It is Sunday, April 9, 2023. The need is to raise $350.00 on-line by this eveneing

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  or The U.S. Mail. A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Pastries added to popularity and a family of myopes

By Bob Cudmore

   John Vidulich, who became one of Amsterdam’s favorite bakers, was a native of Austria who came to America at age 14 in 1898.  Born into a family of seven, he and his wife Josephine Guiffre from Genoa, Italy, also had seven children.

   Their youngest daughter was Virginia Vidulich, known as Vidge, who attended high school at St. Mary’s Institute during the Great Depression,

   By then her father operated Vidulich’s Bakery at 63 Guy Park Avenue and would give his youngest daughter the key to the shop when St. Mary’s played basketball at home.

   After each game, Vidge led a parade of ball players and girlfriends to the bakeshop where they enjoyed the many treats inside.

   “It helped with my popularity,” said Vidge.  Izzy Demsky, who became the actor Kirk Douglas, came often to the bakery for his favorite, doughnuts.  Doughnuts were cream filled, jelly filled or plain.

    Vidge became Virginia Vidulich O’Brien after marrying Richard O’Brien of Glens Falls in 1946.

   The O’Briens lived in Saratoga Springs.  Vidge worked in press relations for the Saratoga Harness Track.  She conducted tours for school children.  She received kudos from sports columnist Art Hoefs for her role in Howard Tupper’s television coverage of harness racing on WRGB.

Early tomorrow morning, Monday, April 10, 2023-Story behind the story, Pastries and popularity and a family of myopes. Thoughts that did not make into the print story, you know, the things that pop into your brain as soon as you are done. This can happen as you are walking down the stairs to put the laundry in.

   She was director of the Saratoga Harness Hall of Fame for twenty years.  She was the first female member of the National Harness Racing Hall of Fame’s Communicators Corner in Goshen, N.Y. 

   Later in life she added another nickname, Gertie.  Childhood friend and later Malta resident John Bennison explained how Virginia became Vidge in the first place.

   John’s father, Harold Bennison, was a native of Frankfort, N.Y., an optometrist who moved to Amsterdam in 1932 with his wife Hazel. 

   The Bennisons and their seven children rented a home on McElwain Avenue.  Next door was the Vidulich family, well known because of their bakery.

   Bennison’s sister Anne was the same age as Virginia Vidulich and the girls became lifelong friends.

   Bennison added, “Virginia was in and out of our house a lot, and we all loved her.  A problem for the younger children was trying to pronounce Virginia Vidulich.  What came out was Vidge, which she happily accepted, as it was based on love and respect.  Everyone in my family called her Vidge and it was used all day at St, Mary’s school, and she was Vidge for life.”

   Bennison moved back to the area after retirement and attended St. Mary’s Church in Ballston Spa.

   Bennison wrote, “One Sunday, I saw Vidge across the church and after Mass, I followed her across the parking lot.  I called out, ‘Hi, Vidge!’  She stopped and without turning around, she said, ‘Oh, you must be a Bennison.’  We remained friends until her death in 2010.”  She was 91.

   Optometrist Harold Bennison died in 1944.  His widow put her husband’s optometric equipment in storage.  By then the family was living at 252 Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

   Their son Robert became an optometrist after returning from service in the U.S. Navy in World War II.  Robert used his father’s equipment and established his office on Church Street and later moved his practice to a large store in the Albany area called GEX.

   He was the first eye doctor I ever saw.  My parents, sister and I all wore glasses and I recall Dr. Bennison used to joke that we were a family of myopes, a scientific word for nearsighted people.  Young Dr. Bennison eventually moved to Arizona where he died in the 1980s.    

   John Bennison, who worked many years for the Boy Scouts, died in 2021 at the age of 92.

The Fort Plain Museum Presents The Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley June 9-11, 2023

Register on-line https://fortplainmuseum.square.site/conference

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday, May 26, 2023 the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany, Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

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Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

A history of the Mohawk River with Mary Zawacki, executive director of the Schenectady County Historical Society. When the last Ice Age began to melt 22,000 years ago, the Mohawk River flowed with more force than Niagara Falls.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, April 9, 2023

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