To the Editor:

Reading the North Country Now obituary dated April 27, 2015, for Jean Hantz prompted me to write this. She was perhaps one of the last Diaper Hill moms.

Once upon a time during the mid-1950s there was a place in Potsdam called “Diaper Hill.” It was a very special place—unique in space and time. It’s only since I’ve grown older and given to more and more reflection on my life’s experiences that I realize just how special it was.

Diaper Hill was the nickname given to the housing complex Clarkson (then) College built for its faculty and administration in the mid-1950s on Round Hill Rd. Most of the dads who were to occupy the housing were war-weary World War II vets who had seen far too much horror and sadness and were eager to get down to the serious business of starting families and forging careers.

The housing complex was located just out of town on Clarkson Ave/RT 59 up the hill and on the same side of the road as the old Clarkson hockey arena (now Walker Arena). It wasn’t long before all the units were occupied and not soon after that, babies were virtually spilling out the windows. Hence, the name “Diaper Hill.”

The units were modest by today’s standards, but more importantly, they were new and clean and became starter homes for Clarkson families standard in these 2-story apartments were crank out windows, linoleum tile flooring, a small dining area and kitchen. They came with cellars guaranteed to flood with each spring thaw as well as occasionally providing a home for a snake that would slither down over the top of an open cellar window.

Our neighbors had names like Hantz, Broughton, Kear, Troup, Chadwick, Miller, Short, and Sanford, to name a few. My Dad was Harry W. Paige (later a PHD and frequent contributor to North Country News). Clarkson was dad’s first college teaching job after a stint in the US Army Air Corps, graduation from Union College in Schenectady, and a short teaching career at Fort Plain High School. (While teaching he also worked the night shift at the nearby Beechnut factory in Canajoharie).

We moved into #15 Round Hill Rd on Diaper Hill as soon as it was ready for occupancy, and then a year or so later were thrilled to be able to move to a coveted end unit (#16) where there would be not two, but three separate bedrooms—one each for me, my sister Judy, and a bigger one, of course, for my parents.

Diaper Hill was a magic place to grow up. We had the Raquette River behind us for skating and canoeing, an abundance of woods for exploring, and fields full of wild flowers for picking. Behind us there was a circular paved road that provided the ideal place for kids learning to ride a bike. One of the engineers in residence fashioned his own sailboat on wheels and when it became icy and a breeze was blowing, he could be seen “sailing” around and around the circle yelling “Yippee” at the top of his voice. There was even a dump further toward the river where my parents and friends would go to shoot rats with their 22 rifle.

So we grew up innocently--playing in the woods that surrounded us, swimming in and skating on the Raquette River, and running thru the endless fields collecting wild flowers. Across the street where the “New” Clarkson campus is, there were wild lilacs that grew to enormous heights along sandstone cliffs that were said to hide an entrance to a cave used in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War era. We were fascinated by the old abandoned Clarkson mansion also across the street with its broken windows and tattered curtains that would blow out of gaping holes when there was a wind. There was a broken down gazebo in the woods behind the crumbling mansion and clumps of daffodils and trillium abounded. This was our playground too.

There was a shared connection for the families that made Diaper Hill a closed community. The shared experience of World War II (and in some cases the Korean War), the connection to Clarkson, the proximity in age for both parents and children resulted in a wonderful bond with families becoming life-long friends.

There were weekly parties for the moms and dads—my parents often hosted a Saturday night Gunsmoke party for close friends Broughtons, Hantzs, and Kings. I have a treasured picture of the partiers—dressed in suits and ties for the occasion--an adult beverage in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Babysitting was not a problem on Diaper Hill. If there was a big party, the pack of kids would be rounded up and herded into one apartment with an older (12+) sibling assigned to watch over the group. An occasional adult would break away from the party and run over and check on us kids. The parties would go long into the night. There was plenty of swing music (and later Rock and Roll), beer, and stimulating, witty conversation. Best of all, it was cheap!

No one had extra money back then. Families didn’t go out to eat like they do today. We only had one nice restaurant in town—the Town House on Market St. We were lucky enough to go there once a year when my grandparents traveled from downstate to visit and treated us to a dinner out. What a special occasion! Movies were an affordable form of entertainment and I remember thinking it was scandalous (and embarrassing) when I heard a group of dads sitting on a step and talking about the latest Brigitte Bardot film they had seen together at the Roxy.

Dads would look forward to that first snow and the Raquette freezing, so the men could play hockey. Of course, hours of shoveling were required and much energy expended even before the game could start. I recall that one hockey player dad, Carl Diltz, fell through the ice during a game and had to be pulled out of the water to safety. The dads always made sure the kids had their own rink too—usually in the backyard of the lower housing units.

Diaper Hill was a distance from the Congdon Campus School on Main St. where we went to school. There were no buses for us and the St. Lawrence Avenue Elementary School was not built yet. At the tender age of seven I would walk home by myself, crossing the two bridges in town, walking past a very smelly creamery on Maple (holding my nose in warm weather), cutting across Maple at the Pontiac dealership, and navigating thru the woods behind the old hockey arena Then I forded three streams with narrow wooden planks placed as makeshift foot bridges. There I would check out the progress of the tadpoles and pollywogs, as they grew limbs and turned into frogs. In the 1950s there was never any worry that harm would come to any child cutting through these woods.

Looking back Diaper Hill was innocent and wonderful. It was a sweet time and place to grow up in—almost too good to be real. But it was real. It was a perfect confluence of eccentric personalities: award-winning scientists, esteemed professors and Army officers, and accomplished administrators, writers, researchers and inventors. But to us kids they were just dads (or in a few cases, moms). They are no doubt all gone now—just like Diaper Hill.

Sandra Paige Sorell

Delmar