The Historians

By Bob Cudmore

   Longtime Amsterdam mayor Burtiss Deal was five foot five and weighed 150 pounds when he played varsity football for Amherst College in Massachusetts.

   Into his seventies Deal was able to make an impact on a conversation by jumping onto a table from a standing position,

   Born January 29 1882 at a home on Amsterdam’s Division Street, he was the son of entrepreneur Charles Deal and Eugenia Deal. 

   Charles Deal moved his family to West Galway after Burt was born and the elder Deal operated a shoddy mill.  The mill used scraps from woolen underwear to make new but inferior woolen yarn.

   When Burt was six years old the Blizzard of 1888 and his younger brother Howard arrived simultaneously.  The doctor was marooned with the Deals for several days until the roads were cleared.

   The Deals after a time moved back to Amsterdam and Burt graduated from Amsterdam High School, then on Academy Street. 

   He helped principal Wilbur H. Lynch pack his books for a trip to Mexico for an administrative teaching job. 

   In 1900 Deal pitched for the Creelers baseball team, named for the textile workers who tended Amsterdam’s carpet weaving looms.

Monday more from Bob "The story behind the Story" (a six minute podcast)

   Deal went to college in 1903, joined a fraternity and played football.  He had to leave without a degree and come back to Amsterdam because his family had financial reverses.

   Deal went to work.  He was with the production department of General Electric in Schenectady and then in sales for 17 years at International GE.  He was employed at Mohawk Carpet Mills in Amsterdam for five years.

   Amsterdam Mayor James Cline appointed Deal to his first political job on the Civil Service Commission.  A Republican, Deal was elected as Sixth Ward Alderman from 1932 to 1938.

   Deal opposed Democratic Mayor Arthur Carter and Carter’s New Deal programs.  Deal said despite his last name he had no connection to President Roosevelt’s New Deal or President Truman’s Fair Deal.  As a tribute to his people skills, however, he was elected vice president of the Democratic Party controlled common council in 1937.

   Deal’s former high school principal Wilbur H, Lynch succeeded Carter as mayor.  Lynch appointed Deal the city clerk in 1944 and 1945.

   Democrat Joseph Hand was elected mayor in 1945 but lost to Deal in the 1947 election.  Deal was reelected three times.

   Deal enjoyed establishing a friendship with Jan D’Ailly, the mayor or burgomaster of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  He once took the burgomaster on a fall tour of upstate New York.

   Deal was not an activist mayor and was friendly to industry.  Unfortunately many problems caused decline of industry in the area including Amsterdam’s carpet mills.

   Deal was the mayor in 1954 when Amsterdam’s sesquicentennial was celebrated with a huge parade and other festivities.

   In 1955, as Deal’s fourth term was coming to an end, Bigelow Sanford carpet announced it was leaving Amsterdam.  Deal and city Republican chair Walter Going decided it was time for a change. 

   Frank Martuscello ran that year on the GOP ticket and was elected, the city’s first Italian-American mayor.

   Deal was 73 when he left politics.  His eightieth birthday was the occasion for stories about his career by two giants of local journalism, Sam Zurlo in the Gazette and Hugh Donlon in the Recorder.  Deal’s life is also chronicled in one of Michael Cinquanti’s books on Amsterdam birthdays. 

   Deal never married and lived in a house on Division Street which he called Gracie Mansion, a reference to the mayoral residence in New York City.

   Deal died in 1967 at the Lamp Nursing Home.  He was 84 and was buried at Green Hill Cemetery.

Monday, May 8, 2023

Amsterdam Mayor Burt Deal

Tuesday, May 9, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Marching drum corps in World War II

After all these years, Sylvia Zimolka Stock and Frank Yazum remember the colors their rival Amsterdam drum corps wore during World War Two

Wednesday, May 10, 2023-From the Archives- Episode 158, April 7, 2017-Folksingers Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle perform songs from the early days of the Erie Canal.  The building of the canal began two hundred years ago.  Cosby and Tom have also appeared on Historians Podcast with songs about being a lumberjack, poetry of Poe and Kipling put to music, and labor union songs.

Thursday, May 11, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-The Rockon Wye

Friday, May 12, 2023-Episode 474-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan reports on how Harlem was economically developed in the early 1900s.  Jewish financiers joined with Black realtor Phillip Payton and other black businessmen to improve race relations in New York City.

Historians Broadcast Schedule

Sunday, May 7 WBDY Binghamton 99.5FM and this Monday and Wednesday WMHT89.1FM Public Radio Albany RISE. 

Joyce Stah, on the history of RISE, WMHT's radio information service for the blind and print disabled in New York's Capital Region and Hudson Valley. RISE volunteers read articles from newspapers, periodicals and books to audiences who would otherwise be unable to access such information. RISE depends on donations from organizations and individuals. RISE also carries each episode of The Historians Podcast.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 this fall

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, May 7, 2023

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Shell guns were developed just before the Civil War, Von Hasseln said.  They fired spherical shells filled with explosives that could tear “jagged holes” in wooden ships as well as igniting “powder, shells, combustibles, and the like.” 

The cannon at Amsterdam’s Fairview Cemetery

By Bob Cudmore

   A large cannon that marks the veterans’ plot at Amsterdam’s Fairview Cemetery was forged during the Civil War.

   City historian Robert H. von Hasseln did extensive research in federal archives and local newspapers on the history of the gun.

   Von Hasseln wrote, “It was born in 1864 in the fires of the cast iron forges of Builders Foundry in Providence, Rhode Island.”  It was the 183rd eleven inch Dahlgren Shell Gun manufactured for the United States Navy.  These guns were named for their inventor, Rear Admiral John Dahlgren.

   Shell guns were developed just before the Civil War, Von Hasseln said.  They fired spherical shells filled with explosives that could tear “jagged holes” in wooden ships as well as igniting “powder, shells, combustibles, and the like.” 

   Gun number 183 appeared in federal records at the Mare Island Naval Yard near San Francisco in 1866, according to Von Hasseln.  It is not known if the gun had been mounted on any ship prior to 1877 when number 183 was among about fifty Dahlgren guns converted into eight inch rifles.

Builders Foundry Link

http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1951

   Von Hasseln wrote, “It became clear the best way to defeat armored vessels was a pointed rifled projectile (think giant rifle bullet): spinning on its longitudinal axis like a well-thrown football.”  The conversion of number 183 was probably done at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York.

   Visible on the gun is this notation “P; EJH: 1877” which Von Hasseln said means the gun was proved (test fired), with initials of the federal inspector and the date.  Also on the piece you can read: “8 Inch Rifle; 17,240 lbs; No. 13.”  This indicates caliber and type, weight of tube alone and a new registry number. 

   The red cannonballs stacked next to the Fairview gun, Von Hasseln said, are eleven inch spherical shells that the piece originally fired, not the eight inch conical rifle shells it fired after conversion.

   Gun 183-13 saw service around the world on the USS Monongahela, Pensacola and Essex.  It was later used for training and tests, then stored at the Washington Navy Yard.  Some converted eleven inch shell guns were used on ships guarding the East Coast in the Spanish American War.

   Fairview Cemetery was established off Steadwell Avenue in Amsterdam’s west end in 1899.  Members of the E. S. Young Post 33 of the Grand Army of the Republic, an association of Union Civil War veterans, decided to create a veterans’ plot at Fairview as they had at Green Hill Cemetery.

   In early 1906, the Reverend Putnam Cady of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church on Guy Park Avenue gave a talk about his world travels to raise funds to ship and mount the gun. Other fundraisers would continue for two more years, although the cannon was delivered and installed with a flag pole in July of that year.

   At the dedication, Reverend Cady said: “Mounted on the decks of men-of-war, it was ever ready to obey the gunner’s will, and with its brazen throat commands respect for the stars and stripes that floated above it. Now that its active usefulness is past what better place could it occupy than this where sleep the men who have fought and stacked their arms for the last time?”  

   Von Hasseln said “in one of those strange twists of history,” Reverend Cady lived in the same house in Amsterdam where Von Hasseln and his wife Maria Riccio Bryce now reside. 

      Von Hasseln wrote that most of the original eleven inch shell guns were scrapped, “Others became pier-side and traffic bollards, a few museum displays, and one – an everlasting memorial to Amsterdam veterans.”

The Historians with Bob Cudmore on local and Public Radio the WWW and in print every weekend Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder

The 2023 Go Fund Me needs your contribution https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast U.S. Mail 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Tomorrow 

Friday, May 5, 2023-Episode 473-Bob Cudmore provides a Focus on History podcast with topics including an eccentric philosopher, the Demskys of Eagle Street, Amsterdam’s agile mayor Burt Deal and how boxing flourished in 1930s Amsterdam.  Dave Greene remembers how he met boxing great Jake LaMotta.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 this fall(we think in the month of November)

New York State historian Devin Lander discusses plans to observe the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, May 4, 2023

A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 55. Northeast wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

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Tomorrow, Thursday, May 4, 2023

The cannon at Fairview Cemetery

Von Hasseln wrote, “It was born in 1864 in the fires of the cast iron forges of Builders Foundry in Providence, Rhode Island.” 

Builders Foundry

 “In marked contrast to the equipment are the buildings themselves. They are simply a series of additions made from time to time, to an original foundry building, as business demanded it. The original building was erected as early as 1822, and probably earlier, before the days of railroads and steamboats. This fact explains the unsatisfactory location of the works.

http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1951

The Historians with Bob Cudmore on local and Public Radio the WWW and in print every weekend Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder

A new conversation posted each Friday on The Historians. Working to podxcast #500 this fall

The 2023 Go Fund Me needs your contribution https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast U.S. Mail 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Margaret Weitekamp  

In addition to serving as the department chair, Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp curates the Museum's social and cultural history of spaceflight collection, more than 5,000 artifacts that include space memorabilia and space science fiction objects. These everyday mementos of the space age—which include toys and games, medals and awards, buttons and pins, as well as comics and trading cards—complete the story about spaceflight told by the Museum's collection of space hardware and technologies. 

Friday, May 5, 2023-Episode 473-Bob Cudmore provides a Focus on History podcast with topics including an eccentric philosopher, the Demskys of Eagle Street, Amsterdam’s agile mayor Burt Deal and how boxing flourished in 1930s Amsterdam.  Dave Greene remembers how he met boxing great Jake LaMotta.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 this November

James Kirby Martin is executive producer of the documentary Benedict Arnold: Hero Betrayed. The film is based on Martin’s 1997 book Benedict Arnold Revolutionary Hero. The documentary is streaming on several TV platforms, narrated by Martin Sheen and stars Peter O’Meara. Three men from the Mohawk Valley area created the documentary: Niskayuna native Chris Stearns, Saratoga Springs native Tom Mercer and Fort Johnson native Anthony Vertucci.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, May 3, 2023

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The shipwrecks were found in Burlington Harbor, Vermont in 1980.  The boats were equipped for sailing. 

The tractor trailer of the Erie Canal

By Bob Cudmore

   The canal schooner was the tractor trailer of the Erie Canal according to historian and tugboat captain Art Cohn.  Cohn visited Amsterdam and Canajoharie this month as part of the legacy tour of the replica canal schooner Lois McClure and its companion tugboat.

   The Lois McClure, built for the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, was launched in 2004 and named in honor of a major contributor to the project.

   The original canal schooners were constructed to take advantage of the first widening on the Erie Canal that took place in 1862 during the Civil War,

   Cohn said, “The boat that you’re on is a replica of a boat that would have been built literally that year to accommodate more freight to go through the system.  And we know this because we’ve located two of these boats, exact examples, both built in 1862, intact and on the bottom of Lake Champlain.”

   The shipwrecks were found in Burlington Harbor, Vermont in 1980.  The boats were equipped for sailing. 

   Cohn said it took some time to convince established historians that these canal boats were actually used as sailing vessels.  There is a 1900 postcard photo showing a canal schooner sailing on Lake Champlain.   

   The boats sailed when traveling on Lake Champlain and wide rivers such as the Hudson and St. Lawrence.  The schooners did not sail on the canals.

   The boats sailed from lake ports to the entrance to the Champlain Canal.  There the masts were lowered, sails either stowed on board or on shore and teams of horses began pulling the schooners through the canal system. 

   Cohn said, “These boats were highly engineered to be able to fit the locks primarily and the canal prism of their time.”

   Canal schooners, like the tractor trailer trucks on the road today, essentially carried all kinds of freight:  lumber, bricks, building materials, coal, agricultural products and manufactured goods.

   The schooners did not carry passengers on the canals.  That was the job of the packet boats, Cohn said.  The packet boats were a tremendous convenience in the early years of the Erie Canal, cutting down the travel time between Albany and Buffalo.

   The railroads, however, took the passenger business away from the packet boats very quickly in the nineteenth century.  So quickly, Cohn said, that packet boats disappeared before the age of photography.

   The canal schooners hung on into the early days of the Barge Canal when the canal no longer had a towpath for horses and mules.  Then the schooners moved through the canal pushed by companion tugboats lashed to their sides.

   Cohn said he and the crew love taking the Lois McClure and its tug to stops around the canal, “If you look around today you can hear the kids, the parents the grandparents, all looking at this boat and asking the same questions.  They’re in wonderment of a boat that in her day, the people wouldn’t have given it a second look. Today she’s a rock star.”

The Historians with Bob Cudmore on local and Public Radio and the WWW and in print every weekend Daily Gazette 

The 2023 Go Fund Me needs your contribution https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast U.S. Mail 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Wednesday, May 3, 2023-From the Archives- August 7, 2020-Episode 330-Margaret Weitekamp chairs the space history department at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.  She is author of “Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America's First Women in Space Program.”

In addition to serving as the department chair, Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp curates the Museum's social and cultural history of spaceflight collection, more than 5,000 artifacts that include space memorabilia and space science fiction objects. These everyday mementos of the space age—which include toys and games, medals and awards, buttons and pins, as well as comics and trading cards—complete the story about spaceflight told by the Museum's collection of space hardware and technologies. 

Thursday, May 4, 2023

The cannon at Fairview Cemetery

A large cannon that marks the veterans’ plot at Amsterdam’s Fairview Cemetery was forged during the Civil War. City historian Robert H. von Hasseln did extensive research in federal archives and local newspapers on the history of the gun.

Friday, May 5, 2023-Episode 473-Bob Cudmore provides a Focus on History podcast with topics including an eccentric philosopher, the Demskys of Eagle Street, Amsterdam’s agile mayor Burt Deal and how boxing flourished in 1930s Amsterdam.  Dave Greene remembers how he met boxing great Jake LaMotta.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 coming this Fall

Keeping history alive during the pandemic with Jim Richmond from Saratoga County History Roundtable, plus the impact of Spencer and Katrina Trask on Saratoga Springs.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, May 2, 2023

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 Nellie married William Dery of Amsterdam in 1902.  The couple had a daughter name Mildred.  The Derys were unhappy and separated.  In 1917, Nellie and William Marshall Junior began living together in Fort Johnson.

The Historians with Bob Cudmore on local and Public Radio and the WWW and in print every weekend Daily Gazette 

The 2023 Go Fund Me needs your contribution https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast U.S. Mail 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Likable Fort Johnson man fatally shot

By Bob Cudmore

   Likable, boisterous William H. Marshall, Jr. was shot twice through the head at suppertime on Wednesday, March 12 1919 at his home in Fort Johnson.

   Marshall was separated from his wife and children; they were living in Oneida County.  The fatal bullets came from a revolver held by a woman the newspapers described as Marshall’s paramour, Nellie Bostwick Dery.

   Marshall died soon after arrival at St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam.  He never regained consciousness and could not tell police how he had been shot.  Bostwick Dery swooned after the gun was fired, was tranquilized and hospitalized at Amsterdam City Hospital that night.

   District Attorney Newton Herrick contended Marshall’s death was a homicide, with the motive being that Nellie had become jealous of attentions Marshall supposedly was giving to another woman.

   The dead man was born in Fort Johnson and lived there his whole life.  He had been employed in Amsterdam knitting mills but toward the end of his life worked with his father in a gardening business and a Fort Johnson coal yard. 

   Nellie was born in Perth, the daughter of Robert and Ada Bostwick.

   Nellie married William Dery of Amsterdam in 1902.  The couple had a daughter name Mildred.  The Derys were unhappy and separated.  In 1917, Nellie and William Marshall Junior began living together in Fort Johnson.

   Nellie was in her middle 30s at the time of the shooting.  William, the victim, was almost 28.

   Nellie phoned the victim’s father, William Marshall Sr., almost immediately after the shooting, saying, "Come over right away. Something awful has happened."

   The victim’s father and other acquaintances said Nellie and William Jr, were happy together.  At her trial Nellie testified that if her companion was seeing another woman, she did not know about it.

   Defense attorney A. Howard Burtch said of William Junior, “A big good natured fellow, rough in his manners, rough in his play.  They (William and Nellie) were frequent attendees at the vaudeville and burlesque shows in Amsterdam.  They were always together and always happy up to the time of the accident.”

   Nellie’s version of the shooting was that she and William Jr. had been annoyed by rats on an ash pile in the backyard where garbage was dumped during the winter.  She took the revolver to Marshall so he would either shoot the rats or show her how to use the weapon. 

   She said she carried the gun in her right hand and had a comb in the other hand as she wanted to comb Marshall’s hair.  In her effort to give him the gun as he sat in a chair, she said she accidentally discharged the weapon not once but twice. 

   The first trial at County Court in Fonda resulted in a deadlocked jury in July 1919.  The Gloversville Morning Herald reported five jurors were for conviction on second degree murder, one was for manslaughter and six were for acquittal.

   In a second trial in April 1920, there was difficulty getting enough jurors as many members of the male jury pool did not want to decide the fate of a female murder defendant.  Women were not common on juries until the second half of the twentieth century.  After deliberations, jury foreman Edward J. Gilbert of Fonda said their verdict was not guilty.

   Nellie made a scene after the verdict in her expressing thanks to the jurors who hurriedly left the building.

   Nellie later worked as a dressmaker and married a Mohawk Carpet Mill employee, Wallace Smalley.  The Smalleys lived a quiet life on Devendorf Street in Amsterdam.  Nellie died in 1958 and was buried at Hagaman Cemetery.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 coming this Fall

Call it a Conversation, Interview or Podcast

Charles Gehring’s life work has been to translate Old Dutch language documents from the 17th century New Netherland colony in New York, New Jersey and Delaware. Gehring is Director of the New Netherland Research Center at the New York State Education Department in Albany. His work has been used by many historians, including Russell Shorto whose book “The Island at the Center of the World” is a history of New York City dating back to colonial Dutch times.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, April 30, 2023

An agile Amsterdam mayor, posted next week here on The Historians

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Friends of The Historians with Bob Cudmore

On local and Public Radio and the WWW

The 2023 Go Fund Me needs your contribution 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast

U.S. Mail 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

..a gift or payment to a common fund or collection and Thank You

Sunday, April 30, 2023-A shooting death in Fort Johnson- Focus on History from The Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder

Likable, boisterous William H. Marshall, Jr. was shot twice through the head at suppertime on Wednesday, March 12 1919 at his home in Fort Johnson.

   Marshall was separated from his wife and children; they were living in Oneida County. 

Meryl Frank Episode 472

A thrilling mystery woven into a beautifully constructed family memoir: Meryl Frank’s journey to seek the truth about a beloved and revolutionary cousin, a celebrated actress in Vilna before World War II, and to answer the question of how the next generation should honor the memory of the Holocaust.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 coming this Fall

Call it a Conversation, Interview or Podcast

Journalist David Levine is author of “The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years.” His book explains how Hudson New York for a time was part of the whaling industry. He also includes stories about Alexander Hamilton, the Mohicans and slavery in the time of Dutch colonial rule.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, April 29, 2023

An agile Amsterdam mayor

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“It was a solemn moment in the drug store,” Tralka wrote in his new memoir, “Diary of a Replacement Soldier.”

Recollections of war  

By Bob Cudmore

A Virginia doctor has written a new book recalling his World War II memories of both the home front in Amsterdam and the last days of the war in Europe.

George A. Tralka was at his family’s James Street home in Amsterdam the afternoon that radio broadcasts were interrupted to report the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Tralka at first thought Pearl Harbor was in Alaska.

Tralka’s parents went ahead with their plans to go out that day and to have Tralka watch his younger sisters. The next day as Tralka delivered the Schenectady Gazette he heard President Roosevelt’s “day of infamy” speech on the radio when he made his newspaper delivery to Reid Hill Pharmacy.

“It was a solemn moment in the drug store,” Tralka wrote in his new memoir, “Diary of a Replacement Soldier.”

The first member of Tralka’s group at St. Mary’s High School to go off to war left in July 1943.  After their buddy’s train left Amsterdam, friends gathered at Rapello’s Pharmacy and, according to Tralka, “Raised high our chocolate sodas and wished him good luck.”

As his senior year in high school drew to a close, Tralka enlisted in an Army training program. His notice to report came a few days before his senior prom and he was so busy getting ready to go that he failed to notify his date that he couldn’t attend the prom. Later his brother accepted Tralka’s high school diploma and he was told the “applause was enthusiastic.”

For three months, Tralka attended a course in pre-engineering at the University of Delaware, followed by basic training in Arkansas. Once overseas he became an infantry replacement in France and a rifleman with the 103rd Division in the Rhineland and Central European campaigns. After the war he was discharged as a private first class and went to medical school.

His book benefits from Tralka’s artistic skills—many of his war stories are illustrated with his own drawings.  There are also photos and other visual reproductions in the book.

During his career Tralka practiced medicine in Washington, D.C. and Vienna, Virginia for government agencies and in private practice.

ORGANIST FATHER

Tralka’s father Joseph was for many years the organist and choir director at St. Stanislaus Church in Amsterdam. Joseph Tralka, whose own father was a church organist, emigrated from partitioned Poland at age 17 to play organ music for a settlement of Poles in Parana, Brazil.  He married there and even took part in a posse that went off to fight natives who had attacked their settlement.

He and his wife relocated to the United States and lived in a variety of places, including Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. There he was a professor of music at Alliance College.  His first wife died in 1935 and he remarried. 

Joseph Tralka was not making much money at Alliance College. The work was enjoyable but all consuming. He left the college and moved from place to place playing organ at Polish Roman Catholic parishes, finally settling at St. Stanislaus in Amsterdam where he was church organist until 1954.

Joseph Tralka made a modest salary from the church and had a modest sign in the front window of his parlor offering private musical lessons. George Tralka wrote, “I remember that 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 at the end of each year with door to door sale of Christmas wafers, a traditional holiday perk for Polish church organists. 

Friday, April 28, 2023

Episode 472-In Unearthed Meryl Frank tells the story of her cousin Frany Winter, a celebrated Yiddish actress in Vilna in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.  Frank spent many years researching how her cousin Frany died.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Historian Episode #500 coming this Fall

Call it a Conversation, Interview or Podcast

Former New York Times investigative reporter Howard Blum exposes the danger posed by the suspected infiltration of America’s Central Intelligence Agency by a series of Russian spy agency moles through the years. Blum’s new book is “The Spy Who Knew Too Much.”

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, April 27, 2023

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Thursday, April 27, 2023

A replacement soldier.

George A. Tralka was at his family’s James Street home in Amsterdam the afternoon that radio broadcasts were interrupted to report the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Tralka at first thought Pearl Harbor was in Alaska.

Friday, April 28, 2023

Episode 472-In Unearthed Meryl Frank tells the story of her cousin Frany Winter, a celebrated Yiddish actress in Vilna in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.  Frank spent many years researching how her cousin Frany died.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Email [email protected]

Author John Gearing and editor Chris Leonard discuss their book “Schenectady Genesis, Volume II: The Creation of an American City from an Anglo-Dutch Town, ca. 1760-1800.”

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, April 26, 2023

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