Name/Title
The RitaEntry/Object ID
chs-012098Description
This unused color postcard illustrates a serene rural landscape named "The Rita" near White Lake, showcasing several multi-storied, red-roofed buildings amidst lush greenery, vibrant gardens, and scattered trees, with a backdrop of distant hills and a picturesque lake. The foreground features a main building with a wide porch adorned with visitors, surrounded by a similarly designed secondary structure and additional amenities like garages and a sports court, emphasizing a tranquil and recreational setting from an earlier era.
The back shows the back of a vintage postcard, primarily in a beige color with blue text and a blue square indicating where to place a stamp. The text references "The Rita," located on White Lake and high in the Catskill Mountains, New York, and includes a phone number for Timothy Driscoll. There is also a visible aged stain running down the middle, giving it an authentic old look, and it’s marked Kauneonga Lake, N.Y. at the bottom.Subject Person/Organization
Stoddard, Edward J. (Ed), 1937?-Subject Place
* Untyped Subject Place
White Lake (populated place) - Town of Bethel - Sullivan County - New YorkContext
As a child, Ed Stoddard spent summers with his maternal grandfather, Timothy Driscoll, proprietor of "The Rita" and postmaster of the Kauneonga Lake, N.Y. post office.Collection
Norma Stoddard CollectionTranscription
The Rita
[verso]
The Rita
On White Lake, N. Y.
High On the Catskill Mts.
"Restricted"
Tel. White Lake 13-F-2 Timothy Driscoll
Kauneonga Lake, N. Y.
E-6007
Post Card
[postage stamp box]
Place Stamp Here
Pub. By A. S. Landis, Wurtsboro, N. Y.General Notes
Note
I can remember listening to this radio as a little boy. I can vividly remember hearing of VJ Day, August 15, 1945. There was a great deal of celebrating and fireworks were shot up over the lake at my home, hotel (the Rita) and farm where I grew up in Kauneonga Lake (the lake in the picture is White Lake/ town of Bethel). My first memories are listening to baseball games that were being transmitted from the stadium to the radio station by teletype and then re-broadcast by the announcer. My Grandfather, Timothy J. Driscoll, had built the hotel around 1905 and in the evening he would listen to the ball games. He was a Brooklyn Dodger fan, so most of his grandchildren became Dodger fans. Comments like "It is a Ballentine Blast" or that one landed on Flatbush Avenue out of Ebbets Field are fond memories. As indicated most of these memories are from the middle 1940's to the early 1950's.
( One more tidbit, not related to the radio, but the picture; The Woodstock Event of 1969 took place over the hill and less that 2 miles from the hotel.)
My Grandfather had the hotel built from the ground up and it opened circa 1905. He told of having the lumber come in on the railroad to Liberty and then to the brought to the location by horses and wagons. It is, using the roads that exist today, at least ten (10) miles from Liberty to North White lake (Kauneonga Lake today). My Grandfather, one of his sons and a small "hired man" worked the farm for as long as I can remember. There were about one hundred acres including the woodland which is located in the back part of the picture. Beyond the radio, the Rita Hotel holds many memories. In the winter time, the men would work together and harvest ice to be stored in the ice house that was located between the hotel and the barn. We would pull blocks of ice to the milk house to keep the mild cold in the vat in the milk house from spring to fall. The saw dust had to be shoveled out in the fall before the next season; the saw dust was used as a packing between the layers of ice. One more memorable experience was the painting of the rooms and even the exterior of the hotel. { I feel faint as I think about being on a plank painting the outside peak of that hotel.} Obviously that was later in my older teen age years. But, the rooms needed to be painted just about every spring. A major reason was that the plaster walls had been painted with an in-expensive product (I think calcimine paint } during World War II. After the war the water based paint came in to play. There was no heat in the hotel during the winter and the combination of factors resulted in the paint coming off in large strips each spring.
The hotel operated from about 1905 until "Pop's" death in 1955. At that time my mother incorporated under the name of TimRose (her father's and mother's first name) and operated the hotel as a Tourists house until the middle 1960's. About 1972 the hotel was taken down. The rafters, in my carport in Chester, came from the floor beams of the dining room from the hotel. The barn burned during a storm and the fields are full of overgrown evergreen trees at the present time.I think this is enough to cause some comment from those old enough to have seen some of these events in their own lives. As told by Ed StoddardCreate Date
August 1, 2024Update Date
January 26, 2026
