ABOUT SOME PEOPLE...
During the '30's, as I was growing up, it seemed to me that the majority of people living in River Vale were of German heritage. Many of the people that we knew actually came from Germany to this country prior to World War I, and then others that came over during the 1920's. At the yearly fireman's picnics there would be groups of people sitting around speaking in German. I didn't even know that my grandfather spoke the language until one of these picnics.

As World War II started to appear to be inevitable we were aware of the stress within some families because of those of their family that were still living in Germany under the fanatical rule of Hitler. I think the outward use of the German language lessened as the clouds of war came ever closer.

Another thing that I will mention here is that I cannot think of one house in the entire town that had a fence for the purpose of keeping people out. There were a few fences for decorative purposes, but none for "protection" or privacy.

Also, I never remember anyone telling us to "get out of their yard" or "get off their property". It was not as if they didn't have reason because when hunting or fishing or just walking to and from school people were not concerned about property boundaries and we would walk wherever we wanted to. We had a large tract of land and people would walk across it at any time or hunt on it and we never cared. Looking back at those years I wonder why things are different now. I suppose one reason might be that we were often instructed to respect the possessions of other people and we would not even think of destroying or damaging another persons belongings - whatever they were.

Rudy Shieshank: (possibly Zieshank) In the early '30's this fellow named Shieshank drove around River Vale on a Harley Davidson motorcycle in a police uniform. I was told that he was a retired Jersey City policeman. I don't know what his official capacity was, but he was always there somewhere. He might have been a marshall or special cop of some kind, but anyone going through town who saw Rudy and his motorcycle would surely know that we had the law in town.

Alfred Blakeney: Was the mayor for as long as I could remember. Mr. Blakeney was always well dressed and looked like a mayor. He usually drove around town in a fairly new Buick with white wall tires. I never remember seeing his car dirty.

Pete Ambrogi: The Ambrogi family lived on Cleveland Ave, next to Sabin's dairy, for long before I can remember. When Pete got out of the service, after WWII, it seems as though he was immediately in the construction (earth moving) business. Pete had a bulldozer, with a tractor trailer to transport the thing around, a big shovel, a big army surplus truck plus enough energy to run all of them. As I remember, Pete dug house foundations by the hundreds and would dig, scrape, move, or build anything else that needed doing. My most memorable thing of Pete was that no matter how busy he was, he always had a moment to stop and say a kind word to us younger fellows when he would see us. Pete was another good "role model" for the local young people.