Town story preserved in book's pages

Patricia Marshall Bartram can remember attending classes during the 1930s in the one-room schoolhouse that is now part of Hiram Halle Memorial Library. Bartram, 74, also can recall the pot-bellied stove in the schoolhouse and the two outhouses out back.

"We lived very simply back then," Bartram said last week about growing up in Pound Ridge. "Everything was centered around family, church and school."

Bartram was one of about 30 longtime Pound Ridge residents to be interviewed by Bonni Brodnick for a book she has written that compiles oral histories of town residents.

"I initially started the book thinking I'd get great stories from the '50s and the '60s," said Brodnick, 49, of Pound Ridge. "Now the breadth of the book goes from the 1920s to the 1970s. Some of the people have passed away since I interviewed them, and I really feel good that I had that special time to meet with them."

The book, "Pound Ridge Past: Remembrances of our Townsfolk," will hopefully come out by Christmas, said Brodnick, who is self-publishing the 200-page tome. Brodnick said she got the inspiration to write it after a couple of her Pound Ridge friends had died and she hadn't written down their stories. The book is a nonprofit project that Brodnick calls her "gift to Pound Ridge."

Phil Pessoni, Pound Ridge's town historian, praised Brodnick for volunteering her time for the venture. "They have so many stories to tell, but a lot of them were never told because nobody was there to listen," Pessoni said of the town's longtime residents.

Tidbits from the book include the fact that renowned physicist Albert Einstein attended a party in the late 1930s on Trinity Pass, Brodnick said. She said the party was hosted by Hiram Halle, a 1930s businessman after whom the town's library is named. The Pound Ridge Girl Scouts contributed to the World War II effort by folding gauze bandages at the Red Cross headquarters housed at the library, Brodnick said.

"There's so many little stories and personal anecdotes that would slip through the cracks of time," Pessoni said about the book, which he has proofread. "Bonni is filling in the cracks."

Richard Major, the president of the Pound Ridge Historical Society, said the finished work "should be a very good book."

Brodnick estimated it would cost about $12,000 to produce the book, and she is still trying to raise the last $7,000 to publish it. She gave a presentation about her work to the Town Board last week. Supervisor Gary Warshauer said the town probably would consider buying some copies as a historical resource.