Video Gallery

My parents and their friends started coming to the lake in the early 1920’s. They would take the train from Scranton to Thompson and then walk to the lake carrying their luggage and supplies. They rented the cottage now owned by the Fry’s. At that time the cottage was further towardthe lake. The front porch area was actually out over the water and they were able to fish rigfrom the porch. My folks eventually bought a lot on the other side of the lake next to the springlot and built their cottage there. Before a cottage was built, we stayed in a tent and were occasionally visited by the ever roaming cows. We used a kerosene stove for cooking andlanterns for lighting. There wasn’t any electricity for many years, even after our small place wasbuilt. The farm, on the main road was a “working farm”. In order to drive onto the lake road, wehad to get out of the car and open a gate, drive through, and close the gate so the cows wouldn’t get out. The cows roamed wherever they wished. We used an ice box for our food andbought ice and raw milk from Calendar’s farm. Mr. Hobbs, who owned the grocery store in Thompson, would come to the lake and take orders, mid week, from those staying at the lake and deliver them later in that day. Usually the husbands returned home for work thereby leaving the families with no transportation except on weekends. Drinking water was obtained from aspring that drained into the lake. It was the best water I ever tasted. The spring was, and perhaps still is, on the lot now owned by the Coons. For a number of years, our little cottage was the last one on that side of the lake. I can remember when others, such as Jenkins, were built.

My mom, Beverly Frost's (maiden name Beverly Arnold) recollections:
I first started coming to the lake in 1947 when I was 12 years old. My oldest brother Arnold was engaged to Lois Davis, and Lois's parents, Gert and Bill Davis invited our family totheir cottage (now Lucarelli's) along with a lot of their other family. Bill's brother Willard and Bunny Davis owned the "Spring Lot next door," now the Butler's. My grandfather had made aboat, and my family brought the boat with us. He encouraged me to try out the boat with the motor and I ran right into another boat my first time out with it. Surprisingly, he wasn't upset with me! Davis's cottage was a small place, built from old IBM packing crates. The frontwas all windows by the lake, and they eventually added on a bathroom to the back. They had along flat-bottom rowboat that they turned upside down to use as a picnic table for gathering.

My parents loved it at the lake and bought what is now the Browne's cottage next door to Savis's. Eventually, they bought the next cottage (now Frost's), which was Dobson's and sold theirs to Raynsford's (Cathy Browne's parents). Interestingly, the location of the out house on this property was not its original location. My dad moved it away from the road because there were too many kids that would walk by on the road and bang on it while someone was inside :)

Eventually, my husband Len Frost and I wrote to the owner of the next cottage (now the Frost/Meyer cottage) to see if they were interested in selling in 1975. The owner was in a nursing home at the time, and her  daughter Marjorie Wenkie came to see what the cottage looked like before agreeing to sell. She took one look inside and left. This was a one room 14''x20', onestory place that was packed to the brim with furniture and odds and ends. There was a bigbed, headboard, coal stove and even an Old Town canoe in it. There was a separate room onthe back with a sink and pitcher pump. There was a very large coal bin and cinder block fireplace outside, which my daughter and her husband dismantled about 12-15 years ago. Stuffinside the cinder blocks in the fire place, they found newspapers from 1941.

Shortly after we brought the cottage, my father Ernie Arnold, Len and I added a second story.One day when they were working on the cottage, it was jacked up and the cottage started tolean. I yelled for them to get out, and they both just barely made it out in time before the cottage fell. When it fell, it landed on the Kelly property next door. We eventually were able to buy the Kelly property so we could have the land that our cottage fell on. We sold the Kelly property to my sister and her husband, Kathy and Dave Bryant, but we kept one of the lots that our cottage was now sitting on.

All of this resulted in my parents (Jessie and Ernie Arnold), the Frost's (my husband and I) and my sister's family (Kathy and Dave Bryant) had three cottages all next to each other. Jack and Lois Arnold's family came to stay often with their RV camper and my other brother Gene and Marlene Arnold's family came to stay often. Like so many families around the lake, our children have loads of memories growing up on the Lake.