HISTORY COLUMN
By Tom Heitz |
35 Years Ago – May 1973 Following Arbor Day tradition, the Garden Club of Richfield Springs donated and planted a Hopa Crab tree at the Richfield Springs public library on May 1. The Hopa Crab tree is synonymous with the garden club. In 1954, the club sponsored the sale of over 500 of these flowering trees. Since then they have been sold at frequent intervals. Today, the village stands out on Route 20 when these trees are in bloom. There are now over 800 Hopa crabs in Richfield.
Cherry Valley – salaries of village officials remain unchanged. Mayor Lynn J. Thompson is paid $500 yearly and trustees Douglas Van Dewerker and Wilkie Maddox earn $300 each. Mrs. Harry Post, the new clerk-treasurer, will be paid $2,500 for a 3-5 hour week except during January, June and July when a 6-hour week is required. 40 Years Ago – May 1968 Town Topics – Garry Aney accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Richard Getman and daughter Mary Beth of Richfield Springs to Cobleskill Agricultural and Technical College on Sunday for the Open House there. They were dinner guests of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Getman in Cobleskill. Friends of Barbara Seamon will be happy to hear that she has been vocalizing over the campus radio station at Albany State University where she is enjoying her freshman year. Also, she currently is filling a singing engagement at the Hendrick Hudson Hotel in Troy.
Editorial: College students are doing a lot of “protesting” these days (who isn’t?). Some of the reasons behind these protests are mostly fantastic and absurd. But they serve to contribute to the general turmoil that is gripping the country, and will continue to do so until they are met with all necessary firmness. Congressman Stratton writes: “Already faced with creeping isolationism and mounting demands for disengagement abroad, America now seems headed towards anarchy at home.”
50 Years Ago – May 1958 Two members of the junior class of Richfield Springs Central School will represent Hugick-Purcell-Shepard Post 616 at the annual Empire Boy’s State at Colgate University which opens June 22. The announcement was made this week by Pulaski Culbert, speaking for the Post. They are John Woytowich who is being sponsored by the Post and Gerry House sponsored by Richfield Rotary. The two boys were selected by the school faculty for their qualities of leadership, character, scholarship and service. The Empire Boys State program is fully intended to prove that the American boy of today is the American citizen and leader of tomorrow.
60 Years Ago – May 1948 The second annual prize speaking contest sponsored by Mr. Charles Wikoff will be presented in the Richfield Springs Central School auditorium on Thursday evening, April 29. The speakers and their selections are: Alma Starr, “The Dinner Party,” by Mona Gardner; Robert Fraser, “The Great Italian Duel,” by Paul Gallion; Ruth Ferris, “The Date Father Didn’t Keep,” by Robert Zacka; William Merrick, “Episode in John L. Sullivan’s Life,” by Bill Stern; Vivien Ormsbee, “I’m a Country Girl,” by Ann Graves; Clyde Lockwood, “Baron Von Steuben,” by O.K. Armstrong; Patricia Breslin, “Homicide-Vehicle-Truck,” by Henry Curran; William Taber, “How Our Constitution Flowed Out of the Potomac,” and Lydia Grabowski, “My Grandfather’s $78,000 debt,” by Jean Dalrymple.
75 Years Ago – May 1933 The members of the Presbyterian choir are presenting a program of three one-act plays next week, Thursday and Friday evening, at the Parish House of the Episcopal Church. They have been working on the plays for two weeks now. “Uncle Jimmy,” by Zona Gale, is a rural human interest play in which Ralph Parmalee as Uncle Jimmy, the town’s odd-job man and runner of “urrants,” is promised the fulfillment of the desire of a lifetime – a trip away from Friendship village. He is hustled ready by the women folks. “The Pipe of Peace,” by Margaret Cameron, is a domestic comedy in which Esther Pierce as the inveterate lover of antiques barters off her husband’s valued meerschaum pipe for a chair which proves to be not quite so old as the curio dealer represented it to be. The third offering is a Russian play, “The Boor,” by Anton Chekov in which Miss Hyde as the inconsolable widow is in turn quarreled with and made love to by Mr. Norton who has come to collect a debt.
100 Years Ago – May 1908 On Sunday, May 31, the Otsego & Mohawk Valley R.R. will resume their Sunday excursions to Schuyler Lake points and Cooperstown, offering reduced rates on Sundays from all points on their lines between Oneonta and Cooperstown. The round trip rate from Cooperstown to Walnut Grove or the Lake House on Schuyler Lake will be 50 cents and from Oneonta to those points the rate will be 75 cents.
Resources for this column have been provided courtesy of the New York State Historical Association Library.
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