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Mohawk Valley Memorial Day Weather, Monday, May 30, 2022
Mostly sunny, with a high near 87.
The story behind the story podcast- George Tralka remembered Amsterdam
How can you be first on your block to read Bob Cudmore’s weekly Focus on History column? You can buy a Saturday copy of the Daily Gazette or Amsterdam Recorder! Or get an online subscription. Here’s another detail: Bob’s column sometimes runs Sunday in the Gazette and Monday in the Recorder. Here at column HQ we wait a week and send an email blast on Sunday with the week old column. Yes our email blast is later but it is free! Any questions?
The Historians Podcast yearly fund drive objective $6000.00
As of today $2725.00
In the hat-$100.00 by this Wednesday the first of June? 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.
Thanks
George Tralka remembered Amsterdam
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
George Tralka was born in Pennsylvania in 1926, the son of music professor Joseph Tralka and his wife Martha. Martha died in 1935. Professor Tralka remarried and the family moved to Amsterdam in 1938.
Tralka’s father Joseph, who was born in Poland and who spent some of his early years in the New World in Brazil, was organist and choir director at St. Stanislaus Church and correspondent for a Buffalo-based Polish language newspaper. Joseph taught George to play violin.
Joseph Tralka made a modest church salary and had a modest sign in the front window of his parlor offering private music lessons. George Tralka wrote, “He could be a little deflated when requested by earnest and hopeful neighborhood mothers on occasion to teach introductory accordion to their fair haired nine-year-olds in as few lessons as possible.”
Joseph Tralka also made some money with door to door sale of Christmas wafers, a traditional perk for Polish church organists. He served the church until a few months before his death in 1955.
George Tralka’s 1940s high school friends included Harold Langley and John Donlon. Langley had a movie camera and organized production of a movie called “The Mad Mortician,” shooting scenes at their homes and Amsterdam City Hall, a stand in for an insane asylum.
Langley became curator of U.S. Naval History at the Smithsonian in Washington and professor of American history at Catholic University.
Donlon sang tenor growing up in Amsterdam in a singing group that could be heard “in occasionally raffish song” under Guy Park Avenue’s streetlights.
Donlon went to the U.S. Naval Academy and a career as a nuclear submarine commander. John was a son of Hugh Donlon, reporter and columnist for the Amsterdam Recorder, who wrote a history of Amsterdam.
In his book, “Diary of a Replacement Soldier,” Tralka recalled he was at his family’s James Street home the Sunday that radio broadcasts were interrupted to report the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. At first he thought Pearl Harbor was in Alaska.
His parents went ahead with plans to go out that day and have Tralka watch his younger siblings. The next day as he delivered the Schenectady Gazette he heard President Roosevelt’s “day of infamy” speech on the radio when he took newspapers to Reid Hill Pharmacy. “It was a solemn moment in the drug store,” Tralka wrote.
Tralka described a World War II gathering at the Polish National Association Hall on Reid Street, “It was there that General (Tadeusz) Bor-Komorowski, the future commander of the Warsaw Rising of 1944, spoke at what was probably a fund-raiser during the war. I knew nothing about him but I knew I had to have his autograph. I managed to get it as he headed for the exit after his presentation.”
As his senior year at St. Mary’s High School drew to a close in 1944, Tralka enlisted in the Army. His notice to report came a few days before the senior prom and he was so busy getting ready to leave he failed to notify his date that he couldn’t attend.
Later his brother accepted Tralka’s high school diploma and the “applause was enthusiastic.”
Many of his war stories from Europe were illustrated with his own drawings. Tralka was art editor of his high school yearbook.
After the war, Tralka became a physician and medical researcher. He established an internal medicine practice in the Washington, D.C., area and practiced medicine overseas for the Department of State. He died in May 2018.
He was buried at Quantico National Cemetery in Virginia. He was survived by his son, George Tralka, Junior.
Tomorrow
Tuesday, May 31, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-The Camacho family, early arrivals in Amsterdam from the Caribbean.
Aldelmo Camacho spent his early years on a farm near Yauco, a small city on the south side of the island of Puerto Rico. The youngest of ten children..
Wednesday Archives
2016
American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference
Episode 117-Bob Cudmore hosts an episode covering the 2016 American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference. Edward Lengel is author of “First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His and the Nation’s Prosperity.” J. L. Bell is author of “The Road to Concord, How Four Stolen Cannons Ignited the Revolutionary War.” And editor Don Hagist explains the online Journal of the American Revolution.
2022
American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference
Newspaper columnist and podcast host Bob Cudmore will introduce the speakers Saturday and Sunday June 11th and 12th at the 2022 American Revolution Conference sponsored by the Fort Plain Museum.
The conference will take place at the Fulton-Montgomery Community College Theater, 2805 NY-67, Johnstown. Speakers will include Edward Lengel, William Fowler, James Kirby Martin, Mark Edward Lender and many other experts on the Revolutionary War.
https://fortplainmuseum.org/
Thursday, June 2, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Camp Agaming in th Adirondacks
Friday, June 3, 2022-Episode 425-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan has the story of the Buttonwood Agreement, the founding document of the New York Stock Exchange.
Mohawk Valley Memorial Day Weather, Monday, May 30, 2022
Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming west 5 to 7 mph in the morning.
Tonight
Partly cloudy, with a low around 66. West wind 3 to 5 mph.
Tuesday
Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 90. West wind 7 to 11 mph.
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Monday, May 30, 2022
Daily Gazette
The leading source for local news in Schoharie, Amsterdam, Gloversville, and Johnstown.
Community gathers to remember those lost to, organize against gun violence
SCHENECTADY – Several speakers at Sunday’s End Gun Violence Vigil/Open Forum held on the steps of Schenectady’s City Hall mentioned…
SCHENECTADY – Several speakers at Sunday’s End Gun Violence Vigil/Open Forum held on the steps of Schenectady’s City Hall mentioned…
https://dailygazette.com/
Amsterdam Recorder
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald
https://www.leaderherald.com/
View all episodes
By Bob CudmoreMohawk Valley Memorial Day Weather, Monday, May 30, 2022
Mostly sunny, with a high near 87.
The story behind the story podcast- George Tralka remembered Amsterdam
How can you be first on your block to read Bob Cudmore’s weekly Focus on History column? You can buy a Saturday copy of the Daily Gazette or Amsterdam Recorder! Or get an online subscription. Here’s another detail: Bob’s column sometimes runs Sunday in the Gazette and Monday in the Recorder. Here at column HQ we wait a week and send an email blast on Sunday with the week old column. Yes our email blast is later but it is free! Any questions?
The Historians Podcast yearly fund drive objective $6000.00
As of today $2725.00
In the hat-$100.00 by this Wednesday the first of June? 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.
Thanks
George Tralka remembered Amsterdam
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
George Tralka was born in Pennsylvania in 1926, the son of music professor Joseph Tralka and his wife Martha. Martha died in 1935. Professor Tralka remarried and the family moved to Amsterdam in 1938.
Tralka’s father Joseph, who was born in Poland and who spent some of his early years in the New World in Brazil, was organist and choir director at St. Stanislaus Church and correspondent for a Buffalo-based Polish language newspaper. Joseph taught George to play violin.
Joseph Tralka made a modest church salary and had a modest sign in the front window of his parlor offering private music lessons. George Tralka wrote, “He could be a little deflated when requested by earnest and hopeful neighborhood mothers on occasion to teach introductory accordion to their fair haired nine-year-olds in as few lessons as possible.”
Joseph Tralka also made some money with door to door sale of Christmas wafers, a traditional perk for Polish church organists. He served the church until a few months before his death in 1955.
George Tralka’s 1940s high school friends included Harold Langley and John Donlon. Langley had a movie camera and organized production of a movie called “The Mad Mortician,” shooting scenes at their homes and Amsterdam City Hall, a stand in for an insane asylum.
Langley became curator of U.S. Naval History at the Smithsonian in Washington and professor of American history at Catholic University.
Donlon sang tenor growing up in Amsterdam in a singing group that could be heard “in occasionally raffish song” under Guy Park Avenue’s streetlights.
Donlon went to the U.S. Naval Academy and a career as a nuclear submarine commander. John was a son of Hugh Donlon, reporter and columnist for the Amsterdam Recorder, who wrote a history of Amsterdam.
In his book, “Diary of a Replacement Soldier,” Tralka recalled he was at his family’s James Street home the Sunday that radio broadcasts were interrupted to report the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. At first he thought Pearl Harbor was in Alaska.
His parents went ahead with plans to go out that day and have Tralka watch his younger siblings. The next day as he delivered the Schenectady Gazette he heard President Roosevelt’s “day of infamy” speech on the radio when he took newspapers to Reid Hill Pharmacy. “It was a solemn moment in the drug store,” Tralka wrote.
Tralka described a World War II gathering at the Polish National Association Hall on Reid Street, “It was there that General (Tadeusz) Bor-Komorowski, the future commander of the Warsaw Rising of 1944, spoke at what was probably a fund-raiser during the war. I knew nothing about him but I knew I had to have his autograph. I managed to get it as he headed for the exit after his presentation.”
As his senior year at St. Mary’s High School drew to a close in 1944, Tralka enlisted in the Army. His notice to report came a few days before the senior prom and he was so busy getting ready to leave he failed to notify his date that he couldn’t attend.
Later his brother accepted Tralka’s high school diploma and the “applause was enthusiastic.”
Many of his war stories from Europe were illustrated with his own drawings. Tralka was art editor of his high school yearbook.
After the war, Tralka became a physician and medical researcher. He established an internal medicine practice in the Washington, D.C., area and practiced medicine overseas for the Department of State. He died in May 2018.
He was buried at Quantico National Cemetery in Virginia. He was survived by his son, George Tralka, Junior.
Tomorrow
Tuesday, May 31, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-The Camacho family, early arrivals in Amsterdam from the Caribbean.
Aldelmo Camacho spent his early years on a farm near Yauco, a small city on the south side of the island of Puerto Rico. The youngest of ten children..
Wednesday Archives
2016
American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference
Episode 117-Bob Cudmore hosts an episode covering the 2016 American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference. Edward Lengel is author of “First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His and the Nation’s Prosperity.” J. L. Bell is author of “The Road to Concord, How Four Stolen Cannons Ignited the Revolutionary War.” And editor Don Hagist explains the online Journal of the American Revolution.
2022
American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference
Newspaper columnist and podcast host Bob Cudmore will introduce the speakers Saturday and Sunday June 11th and 12th at the 2022 American Revolution Conference sponsored by the Fort Plain Museum.
The conference will take place at the Fulton-Montgomery Community College Theater, 2805 NY-67, Johnstown. Speakers will include Edward Lengel, William Fowler, James Kirby Martin, Mark Edward Lender and many other experts on the Revolutionary War.
https://fortplainmuseum.org/
Thursday, June 2, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Camp Agaming in th Adirondacks
Friday, June 3, 2022-Episode 425-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan has the story of the Buttonwood Agreement, the founding document of the New York Stock Exchange.
Mohawk Valley Memorial Day Weather, Monday, May 30, 2022
Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming west 5 to 7 mph in the morning.
Tonight
Partly cloudy, with a low around 66. West wind 3 to 5 mph.
Tuesday
Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 90. West wind 7 to 11 mph.
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Monday, May 30, 2022
Daily Gazette
The leading source for local news in Schoharie, Amsterdam, Gloversville, and Johnstown.
Community gathers to remember those lost to, organize against gun violence
SCHENECTADY – Several speakers at Sunday’s End Gun Violence Vigil/Open Forum held on the steps of Schenectady’s City Hall mentioned…
SCHENECTADY – Several speakers at Sunday’s End Gun Violence Vigil/Open Forum held on the steps of Schenectady’s City Hall mentioned…
https://dailygazette.com/
Amsterdam Recorder
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald
https://www.leaderherald.com/