The Family Business

Maureen says:
Yesterday Tom's mother sent us some photographs of her maternal grandfather's restaurant, in Middletown, New York. The Mid-Mont, named for its site at the intersection of the Middletown and Montgomery highways was, to Tom's best recollection, a bar.

A bar fit well with Tom's memory of his Great Grandpa, Carl Schumacher, as a big, strapping man--a firefighter--with a shock of white hair and a wealth of silver dollars in his pocket that he doled out to Tom and his sister.

The pictures, however, belie Tom's interpretation of what, exactly, the Mid-Mont was. Below is a view of dining room from the kitchen. What's off camera, to the right, is the bar Tom recalls as well as a banquet room.

Interior of the Mid-Mont

The original sign, made by Tom's Great Grandpa Carl

The Mid-Mont, mid construction, circa 1947

The Mid-Mont, exterior, 1959.
Restaurant on the left; motel just visible
in the center back; the family house on the right.