Lee Parker
May 25, 1927- Feb. 28, 2025
In 1956, Lee and her first husband Paul Frisch, both barely 30, took their two small boys to our mountains for a farm experience at Todd Mt. Farm, advertised in the back of the Sunday Times magazine and ably run by iconic Catskill farm wife Esther Todd. Her husband Lyman worked the 20-milker dairy farm but his true passion was raising fighting cocks. Paul, a Bronx boy of wide ambition but little practical know-how, dreamed of his own farm in the mountains and, strolling up the road and through the fields, came upon a gently sloping hillside facing a majestic high-peak view. Returning, he asked who owned the beautiful spot to which the wisecracker Lyman replied, ‘You can for $25’.
Thus began Lee’s connection to Todd Mt. They leveled a terrace and laid out a 20’x40′ cabin with garden hose. They hired a neighbor farmer on winter hiatus to build the ‘camp’. He worked through the winter without electricity, carrying cans of baked beans and bread for lunch, bills for $1.42 worth of nails arriving at Lee’s Levittown home. The result a laid fieldstone foundation, rough hewn hemlock siding and warm knotty pine paneling inside, the kitchen, dining room and living room ‘open plan’ across the front, a cozy retreat for the eager young family- in summer. They spent a frigid late November, 1957 night in the barely finished cabin with newborn Matthew, under so many layers you couldn’t see the baby. Packed up and fled home early next morning. City people have some funny ideas. They brought home a horse and chickens the next summer, equally without a clue. The cute pony took a bite out of big brother Michael’s shoulder and he was exchanged- the horse, not Mike, for a 12-point deer trophy.
The idyllic country retreat couldn’t rescue Lee and Paul’s marriage and then Ed Parker came into Lee’s life. He was more grounded than Paul and shared Lee’s love for the ‘country house’.
All the neighborhood kids spent hot summer days in the cool fragrant waters of Dry Brook, until the wealthy owner got tired of cleaning up discarded diapers and hired a ‘creek watcher’ to keep them out. Lee took Russian language lessons from a neighbor, whose husband raised honey, while the kids roasted wieners on a fire. Another neighbor brewed root beer in her cool cellar. They held annual summer gatherings with all the summer people, and a few locals.
Decades later, the rustic cabin replaced by a spacious 4-season house, Lee’s youngest grandson was married there, under a hoopa, during the foliage season, the miraculous view backing the happy couple.
A wide circle of friends and family, in the city and on the mountain, mourn Lee’s loss. Over the course of her long life, Lee always did her best to leave things better than she found them and coaxed that same can-do spirit from everyone who crossed her path. Lee is survived by sisters Rhoda and Brenda, 3 sons Michael (Godwin), Adam (Pat) and Matthew (Robyn), 3 step-sons Victor (Eunyoung), David (Mary) and Stephen, 2 adopted sons Gabriel (Juanita) and Olle, adopted daughter Gladys (Carlos), 7 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. May her memory be a blessing forever.
Submitted by Matt Frisch.
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