Olive Lascore in the 1926 Canaras Born: August 25, 1908

Died: January 2, 2004

Married: Francis Thomas Gardiner, November 8, 1952

Olive Lascore Gardiner was the last of six daughters of Joseph and Helen Lascore. She was secretary to Beanie Barnet, publisher of the Trotty Veck Messenger. 1 Later she worked for the New York State Conservation Department at Ray Brook under Bill Petty for seventeen years; one of her duties was talking to the fire observers in the fire towers.

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Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 28, 2003

By Howard Riley

William Howard Taft was President of the United States when Olive was born in Saranac Lake on August 25, 1908. She sat on the wall in front of Dr. Trembly's house at 20 Church Street, (now DeChantel Apts.) and watched President Calvin Coolidge leaving church services across the street and saw the Town Hall burn down in 1926, the year she graduated from Saranac Lake High School.

Now, 17 Presidents later, Olive Lascore Gardiner lives at 56 Riverside Drive in the house her father built and where she grew up with her parents, Joseph and Helen Lascore and her five sisters. The family had lived in a small house across from the present Lakeview Deli, and the winter their new house was completed in 1923 she and her mother (Olive was the youngest of the six girls) walked across the ice on Lake Flower with a Bible and a freshly baked loaf of bread. They placed them in the rafters of the new house and her mother said, "this house will never be without faith or bread."

Oliver's mother came from France with Olive's aunt and grandfather, Eugene Supernault, who was a widowed farmer. They settled in Malone, where Olive's mother met her father. Her parents were married in Malone by Father Blanchard on June 11, 1889 and later moved to Saranac Lake because he was a carpenter and there was a lot of work here at that time. Mr. Lascore always worked on his own and built the family home in whatever spare time he could find. The property was purchased from Fred Tousley and when the house was finished he said to the family, "I've given you the best house I can build, you take care of it and it will take care of you."

That certainly held true because the house today is solid, in great condition and the interior woodwork around the doorways, the French doors and the staircase has beautifully darkened with age.

Her parents both spoke French so as soon as her father (born in Canada) would come home from work he would sit in a chair in the kitchen and he and his wife would discuss the days' events in French, sometimes to the frustration of the six girls. Olive said she was sorry that none of children ever learned the French language. They taught their mother how to go to confession, not so much in English — she already was bilingual - but the litany "Bless me father, for I have sinned"...etc. She recalled that those were the days of good manners ... how her mother would come into the sitting room when they brought friends home from school to be introduced and to offer them sandwiches and cookies ... she said, "mother had a dignity all her own."

Her father built a workshop and a dock behind the house and built a big flat bottom boat. He would go fishing every Thursday night during the warm months and catch bullhead for Friday dinner. He always had a lantern hooked on the boat and her mother would worry until his return, so she used to have Olive stand in the pantry window and watch for him. She told how happy her mother would be when she would yell out that she could see the lantern bobbing on the front of the boat as he came around the bend in the river. But her father did not like fish, she said, so her mother would cook him eggs on Friday night.

Olive had earaches when she was little and remembers her father holding her on his lap in the rocking chair next to the stove. "He put my head on his chest and placed his big, warm hand over my ear, and I would go right to sleep."

It took a while to get Olive to talk about Olive. But when I did, I discovered that Olive was one of the editors of the Canaras, the Saranac-spelled-backward yearbook. Volume One, the year it was conceived, written, named and printed by the Fort Orange Press in Albany. So the senior class of 1926, the first graduating class of the new Petrova High School gave birth to the Canaras. It is a wonderful yearbook and Olive's copy is in mint condition, printed on high grade paper with sharp detail in the photographs.

She was in the girls' chorus for four years, on the junior prom and Ways and Means Committee, and in the senior and Christmas plays among other activities.

Olive went to work for "Dr. Kendall" at the Saranac Lake National Bank upon graduation from high school, and said he called her "Miss Olive." She recalled him being such a kind person who taught her so much. She later worked as a medical secretary for Dr. Woodruff, "who taught me to read x-rays and was a wonderful person." She eventually went to work for Bill Petty (another employer she greatly admired) at the New York State Conservation Department from where she retired. Olive is witty, opinionated and extremely pleasant but she asked me not to print her political opinions. Her closing comment, "I have had a good life."

Her sisters, Clara, Norma, Eva, Hazel and Gertrude are deceased. Olive is the widow of Frank Gardiner.

Adirondack Daily Enterprise, January 2, 2004

Olive L. Gardiner

Olive L. Gardiner, 95, of 56 Riverside Drive in Saranac Lake, died Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 at the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake. Born in Saranac Lake on Aug. 25, 1908, she was the daughter of Joseph and Helen (Supernault) Lascore. She married Frank T. Gardiner on Nov. 8, 1952 in Saranac Lake. Mrs. Gardiner was a life-long resident of Saranac Lake and was employed as a senior secretary at the New York State Department of Conservation in Ray Brook for 21 years. She is survived by one nephew, Eugene Christian of Mechanicville and one niece, Lucille Christian of Westport, Conn. She was predeceased by her husband on Sept. 7, 1975 and five sisters: Clara Lascore, Norma Lascore, Eva Stucker, Hazel Christian and Gertrude Ferdon. Funeral arrangements are in care of the Fortune-Keough Funeral Home in Saranac Lake. There will be no calling hours. A Mass of Christian burial will take place in May at St. Bernard's Church in Saranac Lake. Burial will follow at St. Bernard's Cemetery in care of the funeral home. Friends wishing to remember Olive L. Gardiner may make memorial contributions to St. Bernard's School in care of the funeral home.

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Footnotes

1. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, April 11, 1992

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