LMCS fondly remembered

Former student’s letter shares gratitude

I just talked with David ... an old timer just like me
Seventy years have come and gone since we spoke socially
We lived on different sides of hills that faced one another
Neither one of us had money, kind of poor-boy brothers.
A reunion’s coming up he called to let me know
There’s not too many of us left, but I just can’t go.

By Edward Lundquist | For Manor Ink

The poem above starts a letter written by Ben Gabus to a Livingston Manor Central School classmate from the Class of 1952.

Gabus wrote a beautiful, heartfelt letter, filled with anecdotes about his life as a student in the Manor, his life before moving to the hamlet and about dealing with his father’s later sickness and death. Gabus passed away late last year, but sent this letter to an old friend beforehand, allowing us to look back into the past at the life of an individual not so different from many of us.

Having moved to the this area from the Midwest after his father caught wind of, and a fear of, the Manhattan Project – the government’s code name for the effort to create the atom bomb – Gabus spent his time with his family building a log cabin, picking berries for breakfast, stockpiling firewood and eventually carving a home in the rugged wilderness of this area after World War II. Eventually, Gabus began to love his school, seeing his friends, staying warm and feeling accepted.

As a “po-boy,” as he referred to himself at the time, life was often hard. But LMCS was a bastion of comfort. “I always felt embarrassed when my shoes didn’t match, or the time during the winter when I had my galoshes to wear, and was told that I could remove them. I had to take the teacher aside and explain that there were no shoes inside. I was embarrassed, but I had no need to be, as I was accepted as I was.”

Young Gabus found the school to be a place of safety. “There wasn’t always enough of what we’d have liked on the table and our clothes couldn’t keep out all the cold, but I can look back today and say that we were rich. Rich in friendship. The only regret is that I’ve waited until only a few of those friends are still around for me to say ‘Thank You!’”

To this day, seventy years later, LMCS still thrives as a place of acceptance, trying its best to work with underprivileged students and improve lives. The school offers free lunches, counseling, and even a “secret closet” where students can go to get fresh, brand new clothes, coats, shoes and more. People can still struggle to find a home, and every little bit of encouragement and help offered in small and big ways is invaluable, showing even in the writings of a student of seventy years ago.

David Hoag, a classmate of Gabus, provided the letter to Manor Ink. He noted that it was shared with the remaining classmates who all recalled Gabus very fondly, and more than one tear was shed at its reading.

Edward Lundquist is a former associate editor of Manor Ink.

Musical alumnus

After leaving Livingston Manor in the mid-1950s, Ben Gabus went on to have a career in music. Ironically, as he recalled in his letter, when he got his first guitar, his father would say, “Ben, you can stay but that noise has got to go.”

Despite his dad’s criticism, Gabus became a successful singer-songwriter in the country music genre, recording a number of albums and appearing on the Louisiana Hayride, Grand Ole Opry and Ed Sullivan TV shows. Because he had a glass eye, he wore an eye patch, gaving him a distinctive look. Following his singing career, he ran a tree service company in South Carolina. He passed away in September 2021.

To hear one of Ben Gabus’s recordings, visit youtube.com/watch?v=Tr15yI_mTyg.