A Holocaust survivor who called the Adirondacks her home for 50 years died earlier this month. Dana Fast was born in Poland and moved to the United States in the 1960s. According to her obituary, she worked at the Trudeau Institute and the former W.A. Jones Cell Science Center until she retired.
Fast was active in her community, loved travel, and hiked all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks. She's known as Grandma Fast to many people she hosted in her home over the decades. We listen back to a conversation with Fast on today's Story of the Day. Support for Story of the Day comes from Pearsall Wealth Management at UBS Wealth Management USA. Subsidiary UBS AG. Member FINRA SIPC. One Broad Street, Glens Falls. Hi, I'm Kara Chapman, and for David Summerstein, it's Thursday, May 29th.
Up first, we have an update on our North Country spellers who competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week. Leah Reney is a homeschooled 8th grader in Clinton County's Beekmantown District. Reney tied 15 other spellers for 58th place.
From the other side of the North Country, Micah Sterling of the General Brown School District in Jefferson County went to Scripps for the fourth time. He was eliminated in the third round and tied for 100th place. A third of all Americans have at least one tattoo these days. They become much more.
more socially acceptable. But if you want to get inked in the Adirondack High Peaks region, there aren't many options. Today, we talked to the owner of the only tattoo shop in Lake Placid. Anna Williams-Bergen has this North Country at Work story. Andreana Yakovides pops a needle cartridge into her tattoo machine. There are nine tiny needles. Four on the top, five on the bottom, and they're staggered. This one is a flat edge which really helps to pack color in.
Yakovides does a style of tattooing called illustrative realism. Her designs are lifelike and dimensional with intricate details. She says it flows from her beginnings doing oil painting as a teen. What I naturally created when I had paintbrushes in my hand, not being trained by anyone is probably what influenced me the most. And that's at this point just what comes out of my body.
Yakovides was born in Queens, but her family moved to Lake Placid when she was young. She moved away for college and eventually ended up in Los Angeles. I went out there and I just didn't come back. There wasn't a rhyme or reason. I just wanted to see the world. I just wanted to explore what was different. She worked as a decorative artist for years and eventually got into tattooing.
But her parents were getting older, and she felt like it was time to get back to family. In 2019, Yakovita started coming back to Lake Placid. When the COVID pandemic hit, she decided to stay. And soon after, it was time to open her own shop. I was driving by here one day. I looked at the building. I was like, that's where it's going to be. And I just...
pretty quickly moved towards doing it. We had to do a full gut and renovation of this space. I was very grateful at that time to have my interior design experience because it was all roads just started coming together. It was a bit of a gamble. My curiosity before I opened was, is there a market for it? Are people going to want it since there hasn't been one in Lake Placid? Yakovitas opened her shop in January of 2023.
And she saw quickly that a lot of people here wanted tattoos. Or they were happy to travel to Lake Placid for her. She's had people come from as far as Kentucky and Montreal. You have to perform. Every single time. There is not a day where you can sit in your chair and not do 100%. And this isn't in all professions, but...
Sometimes you can have a bad day or you can make wrong calculations and go back and figure it out later. Tattooing doesn't really allow for a lot of that. And you also have the scrutiny of... Having somebody there just looking, watching your process the whole time. There's also the emotional weight that many tattoos carry. Yakovita says the hours she spends working on clients can be really vulnerable. Some people really open up.
share a lot of themselves with her. And sometimes people come here where, you know, somebody in their life has passed and there's a lot of emotion behind it. And it becomes my job to comfort them. And to honor this person that's been in their life or an animal that's been in their life in a way that meets the kind of love and passion that that person has. And that's, I find that to be a really big responsibility.
But tattooing is also really fun. As an artist, Yakovides has to find the balance between what her clients want and what's possible on a 3D human canvas. It's a part of the puzzle of putting together. The tattoo, you know, I'm finding flow within the confines of what I'm given, which is the human body. A body that's a little more decorated permanently after you leave your studio. For North Country Public Radio's North Country at Work project, I'm Anna Williams-Bergen in Lake Placid.
A Holocaust survivor who lived in the Adirondacks died earlier this month. Dana Fast was 94 years old. She grew up in Poland, and while much of her family survived the war, her father was killed by the Nazis. Fast moved to the U.S. in the 1960s and eventually settled in Lake Clear. She was known as a master gardener and an avid volunteer.
Three years ago, our Adirondack reporter Emily Russell sat down with Fast at her 91st birthday, around the same time Russia began its war against Ukraine. Here's her story, which first aired in 2022. It's a sunny day in Saranac Lake. Dana Fast is sitting at a table overlooking Lake Flower. She says she's been following the war in Ukraine from her home in Lake Clear. She's watched as Russian forces have invaded and killed Ukrainian troops. I really feel so much for people in Ukraine.
Fast is 90 years old now. She turns 91 later this month. I'm sitting down with her at an early birthday party in Saranac Lake. The room is buzzing, full of her friends and family. Still, she's willing to reflect for a few minutes. on what's happening now in Eastern Europe. Can you relate to what people are going through in Ukraine? Very much so. Very much so. I was pampered girl.
And all of a sudden, I was in the war. Fast says she knows what it's like to have your life upended so quickly and in such a violent way. Like in World War II, families in Ukraine are being torn apart, towns and homes bombed. And for Fast, some of the war is actually unfolding in what was her homeland. So many cities that I'm seeing here now. on the news. They were Polish cities at that time. They are talking about the Wolf and they call it L'Aviv. This was the big Polish city.
Lviv was part of Poland until 1939. The Soviet Union then annexed the city at the start of the Second World War. Decades later, it became part of Ukraine when the nation declared independence from the Soviets.
There's a long history of battles over borders in that part of the world. Dana Fast's daughter, Evona, says the memories of those who lived through World War II should be preserved. It's an important part of history and especially... with what's going on in the Ukraine, we see history repeating itself. I think people need to know about this. Ten years ago, Ivona helped her mother write a memoir about her time during a war.
The two are now republishing that book under a new title, Good in the Midst of Evil. At her birthday party in Saranac Lake, Dana Fast says this chapter of her life in the Adirondacks is completely different from the life she led in Poland. This chapter is a happy one. Sitting with one of her friends, Fass looks over old photos of them out in the woods. This is on snowshoes, but I was a lot on cross-country skis.
Vast love to ski by moonlight in the Adirondacks. Boy, it was cold. I remember one winter. We were sitting in the Linto. And I always carry... Thermos of hot cocoa. Because it was good. And I was pouring the hot cocoa and it froze. As she approaches her 91st birthday, Vast reflects on the arc of her life. She went from a pampered girl in Poland...
to a war refugee fearing death during the Holocaust, and finally a life full of happiness and adventure in the Adirondacks. This is the place that I want to end my life. I came to Adirondacks and this was the place that I don't want to move out anymore. Emily Russell, North Country Public Radio, Saranac Lake. That story first aired in 2022. Dana Fast died earlier this month at her home in Lake Clear. She was 94 years old.
We have more news all the time on our website, ncpr.org. Music Today by Dan Duggan of Lake Clear and Tim Elifritz of Johnsburg. I'm Kara Chapman, North Country Public Radio.