GREAT PEOPLE: We like to get nice notes – like this one from
Betty Vogel, retired Emporium postmaster:

“I am writing to let all know why I live in Cameron County.

“I transferred to this area in 1982 to work. Since then, I have
been asked many, many times, Why do you stay up there in the
mountains? Since retirement, I have been asked this many more
times,” Betty wrote on Feb. 7.

“Years ago, my friend and I were packaging boxes for a few
service guys. My friend and I got the idea we would like to pack
boxes for all the service people in Cameron County. Needless to
say, years later, the package team is still sending out boxes. The
county donates enough to cover all costs.

“Well, now, in the past month, my little neighbor boy was found
to have cancer. He is not yet 3. So, he is looking at two years of
chemo. Great place we live in, but doctors are a few miles
away.

“So a very dear friend of mine and I set cans out around
Emporium. And set a trust fund up for CJ at the Mountain Laurel
Credit Union.

“You cannot believe the response we have had – the pennies,
quarters, dollars etc. are coming in. Since the first newspaper
coverage on Sunday, there is money coming into the credit union
going to CJ’s trust fund.

“Now, more than ever, I can say with great pride, I live in
Cameron County by choice because of the great people in Cameron
County.”

OLD 219: Still more input on the path of the old U.S. Route
219.

Harold Pier writes, “Judy dePonceau is right about 219 not going
from Lantz Corners. That road was cut through the woods some time
after WWII. Judy was always smarter than I am and now I am getting
senile. Come to think of it, all the dePonceaus were smarter than I
am. The dirt road I was thinking about ran from Halsey to
Wilcox.”

We also heard from Harry Markert in Rasselas who confirmed
Judith’s assertion while consulting an old road map from 1935.

He tells us that Route 219 did go from Wilcox to Dehoga and
Burrows and then near Kane to Lantz Corners, and points north. The
map also shows connecting roads from Mount Jewett to Freeman to
Burning Well to Wilcox.