What is A Doodlebug?

Mom began teaching Ballet at Moss Lake Camp in the Adirondacks during the summer  the first year we arrived in America.  We lived at the camp with her, and had a nanny, but immediately Mom realized it was not working out for our family.

Bubby, me, Winnie, with Tyll on home made raft on Fourth lake at Little Beach

The second year she made a different plan, and rented an apartment for us, with sitters, and tried to figure out the two mile transportation for herself, to and from camp.  We lived at Eagle Bay, had friends there, and she worked at the camp, traveling back and forth to camp each day.   

Tyll strapped logs together, put boards on top to construct floating raft.

Driving was too complicated, walking too strenuous after a full day work.  She decided on a Doodlebug, a tiny wheeled motorbike just right for her travel needs.  It pulled her up and down the steep hills, and went fast enough, without using a lot of gas.

Mom could even take us to the movies on the Doodlebug.  She put me on the front between her legs, drove me about two blocks ahead, and said,"Wait right here.  DON'T MOVE!"  Then she drove back to pick up Tyll, and drove Tyll about two blocks ahead of me, with the same instructions, until she got to Inlet.  We went to the Gaiety there, a large airplane hanger converted into a movie theatre, still standing today, and returned home as we had come.


I guess Dr. Longstaff, the owner of the camp, had some misgivings about Mom coming to work at his exclusive girls' camp on a Doodlebug.  He decided a car better suited to his clientele, so one summer he took it upon himself to give her driving lessons.  She was amazed, and thankful.  Several weeks, after Ballet class, he would take her into a "Woodie" he used to transport campers to and from the railroad station, and drive on Big Moose Road.  He told her to beep constantly going around turns.  "That's the way it's done in the mountains!"  In those years roads were very curvy and the logging trucks sped down the roads constantly.  I guess beeping was a safer way.  One method he used, was having her drive backwards, for a LONG time.  Later Helen Louise told me, it was because that "Woodie" was stuck in reverse.  She always could zoom in reverse.  After getting her driver license, Mr. Gribeneau's brought a used car from  Utica (I believe).  It was a dark green Plymouth Coupe, two doors, where the front seats fold forward to allow the passengers to enter the back seats.  Mom was tremendously proud of her new car, and here is her car in front of our apartment, Hoffstetter's garage, where Mom rented each summer, on Forest Avenue near little Beach in Eagle Bay.  We lived above the garage, had only cold running water (the usual in those days), with a non-electric ice box  at the bottom of the stairs on the landing.

I believe Mom paid about $600. for her car.  She drove us to Cincinnati in it, and from then on we made the trip to Eagle Bay by car.  I think she really loved her Doodlebug, though, and missed driving it.