A lifetime of loving Lake George

TICONDEROGA | With less than two months until she turns 95, Shirley Emrich sits out on the screened-in porch of a cottage in Heart's Bay Lodges on Baldwin Road. Dressed in a pink T-shirt with red sleeves, Emrich is taking in the view of Lake George that has charmed, bewitched, and enchanted her for nine decades. Emrich has been a regular seasonal visitor every year since the age of five. In that lifetime, she has endured happiness, sadness, inevitable change, personal fulfillment, and unavoidable loss. During that entire span, a little piece of the Adirondacks in Ticonderoga has remained in her heart and mind, a significant presence whether here, or there. "This place hasn't changed much," Emrich noted. "It's the same, it hasn't changed much; it's unspoilt and peaceful." It was the summer of 1935, and Emrich recalls her father Robert Denhardt, an avid fisherman, hearing tell that for a bass worth catching, Lake Champlain was the body of water to head to. The family did just that- Emrich, her parents, and brother loaded into the family's unairconditioned car and made the journey from Catskill, NY to the North Country, with no plans for lodging in place, Airbnb- let alone the internet's- conception years into the future. "We were coming through Ticonderoga and there was a little stone information booth, it was open and my father stopped there to talk about going up to Champlain," Emrich recalled. "The man in the booth said 'You don't have to go up to Champlain, there's gorgeous bass right here in Lake George." That was all Bob needed to hear, and it was decided the family would travel no further. A farmer by the name of George Cook had cottages for rent, and the travelers made their way in that direction. The accommodations they found would ultimately shape Emrich's childhood, adolescent, and entire adult life. The little girl was lucky enough to snag the front bedroom of the two-story rental, and as she drifted off to the sounds of Lake George water lapping gently against the shoreline, she was hooked. "Coming here was an awakening for us," Emrich said, the memory of that first impression alive and well. "We just kept coming back." Her father did indeed catch some bass on that first trip, with local Ti resident Emery offering his insight and tried-and-true techniques of where, and how, to fish for Adirondack bass, "He had markers on land," Emrich said, chuckling at the thought. "He would tell my father, 'Look at that tree and line it up with that rock. Right in the middle, there is a place for bass.' That's just how he did it." Bob would clean the fish on a shelf on the back porch of the cabin, and her mother would bake the bass with milk and onion. Emrich would enjoy a lifetime of fish from Lake George until roughly ten years ago when she developed a fish allergy. But she had a good run. Taffy, the family's yellow feline, also had a good run. As Bob was cleaning his daily bounty, Taffy would join him on the shelf and get hand-fed fish. It was a small form of paradise for man and beast on Baldwin Road. As a child, Emrich adored frogs, and Bob had one simple but fair cabin rule- it was acceptable to bring a frog up to the house, but only for a little while, and it must be returned to the lake where it came from. One day, while chasing one particularly evasive frog, Emrich put her hand underneath the boat in which he had escaped. "I felt something bite my finger," she remembered. "I ran up- probably crying- and told my father a frog bit me." Her father knew full well that frogs didn't bite and headed down to the shore to investigate the claim. Sure enough, when Bob moved the boat, a snapping turtle had been the culprit. Emrich recalls the cabins' hosts coming over during the hot summers with blocks of ice that had been harvested out of Lake George during the winter, which was promptly placed in the bottom of the ice box. The Cook family also had a dairy farm, and the Emrichs were accustomed to drinking milk raw until laws were passed that required pasteurization. "I remember going up and watching Florence Cook in her kitchen with a machine pasteurizing the milk," Emrich said. One year, Bob managed to catch more fish than the family could possibly consume. His solution was to "salt" them for preservation, and strung fish on a clothesline across the front porch like lights at Christmas time. "The salt didn't keep the fish long enough," laughed Emrich. As Emrich matured over the years from a girl to a woman, back at home the other 50 weeks of the year, life and all its rites of passages came her way. She headed to Ithaca College, studying music (she's a soprano songbird that to this day sings every week in her church's choir) and business, and it wasn't long before she caught the eye of an adoring suitor. When heading to a college meeting on area churches, Bill from Pennsylvania couldn't help but notice Emrich. "He told me, 'I just watched you and when I saw which church you went into, I followed you," Emrich reminisced. It wasn't too long before Emrich and Bill tied the knot, with a life of working together at their family business, Bill as a physical therapist and Emrich as his office manager. And of course, the family trips to Baldwin Road continued, enriched year after year as children Meg, Mark, and Marla came along and made the pilgrimage to Ticonderoga. "Bill became just as enchanted as I was with this place," she said, her golden charm bracelet catching the light of the June sun, with the silhouettes representing three grandchildren given to her from her husband the Christmas before he passed away. "It's so peaceful and so beautiful, time hasn't changed it." The Emrichs loved dining at the Indian Kettles and enjoying Jack Reynold's famous cheesy garlic bread, Shirley and Bill celebrated many a wedding anniversary at the popular establishment and its $10 million dollar view. There were also some woodland critters that were happy to see the family return year after year. The friendly Baldwin Road raccoons were invited into the cottage on a regular basis, being hand-fed from the Emrich children a delightful diet of cookies and cakes, and whatever other treats their human counterparts had been enjoying. "They were very gentle," Emrich assured. "It was hard to say goodbye to the raccoons at the end of every stay, but they came back summer after summer." Emrich was obviously a swimmer and has spent many hours on a boat, and only a mere five years ago, ceased going into the water for a dip. A door opens to the cabin next door, and Emrich's daughter, Marla, and granddaughter enter the sunshine. On the porch sits Emrich's other daughter, Meg, who is awaiting her son and his girlfriend to arrive and join the family. The love of Heart's Bay has clearly been instilled and passed on to the next generation of family members, a chance trip 90 years ago resulting in a tradition that will undoubtedly endure. These two weeks of bliss are sacred. "We already have next year booked," Emrich assures, though there was never any doubt.

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A lifetime of loving Lake George

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