Du Brin’s childhood home, decorated with lilacs. “So it’s worn four times and now it’s hanging in the closet for my granddaughter if she ever wants it.” “I made it over for two daughters and my maid of honor,” said Mrs. Du Brin earned the money for her wedding dress by hand-painting 500 Christmas cards. The man who would become her husband, Harry Lawrence Du Brin, had served in World War II under General George Patton from Africa through Italy and into Germany, she said. Du Brin, “He was a wonderful dancer and I could dance.” Du Brin of the famous church then led by Dr. “I met my husband at Marble Collegiate Church,” said Mrs. “And then you could make a pattern from what we did.” We made drapes on the figure so that we could see what was going to be,” she said. “I was moaning and groaning to my aunt who gave me $100 to go to Arthur Murray and learn how to dance,” she recalled. Du Brin said in an Enterprise podcast five years ago, describing herself as at first “scared to death” in New York City. “Having been a country girl, I had nothing in the way of society,” Mrs. She took writing courses at night at New York University, and on Saturdays, she studied at the Art Students League on West 57th Street. Du Brin went to the new Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. When he saw cars or people, we had taught him to say ‘HONK’ at full volume.”Īfter she graduated from Altamont High School in 1945, Mrs. Mert would sit on the top of the steering wheel, watching the road when we took him for a ride. “Since the canvas roof had rotted off we had an open car. “My boyfriend had an old Model A Ford ‘convertible,’” she wrote. He would fly to her shoulder, comb her hair with his beak, and say “Pretty Carol, pretty Carol.” She named the crow Mert after the telephone operator in the radio show “Fibber McGee and Molly.” Du Brin’s Altamont High School boyfriend stole a baby crow from its nest for her. We had a special cellar for canned goods and root vegetables and a wine cellar for my father’s grape, elderberry, and dandelion wine.” “Victory Gardens were also the thing then and we were busily growing our own fruits and vegetables. School dances, plays, glee club concerts, the Fireman’s Ball and movies were held there …,” Mrs. “The Masonic Temple was the social center for the village. Slacks, however, could not be worn to class. Du Brin of her high school years in the 1940s. “We cheerleaders had something daring and new for a cheerleader uniform - slacks,” wrote Mrs. She called it a tragedy when the school was torn down to make way for a new elementary school, which her daughters later attended. First through eighth grades had classrooms on the school’s first floor and high school classes were held upstairs. Du Brin would either walk or ride her bike more than a mile to the school on Grand Street. “With spring came the wild and crazy rushing waters, which gave the creek its name - Bozenkill.” “We had 20 acres all our own, with a good stretch of the Bozenkill Creek running at the foot of the back hill …,” Mrs. When the winter snow was high, the Sanfords would put on their snowshoes to get to one of the village grocery stores and pull their food home on a toboggan. The house, on a dirt road, was surrounded by farms. “My father was an engineer working on highways and business buildings but he was very hands-on renovating and repairing,” she wrote. She wrote about the history of the Victorian summer home built by George Coonley in 1887. Du Brin was 11, her parents bought what she called “the last house in Altamont” at a tax sale. There she explored the woods and farmland on a stick horse, broke her arm falling out of an apple tree, and learned to ride a two-wheeler. She walked a mile to school each day from the 1700s home near the Bender melon farm where she lived with her parents, Edwin Wade Sanford and Miriam Rouse. She never did get the hang of spelling, and was always chosen last for the spelling bees. DuBrin’s first schooling was at New Scotland’s one-room schoolhouse, since enlarged to serve as the town hall. 24, 2022, at her home that she shared with her two daughters, Carolyn Jane du Brin and Kerry Du Brin. “Mother contributed for over 50 years to articles in The Altamont Enterprise, extolling the virtues of nature and wildlife, relating stories of family travels and pets.” “Endlessly energetic and creative, she enjoyed painting, gardening, entertaining and cooking, but perhaps most recognizably, writing,” her four daughters wrote in a tribute. She remained resilient in old age and never lost her joie de vivre. Her vibrant paintings and words captured her life in all its vivid details. She loved animals, both as pets and in nature. ALTAMONT - Carolyn Sanford Du Brin was a woman with a deep sense of place who cared about history.
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