The Historians

The Sanfords and Hollywood

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

     Director George Cukor’s 1938 movie Holiday, which starred Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, has three fictional characters based on members of the Sanford family of Amsterdam. 

The family founded Sanford & Sons, the first of Amsterdam’s two major carpet mills. The company merged with another firm to become Bigelow Sanford in 1929. Bigelow Sanford left Amsterdam in 1955.

John Sanford inherited an estate worth $40 million when his father, Stephen Sanford, died in 1913. That was a tremendous amount of money at the time.

Gertrude Sanford Legendre’s New York Times obituary said the three children of John and Ethel Sanford--Gertrude, Laddie and Sarah Jane--were the inspiration for the 1929 Philip Barry stage play Holiday, which became the basis of the movie. The movie character Linda Seton, played by Katharine Hepburn, is based on Gertrude.

Gertrude Sanford was born in 1902 in Aiken, South Carolina but spent time as a child with her siblings at the family’s Amsterdam mansion on Church Street, donated by the family for use as the City Hall in 1932.

According to the Times, Gertrude Sanford was in her teens when she took a hunting trip to the Grand Tetons of Wyoming and shot her first elk. For years, she pursued big game in Africa, India, Iran and Indochina, and contributed rare specimens to museums.

In World War II, Gertrude worked in France for America’s Office for Strategic Services, predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, until she was captured by the Germans.

The Times reported, “Held as a prisoner of war for six months, she escaped and went by train to Switzerland. The train stopped short of the border; as she dashed to the frontier, a German guard ordered her to halt or be shot. She continued, and reached the border.”

Her husband died in 1948; Gertrude lived until 2000, passing on at age 97. She made her home at Medway, a plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, where she held a New Year”s Eve costume ball for 50 years. She wrote two autobiographies, 'The Sands Ceased to Run'' (1947) and ''The Time of My Life'' (1987).

LADDIE AND SARAH JANE

     Laddie Sanford usually went by that nickname, but he was officially named Stephen after his grandfather. The Holiday character Ned Seton, portrayed by Lew Ayres, is loosely based on Laddie. More a playboy than industrialist, Laddie was born in 1899 and became an international polo playing star. The handsome horseman married actress Mary Duncan in 1933.

After their marriage, Mary retired from acting and the couple made their home in Palm Beach, Florida. Mary became the grande dame of Palm Beach society. She was friends with Rose Kennedy, who was a neighbor, and entertained the King and Queen of Jordan and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Laddie, who passed away in 1977, and Mary, who died in 1993, are both buried at Green Hill Cemetery in Amsterdam, adjacent to City Hall, the former Sanford mansion.

The Holiday film character Julia Seton, played by Doris Nolan, is based on Sarah Jane Sanford. Named for her grandmother, Sarah Jane was married in Palm Beach Florida in 1937 to an Italian diplomat, Mario Pansa. Sarah Jane and Mario lived in Italy during World War II but she returned to America after the war. Mario accidentally drowned in 1946 near Rome. Sarah Jane died in 1985 and is buried at Green Hill Cemetery.

Late University at Albany film history professor Rob Edelman, who lives\d in Amsterdam, said he regularly screened Holiday in class because of its star appeal and world view.

Edelman wrote, “Put forth in Holiday is the idea that money isn't everything.

“What matters in life is to live as you see fit. Do not be a slave to the almighty dollar. Life is short. Live, have fun, and keep the child alive within you."

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518 346 6657 or [email protected]

The Resurrection Sisters children’s home in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, January 11, 2026

     In the 1920s the Sisters of the Resurrection, a Roman Catholic order whose mission is to help families in need, wanted to create a ministry for the children of working women.

At first they looked at New Castle, Pennsylvania. However, Sister Honorata Handzes argued they should work closer to their headquarters in Castleton on Hudson and proposed Amsterdam. Amsterdam was described in chronicles kept by the Sisters “as a manufacturing city where women were compelled to work and their children were left without any care or guidance.”

Sister Rose Konopienis, who had experience at a children’s home in Chicago, and Sister Ann Lawrence Cyranek came to Amsterdam where they were well received especially by Polish Catholic pastors Peter Nowak and Anton Gorski.

The Sisters organized a Ladies Aid Auxiliary to help finance their work. In September 1926 they opened a nursery for pre-school children on Park Street near the Bigelow Sanford carpet mills. Thirty children were registered the first day.

The place was too small. Judge Leonard Moore of the Children's Court and Genevieve M. Liddane, who was directing child welfare for Montgomery County, convinced the Sisters to make their next facility a children’s home or orphanage.

A large house on Brookside Avenue, later the Bigelow Weavers Club, was renovated.

That Christmas the children put on a short comedy play, The Vain Housekeeper. The Sisters organized the St. Therese Society for Young Ladies who met weekly for an inspirational meeting and hymn sing.

Lee Ains, the manager of the S.S. Kresge five and dime downtown, became a generous benefactor. He took the Sisters to Auriesville Shrine and to picnics for rest and relaxation while he and his employees watched the children.

Ains and his family decorated the Christmas tree, visited on the holiday and bought gifts for the children. He also donated much-needed diapers.

The Brookside Avenue facility soon became too crowded and in 1932 the children’s home relocated to the former Gardiner Blood residence at 118 Market Street on the southwest corner of Market and Prospect.

In 1933 an Amsterdam concert by world-famous Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski raised over two thousand dollars for the Sisters, enough to pay off a loan on the building.

The Market Street building was more spacious than either of their previous locations. As many as 12 to 16 infants were among the children being cared for there. A student from Poland who was unable to return to his home because of the world situation spent seven years with the Sisters who made it possible for him to complete his medical studies. Another individual was helped after he escaped from a concentration camp in Spain.

In the late 1950s state officials became concerned with deterioration of the Market Street building. And state welfare officials began making greater use of private foster homes instead of institutional care. The number of children housed at the Resurrection Home declined.

The Protestant-oriented Children’s Home on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam, built in 1896, faced similar challenges in the late 1950s.

The Guy Park Avenue facility had 23 residents when it closed at the end of the summer of 1957. The building was eventually torn down.

The Resurrection Children’s Home was closed by the diocese in 1960 and the Sisters’ ministry with children relocated to Massachusetts. The building was demolished in 1966 for Amsterdam’s Route 30 South arterial.

The Sisters of the Resurrection for many years staffed the Mount Loretto nursing home on Swart Hill in the town of Amsterdam.

Much of the information for this column came from Sister Alexandra Jazwinsk.

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or at [email protected]

Amsterdam's Children's Home

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, January 4, 2026

     Shirley Spurles Baroody could remember the day in the late 1940s when her parents, migrant farm workers, were declared unfit, whatever that meant at the time.

One older brother went to live with relatives. Shirley, about four years old, another older brother and an older sister were put into a Gloversville police car and taken to the Children’s Home in Amsterdam. Baroody lived there for 11 years.

“The decision on where we were placed depended on who had the openings,” said Baroody, who later lived in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Catholic Sisters of the Resurrection operated a home on Market Street in Amsterdam and the Protestant-oriented Children’s Home was at 81 Guy Park Avenue. Baroody and her siblings went to the Guy Park Avenue institution and were baptized at the former First Methodist Church on nearby Division Street.

“Three matrons took care of us which was just amazing given the mechanics of caring for 50 children day in and day out,” Baroody said. The matrons were Elizabeth Trenham, Genevieve Hopkins and Clara Hall, the last being Baroody’s favorite “because she would read to us.

”The children attended public school and went to Sunday school at the Methodist Church. Otherwise they led a regimented life behind a fence and tulip garden and inside the walls of the Children’s Home.

Girls and boys lived dormitory style on separate sides of the building, getting together for meals. The children helped clean up after dinner. Each Saturday, laundry arrived with one clean dress for each girl for the week. Baths were twice a week. Children lined up for meals and even to brush their teeth.

The matrons emphasized good manners--boys and girls stood when an adult came into the room. Baroody remembered a few spankings but said she was not abused. She said that living in the Children’s Home, “Probably saved my life and guided me to better things.”

The older residents, Baroody recalled, were granted the privilege of leaving the building, some of the girls even going on a trip with the matrons to New York City. The younger children spent many hours in the playroom sitting on wooden boxes that contained each child’s possessions.Baroody said,  “I cannot tell you how many hours I sat on that box while somebody taught us to knit or embroider, very quiet  activities.”                            

In December, the matrons asked each child for a list of three things wanted for Christmas. Baroody remembered getting her three items each year, paper dolls, perhaps, or white socks. The women’s clubs of Amsterdam put on a Christmas party every year for the home.

Generally, there were not many visitors but Mrs. Charles Bacon and the board visited as did people from the Methodist Church, including music teacher Edna Lindsay and her sisters Frances and Elsie. Baroody enjoyed watching Burton Mains, a Methodist minister who could wiggle his ears.

A home for children was first established in Amsterdam in 1883. In 1896, the structure at 81 Guy Park Avenue was built and then enlarged in 1909, with money donated by carpet industry executive Stephen Sanford. The home continued in operation until 1957 when it closed because of changing state regulations on the care of children.

Baroody and her sister were sent back to their mother, then living in Schenectady. Their mother had visited a few times but there was no continual relationship with the girls who were now teenagers.

“I think I was in shock for years, going from an institutional life where every minute of my life was guided and told what to do and then suddenly having tremendous freedoms,” Baroody said. “Just staying outside whenever I wanted was a great joy to me.”

The Children’s Home was torn down some years ago but what was the board of the institution continued as the Children’s Aid Association of Montgomery County. The association provided scholarships, camperships and other services to young people in the area.

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or email [email protected]

Washington Frothingham’s useful life

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, December 28, 2025

     Frothingham Free Library at 28 West Main Street in Fonda is named for a local man who was a writer and a minister.

Reverend Washington Frothingham was born in 1822 in East Fonda and died at his home in Fonda in 1914 at age 92. He left money in his will to help establish a library, reading room and billiard room.

Frothingham had a “useful career,” according to stories about his death in numerous newspapers. Dubbed the dean of American journalism, he was a syndicated columnist, book author, historian, philanthropist and clergyman.

Frothingham’s family (he was the third of ten children) moved from Fonda to Johnstown when he was a young child. Frothingham’s mother was a niece of author Washington Irving and his father was a New York State judge. Frothingham wanted to be a writer but to please his father and help the family, he moved to New York City and worked in a Broadway store. Eventually he was part owner of a store.

At age 28, Frothingham felt called to the ministry. He sold his share of the business and studied at Princeton, developing public speaking skills. His first position was at a Presbyterian Church in Guilderland. He opened a Sunday school and preaching station at an Albany machine shop. That effort led to the founding of Albany’s former West End Presbyterian Church.

During the Civil War Frothingham was invited back to Fonda to restore the declining Reformed church. He succeeded, although his pro-Union political stance ran counter to the secessionist views of some church members. He was then called to serve the Tribes Hill Presbyterian Church where he was pastor until 1905.

In 1862 at age 40, Frothingham married Mary Middlemass, a native of Scotland who was a Sunday School teacher. They had no children.

In the 1860s Frothingham began writing columns on current events for newspapers throughout New York and Massachusetts including the New York Times, Troy Times and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He used pen names, most notably ‘The Hermit of New York ‘ in Troy and  ‘Macaulay’ in Rochester.

He was the author of several books including histories of Montgomery and Fulton counties. He was friendly with newspaper men and writers including Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant.

His writing kept him financially solvent as Frothingham was generous. He started a public bath in Fonda and a bowling alley. When his work made him a frequent train traveler, he distributed faith-based tracts to the passengers.

He held religious services at the Fonda jail. He told a reporter that he found a good number of prisoners who could sing many of the hymns from memory and sing them well.

After his first wife died, Frothingham married his wife’s nurse, Ella Leavitt of Tribes Hill, a school teacher and correspondent for the Recorder.

Late in life Frothingham had a cancer surgically removed at a hospital in Albany. The press reported he “rallied from the ether” and described him as the oldest patient at that point to be anesthetized and survive an operation. He lived another three years.

Frothingham died two weeks after suffering a paralyzing stroke. The funeral was held at Fonda Reformed Church and burial was at Caughnawaga Cemetery on Cemetery Road.

One of Frothingham’s nephews was Robert Frothingham, an author and advertising man who maintained a summer home near Northville. In the 1940s Robert Frothingham’s widow Minnie donated many items from her husband’s extensive collection of photographic slides and animal taxidermies to Amsterdam’s school museum, now the Walter Elwood Museum on Church Street in Amsterdam.

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or at bobcudmore@yahoo,com

LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR CLASS OF 1945

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Monday, December 22, 2025

    The war that had dominated their youth was drawing to a close.  The Amsterdam High School class of 1945 yearbook reported that students would never forget the D-Day assembly June 6, 1944 and the memorial service for the late President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945.

Richard Ellers, voted by classmates the wittiest and noisiest boy, witnessed the Presidential funeral and wrote a first person account for the school paper, The Item. Ellers became a journalist with Ohio’s Cleveland Plain Dealer’.

Another member of the class was Roger Bowman who starred on the high school baseball team that had an incredible five-year, 47 game winning streak which ended in 1945 with a 1-0 loss to Norwich. Bowman went on to pitch for the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates. His major league career ended in 1955 and he died in 1997.

The late Thomas Constantino was a class member who became president of Amsterdam’s Noteworthy Company. Jesse Henderson became a prominent physician in Schenectady.

John Tesiero’s yearbook picture stated, “Pleasure before business.” Tesiero would reverse that prophecy and become president of Cranesville Block and owner of the downtown Amsterdam Riverfront Center.

The class roster reported that my cousin Myrna Cudmore wanted to be a missionary and probably would be “saved.” She became a teacher, married Baptist minister George Hawthorne and their offspring all did church work..

Favorite high school sayings in 1945 were “I pass” and  “bring your own rope.”

One Halloween the high school flagpole was painted A.H.S. Penitentiary in a gruesome shade of blue.

Fraternities and sororities were key social institutions with names including Nu Delta Sigma, Phi Delta and Kappa Rho. The yearbook referred to scandals during Hell Week when pledges were taken for a workout on the golf course.

Teen hangouts were Doyle’s Confectionery on Guy Park Avenue and Kresge’s on Main Street.

The students endured a coal shortage in the winter of 1944 and 1945. It was so cold in 1943 that classmate Durward DeGroff came to school in his pajamas.

Voted most popular boy in the class and senior class president was Louis B. DeLuca, Senior. DeLuca would hold his class together by forming a committee of 25 in 1950 that organized reunions every five years until 2005.

In 1945, DeLuca joined the Navy and was sent to Japan. He was recalled during the Korean War and served on ships guarding the U.S. East Coast.

Raised on James Street by Gaetano and Assunta DeLuca, Louis married his high school sweetheart, Madaline A. Smith, and in 1956 moved with her to Harvard Street. They raised four sons.

DeLuca worked in the printing business with classmate Tom Constantino at Noteworthy. For 23 years, DeLuca taught graphic arts and photography at Amsterdam High. He helped many students gain employment in the printing industry.

DeLuca organized a scholarship for sons and daughters of classmates until there were no more to benefit. He made sure letters went to classmates every year describing happenings at the high school and community. He saw to it that the class of 1945 attended many homecoming parades.

DeLuca died of cancer on November 26, 2006, a year after the last reunion that he helped organize for his high school class.

RIP-SPORTSMAN JOHN THOMAS

     Sports reporter Thomas Krum of Johnstown died this month at age 78.  Known to sports fans as John Thomas he did play by play on radio and was a frequent MC at sporting events.  He reported sports for WGY radio on the Don Weeks and Joe Gallagher shows. He also did announcing for the Albany-Colonie baseball team and the Gloversville Colonials football team

You can reach Bob Cudmore at 518 346 6657 or [email protected]

Woodworth Lake Scout Reservation

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, December 14, 2025

     Retired Army Brigadier General Allen R. Kimball was principal speaker as 600 people attended the dedication of the Woodworth Lake Scout Reservation in Fulton County in July 1949.

According to newspaper accounts, General Kimball said young men needed the “citizenship training” of the Boy Scouts “to successfully combat communism and other ‘isms” and keep the United States of America a land of democratic living.” General Kimball had headed the U.S. Army quartermaster corps in Europe during World War II.

In 1949 Kimball was personnel director at Mohawk Carpet Mills in Amsterdam and mill president Howard Shuttleworth had provided financial support for the camp, which was operated by the Sir William Johnson Boy Scout Council.

Located eight miles north of Gloversville in the towns of Bleecker and Johnstown, the 1,100-acre site was at 1,800-foot elevation. The late Minnie Billingham had given the council 239 of those acres, including the land around Woodworth Lake, in 1944.

St. Johnsville knitting mill owner Joseph Reaney, who died in 1947, had conceived the idea of the camp. The camp lodge was named in his honor.

The George Duffy Health Lodge, named for a donor from Fort Plain, included a four bed infirmary. Gloversville doctors were in camp every morning of the summer.

Sending letters of regret for not attending the opening ceremony were President Truman, Governor Thomas Dewey and radio star Arthur Godfrey.

After a tour of the camp, Scout leader John Hanson supervised a waterfront show including several swimming races. The scouts also demonstrated that a boat filled with water could still support over thirty people clinging to it.

Later that summer there were overnight hikes, induction of boys into the Order of the Arrow, visits by the Kiwanis Club and various adult organizations.

In the 1950s Protestant pastors held weekly religious services at camp, Catholics were transported to Masses at churches in Gloversville. Rabbi Herman Grossman of Gloversville made arrangements for Sabbath observances for Jewish scouts.

New showers were installed in 1957. That year the Recorder reported, “An unusual program (was) carried out with a striped sea serpent appearing in Woodworth Lake for the fun of the campers.  The next year over 500 attended summer closing ceremonies.

In 1967 a new wooden gateway supported by stone pillars was dedicated. In 1968 the National Council of the Boy Scouts gave Woodworth Lake its highest rating for aquatic, scouting, field sports and handicraft programs.

In 1975 an official said a thousand people were expected to attend camp that summer, noting that the reservation was open to non-scouters. In 1980 a November training session was held at the Hindes Pond area of the Woodworth Lake reservation.

Woodworth Lake was a scout camp for over sixty years. Operations were reduced in 1992 and the camp was closed in 2013 by the Twin Rivers Boy Scout Council, successor to the Sir William Johnson Council.

The land was sold to New York Land and Lakes Development based in Oneonta. In 2015 the Adirondack Park Agency unanimously approved development of 24 land parcels at Woodworth Lake over the objections of some environmental groups.

Richard Mraz of Mayfield was at the 1949 dedication ceremony at Woodworth Lake when he was ten years old. Mraz became a Boy Scout but never attended the Fulton County camp.

However, Mraz and his wife Nancy’s four sons, who belonged to Boy Scout Troop 53 in Mayfield, did spend time at Woodworth Lake. Their eldest son Richard T. Mraz, an Eagle Scout who became an Air Force major, purchased one of the parcels of land at the former scout facility in Bleecker.

You can reach Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or [email protected]

Maldutis Bakery known for rye

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday,December 7, 2025

     The choice at Maldutis Bakery in Amsterdam was between light rye and pumpernickel. David Northrup, a relative of the owners, said the seedless light rye loaf "was oblong in shape and had a small white paper label glued to one end that read simply 'Maldutis Bakery' in green ink."

The pumpernickel contained caraway seeds, according to Northrup, "was sold in a large round loaf, and was very sour tasting."

Northrup added, "I don't think I ever saw anything other than loaves of those two breads displayed in the two countertop glass cases."

The bakery was at 220 East Main Street at Dean Street, on the north side of East Main and west side of Dean.

Victor Orante, one of Northrup's uncles on his mother's side, had married a sister of Jean Shatas Maldutis. Jean handled the retail store; her husband operated the bakery. Northrup would be dispatched by his mother to buy Maldutis bread.

Northrup said Jean knew who he was, "But, alas, the remote family connection never got me a discount on the bread!"

Maldutis Bakery was founded in 1926 in a section of the East End where many Lithuanian immigrants lived. The founder was a Lithuanian native, Peter Maldutis, who previously worked as a baker in Watervliet.

Maldutis married Anna Valukonis of Amsterdam. They had a son, Charles (known as Chuck) born in 1916 when the family lived in Watervliet and a younger daughter, Frances, who married a man named Ben Rocher. Northrup said, "On two occasions in the spring of 1932 the independent bakeries in the city took out ads in the Recorder asking residents to buy only breads and other baked goods from the small bakeries in Amsterdam which were apparently losing business to larger commercial bakeries."

A city directory published in 1932 listed 17 bakers in Amsterdam. In addition to Peter Maldutis were Raffaele Pepe on the South Side, Szymon Wojnar on Park Hill, John Vidulich on Guy Park Avenue, and several others. Some establishments only listed business names: Federal, Home Dairy and New York Star.

Peter's son Chuck and Jean Shatas of Amsterdam married in 1939. They had no children. Peter died in October 1945. He had been ill for some time but his death was not expected.

Chuck took over the family business in 1947 and like his parents, he and Jean lived behind the bakery. Chuck and Jean had a summer home at Galway Lake.

Maldutis's employed several bakers over the years and in the 1940s the shop closed for a couple weeks each July to give employees a vacation. Their bread was sold wholesale to McLane's Deli in Schenectady,

Chuck died in September 1967 at age 51, a short time after suffering a hemorrhage while driving back to Amsterdam from a Schenectady bread delivery.

The family story was that he died from cancer that may have been caused by inhaling flour dust. Maldutis Bakery closed in 1968.

Northrup said, "Once the bakery closed and the bread was no longer available, Nabisco wanted to purchase the bread recipes from Jean. Despite several offers, she steadfastly refused to sell, and the recipes died with her when she passed in 2013.

"There are many of us still around who grew up in the East End and fondly remember the bakery whose only form of direct advertising was a small paper label affixed to the loaves. Maldutis baked and sold only 'European Style' breads for over forty years to both local and regional customers, and was well enough known in the business to have Nabisco, a major US company by the 1960s, desire its recipes."

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or at [email protected]

Henry Fonda in the Mohawk Valley

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, November 30, 2025

     The movie star Henry Fonda once said he had dinner with a member of the Schine Theatre Chain family following the 1939 premiere of “Drums Along the Mohawk” in the Mohawk Valley.

Directed by the legendary John Ford, the movie starred Henry Fonda as American Revolutionary War era settler Gil Martin. The plot was based on a best-selling historical novel written a few years earlier by Walter D. Edmonds, a native of Boonville.

In 1939, the Rialto in Amsterdam was chosen as one of 27 theaters in the United States for the premiere. The film also debuted at Schine theaters in Gloversville, Schenectady, Utica and Albany.

Entrepreneur Edward C. Klapp opened the 1,400-seat Rialto in 1917 at the corner of Market and Grove Streets in Amsterdam. In 1933, the Rialto became part of Gloversville’s Schine chain.

Meyer and Louis Schine, Jewish immigrants from Latvia, purchased the Glove Theatre in Gloversville in 1920. The Glove had been built in 1914 for live performances and is still in use today. The Schines made Gloversville the headquarters of their theater chain, which consisted of 167 movie houses at its peak.

Amsterdam transplant Fred Wojcicki from California recalled that Henry Fonda appeared at the Amsterdam premiere, although a Recorder clipping describing the Amsterdam premiere does not mention him.

Following a column raising questions about Fonda’s appearance at the 1939 Amsterdam premiere, Wojcicki wrote he first heard that story from local attorney Floyd Rhinehart but later heard a similar account from Fonda himself.

Wojcicki moved from Amsterdam to California in 1963 and held positions with Standard Brands Paint Company until retiring in 1989. Wojcicki married a woman from California who had relatives working in the movie industry--her brother-in-law was Frank Shugrue, a still photographer and her sister Jane Shugrue was a hairdresser.

In 1970, Fred and Phyllis Wojcicki visited a location shoot in Oregon where their relatives were working on the movie “Sometimes A Great Notion, ‘ starring Fonda and Paul Newman, who also directed the film.

Wojcicki said they had a conversation with Newman and Fonda, “Mr. Newman stated that I was from Amsterdam, New York, where the premiere of “Drums Along the Mohawk” took place. Mr. Fonda shook hands and recalled that he had dinner after a short appearance at the premiere with one of the Schine Theater family members, and dinner shortly before he had departed by car to Albany Airport where a private plane flew him to New York City.”

Fonda was a good choice to star in a movie about the Mohawk Valley. His ancestors originally came from Genoa, Italy, but migrated to the Netherlands. The Fondas then emigrated to America and patriarch Duow Fonda helped found what is now the village of Fonda. Henry Fonda’s paternal grandparents moved to Nebraska in the 1800s. The actor was born in Omaha in 1905 and died in 1982. Paul Newman died in 2008.

In 1980 Fonda’s controversial anti Vietnam War daughter Jane Fonda visited the Mohawk Valley to investigate her family history.

Then Montgomery County historian Anita Smith took the actress to a local cemetery where her ancestors were buried.

Smith once said history is not dull because it is being made fresh every day.

You may call Bob Cudmore at 518 346 6657 or email [email protected]

Collette’s Manufacturing by Bob Cudmore

  Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder

Sunday, November 23, 2025

     Jerry Snyder always has felt a connection to the long-gone Collette Manufacturing Company because his mother, Eileen Willitts Snyder, once worked there. Founded on Clizbe Avenue in Amsterdam in 1907, Collette’s over the years made Mendets (to repair pots and pans), paper clips and sporting goods, such as baseballs and footballs.

Snyder wrote, “My mother's first real paying job was working for Collette's in the late 1930s sewing baseballs when they were still doing it by hand. She tells the story of going for an interview and being asked if she knew how to sew them. She said yes even though she had never done one in her life. She got the job.

“Since the workers were on a quota system, two of the more experienced women on the line helped her out by slipping completed baseballs they had done into her bag when the supervisor wasn't around. This let her meet quota and she was able to keep her job long enough to learn the tricks that went with it, like putting the cover leather in water to soak the night before to soften it, thereby allowing it to be stretched a bit to make it more workable. She also learned to thread several sets of needles ahead of time so once she started sewing she wouldn't have to stop to thread them in the middle of a job.

“Sewing the ball required holding it in a special vise, stretching the two sections of the cover over the core, and stitching the seams with two large curved needles, one threaded with red, the other with blue.

“She said the worst part of the job was when you got your finger in the wrong spot and ran one of those big needles into it. Sometimes, when there weren't enough baseballs to sew, some of the workers would be sent up to the other building to lace footballs, which was an easier job since the football covers didn't need to be stretched. They weren't fully inflated until after the lacing was done. My mother said the workers used to call (the factory) Collette's College.”

PATENT PROBLEMS

     Clarence Collette came up with the idea of making the paper clip more secure by notching ridges in the clips, which were called gripper clips.

Dave Gordon, who operated Collette’s before it closed, said he still has the original patent on the gripper clips.

Gordon said, “The problem was that the patent protected the grip but only for a small clip. The patent did not protect against someone making a grip clip of another size.”

Gordon said Clarence and Edna Collette had two daughters, Edna and Shirley. They owned a house on Locust Avenue and later built a house on Golf Course Road.

Noryne Dybas, whose mother worked as a maid for the Collettes, said her mother was especially close to daughter Edna.

“Someone in the family was getting a new mink coat and they gave mother the one they were replacing, ‘ Dybas wrote. They also gave her an oak pedestal table and a tapestry when she got married.

Dybas said her mother told a story about eating a difficult fruit, “Edna asked her if she would like an avocado pear. My mother never having had one, said she would love one, not wanting to admit she had no idea what it was. She picked it up and took a bite like you would a regular pear. Obviously, it was awful. She and Edna had a good laugh and then she told her how to properly eat and prepare an avocado. Avocados soon became a favorite of my mother and me.

You can contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or at bobcudmore@yahoo,com

Radio star King Owen

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, November 16, 2025

     Avery King Clizbe, Jr., used the name King Owen when he performed at local night clubs and on radio stations including WENT in Gloversville-Johnstown, WGY in Schenectady, WCSS in Amsterdam and WWSC in Glens Falls. He died from long standing health problems in April 1955 at age 40.

His nephew William Clizbe, said his uncle was born in Amsterdam in June 1914, the son of Avery King Clizbe, Sr., head teller at City National Bank, and Mary Clizbe. The singer's brother James, William Clizbe's father, was two years older than Avery. The family lived at 35 Church Street in a row of brownstones between Grove and High streets.

Young Avery, who learned to play piano and cello as a youth, performed hillbilly or what we call today country music on WGY in the 1930s. He sang with the High Boys and Radio Rangers, Doye O'Dell and Max Raney, who were heard regularly on the powerful WGY, then owned by General Electric.

Avery moved on to Connecticut where he was part of a musical group who performed on NBC's Blue Network with over 33 affiliate radio stations then.

In 1938 Avery came back to the local area and married Gene Haff, the daughter of a Broadalbin couple, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Haff. The wedding took place at the Haff’s home. Avery and Gene had two daughters, Marcia and Lynne.

The couple made their home in Broadalbin as Avery pursued his musical career on the road, checking in with postcards and telegrams. He played in the western United States and performed at Radio City in New York with Doc Schneider and the Texans. Avery also played the organ for some network radio shows in New York City.

In the mid-1940s Avery came back to Broadalbin. He was hospitalized for some time at the Homer Folks Tuberculosis Hospital in Oneonta.

William Clizbe said his uncle played piano, plus guitar, cello, piano-organ and accordion. He recalled a childhood memory that his uncle smelled of tobacco and had an inexhaustible supply of pink Canada Mints.

Avery played piano, sang, took requests and talked on the radio during his last years, first on WCSS in Amsterdam then at WENT in Gloversville-Johnstown.

Avery King Clizbe, using the air name King Owen, was the morning host on WENT in the early 1950s.

"He was an incredible talent," William Clizbe said. "He could listen to a song twice and then play the tune."

At WENT King Owen did not sing country music but instead performed the popular songs of the day.

He met Helen Comrie, the station bookkeeper. She became his second wife after he and Gene Haff divorced.

According to WENT's 1952 broadcast schedule in the Leader Herald, the station signed on at 6:28 a.m. A religious program, news, weather, sports, a show called Cock-A-Doodle Review and something called Quiet Time advanced the clock to 7:40 when King Owen took to the airwaves. He performed until 9:45 when it was time for In Town Today followed at 10 by Arthur Godfrey on CBS.

King Owen's last radio job was at WWSC in Glens Falls in 1954. He died the next year at St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam.

WENT has a picture of the smiling performer in a suit and what looks like a bow tie, at a piano in front of a WENT banner. The picture is signed, "Airfully Yours, King Owen."

You may call Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or email [email protected]