Eagle Hotel

By Ruth Myer

Lodi was attractive to me, as a young teenager, because summer dances were held in the old Masonic Hall - now used as the town hall.

There was always a live band and round dancing, sometimes square dancing. This was in the days before I met my husband, LeConte. Sometimes I got a ride with friends, or once in a while, had a date.

I remember one summer night when there was to be a dance in Lodi and I greatly longed to go. We lived on Bassett Road at the time. Possibly, it was the summer after I graduated.

No one could give me a ride, so I decided to walk! For a wonder, my parents permitted me to go alone. It was a walk of four or five miles, but I thought nothing of it, in view of the reward of an evening of dancing waiting for me at the end.

The band was playing, and the place all lighted up when I arrived. Soon, I found myself dancing with a strange, blond-haired young man who lived in New York City! He was visiting someone at the time. We were dancing to the music of a polka, and my partner valiantly tried to teach me the steps.

"Don't you people ever polka out here?" he asked.

"Hop, one, two, three. Hop, one, two, three," I repeated to myself as I tried to follow his moves. He was made of sturdy stuff and didn't give up on me, but he did admit I should practice the polka before I tried it again!

Another building in Lodi is remembered with fondness as a special place to go for Sunday dinner - when dinner time was at 1 p.m. and not 5 p.m.

This was the Lodi Hotel, now called The Eagle. Once in a great while, my Dad would take Mother and me out to a delicious chicken or turkey dinner there. It was usually a dinner to celebrate some small victory on the farm, like a nice field of beans or the sale of some hay.

(Ruth Myer graduated from Interlaken Central School in 1942. She studied music at Fredonia State Teachers College. After teaching music "for a few years," she married LeConte Myer and "settled down to be a farm wife," raising eight children.