Almanack Contributor Sheila Myers

While staying at Camp Kirby on Raquette Lake last summer I picked up the two volume Notes Collected in the Adirondacks 1895-1896 and 1897-98 (North Country Books, 2010) by Dr. Arpad Geyza Gerster, and edited by Sidney S. Whelan Jr.

The book is a transcription of the diaries kept by Gerster, who had a summer home on Big Island on Raquette Lake.

Gerster was quite a character. Born in Hungary in 1848, he was a surgeon in the Austro-Hungarian Army before emigrating during the Panic of 1873. Working first for Manhattan’s German Hospital, he became a renowned surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital, taught at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and served as President of the American Surgical Association.  Gerster was also an avid sportsman, a trustee of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, a lover of Italian opera, and an accomplished artist. » Continue Reading.