Between the months of May and September, the Queche Base Lodge is a hive of activity. Golfers come and go picking up goodies and refreshments for the Highlands back nine. In the front hallway they walk past a shuttered opening on top of a high desk and if they’ve enjoyed a Vermont winter they wouldn’t know that the opening is heart and soul of Quechee Club as soon as the snow falls. Of course, I’m talking about the ski school and once again, returning for the 33rd straight year, Ken Kramberg will be at the helm.

Kramberg’s story is not that of a typical Vermont ski school dynasty and in a way that makes it more special. When I asked him where he grew up skiing he replied, “I didn’t, I grew up in New York City in a part of Queens, surfing.” It wasn’t until junior high school that he had his first skiing experience. As part of a Boy Scout troop, Kramberg headed north of the city to a small ski area called Ski Minne. Throughout high school he made frequent trips with his Boy Scout troop as well as with family friends. These trips fostered a love for the great outdoors that has continued his entire life. At 13 he became involved with the Appalachian Mountain Club Climbing Group where he developed into an experienced hiker, rock climber and even ice climber. But the great outdoors was not his only calling.

Kramberg is a man of uncommon passion and dedication. After graduating from Brooklyn College with a major in both film studies and special education, in 1977 he was hired as a special educator at Hartford High School. He started his 30-year career working with children with cognitive disabilities. Eventually he specialized in helping children with emotional and behavioral disorders have a happy, healthy and successful academic experience. Kramberg started as a special educator and ultimately became a coordinator and then director of the Regional Special Education Collaborative. He designed and created the Wilder School, an alternative school in the Hartford school district, and also the Hartford Autism Regional Program, which helps kids on the autism spectrum. His job at Hartford High School was what also brought him to the Quechee Club.

In 1978, Carol Wheeler, then co-director of the Quechee Ski School with her husband, was working as a counselor at Hartford. She asked Kramberg if he would come on board as a Nordic ski instructor and for two years he did just that. During his down time at the club (in between lessons) Wheeler taught him how to teach alpine ski lessons. With a lifetime of experience in outdoor recreation, he was a fast learner and in his third year he became an alpine as well as Nordic instructor. When the Wheelers decided to leave the ski school in 1983, they picked Kramberg to be their successor.

Today Kramberg is certified by the Professional Ski Instructors of America. As head of the ski school he works with thirty-five instructors that teach lessons in Nordic skiing, alpine skiing, telemarking and snowboarding. There are morning and afternoon group lessons for children ages 4 to 7 and also 8 to 12, as well as daily adult group lessons. For the most enthusiastic skiers there are also both private and semi-private lessons.

Kramberg has also worked for the past few years as a statewide education consultant with a contract with the University of Vermont where he completed his Master’s degree and has been an adjunct faculty member for several years.

Filling Life’s Stage

I love an audience,” Eleonora Stein proclaims. Throughout her life she has found audiences, in her careers as dancer, singer and teacher. Now 89, she has lived a full and active life that’s provided her with many stories and collections of memorabilia—and she continues to accumulate anecdotes and events. “All the world,” even each local village street, is her stage.

“Mme. Stein,” as she is known to her ballet students, speaks with enthusiasm and precision—and presumably with accuracy—of her life and experiences. “I was born in Budapest on August 16, 1926,” she says. “This year I’ll be 90 years old! In 1938, I arrived with my mother on October 10 in New York. My mother’s father got the visa. We went through Berlin, and the train stopped in a huge Bahnhof—train station. They wouldn’t let us get off the train. The glass dome, the roof, was hung with gigantic swastikas from one end to the other.”

“My father and brother left the next year; they were sneaked out,” continues Mme. Stein. The family was Jewish—their name was Reich. She converted to Catholicism in the 1950s. “When we arrived, we lived with my grandfather on 72nd Street. My mother was excellent in needlework. She worked for an outstanding costumer in New York, and went to night school to learn English. I went directly to school—I didn’t like that! I learned English in three months and started writing for the school newspaper. And soon I was a well-known figure in school because of dance.”

All artistic endeavors appealed to the young Erika (Mme. Stein’s birth name). One day in a music class she noticed an empty front row and rushed up to claim it. When the class sang an aria from Faust, she gave it her all. “The teacher was listening,” she recalls, “ and said, ‘Erika, come up and sing it yourself,’ and the class applauded. Of course, all I needed was an audience,” she laughs.

Press photo from The Roxy Theatre.

The pretty child who had taken many dance classes in Budapest, and also performed there in children’s theater and short films, had disappointments as well as successes. In New York she attended the High School of Music and Art (which existed from 1936 to 1984), beginning in 1941, but her dance career ran into problems. Too early work in ballet on pointe in her early childhood had injured her feet, and doctors discovered she had a slight heart murmur, which in those days was treated with complete rest. “They gave me a pass to use the elevator—can you imagine!,” she exclaims. “It was such a heartbreaker.” Making lemonade out of lemons, she began taking voice lessons.

In the 1950s, Mme. Stein performed under the name Erica Bard (an Americanization of her grandmother’s name, Bardos) at The Roxy Theater, and toured with the company. At times she worked with her family: her father designed toys, including an angel Christmas-tree topper, which shows up in movies (including The Bishop’s Wife, and Holiday Inn). “I was the fastest on the assembly line,” she recalls. “I always had to shine. I’m a ham from way back.” In 1958, Stein became her name with her marriage to Hal Stein, who was her supervisor at a graphics company. The couple lived in New Jersey, where their two sons still live­—one a police sergeant and the other a corporate vice president. Mme. Stein is still in touch occasionally with Hal, though they divorced in the 1970s and he has remarried.

Settling in Vermont

Around 1985 she moved to Woodstock. She has been known in this area as a teacher of dance, and she still has an occasional student. “The Russian style is what I teach. Arm movements are very important,” she says. “Like this, graceful!,” she demonstrates by moving her arms through several canonical positions with a smooth, lilting, continuous flow. “Not like this!,” as she moves her arms from down to up then to side and front in a stop-action style.

Press photo from her days as a singer.

Mme. Stein’s cozy apartment displays mementos of her activities over the years. Photos of herself and her family fill the walls, along with children’s drawings, paintings and sketches she has done, and works by friends. A treasured souvenir is a newspaper article telling of her visit to London’s Royal Ballet, signed by some of the company’s greats, including famous ballet dancers Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.

As she faces the challenges of age, Mme. Stein remains valiant. She can no longer drive, but she cuts a notable figure when she walks, wearing “my fur jacket, my beautiful fur boots, my fur hat, and of course my gold pocketbook.” As a visitor reaches to pick up a fallen item since Madame has difficulty with her knees, she exclaims, “No, no! I don’t want help. I do it myself.”