Serenity Now

A quiet time talking books

Sunday afternoon at 2, March 27, 2022

Bob Cudmore will join Amsterdam Reads at the Amsterdam Free Library on Church Street for a virtual question and answer session with author Susan Meissner.  Meissner will discuss her book The Nature of Fragile Things.  The book explores the power and resilience of female friendship set in the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The Historians Podcast 2022 fund drive now totals $1625.  That’s just over 25% of our $6,000 goal for the year.  Please donate online here- https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast-2022  Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. Keep history alive at The Historians Podcast—where we’re working on Episode 418-Historian Bruce Dearstyne on celebrating New York State’s birthday and Episode 419-Edmund Richardson is author of The King’s Shadow: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Deadly Quest for the Lost City of Alexandria, the story of a deserter who discovered a civilization founded by Alexander the Great in Afghanistan in the fourth century B.C.

...they made buttons

An Amsterdam tavern, a paint brush factory and a pool hall

By Bob Cudmore, Focus

   The late Shawn Kevin Duffy contributed tales to this column on many topics including O’Shaughnessy’s, his family's East End tavern.

   O'Shaughnessy's Tavern was once owned by Duffy's grandfather Martin J. O'Shaughnessy.  Located at East Main and Eagle Streets in a building no longer there, O'Shaughnessy's regulars included movie actor Kirk Douglas's father, Harry Demsky. The Demskys lived at 46 Eagle Street at the end of the dead end street.

   The Historic Amsterdam League marker for Kirk Douglas’s boyhood neighborhood was placed where the tavern used to be on East Main at Eagle.

   Duffy wrote, "The bar survived Prohibition as so many did not. My mom, Mary O'Shaughnessy Duffy, told me that she used to help make bathtub gin when she was around ten, actually in the bathtub. Her brother Martin Junior (who had polio) sold the moonshine off the back porch to make ends meet during these hard times."

   Eventually the “O” was dropped from the tavern’s name and it became known as Shaughnessy’s.

   Duffy also has memories of working at Edy Brush Company on Brookside Avenue in Amsterdam, a firm that made paint brushes out of hog bristles imported from Poland in the late 1960s.  Edy Brush closed in the 1980s and the building, originally the Wasserman broom factory, was destroyed by fire in 2010. 

   Duffy’s job was to dye the hog bristles black in a large vat of boiling dye.  He also cut long tubes of synthetic bristles with a hand chopper.  He sometimes thought his arm was going to fall off.

   “I broke the elevator by loading boxes of bristle almost up to the limit of the elevator,” Duffy wrote.  “A co-worker and I were also told to stack boxes of bristle in a large storage room as high as we could.  The ceiling was probably 30 to 40 feet.  We made stairs out of the boxes as we stacked and therefore got right up to the ceiling.  I don't think the foreman really expected this and we were in trouble again for doing what we were asked.”

   Duffy used to visit his aunt, Loretta Mullarkey Curran, who worked at a building on the grounds of Amsterdam City Hall on Church Street, the former Sanford mansion.

   He wrote, “At that time, the landscaping at City Hall was outstanding, with three levels of gardens and hedge bordered walkways.”

Historians on the Radio this afternoon at 12:05 WCSS Amsterdam 106.9FM 1490AM

   Duffy also spent some time at Louie Allen’s pool hall on Market Street near the old Rialto Theatre.

   Duffy wrote, “Louie Allen would occasionally play the good players that would sometimes come around as he was a very good player himself.  The strange thing was that Louie had one crippled arm and played with only his good arm, using the rail as a bridge.  The story was that in his younger years Louie once hustled the wrong person at the wrong time, and they made sure he would never do that again by taking him out back and giving him a non-pool lesson, (not sure if this story was true or just hype). Louie also had an assistant by the name of Joe Corrigan who was close to a world-class player while still in his teens.”

   Corrigan joined the Navy and Duffy was informed that Corrigan was killed in an auto accident in about 1970 while still in the Navy.

   Duffy, born in Amsterdam in 1949, died in 2019 at his home in Lake St. Louis, Missouri at age 69. He was a Navy veteran and worked for General Electric and other firms in the turbine generator business.  When he retired he was part owner of Turbine Generator Technical Services.

  Violinist Ann-Marie Barker Schwarz explores the history of high quality music in the early days of radio.  Edward Rice played the violin during WGY Schenectady’s first broadcast on February 20, 1922.  Barker Schwarz is the founder of Musicians of Ma’alwyck and took part in WGY’s 100th anniversary broadcast.

Tomorrow, Sunday, March 27, 2022-From the Archives- Episode 179, September 8, 2017, Curator Dennis Malcolm talks about the eclectic collections at the Village of Ames Museum.  Ames, between Canajoharie and Sharon Springs, is one of the smallest incorporated villages in New York State.  Writer E.B. White’s talking mouse, Stuart Little, visited Ames and liked it very much

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather and News Headlines, Saturday, March 26, 2022

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