Innisfree, 1970-1998
By Tom Rue
Chapter 11 - Back to the earth
After the 1993 death of Bud Rue, his widow, Ann, became the property's sole owner. At its inception in 1970, Ann Rue was the first secretary of Innisfree Corporation. Over the years, she cooked, served guests, and worked the Innisfree property alongside Bud and together with family members and friends. She also participated in program planning and improvement projects throughout Innisfree's history. However, at this point the property was beginning to become a burden to her and she felt she could no longer manage to maintain it on her own. Other members of the Rue family were living independently with new family obligations which prevented them from taking part in the operation of Innisfree Corporation as in the past.
A blue slate memorial stone bearing the name of Bud Rue, with his dates of birth and death, and a quotation by Kurt Vonnegut, sits beneath a large old oak on the Innisfree hill below the cistern. "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is," the stone reads. In December 193, Bud Rue's cremated remains were spread by his family in a circle around this rock.
Fire
Early one morning late in August 1997, an arsonist destroyed a small portion of the dormitory building (part of the area used in earlier years by the River School). The fire took the life of a long-term tenant renting an apartment on the first floor of the Innisfree dorm -- the boarding house style structure referred to in A.J. Thomas' will as "the Annex".
Patricia Woll, 43, was reportedly found in the apartment, lying on her back, which was said to be one indicator that she was unconscious at the time of the blaze. The exact cause of death was not publicly reported.
The Times Herald-Record and the Sullivan County Democrat both described the fire as being "on the grounds of the Upper Delaware Unitarian Fellowship," apparently due to a sign on the front of the garage pointing to the recreation hall as the meeting site of the UDUUF. Other news outlets added, "...at Innisfree". (See press accounts here.)
By this time, Ann Rue, then the sole owner of the Innisfree property, had moved to Lakewood in Preston Township, Wayne County. Ann did not know the victim well other than to rent her the apartment and collect rent. Ann was in Lakewood when the fire occurred.
As late as August 2020, the Wayne Independent reported that new evidence in the then 23-year-old arson/murder investigation included DNA of the suspected arsonist.
A former coworker of Woll at NBO National Bank in Olyphant named Richard Scott was quoted in the Wayne Independent asking that the unsolved Woll homicide not be forgotten. Mr. Scott recalled the deceased as a rather private person, and very religious. She was an internal auditor at the bank and was completing a degree in accounting at the University of Scranton at the time of her death. She was a single mother, raising her son at the time. After the incident the boy went to live with another relative. Scott said that the bank raised some funds after the fire to help Ms. Woll’s son.
In the months following the tragedy, Ann Rue made up her mind to sell the property, described as "an old boarding house in the Poconos". The eventual buyer, Cynthia Nash, at first declined to purchase the property due to the imposing presence of the fire-torn dorm at the top of the driveway and the unresolved overwhelming sense of loss over the innocent woman's death.
After Ms. Nash initially decided against the purchase, Ann hired a contractor to remove the three-story building. Some materials -- such as the American chestnut trim that was used extensively throughout the structure -- was salvaged and reused at Ann's current home in Greentown. The large quantity of debris which could not be reused was reportedly buried uphill from the site.
Ms. Nash shared that for several years after she purchased Innisfree, an unknown person left flowers on the anniversary of the fire.
A July 2, 2003 article in the Times Herald-Record entitled "Grand jury to examine death of Pa. bar owner" said that in the course of reviewing another crime, police had reopened "...the 1997 arson homicide of Patricia Woll, who died when her Milanville, Pa., apartment burned in 1997...".
Despite this, no more information is known to have been released since then, though a 2020 report on WNEP television entitled "New evidence in cold case, homicide and arson" suggested that DNA evidence might lead to a suspect. An open records request filed in June 2024 with the Pennsylvania State Police about the status of the investigation is pending.
Future
On July 17, 1998, then of Lakewood, Pennsylvania, Bernette Ann Rue sold the Innisfree property to its current (2024) owner, Cynthia D. Nash. Future activities at the premises once operated by Innisfree Corporation, whatever they may be, will be of a quite different nature than what occurred there in the past. Innisfree Corporation as it was, no longer exists, though Cynthia has elected to honor the place's history by retaining the name.
It is said, "You can't step in the same river twice." Bud Rue died with the belief that the "free school" concept after which Innisfree was modeled was untenable, at least insofar as he had attempted in his years of teaching. But he remained idealistic and hopeful, and as a teacher he stayed open to non-traditional and innovative instructional methods and relationships, and committed to serving our community in whatever ways were needed of which he was capable.
For over two decades, Innisfree Corporation had found ways to serve the local and extended communities. In some ways, its positive ripples are still felt in the community, through the continuing impacts of groups and activities that met at and came out of it.
Whatever becomes of that which remains of the Innisfree property will benefit from the river valley's unrivaled beauty. There is nowhere quite like this valley on earth. The property's current owner, Cynthia Nash, who is an artist and writer, hopes to secure funding to preserve and maintain the main house, barn, and rec hall. Everything tends to go back to the earth (as Oscar Ropke said to us more than a few times). Cynthia states plans to repair those buildings that are currently in need, as well as erecting a new dormitory building on the footprint of the one that was razed in 1997 after the fire.
Tax-deductible donations to the 2024 Bud Rue Memorial Fund for Social Justice may be addressed to "Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship" (mark the memo portion of the check "BRM Fund") at PO Box 47, Narrowsburg, New York 12764.
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