In observance of Women’s History Month, to follow are brief life stories of three everyday women of West Milford Township. Mae (Baier) Reilly 1895 - 1996 (From an interview with her grandson, Paul Reilly, age 54 and daughter-in-law, Helen Reilly, age 85) Today Mae Reilly is remembered by her extensive family and many friends as a loving, smart, strong-willed woman who took charge of her life and competently dealt with whatever came her way. At the time of her death in 1996, at 100 years of age, Mae had 51 grandchildren and over 100 great-grandchildren. “And she remembered them all,” her grandson Paul said. As a young girl Mae was schooled in Germany and she also attended Saint Vincent’s Academy in Newark. In 1917 she married Thomas Reilly, a reporter for the Newark Evening News. “He traveled all over and liked best to tell his story of riding with Poncho Villa,” Paul said. In 1922 Thomas took a new job as superintendent at the Newark Watershed facility and the fast-growing Reilly clan moved to a house at Echo Lake provided to them by the City of Newark. Tragedy struck in 1925 when Thomas passed away. By then he was the father of eight children including a set of twins. After only eight years of marriage, and pregnant with her ninth child, Mae was on her own. To help provide for and shelter her brood, Mae took the job of caretaker at Echo Lake. Each morning, with many children in tow, she would walk to the lake to test the waters and take the readings. The memories of these family walks through the woods remain with some of her grown children today. Time went on and the family grew up around her. As was the case with so many families, Mae’s sons joined the military. “She was very lucky. She had six boys in the service at one time, and they all came back,” Helen said. Mae was a religious woman giving freely of her time to her church, Saint Joseph’s on Germantown Road. She easily befriended the priests who were serving there and was known to them as having an open-door policy at meal times. She was a long-time member and served as president of the Saint Joseph Rosary Society and she was an officer on the National Council of Catholic Women. In her later years she was a favorite parishioner of Fr. Mychal Judge, the Franciscan priest who perished in the attack on the World Trade Center. His admiration for Mae was evident and vice versa. Of course Mae’s family knew her best. “She was the boss, let me tell you, but she was a wonderful mother and mother-in-law,” Helen said. Agreeing with his mother, Paul said, “Even with the grandchildren, she told you what she thought.” Being young they may not have appreciated it at the time, Paul added, but looking back they recognize the value of her forthright manner, her sacrifices and the commitment and love she had for her family. Mary Maud (Rhinesmith) Fredericks 1888 - 1980 (From an interview with her niece, Honey Baker, age 84) To Honey Baker she was Aunt Mame’. To the residents of West Milford she was know as Mamie, the proprietress of Frederick’s General Store on Macopin Road for approximately 60 years. She died in 1980 at the age of 92. While Mamie did not have children, she left behind family and friends and many customers who remember her with affection to this day. Mamie was born into a large family in the Stonetown area of Ringwood. When she was ten years old her father died in a train accident at the Wanaque Reservoir. Three years later her mother died and all seven children went to live with their grandmother on Macopin Road. At the age of 15 Mary Maud Rhinesmith married William Fredericks. She took two of her younger brothers along with her into her newly married life and went on to raise them. The Fredericks rented a house from her uncle on Cherry Lane, now known as Wooley Road. From the same uncle they bought a former blacksmith shop on Macopin Road. They enlarged the building, built a home and an ice house behind it and in 1910 they opened Frederick’s General Store. “They had a great big second floor where they had dances on the weekends and also held political meetings,” her niece said. Mamie became very involved in politics and was later named a county committee woman. “She was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” Honey said. Both husband and wife worked at the store, but Mamie also worked at the Echo Lake Mountain Ice Company, cooking for the workmen. “Her uncle was a foreman there and he made 25 cents an hour. The workmen made seven cents an hour,” reported Honey. Mamie’s husband died in 1941 but she kept the business going. She would stay up late at night to make her own syrups for her fountain sodas. She would pump gas from her roadside tanks, but always neatly donned an apron before doing so. She was still gassing up cars in her 80th year. People who did business at the Frederick’s store remember her day book’ in which she jotted down everything that was sold. Explaining her aunt’s method of bookkeeping, and recalling the integrity of the townspeople, Honey said, “ Most people were charge account people and most people were honest.” Mamie seldom went unpaid. She sold the store in 1970, not to retire but to care for her ailing sister. Describing her aunt, Honey said, “She was a tiny, rounded woman, all of four feet, nine inches, but dynamic. She was a very honest, generous and loving person and she thought that this was the best of all possible worlds.” In later years, when someone would mention her birthday, she was known to say she was born in 1888, the year of the blizzard. One relative was heard to remark, “I think she started it.” Ethel (Tintle) Kochka 1899 - 1997 (From an interview with her son, Robert, age 80) Robert remembers his mother as a loving and pious woman who in her later years enjoyed the mental exercise and emotional outlet of writing. She expressed her thoughts and passed on her memories by writing poetry and essays about growing up in the Echo Lake section of West Milford. Ethel died in 1997 at the age of 97. As of this writing her line of decedents include her son, Robert, her daughter, Mary Kochka Smith, eleven grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren. Ethel was born in the house her grandfather, Valentine Tintle, built on Saw Mill Road in West Milford in 1845. The house still stands today, occupied by Ethel’s grandson, Robert Kochka, Jr. As a young child she attended the one room Echo Lake School which was located on Germantown Road, adjacent to the current Saint Joseph Church and where the church’s parish center now stands. In one of her essays Ethel recalls the 1904 fire that destroyed Saint Joseph Church. She was about six years old at the time and she remembers her teacher seeing the fire and ringing the school bell to call attention to the unfolding emergency as she and the other children ran for help. “The men came, but there was no water nearby and the building burned to the ground,” she wrote. Many years later, with the incident still vivid in her mind she wrote, “My poor mother tried to save some sacred things and her arms were terribly burned.” There was another childhood tragedy that also stayed with Ethel all her life. It is of a well-to-do’ Echo Lake family by the name of Pinkney. Three of the Pinkney offspring were enjoying an outing on the lake when they were caught in a whirlpool that upset their canoe and all three perished. “I never wanted to go fishing on Echo Lake after that,” Ethel wrote. A small, fenced off area in the old section of Saint Joseph’s cemetery gives testimony to the story of the Pinkney family’s loss. Three markers name the victims of the July 31, 1910 drowning. Charles, born in 1885, Henrietta, born in 1892 and Winefrede, born in 1895 rest side by side. But Ethel’s childhood stories were not all about tragedy. She wrote about simple things, in a simple time. A walk to a store called Baxter’s, located on the corner of Echo Lake and Macopin Roads would end up with a two-cent bag of candy that Ethel would share with her sisters. She would also visit the Baxter store once a week for kerosene for their lamps. “Mr. Baxter would put a potato on the spout of the can so the oil wouldn’t spill on my stockings,” she recalled. Chores were a part of life for young Ethel. Lamp shades to be washed, wicks to be trimmed, filling the wood box, gathering apples for the pigs. She and her sisters went berrying and she remembered there was never a shortage of pies. Ethel grew up and married George Kochka in 1926. George worked in the Soft Rubber Mill’ in Butler and they lived for a time in the house located next to the service station on the corner of Germantown and Macopin Roads. That house later enjoyed the notoriety of being home to famed director Cecil B. De Mille. The couple eventually moved back to the homestead to take care of Ethel’s father. She remained in the 1845 family home until her death. During her lifetime Ethel remained close to Saint Joseph Church. She belonged to the Rosary Society, taught religion to children, worked in the cemetery, stoked the fire to warm the church for services and fed the priests on a regular basis. In one of her poems Ethel speculated on why she was living to such a ripe old age. “These are the things that made me strong,” she wrote. Walking the stony roads and fields of new-mown hay, milking the cow, walking behind her father’s plow and climbing the hills in the noonday sun. “To be in the country where I belong, and with God’s love, it made me strong.” Robert looks back on his life with his mother with love and gratitude. “Wherever Mom was, we were with her,” he said. Like his mother before him, he values the stories of yesteryear and serves as a local historian at the West Milford Museum. Dateline Trivia 1900 - International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union formed 1908- First celebration of Mother’s Day 1910 - Campfire Girls established 1915 - Actress Theda Bara wearing Helena Rubenstein makeup creates the vamp’ look 1917- The United States enters World War I. Women recruited by military for stateside duty 1917- Army Signal Corps trains bilingual telephone operators, called the Hello Girls’, to work switchboards in France. They relay messages between the front lines and headquarters 1917- Stateside women work in mining, manufacturing, direct traffic, run street cars and trains and deliver mail 1920 - Booming economy brings in the roaring twenties’ 1925 - Cost of foods: round steak, 36 cents per pound; bread, 9 cents per pound; coffee; 52 cents per pound; dozen eggs, 55 cents; half gallon of milk, 28 cents Sources: www.fofweb.com www.thepeoplehistory.com