up in Narrowsburg in the early 1770s. Overlooking the narrowest and deepest spot on the river which the Lenni Lenape, the original stewards of this valley for countless generations, called Lenapewihittuck. Homan renamed the spot "Homan's Eddy" in honor of himself. That name didn't last.
In February 2024, I received an email from Christian Mericle of the Tucumcari, New Mexico, pointing me to the high school era 
Benjamin Homan is said to have been the first European to set himself up in Narrowsburg in the early 1770s. Overlooking the narrowest and deepest spot on the river which the Lenni Lenape, the original stewards of this valley for countless generations, called Lenapewihittuck. Homan renamed the spot "Homan's Eddy" in honor of himself. That name didn't last.