She wrote 100-word stories and 1,000-word stories.

In those long-ago days, the editor would call over to some reporter and yell, “I need a couple of more paragraphs on the fire story;” and it would come across your desk to fill the last two inches of a page one story.

Following is an excerpt from Julia’s Page One story published July 7, 1970:

“People looking for jobs in the Tri-Lakes area may have a hard time this summer, according to the State Employment Office.

Julia Frank “The bride is a graduate of Baltimore Friends School, Radcliffe College and Yale University School of Medicine. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale and a staff psychiatrist at the West Haven Veterans Medical Center.”

“This week, the beginning of the tourist season, is when most employers finish their summer hiring. Because of an increase in the minimum wage, from $1.60 an hour to $1.85 most are taking on just a small staff of regulars.

“Although the $.25 increase only means paying $10 more for a 40-hour work week, the employment office feels that even such a small hike may deter resort employers, who must earn a year’s income in this three to five month season.

“The national economic situation also contributes to the fact that there are many fewer jobs now than at this time a year ago. People who have been laid off, or are afraid of being out of work are not usually inclined to take resort vacations.

“No one can be sure that the season traffic will not be heavy, but most hotel, motel and restaurant managers hire according to how much business they expect rather than how much they actually have. The national situation does not raise their hopes.

“The weather is a third factor in the local job factor. People are apt to stay in the cities when the weather is mild. If the mountain areas are equally cool and wet, visitors don’t stay as long at the campsites and motels.

“The lack of jobs on college and high school age students. Employers prefer to take on adults who can work through the entire season. Which, because of the convention trade, lasts from May to October.

“People under 18 are further hampered by not being allowed to work where liquor is being served.

“Long hair on students also seems to have a prejudicial effect on employers, who may feel that vacationers are trying to forget their problems they face in the cities and do not wish to be reminded of them by the sight of longhaired employees.”

—

An art studio opens

[Excerpt by Julia Frank]

“Where the Drutz Market used to be on Bloomingdale Avenue [now the Chinese Restaurant] in Saranac Lake, there is now a shop with a bowl of fruit painted on the door, inside is the ‘Palette Post’, a combination art school and studio, recently opened under the management of Ed Schaber and Beverly Sharkey.

“Most of the business goes on in a single, large room, sparsely furnished but nonetheless cluttered with paintings covering the walls, an exuberant blue carpet, and the smell of turpentine. In one corner a circle of desks set on birch trunks is Mr. Schaber’s classroom and all around hang his works and those of his students.

“‘I never took a lesson in my life’, proclaims the proprietor. ‘But I always loved to paint. I guess I’m not the best artist, but I love to paint so much I want to be.’

“Originally from New Jersey, Mr. Schaber has been teaching privately in Saranac Lake for the past six years. Most of his paintings are landscapes done from memory. ‘We have this beautiful area here,’ he says, ‘This is what I love to paint. The wilderness is my life.’

“The number of paintings hanging about attests to the fact that Mr. Schaber is a prolific artist. He paints extremely fast, up to 30 small pictures a day, on anything from velvet to driftwood. Sometimes he works upside down or sideways, whatever he feels like doing.

“Like his painting technique, Mr. Schaber’s reaching methods are self-taught and entirely his own. At the first lesson he will do a sketch for the student and help with the color and brushwork, producing a picture that is about half his own work.”