The Road to Catoctin Mountain

Robert Gerard's life story involves a fascinating journey full of twists, turns, and unexpected events. With no specific career plan in place, things just happened - mostly good things! Along the way, over time, people, events, and places seemed to re-emerge in an intriguing way.

Gerard was born in New York City in 1930. He and his mother and father lived on the west side, near Central Park. He didn't know until many years later that his father was an alien who had entered the United States illegally and changed his name. When Robert was just two years old, the FBI came knocking at the apartment off Central Park West. However, they were not looking for illegal aliens. They were looking for the Lindbergh baby!

Later, the family moved to West Orange, New Jersey, a small town where it seemed that nearly everyone was employed by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Gerard's story captures the lean years of the 1930s, prior to World War II, some problems at home, and his escapades as a teen-ager during the war years, including two years of tough discipline at a private boarding school in North Jersey. It was during this period that his father was deported to Belgium from Ellis Island.