Feb 24, 2021 Robert “Bob” William Douglas, passed away on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake at age 84. He is and always will be deeply loved and missed by family and friends. Bob was a devoted family man: father, husband, grandfather, uncle and great-grandfather. To say he was quiet and reserved might be an understatement, but still water truly runs deep. Bob was born Aug. 29, 1936, to Robert F. Douglas and Eugenia (Lytle) Douglas at Saranac Lake General Hospital. Bob and his sister MaryAnne (commonly called Anne) enjoyed life in Saranac Lake as youngsters and headed to St. Bernard’s Catholic School for their elementary school education.
Bellin Map of the Great Lakes. Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, 1755. Native American territories are clearly delineated.
Wikimedia Commons. Source: Atlas Homannianus Mathematic-Historice Delineatus, (Homann Heirs, Nuremberg), 1755
When I think of wellness, I can’t help but think of my great aunt Tilley who was trapped in an actual well for a good long while. This is not a play on words. We wish people well, but real wellness is deeply personal. It isn’t the same as health, although these states are often paired. Well-being requires a deep encounter with our experience, and Tilley undoubtedly had that.
Tilley lived with my great uncle Walter in a cabin in the Adirondacks Lake region. They lived a life of woodsy seclusion, simple and close to nature, although no one would have called Walter “contemplative.” I have one childhood memory of him leaping around our living room, acting out the drama of a bear getting up on the roof of his cabin. Walter scared off the bear (which he pronou