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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
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Fifty Years At Bear Spring Camps
"Don't fall in love with that job On Friday, August 13, 2004, Edward Irwin Pearl began his 50th year of work at Bear Spring Camps in Rome in exactly the same position he took on fifty years ago: Head Chef. He's met a lot of people, has a lot of interesting stories ("most of them you couldn't put in the paper"), but he's never been promoted. There's a good reason for that. Ed, Irwin, Mr. Pearl or Mr. P. as the many people who know him call him, started at the top. The Belgrade, The Augusta House, The Elmwood all were on his resume by the time Ed had quit the business in 1954 and returned to work on the family farm in Turner. Fortunately, Bert Mosher, owner of Bear Springs had the right line, "Why don't you come up and look at it." So why did Ed stay here so long? "It's a beautiful region," he states. Looking back on 50 years, Ed summarizes, "It's been interesting. I was 24 when I started. We seemed to have a lot more time back then," Ed describes, pointing out that there were seasons when he also did all the plumbing, put in the docks When Ed started and for many years thereafter, he worked from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., mid-May to Labor Day, seven days a week. Now he works six days a week from 4:00 a.m. until late morning when breakfast is over or whenever he finishes the menu and meal planning. The camp still opens for Memorial Day but now it stays open until October 1. Retire? That's not on this 74-year-old's agenda. "Everyone who retires dies," he says. "Those kids (his staff) keep me young." His four (soon-to-be-five) grandchildren probably do, too, judging from the happy look in his eyes when talks about them or about his three children. "I've worked all my life," Ed states. When the summer season ended at Bear Spring Camps, he would take a winter job. Before he was married, he moved around a lot — Rangeley, the coast, but after he married Donna, a "girl from Smithfield," Ed cooked for the Rome school for seventeen years. Talk about fame: Ed cooked everything from scratch and there's not a former schoolchild in the region who doesn't remember those breakfasts and lunches. When the school was closed down, he cooked at the former Chicken Coop in Oakland and the Holiday Inn. Ed credits his mother with his successful work life. Stricken with polio on October 10, 1945 when he was fourteen, Ed has a severely damaged leg. My mother never got anything for me that I needed from across the room, he describes. She always told him to get it himself. He learned that he could. For Ed's 50th Anniversary, 180 well-wishers gathered at Bear Spring Camps — family, guests, and staff, including Bert's wife Margeurite. A few of the guests are 5th generation repeat campers; a lot of them are 4th generation. Some of them remember when the meals suddenly became outstanding. That was when Ed arrived. "I wanted things done my way and the right way," says Ed. "Everybody says I've mellowed." Maybe | ||
