Kendal Anniversary #20: A Dedication--Tree, Time Capsule, and Poetry

Our second anniversary celebration featured planting a beautiful—and indigenous—dogwood in the Sunnyside garden. Nearby, we also planted a time capsule to be opened in 20 years to remind Kendal residents in 2045 of those of us in 2025. Jean Eccleston, Hildegarde Gray, Muriel Fox spoke, and, to top it all off, Kendal Poet Llyn Clague read an ode to our community (scroll all the way down for Llyn’s lovely poem).

What’s In the Time Capsule?

Transcript of introduction by KoH CEO Jean Eccleston

Transcript of remarks by Hildegarde Gray

Transcript of summary of capsule’s contents by Time Capsule Chair Muriel Fox

View of KoH buildings

Quaker Values and Practices booklet

Annual report of KoH Residents Association

Spotlight issue

Kendal View magazine

List of Residents Association committees

List of Residents Association interest groups

List of book groups

Staff appreciation letter, backed by list of fund-raising appeals

Photo of staff members at Staff Appreciation Fund party

Photo of Facilities staff at Staff Appreciation Fund party

Photo of KoH staff group in Halloween costumes

List of local charities served by annual appeal

T-shirt from annual Alzheimer’s Walk

Mask worn by sick residents during the covid pandemic

Photo and crafts item from Tuesday Morning Club, where independent-living residents join Adirondack residents for weekly songs, crafts, and discussions

Instruction sheet, FAQ sheet, and monthly volunteers list from Co-pilots

List of KoH menus for one week

Photo of Executive Chef Eddie Dias in KoH kitchen

Photo of KoH dining staff

Photo of Healing Garden, adjacent to Clearwater

Promotional materials: brochure written by residents …celebration of 20th Anniversary

Group fitness schedule for March 2025

Fitness newsletter for March 2025

Calendar of events for month of May 2025

List of KoH events & concerts available in KoH video library, 2024-25

List of movies on demand available in KoH video library

List of operas shown Saturday afternoons by Opera Committee

Report of Committee on Lenape, the indigenous tribe whose land is occupied by KoH

Front page of New York Times, May 9, 2005, the day KoH was opened

Front page of New York Times, May 9, 2025

Front page of Journal News, May 9, 2025

A Sapling and a Capsule

Dedicated to the 20th Anniversary of Kendal on Hudson Llyn Clague

Collaborate, celebrate, commemorate, Twenty years to date, twenty years to come       

We are gathered here to mark a milestone along the path of this place we call home. Standing on two decades of past success, to a Kendal two decades hence we present a gift from our vibrant present. 

To honor the moment, we plant a tree that in time will grow and mature,         and we bury a can affording the future cameos of our daily reality: sapling and capsule, symbol and sample, avatar of life, scraps and mementos.

Collaborate, commemorate, celebrate Twenty years to date, twenty to come

We honor the body of Kendal, the campus on this hill beside the gorgeous Hudson: four sand-colored buildings, solid examples of physical fact, their names iconic symbols of river boats floating on a river of green.

We honor the lives of the people of Kendal, from the first, a full score of years away, to the some fourteen score here on this day, to the latest moving in just yesterday, to you, another score of years from today.

Collaborate, commemorate, celebrate Twenty years to date, twenty to come

We honor the spirit of Kendal, sample and symbol embodied hourly in word and gesture of our people, in every item and object in the buried capsule, a spirit aspiring, past missteps, to move, through friendliness, to friendship, to community.

And we honor the spirit of community in the imagination, for only in imagination do we bond with you, in the future, as, in history, with Founders, a bonding more perfect in the imagination than on a real campus— sample and symbol of quintessential community.

Collaborate, celebrate, commemorate, Twenty years to date, twenty years to come