Thayers celebrate 70th anniversary, Fresh Air ties

Ninety-six people gathered July 4 at a cottage on Millikin Beach to celebrate the 70th anniversary of longtime Ithaca residents Alice and Larry Thayer.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime party,” said Alice, 90. “It was wonderful.”

Generations of Thayers and their friends attended, including great-grandchildren and some nontraditional, honorary family members. “We had our Fresh Air family there,” said Larry, 91.

That included Abraham (Abe) Rivera, who was the first of several children from his family to enroll in the Fresh Air Fund program. He was sent on a bus from New York City to Ithaca at age 7 without ever having met the Thayers before his trip. Fifty-five years later, he never lost touch with the couple he ended up calling “Mom and Dad.” Accompanying Rivera at the party was his daughter, his son and his son’s wife and three of their children, and his younger son with his girlfriend. 

A second family for New York City children

The Cayuga Lake cottage, which has been in the family since 1972, now belongs to one of Larry and Alice’s children. It was the setting for many memories made with young visitors from the Fresh Air Fund, a program that organizes trips to upstate New York for children living in New York City.

“We just felt like we could share the fun of the cottage with other people,” Alice said, “and bring them out from the hot city and do something that they liked.”

Every year Rivera, now 62, looked forward to his visit with the Thayers and their three kids. He stayed longer each time until, by the time he was a teenager and had aged out of the Fresh Air Fund, he was on the first Greyhound bus out of the city when school let out every summer.

“He was like a son,” Alice said. “Abe told us many times we influenced him from doing bad things. He would think about us, as ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ and [ask himself] what would we think? When he went back to New York City, he took a photo album from that summer, and he said all winter he looked at that and remembered all the campfires and the fun with our family and friends and their kids.”

In 1979, the Ithaca Journal chronicled the family’s Fresh Air Fund journey. The newspaper interviewed the Thayers, as well as Abe, then 17, and his two little brothers, Junie and Danny.

“If they still have it when I have kids, I’ll send them here with the Fresh Air Fund,” Abe told Journal reporter Judith Horstman. 

“We’ll send them to Mom and Dad,” Danny agreed. (The Fresh Air Fund does still exist, and more information about the organization can be found on its website, freshair.org.)

“It was a big change of pace,” Rivera told Tompkins Weekly on Friday. “Up in Ithaca it was a totally different atmosphere — going to the lake, waterskiing, sailboats and fishing — I loved it.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to go back?” he added. “They changed everything.”

Over time, Rivera’s four siblings all visited the cottage on the lake.

“We’ve had him and his family for all these years. They just keep expanding and expanding, and they call us ‘Mom and Dad,’ and ‘Gram and Gramps,’ and now ‘Great Grandma and Grampa,’” Alice said.

Larry said Abe grew up to be someone he is proud to know.

“He’s a fantastic guy,” he said.

Now retired, over the course of his career as an electrician Rivera worked on landmark New York City sites such as Yankee Stadium and Radio City Music Hall, and he said he is grateful for his lifelong relationship with the Thayers. “They changed my life,” he said.

A partnership that began at Taughannock Farms Inn

Larry and Alice met when they were both teenagers employed by Taughannock Farms Inn, now called the Inn at Taughannock. Fourteen-year-old Alice, who lived in Trumansburg, got a job there as soon as she was able to get working papers. 

A few years later, Larry got a summer job at the inn because his family, who lived in Ithaca, had a summer cottage just a few miles down the road. “They introduced me to the waitresses, and one of them happened to be Alice,” he said.

The Thayers said that the inn’s owners, Maude and Meritt Agard (whom they called “Mom” and “Pop”) treated them like family.

Larry and Alice were married at ages 21 and 20 over Easter vacation while still in college. They continued working at the inn on the weekends until Larry graduated from Syracuse University business school and Alice from cosmetology school in Syracuse.

After graduating, Larry took over the family business, Thayer Appliances. “His dad got sick and couldn’t run the business, so he felt he should do it,” Alice said.

“I was interested in it,” said Larry, “and had grown up with it all my life.”

The businesses had been attached to his family’s house on West Seneca Street, and his mother was the secretary/treasurer, Larry said, “so it was just natural for me to take over.”  

Larry’s father died of cancer when he was in his 50s, and Larry’s dedication and business sense led the company through decades of success.

The couple had two sons, Steven and Doug, and one daughter, Susan. The couple navigated the heartache of losing Susan at the age of 61. She died after a two-and-a-half-year-long battle with cancer. It was the saddest chapter of their life together, they said. 

Larry’s son Doug officially became the business’ owner when Larry retired in 1995, and Thayer Appliance will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2027.

Alice had a long career in cosmetology, working in several local hair salons, and later in life she held a position at the Racker Center, which turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of her life.

“I was helping those little kids to enjoy life, and I loved it,” Alice said. “Every day I spent there was like therapy.”

She helped care for high-needs children from ages 16 months to five years old.

“The Racker Center is a wonderful place,” she said. “I enjoyed every minute.

At the age of 90, Larry took on the new role of Alice’s caregiver earlier this year when a longstanding, undiagnosed medical issue made Alice so ill that they weren’t sure she would pull through.

“He was very good at it,” Alice said of Larry’s caregiving skills, “but he didn’t want to keep the job.”

She has since made full recovery.

“She graduated from hospice,” Larry joked. “Not many people can say that.”

Through the grief and the joy, Alice and Larry said that constant give-and-take and a willingness to work through problems, rather than giving up during the hard times, has kept their marriage strong.  

“If you have an issue, you work it out and get over it; you don’t just walk away, throw up your hands, and say ‘I can’t do this,’” Alice said. “Everybody has their ups and downs, and you have your issues, but you just work at it.”