I start this entry feeling just a tiny bit smarter by being a former elementary school student at Center Street School. By the time you finish reading this, I'll feel back to normal as I quickly approach the completion of my 13th year of writing about local history.
As I've been writing columns, I'm always happy to get feedback from readers. Some send me surprises about things I may not have been aware of or overlooked while doing research. Then there are the times I just slip up.
A few months ago, I wrote about Oneonta native Sherman Fairchild, a famous inventor and industrialist, who got his first break with a special camera he invented in 1920. In that article, I'd mentioned Fairchild began his education in Oneonta's schools, but I didn't know or mention which one.
Not long after, Mark Parmeter, librarian at Center Street School, sent a class photo from the earlier years at the school, showing Sherman Fairchild shortly after the turn of the 20th century. I enjoyed the thought that my classmates and I once walked those same hallways as Fairchild. He eventually went into private schooling, both here and in Arizona.
Also on the topic of cameras, I'd written an article about the early photography of Horace and Ralph Hanford, capturing the early years of people and progress in the hamlet of East Meredith. After the two had stopped taking photos from glass plates and film, their work was tucked away for many years.
Neither Hanford Mills Museum nor I had told the whole story of how the Hanford photo collection had arrived at today's museum. Grace Kent, a longtime neighbor of the museum, pointed out that the bulk of the Horace Hanford Collection came to the museum in 1976 as a donation by Ralph Hanford, Horace's son. The donation included 105 dry plate glass negatives. At a different date, Ronald and Grace Kent, who had purchased Horace's old house, discovered a box in the attic that contained 65 additional glass plate negatives, five flexible negatives, and 191 roll film negatives. The Kents donated this trove to the museum, and it was determined that the 65 glass negatives were the work of Horace Hanford. The roll negatives were by Horace's son, Ralph, and were thus grouped into a new category called the Ralph Hanford Collection.
A few months ago, I had written about "Frank Malzone Day" in Oneonta, back in October 1957. Malzone got his start as a member of the 1949 Oneonta Red Sox team and went on to the big club in Boston. Malzone remained fond of Oneonta, because he married Amy Gennarino and came back often to visit the in-laws.
While I captured the mutual admiration between Malzone and Oneonta's citizens, alas, being a baseball story, a few readers pointed out I committed a few errors, involving some player statistics.
I must have been in a hurry in research and writing, as in my notes I had written down DH. Frank's first games with Boston in 1955 were in a double header in September, being called up from the Minor Leagues. I said he was a designated hitter. That "DH" in my notes was my error. There was no designated hitter in baseball until 1973, adopted by the American League.
I had also mentioned that Malzone got six hits in a row during that double header. I had misinterpreted a Saturday Evening Post article from 1958 about Malzone's triumph over personal tragedy. Malzone got six hits on the day, but according to Retrosheet.org, Malzone got four hits in the first game and two in the second.
The magazine article was amusing, describing how, after the double-header, Frank called Amy back in Oneonta, so excited he could hardly talk.
"What are you trying to tell me?" she finally asked.
"Six_six_six," he sputtered. "I got six hits today!" "And I got left $6 million by a long-lost uncle," she retorted.
"Amy says now, 'It took him five expensive minutes to convince me he wasn't kidding. And even though we couldn't afford to talk that long, I didn't begrudge him a minute," read the Saturday Evening Post.
Finally, to clear up a few more errors, I had said the Agro Farma plant, maker of Chobani yogurt, was located in the town of New Berlin, while it is in the town of Columbus. I had also given a wrong title to Nancy Bromley of Greene, in a Civil War letters entry. Bromley is the president of the Greene Historical Society, not the Greene town historian. The latter is Peg Ross.
Hopefully I'll be back in my Fairchild moments soon.
This weekend: Oneonta celebrates Christmas in wartime, 1941.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. Write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/marksimonson.
Columns
Readers keep me on my toes with facts and figures
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
- Cary Brunswick
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Some wisdom is best passed down through books
I was visiting a friend out-of-town recently and the subject of providing a "reading list" to young people came up in conversation. He said years ago he had asked a respected acquaintance in Oneonta to compile such a list for his teenage daughter, to help her be better prepared for life, culture, education, politics and people.
Continued ... - Let pragmatism, not politics, determine birth control debate
- As Center Street Elementary goes, so goes Center City
- U.S. intervention in Syria's uprising would be a gamble
- Santorum, Obama both got it wrong on Honduras
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- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
In Otsego County’s local elections last fall, a number of candidates — most of them on the independent Sustainable Otsego line — ran on an anti-fracking, pro-sustainability platform. They recognized that our current way of life — dependent on increasingly scarce, costly and polluting fossil fuels — cannot continue.
Continued ... - Time to get off the bus and on the computer
- Cuomo's Machiavellian maneuvers are a danger
- Home rule laws aren't a radical idea
- Sustainable shouldn't be a dirty word
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
- Lisa Miller
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor in the dressing room, waiting for Allie's dance number to be called. The cave girl costume has been donned, the jazz shoes double-tied, the hair pulled back, the requisite dab of lipstick applied.
Continued ... - Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
- Untethered from the cable box
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Mark Simonson
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
Oneonta became a settlement and has been a place to do one's "trading," whether it was the 18th century, or 2012, because of the five valleys that converge here. Only the places of doing the "trading" have changed a bit over the last 100 years, and Oneonta remains a place that attracts visitors and has always been a decent place to live and work.
Continued ...
100 Years Ago - Recalling the Hindenburg, John D. Rockefeller in May 1937
- Oneonta residents had diversions aplenty in the spring of 1952
- Damaschke essential to ensuring Oneonta baseball in 1927
- Area tunes to WONT in November 1972
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
- Rick Brockway
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
OUTDOORS COLUMN BY RICK BROCKWAY ... Last week, my friend George and I returned to the Gunks for another rock-climbing adventure. After last week's column, I asked about the rattlesnakes and was told not to worry. Rattlers are usually quite timid and will avoid people as much as possible. It's the copperheads that'll give you trouble. They're aggressive and will stand their ground to defend it. Oh great!!
- Rattlesnakes may be closer than you think, so pay attention
- Spring is here, so fishing should pick up soon
- Sneaky fox may be the next animal looking to horse around
- Pass down the rush of turkey hunting to your kids this weekend
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
- Sam Pollak
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I'm happy with our kids to a certain degree
It was several years ago, and I was in the kitchen, telling my eldest daughter and my then-teenaged son about the person who was taking over as publisher at The Daily Star.
Continued ... - I get by with a little help from my 'friends'
- It’s not easy for a politics junkie to get off the stuff
- The Encyclopaedia Britannica in print, unmourned by me
- Angelo Dundee was always a good man to have in your corner
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- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
