East Dix peak renamed for pioneer Grace Hudowalski

By Patrick Daley, Chronicle Staff Writer

In 1937 Grace Hudowalksi became the first woman, and just the ninth person, to climb the 46

Adirondack High Peaks.
Now, one of those peaks — East Dix — has been renamed Grace Peak, the culmination of a campaign begun in 2002, two years before her death at age 98.

Mrs. Hudowalski was a founder of the Forty-Sixers of Troy, a precursor to today’s Adirondack Forty-Sixers.
She served as the club’s first president and after her retirement in 1961, she long was secretary for the Forty-Sixers, writing thousands of letters each year corresponding with hikers attempting to become certified Forty-Sixers.

“She was truly a special lady — mother of all Forty-Sixers,” says Sally Hoy of Queensury, the current president of the Forty-Sixers.

She recalls a letter her daughter Kate, who was 9, received  in 1987 when mother and daughter scaled Mount Marcy.
Mrs. Hudowalski wrote, “It’s great that Katie takes to the camp life! Building a fire and getting it to stay is quite an accomplishment. Not many succeed. I always picked up pieces of birch bark as we walked the trail — stuffed them in shirt pocket or anywhere I could, as they were great at helping a fire to start.”

L. John Van Norden, whose relationship with Mrs. Hudowalski began through the 46er letter writing, said, “She really created this very unique community.”

Referring to the correspondence she had with a vast number of hikers, Mr. Van Norden says, “After a few of those exchanges, it became very intimate. These people came up to get their certificate and Grace would know them by name, as part of her family.
“I know I wasn’t alone in looking forward to getting her letters. Everyone kept them as an heirloom-type of thing. I don’t think there was another mountain club like us.”

Mr. Van Norden later resided with Mrs. Hudowalski from 1983 until her death in 2004 and says she referred to him as “the little boy she never had.”

Mrs. Hudowalski, born Grace Leach in Ticonderoga in 1906, was the youngest of six children in a family that lived in Hague and Minerva. She attended Troy High School and returned for summers at home in the Adirondacks.

In her professional career, she promoted New York State tourism, especially the Adirondacks, as Travel Promotion Supervisor for the State Commerce Department. She devoutly supported Adirondack folklore, history and storytelling.

“She lived in a man’s world,” Mr. Van Norden says. “She didn’t make a big deal about being a Forty-Sixer, but it was very significant. And her job, in New York State Tourism, was also very much a man’s world, and she made a huge difference in New York tourism. It says a lot about her.”

“She was a city lady, but she really could be not be separated from the north country. She had that homespun sound, a down-to-earth way of talking to you that made you very comfortable. And she was up there rubbing elbows with governors.”

Mrs. Hoy says Dick Babcock, Forty-Sixer #115, first wrote to Mrs. Hudowalski, suggesting renaming East Dix for her, “to acknowledge the debt and commemorate the affection all Forty-Sixers feel for you.”

In 2002, Mr. Van Norden proposed the name change to the Forty-Sixers (who themselves were responsible for naming  many anonymous peaks during the mid-1900s). Douglas Arnold led the committee  formed to run the Grace peak campaign.

“I spent the next twelve years traveling around New York State, educating people on Grace,” Mr. Van Norden says. “It really didn’t get pushed over the top until two years ago, when I got a call from a movie producer, Fred Schwoebel.”

In 1993, Mr. Schwoebel, living in Portland, Oregon, received a newspaper clipping on gardening from his mother.

On the back was part of a story about the first female Forty-Sixer. Mr. Schwoebel visited Mrs. Hudowalski and interviewed her and other Forty-Sixers. In 2012, he finished the film, The Mountains Will Wait for You, and got his father-in-law — country music icon Johnny Cash — to narrate it.

“Fred donated the DVD to the committee for use in promoting and I gave it to Assemblyman Dan Stec,” says Mr. Arnold. Assemblyman Stec brought the film to Ron Moore, supervisor of North Hudson, where the proposed Grace Peak is located.

North Hudson’s board approved the project, as did Essex County, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York State Committee on Geographic Names and lastly, the United States Board of Geographic Names.

Mr. Van Norden says that when word of the campaign spread, a host of people wrote in, supporting the renaming.

“I’ve got hundreds of letters. My submission to the NYSCGN was 200 pages long. People who climbed the 46 and corresponded with Grace who wrote to me. In many cases the encouragement from Grace changed their lives.”

Grace’s 46th peak was Esther Mountain, the only other Adirondack peak named for a woman. In 1839, 15-year-old Esther McComb made the first recorded climb to the summit, though she was attempting to climb Whiteface Mountain, which lies south, from the north.

“Grace was an incredibly modest person,” says Mr. Van Norden. He says that when she heard about the renaming campaign, “her response was, ‘I’m not worthy of it. That’s a silly notion.’

“She didn’t exactly say no,” says Mr. Van Norden, “but she really didn’t feel like she did something special. That was very characteristic of Grace. She was very homespun, humble, ‘Adirondack-y.’”