Historians with Bob Cudmore

History

the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.

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The Masons are seated on a bench in front of a large building with two trees in front.  The outline of what appears to be an amusement park ride is behind the building.  About a half dozen men are in front of the building behind the Masons and a man in a vest appears to be addressing that group. 

Family portraits

By Bob Cudmore 

On a July day in 1919 the Mason family of Amsterdam stopped at the city’s Crescent Park, later known as Jollyland, Mohawk Mills Park and today called Shuttleworth Park.

Frances Mason was five months old.  A photograph shows her father Charles wearing a dark suit and bow tie, holding a straw hat.  Her mother Lena, in a long white dress and dark boots, holds young Frances who looks a bit serious in her coverall white baby clothes, including a hat.

Frances’s older brother Emil is between father and mother, wearing a white shirt, long stockings and short pants.  Emil has a quizzical look on his face and well trimmed hair, like his father.  Both father and son are wearing dress shoes.  Both parents are smiling at the camera.

“They all dressed,” Frances Mason Calvano noted in a letter.

The Masons are seated on a bench in front of a large building with two trees in front.  The outline of what appears to be an amusement park ride is behind the building.  About a half dozen men are in front of the building behind the Masons and a man in a vest appears to be addressing that group. 

“My mother and her parents settled in Amsterdam when my mother was about ten,” Calvano wrote.  “My grandmother and mother sewed pearl buttons on cards.”

One of the Chalmers mills in Amsterdam made pearl shirt buttons and Calvano still has a box of Amsterdam buttons at her home in the town of Guilderland.  Some of the paths at Jollyland were said to be paved with discarded buttons.

“Father started and owned Mason’s Barbershop on Division Street in Amsterdam,” Calvano wrote.  “My brother Emil Mason was a barber and my mother Lena was a beautician.  My husband Christopher Calvano played baseball at Jollyland with the Derby Stars.”

Frances and Christopher graduated from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in Amsterdam in 1936.  Her husband, now deceased, was a Marine.

“My brother Emil was a dancer at the Jollyland dance pavilion and a great part of the roller rink,” Calvano wrote.  “In later years my brother bought the Tower Inn in Cranesville.”  That restaurant on old Route 5 is now called Valentino’s.

JOLLYLAND CONCESSION

Diane Jazeboski of Scotia wrote that her grandfather, Louis (Kuprewicz) Cooper, ran a concession at Jollyland selling soda and snacks.

Jazeboski’s mother, Dorothy Kuprewicz Dziewit, would take the trolley to Jollyland and roller skate while her parents were busy with the concession stand.

Jazeboski wrote, “It was a wonderful experience for me to trace my Mom’s family.  Her Kowalski grandparents settled in Amsterdam in the early 1900s but they seemed to move to a new address every few years.  I have been all over the city looking at homes where they lived.  My grandfather was listed as a mill hand but also operated small grocery stores at different locations.”

Jazeboski said she has a new respect and appreciation for the working class and how they lived.

She also has a question, “Do you have information about the photographers who worked in Amsterdam during the early 1900s?  I have photos with the names Kennedy’s Mammoth Gallery, 24-28 Main Street and F. Pawloski on the back.”

One photo shows Louis Kuprewicz or Kuprevicz in front of his grocery and meat market at 204 East Main Street in Amsterdam.  He is wearing a white apron over dark pants, white shirt, vest and tie.  His hands are in his pockets and he has a serious expression.

The store has advertisements for Kuprevicz Groceries, Gold Medal Flour and Star Soap—extra large, extra good, save the panels.  Canned and bottled goods are displayed in the windows.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023-From the Archives- January 11, 2019-Episode 248, Jack Kelly is author of “The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America.” Kelly tells the story of the 1894 Pullman strike.

The dramatic story of the explosive 1894 clash of industry, labor, and government that shook the nation and marked a turning point for America

The Edge of Anarchy offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon the US Army was on the march and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities. 

Thursday, July 20, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-History on the highway: Route 5 S 

Friday, July 21, 2023-Episode 484-Lorissa Rinehart has written a biography of groundbreaking female photojournalist and war correspondent Dickey Chapelle titled First to the Front.

Mohawk Valley  Weather, Tuesday, July 18, 2023

74 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:35AM

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