Dr. Mahvash M. Majeed "Welcome to the Village" (All the Episodes) on Buzzsprout  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1648825

Wednesday, March 22, 2023-From the Archives- August 12, 2022-Episode 435-Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

Memories of St. Casimir’s in Amsterdam

Thursday, March 23, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette

The pending closure of St. Casimir’s Church has brought back memories for Amsterdam native Richard Sidlauscus.  The historically Lithuanian church on East Main Street in Amsterdam is to close in May.

Friday, March 24, 2023-Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  Andre piloted primitive helicopters to rescue wounded soldiers in the 1950s for the French army in Indochina.  She became the first woman in the French military to be promoted to General.

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This coming Sunday, March 26, 2023 we'll name the baby Henry from The Daily Gazette. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, March 22, 2023

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Dr. Mahvash M. Majeed

Welcome to the Village (All the Episodes) Buzzsprout  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1648825

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Edmund Wilson at the Mohawk Encampment-Pastries helped with popularity

Edmund Wilson and the Mohawks

By Bob Cudmore 

Four months after the Mohawk Indian encampment began on farmland off Route 5-S adjacent to the Schoharie Creek in 1957, world-renowned man of letters Edmund Wilson paid a visit to Chief Standing Arrow and his followers.

Wilson wrote about the October encounter in his 1959 book, “Apologies to the Iroquois.”   Amsterdam native Tom Pikul provided this interesting lead on the story of the encampment.

Wilson found that Standing Arrow was part of an Iroquois nationalist movement with adherents at the Onondaga reservation in the Syracuse area and at reservations in northern New York and Canada.  In other chapters of the book Wilson describes meetings with other Indian nationalists.

Descended from an Upstate New York family named Talcott, Wilson maintained a summer home at Talcottville, north of Utica in Lewis County between the Adirondacks and Tug Hill Plateau. 

Before going to the Mohawk encampment, Wilson met with reporters from the Recorder in Amsterdam, apparently including historian Hugh Donlon.  Wilson also gathered information from the county archivist.

When Wilson arrived, the Chief was away and his family not too willing to communicate.  On a second visit, Wilson knocked at the door and no one came to answer it.  When the author was getting back in his car, Standing Arrow appeared in the doorway and waved to him. 

Wilson said, “It was a characteristic of an Indian that, not being up and dressed, he should not shout that he would be out in a minute but should wait until he could present himself with dignity.”

Inside, the hut was “small but not ill-kept.”  There was a landscape of a lake hanging on the wall, along with a feathered headdress and a rattle made from the shell of a snapping turtle.  Wilson said Standing Arrow, a former chief from the St. Regis Reservation also known as Frank Johnson, was a charismatic figure.   

Wilson wrote, “A Mohawk who disapproved of Standing Arrow told me that his eloquence in English – of which his command was imperfect – was nothing to his eloquence in Mohawk.”

Although Wilson had heard unfavorable things about Standing Arrow, he was “won over” by the Chief saying, “He appealed to the imagination.”  Wilson said Standing Arrow’s features reminded him of the young Napoleon, even though he had “a slight cast in one eye.

“He had also, as I could see, some of the qualities of the Mussolinian spellbinder,” wrote Wilson.

Wilson learned that some of the men in the settlement were high steel workers who had labored that year on the Thruway Bridge over the Schoharie Creek.  Most of them had gone back to Brooklyn after the summer construction season.

The Mohawks are excellent working on tall construction projects--walking on a narrow beam is not difficult for them.  Wilson’s book includes “A Study of the Mohawks in High Steel” written by Joseph Mitchell in 1949, describing the lives led by Mohawks in New York City. 

Standing Arrow had put a sign on Route 5-S outside the encampment that said Indian Village.  During the previous summer, the Indians sold souvenirs to tourists.

In the conversation with Wilson, Standing Arrow produced a document from American attorney E.A. Everett in 1924 backing the Chief’s claim that the Mohawks still owned the land around the Schoharie Creek.  Everett credited the Iroquois Confederacy with creating the only pre-European government in America.

The Schoharie Creek encampment was gone by the summer of 1958.  Eviction orders were served following court action in March.  Some of the Mohawk huts were burned.   The Mohawks were offered land in the town of Fulton in Schoharie County but if there was a settlement there, apparently it was short lived.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023-From the Archives- August 12, 2022-Episode 435-Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. 

Memories of St. Casimir’s in Amsterdam

Thursday, March 23, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette

Friday, March 24, 2023-Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  Andre piloted primitive helicopters to rescue wounded soldiers in the 1950s for the French army in Indochina.  She became the first woman in the French military to be promoted to General.

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This coming Sunday, March 26, 2023 we'll name the baby Henry from The Daily Gazette. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, March 21, 2023

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Get to the Point

Are all the websites you visit, too busy?

The Historians on one page, no video, no pop-ups and a good story.

Monday, March 20, 2023

Story behind the story Wilson family

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Edmund Wilson at the Mohawk Encampment-Pastries helped with popularity

Four months after the Mohawk Indian encampment began on farmland off Route 5-S adjacent to the Schoharie Creek in 1957, world-renowned man of letters Edmund Wilson paid a visit to Chief Standing Arrow and his followers.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023-From the Archives- August 12, 2022-Episode 435-Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. 

Memories of St. Casimir’s in Amsterdam

Thursday, March 23, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette

Friday, March 24, 2023-Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  Andre piloted primitive helicopters to rescue wounded soldiers in the 1950s for the French army in Indochina.  She became the first woman in the French military to be promoted to General.

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This coming Sunday, March 26, 2023 we'll name the baby Henry from The Daily Gazette. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Amsterdam’s remarkable Wilson family

By Bob Cudmore

   Benjamin Wilson responded with more information after reading the recent column describing his Amsterdam ancestors. 

   Wilson is retired chairman of the prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm of Beveridge & Diamond.  A Harvard Law School alumnus, he was an environmental litigator and advocate for diversity and inclusion.

   Wilson is the son of the late Harrison Wilson, Junior, a basketball standout at Amsterdam High School in the early 1940s.  Harrison Junior went on to become president of Norfolk State University in Virginia in 1975 and led that historically black institution until his retirement in 1997.  He died in 2019 at age 94.

   Ben Wilson said when he was a child most summers his family in Virginia visited his Amsterdam grandparents, Harrison Senior and Marguerite Wilson, at their home on Cedar Street. 

   Harrison Senior and Marguerite raised eight children, four male and four female, all born in Amsterdam and now all deceased.  They were, from eldest to youngest, Martha Ellen Wilson Marshall, Edward Wilson, Margaret C. Wilson, Mary Alida Wilson, Harrison Benjamin Wilson, Jr., Virginia Wilson Howard, Willis Thomas Wilson and Albert John Wilson.

   Marguerite and Harrison Senior emphasized education in raising their family.  Marguerite, formerly a school teacher in Kentucky, was named Mother of the Year in a national competition. 

   Martha, the eldest Amsterdam Wilson sibling, won the girls’ acting award when she graduated high school in 1931.  She was a classmate of Isadore Demsky who became the movie actor Kirk Douglas.  Martha became a nurse in El Paso, Texas, and her mother Marguerite died in El Paso in 1960.

   The youngest Amsterdam Wilson sibling, Albert, died last year.  He was an honors student and athlete at Lynch High School and Indiana University.  He became a real estate attorney, and was a pioneer in corporate social responsibility.  Ben Wilson said, “He helped develop corporate America’s response to investment in South Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s.”

   Ben Wilson remembers visiting the Amsterdam parking lot on Federal Street which the Wilsons operated near, he said, a diner with great hamburgers and the police station, which had a soda machine. 

   Ben Wilson said, “We visited my grandfather Harrison Benjamin Wilson, Sr. at the parking lot, and my father and uncles would help my grandfather at the parking lot.  My grandfather worked that lot every day until his mid-eighties.  He died in 1982 ar age 93.

   “We engaged in typical family activities, visiting the museum in Albany, the World’s Fair in New York City and going to Caroga Lake and Lake George.

   “I had an interest in history and the year before I went away to school my parents took me to General Herkimer’s home and the area homes of Sir William Johnson.  This was helpful when I had to read “Drums Along the Mohawk” for English class.  My teacher could not believe I had actually been to several sites described in the novel.”

   Ben’s brother the late Harrison Wilson III was the father of National Football League quarterback Russell Wilson, now with the Denver Broncos.

  In 2016 Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Junior, who hosts a public television genealogy program, interviewed Russell at a public event called the Richmond Forum.

   Gates found that Harrison Wilson, Senior, came to Amsterdam from Kentucky in 1920 in part because he had an older brother Albert in Amsterdam.  Gates said Harrison Senior owned property in Kentucky.  His father had been enslaved and fought with the Colored Troops of the Union army in the Civil War.

   Ben Harrison’s sister April Wilson Woodard is a TV journalist known for her work as a correspondent on the newsmagazine Inside Edition.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, March 20, 2023

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Harrison Senior and Marguerite raised eight children, four male and four female, all born in Amsterdam and now all deceased.  They were, from eldest to youngest, Martha Ellen Wilson Marshall, Edward Wilson, Margaret C. Wilson, Mary Alida Wilson, Harrison Benjamin Wilson, Jr., Virginia Wilson Howard, Willis Thomas Wilson and Albert John Wilson.

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This coming Sunday, March 26, 2023 we'll name the baby Henry from The Daily Gazette. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Amsterdam’s remarkable Wilson family

By Bob Cudmore

   Benjamin Wilson responded with more information after reading the recent column describing his Amsterdam ancestors. 

   Wilson is retired chairman of the prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm of Beveridge & Diamond.  A Harvard Law School alumnus, he was an environmental litigator and advocate for diversity and inclusion.

   Wilson is the son of the late Harrison Wilson, Junior, a basketball standout at Amsterdam High School in the early 1940s.  Harrison Junior went on to become president of Norfolk State University in Virginia in 1975 and led that historically black institution until his retirement in 1997.  He died in 2019 at age 94.

   Ben Wilson said when he was a child most summers his family in Virginia visited his Amsterdam grandparents, Harrison Senior and Marguerite Wilson, at their home on Cedar Street. 

   Harrison Senior and Marguerite raised eight children, four male and four female, all born in Amsterdam and now all deceased.  They were, from eldest to youngest, Martha Ellen Wilson Marshall, Edward Wilson, Margaret C. Wilson, Mary Alida Wilson, Harrison Benjamin Wilson, Jr., Virginia Wilson Howard, Willis Thomas Wilson and Albert John Wilson.

   Marguerite and Harrison Senior emphasized education in raising their family.  Marguerite, formerly a school teacher in Kentucky, was named Mother of the Year in a national competition. 

   Martha, the eldest Amsterdam Wilson sibling, won the girls’ acting award when she graduated high school in 1931.  She was a classmate of Isadore Demsky who became the movie actor Kirk Douglas.  Martha became a nurse in El Paso, Texas, and her mother Marguerite died in El Paso in 1960.

   The youngest Amsterdam Wilson sibling, Albert, died last year.  He was an honors student and athlete at Lynch High School and Indiana University.  He became a real estate attorney, and was a pioneer in corporate social responsibility.  Ben Wilson said, “He helped develop corporate America’s response to investment in South Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s.”

   Ben Wilson remembers visiting the Amsterdam parking lot on Federal Street which the Wilsons operated near, he said, a diner with great hamburgers and the police station, which had a soda machine. 

   Ben Wilson said, “We visited my grandfather Harrison Benjamin Wilson, Sr. at the parking lot, and my father and uncles would help my grandfather at the parking lot.  My grandfather worked that lot every day until his mid-eighties.  He died in 1982 ar age 93.

   “We engaged in typical family activities, visiting the museum in Albany, the World’s Fair in New York City and going to Caroga Lake and Lake George.

   “I had an interest in history and the year before I went away to school my parents took me to General Herkimer’s home and the area homes of Sir William Johnson.  This was helpful when I had to read “Drums Along the Mohawk” for English class.  My teacher could not believe I had actually been to several sites described in the novel.”

   Ben’s brother the late Harrison Wilson III was the father of National Football League quarterback Russell Wilson, now with the Denver Broncos.

  In 2016 Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Junior, who hosts a public television genealogy program, interviewed Russell at a public event called the Richmond Forum.

   Gates found that Harrison Wilson, Senior, came to Amsterdam from Kentucky in 1920 in part because he had an older brother Albert in Amsterdam.  Gates said Harrison Senior owned property in Kentucky.  His father had been enslaved and fought with the Colored Troops of the Union army in the Civil War.

   Ben Harrison’s sister April Wilson Woodard is a TV journalist known for her work as a correspondent on the newsmagazine Inside Edition.

Monday, March 20, 2023-Story behind the story Wilson family

"High Steel"

Tuesday, March 21, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Edmund Wilson at the Mohawk Encampment-Pastries helped with popularity

Wednesday, March 22, 2023-From the Archives- August 12, 2022-Episode 435-Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. 

Memories of St. Casimir’s in Amsterdam

Thursday, March 23, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette

Friday, March 24, 2023-Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  Andre piloted primitive helicopters to rescue wounded soldiers in the 1950s for the French army in Indochina.  She became the first woman in the French military to be promoted to General.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, March 19, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

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The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. Working to Episode #500 later this year.

Saturday March 18, 2023-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan with the story of Jimmy McManus

On News Stands today in The Gazette, Paper-Paper and e-edition

Bob Cudmore "Focus on History"...we'll name the baby Henry

Tomorrow, the full print story about Amsterdam’s Wilson family here on The Historians

Wilson is retired chairman of the prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm of Beveridge & Diamond. 

Kate Fagan is author of HOOP MUSES-An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game an Adventure through Basketball History. Fagan is a native of Schenectady. She writes for Sports Illustrated.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, March 18, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

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The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This Sunday more on Amsterdam’s Wilson family. Go Fund Me Link The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.  Bob Cudmore and The Historians on Radio this weekend in The Mohawk Valley and Southern Tier, New York State 

Presumed dead, Amsterdam man survived the war

By Bob Cudmore

An Amsterdam man presumed dead during World War II survived the war and lived until 2003.

Attorney Robert N. Going in his book “Honor Roll: The World War II Dead of Amsterdam, N.Y.” listed the death of Private First Class Anthony “Doc” Kosiba of 39 McCleary Avenue.

Inducted in 1943, Kosiba arrived in England in the summer of 1944.  He fought in France, Belgium and Germany.

Kosiba’s wife Olga received a telegram from the War Department that her husband was killed in action on German soil on October 6, 1944.  His age was 35.  The Recorder printed Kosiba’s obituary and a funeral Mass was held.

Going now has learned from family members that some time after the funeral, Olga Kosiba received a letter from her husband.

“It took a good deal of tear-wiping before she finally noticed the date on the letter,” Going said.  “It was after the date of the telegram announcing his death.”

Going said that Kosiba had been wounded so badly that initially he was thought to be dead, “Doubtless his dog tags were gathered up and it was only later when they came back for the body that someone realized he was alive.

“After spending some time in Army hospitals, he came home to Olga and Amsterdam and lived a long and fruitful life.”

Kosiba earned the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and European Campaign medals.  After the war, he returned to his job at the Fitzgerald Bottling Company in Amsterdam.  He was a production manager for the Fitzgerald and PepsiCola companies until his retirement.

Olga Kosiba, who had worked for Mohasco, died in 1998.  Anthony Kosiba died on March 6, 2003 at age 94 at the Wilkinson nursing home on Route 30.  The couple had no children.  They were members of St. Stanislaus Church.

DARK DAYS

Stephen Sanford, arguably Amsterdam’s most famous horseman, ended his life unable to attend races at Saratoga.

Sanford, who founded Amsterdam’s first major carpet mill, created Hurricana Farm in the 1870s on what is now Route 30.

According to Alex M. Robb’s book “The Sanfords of Amsterdam,” Sanford’s doctor recommended the industrialist take up thoroughbred breeding as a hobby to help with stomach ulcers.  Sanford horses, especially jumpers, were a mainstay every summer at the Saratoga racing meet, founded in 1863.

From 1903 through 1907, the Sanfords invited the people of Amsterdam to the Sanford Matinee Races at Hurricana on the Sunday closest to Fourth of July.  Thousands attended each year.

In 1908, Stephen Sanford went blind.

 And in the last two years of his life the races he loved at Saratoga were cancelled.

Today the future of racing at Saratoga is threatened by economics and state government dysfunction.  A hundred years ago the issue was morality.

The reform movement was a reaction to the devil may care attitude of the Gay Nineties.  New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes signed a law that banned bookmaking at horse tracks in the state.  The tracks, including Saratoga, were closed in 1911 and 1912.  Hughes later served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Sanfords sold most of their horses to out-of-staters and Canadians when the track closed, according to Robb.

Stephen Sanford died on February 13, 1913.  Six months later, the state allowed racing to resume at Saratoga along with the first running of a race named to honor Amsterdam’s premiere racing family, the Sanford Memorial.

The Amsterdam horse farm—later called Sanford Stud Farm—continued under the management of Stephen Sanford’s descendants until 1977.  Today the Friends of Sanford Stud Farm are making an effort to restore the remaining farm buildings.

Friday, March 17, 2023-Episode 466-Kate Fagan is author of HOOP MUSES-An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game an Adventure through Basketball History. Fagan is a native of Schenectady. She writes for Sports Illustrated.

Saturday March 18, 2023-New York City correspondent Jim Kaplan explains the role played by Democratic Party district leader Jimmy McManus in reviving the Broadway theater industry and the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan.

Sunday, March 19, 2023- More on Amsterdam’s Wilson family

Benjamin Wilson responded with more information after reading the recent column describing his Amsterdam ancestors. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, March 16, 2023

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The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. Working on an interview with Maria Riccio Bryce “Requiem” that should post in April. The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail. Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.  Bob Cudmore and The Historians on Radio and The Internet. The Historians airs today on Albany Public Radio WMHT89.1FM RISE that serves The Hudson Valley

Wednesday, March 15, 2023-Episode 399 Stephen Riegel is author of Finding Judge Crater: A Life and Phenomenal Disappearance in Jazz Age NY.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Presumed dead

An Amsterdam man presumed dead during World War II survived the war and lived until 2003.

Friday, March 17, 2023-Episode 466-Kate Fagan is author of HOOP MUSES-An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game an Adventure through Basketball History. Fagan is a native of Schenectady. She writes for Sports Illustrated.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, March 15, 2023

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His father wanted to name the baby Alexander, after a Polish prince.  Paula’s name, for example, was in reality Pelagia Julianna, the name of a Polish princess.  However, his mother prevailed and the baby was named Henry, after the American industrialist Henry Ford.  The family always called him Harry and he legally changed his name to Harry when he came of age. 

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. This Sunday more on Amsterdam’s Wilson family and later this month Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302  Bob Cudmore and The Historians on Radio and The Internet (to be honest, radio is more fun)

Sikora family memories

By Bob Cudmore

Descendants of Albert and Katie Sikora have preserved fascinating accounts of daily life during the 1920s and 1930s in Amsterdam.  The family lived on Clark Avenue and in 1931 Albert Sikora is described as a spinner at Mohawk Carpet Mills.

One of Albert and Katie’s daughters, Paula, wrote down her memories of the birth of her youngest brother Harry in 1928.  The pregnancy was not discussed with the six other children and at the time of the birth, a “birthing lady” attended their mother. 

At first shooed out of the house into the rain by their father, the children eventually were brought inside and told to get sheets for the birthing lady to use.

“(Sister) Kay and I ran to the house and started pulling the sheets off the bed,” Paula wrote.  “We tried to give them to the birthing lady but she hollered at us--she wanted unused sheets.   Then all of a sudden we were allowed to go to Mom’s room and she introduced us to our new little fat wrinkled baby brother.  I had a new doll to play with!   He was so cute.  Mom was back.  All was well again.”

His father wanted to name the baby Alexander, after a Polish prince.  Paula’s name, for example, was in reality Pelagia Julianna, the name of a Polish princess.  However, his mother prevailed and the baby was named Henry, after the American industrialist Henry Ford.  The family always called him Harry and he legally changed his name to Harry when he came of age.   

Harry Sikora died March 28 this year at age 79 in Florida.  His wife Joan plus three children and their spouses survive along with grandchildren.

Harry Sikora served in the U.S. Army, went to Union College and Syracuse University and became an industrial engineer at IBM, retiring in 1985.  His later years were spent at a farm in Bradford, Pennsylvania and a winter home in Clearwater, Florida.

“Was four years old when I started school in the first grade,” Harry wrote of his childhood in Amsterdam.  “Mom lied about my age to get me into school early.  Believe she had enough of children by the time I arrived.”

The grade school was about seven blocks from their Clark Avenue home and his mother told him to follow the other children to get to school.

His sister Paula married in 1937 but Harry did not want to attend the wedding because he had a perfect school attendance record for six years. 

Paula recalled the days when the family had no radio.  Eventually, a windup Victrola came their way. 

Their father built them a new home on Clarke Avenue and an upstairs flat was rented.

“Our renter had a radio—wow,” Paula wrote.  “On Saturday night, there was a program, Fibber McGee and Molly at 8:00 p.m.  She would turn it on loud and we kids sat on the hall steps and listened to the half hour program.  What a treat!”

As far as Harry was concerned, there always was radio in the house, but not enough.

“Mom would turn the radio off when sleep time approached, usually in the middle of a very interesting program,” he wrote.  “No mercy from her here.

“Heat came from a wood/coal stove, which heated the kitchen and living room area.  Bedrooms were cold during the winter and hot during the summer.  Coal bin was located in the basement.  Had to be carried upstairs and ashes emptied daily.  Burned tons of coal every year.

“We had two sour cherry trees.  One year, dad made cherry wine in the basement.   When he wasn't looking, I tasted some of it.”

Wednesday, March 15, 2023-Episode 399 Stephen Riegel is author of Finding Judge Crater: A Life and Phenomenal Disappearance in Jazz Age NY.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Presumed dead

Friday, March 17, 2023-Episode 466-Kate Fagan is author of HOOP MUSES-An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game an Adventure through Basketball History. Fagan is a native of Schenectady. She writes for Sports Illustrated.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, March 14, 2023

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Monday, March 13, 2023-Vaudeville days (the Podcast) from dancing to roller skating

...a type of entertainment popular chiefly in the US in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy and song and dance.

The Historians Podcast Go Fund Me for 2023. Later this month Episode 467-Charles Morgan Evans is author of Helicopter Heroine--Valerie Andre, Surgeon, Rescue Pilot and Her Courage Under Fire.  The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore  or U.S. Mail Bob Cudmore 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Tuesday, March 14, 2023-The Daily Gazette-SIkora family memories from The City of Amsterdam, New York

Descendants of Albert and Katie Sikora have preserved fascinating accounts of daily life during the 1920s and 1930s in Amsterdam.  The family lived on Clark Avenue and in 1931 Albert Sikora is described as a spinner at Mohawk Carpet Mills.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023-Episode 399 Stephen Riegel is author of Finding Judge Crater: A Life and Phenomenal Disappearance in Jazz Age NY.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Presumed dead

Friday, March 17, 2023-Episode 466-Kate Fagan is author of HOOP MUSES-An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game an Adventure through Basketball History. Fagan is a native of Schenectady. She writes for Sports Illustrated.

Vaudeville days--from dancing to roller skating

By Bob Cudmore

   Red haired Amsterdam native Inez Courtney was 15 when she performed a specialty dance act during a three day run in 1923 in a vaudeville show at the Rialto Theater on Market Street, part of the Keith vaudeville circuit. 

   People referred to her as St. Vitus, Mosquito and Lightning.  Born into a large Irish-American family, Inez took up the stage after her father died.

   Vaudeville was a mix of specialized stage acts including dancers, singers, comedians and even roller skaters.  Vaudevillians toured America, some visiting big cities and others going to smaller towns like Amsterdam.

   My father, a teen ager at the time, recalled he could watch a movie and four or five vaudeville acts at one of Amsterdam’s theaters for 25 cents in the 1920s. 

   One Amsterdam movie theater prided itself on not providing vaudeville.  The Orpheum, on Market Street did feature movie stars on tour making personal appearances.

   Dancer Inez Courtney left vaudeville for Broadway, and was performing in “The Wild Rose” and other musicals in 1926.   She won acclaim for her role in the 1927 musical “Good News” about college life. 

   In 1930 she went to Hollywood.  Under contract with Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, Courtney appeared in non-musical roles, usually as the wise-cracking friend of actresses such as Jean Harlow or Ginger Rogers.

   Courtney performed in 58 films between 1930 and 1940 including “The Raven”, “Suzy”, and “Turnabout”, her last movie.

   She was married twice, the second time to an Italian nobleman.  When she retired from the movies in 1940 they moved to Rome Italy where her husband Luigi Filiesi was a wine merchant.  She died of undisclosed causes at a hospital in New Jersey in 1975 at age 67.

   Another vaudeville act that originated in Amsterdam had a long run but never made it to the movies.  Hyman and his brother Barney Nathan were roller skaters.

   According to the American Vaudeville Museum, there was a roller skating vogue in the early 1900s including Dare Devil Frank, Fielding and Carlos and the Skating Macks.

   The Nathan Brothers’ act was created by Hy Nathan when he ran the roller skating rink at a facility called the Colonial on Liberty Street in Amsterdam. 

   Roller skating was advertised four days a week at the Colonial in 1906.

A 1912 newspaper story reported that Hy Nathan canceled a ten mile skating race between Alfred Shrubb, the English champion, and Billy Queal, the American champion, which had been scheduled for the Colonial.  Nathan said there was not sufficient interest in the race.

   Hy and Barney Nathan toured on the Keith vaudeville circuit in America starting in 1918.  They also performed in Europe.  In February 1922 Hy Nathan was quoted by the Recorder as saying that the brothers were on tour in Ireland with their self-described “sensational” roller skating act.  The Nathans performed in Ireland during the first day of freedom for the Irish Free State.

   The news account stated, “They expect to fill a number of European engagements before returning to America.  Hy Nathan was home last summer on a brief visit.”

   In 1924 a newspaper story reported the Nathan Brothers were in Paris and about to tour Germany with stops in Berlin and Munich.  In 1928 the skating brothers sent a card from Hamburg to Amsterdam friend James Aiken via the mail service of the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin.

   A 1929 Amsterdam newspaper account of a contested will involving property in the Nathan family lists Hyman Nathan as one of the heirs.  No further word turns up, however, on the career of Hy and Barney Nathan, the vaudeville roller skaters.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, March 13, 2023

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