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Pastries helped with popularity

By Bob Cudmore

When Virginia Vidulich O’Brien was attending high school at St. Mary’s Institute in Amsterdam during the Great Depression, she had an in with the basketball team.

Her father John 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 at home.

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

“It helped with my popularity,” said O’Brien, who now lives in Saratoga Springs.

Her father was a native of Austria who came to America with his parents at age 14 in 1898.  Born into a family of seven, he and his wife Josephine Guiffre Vidulich also had seven children.  Josephine was a native of Genoa, Italy. 

According to his obituary, Vidulich was baking in Amsterdam by 1919.  In 1930 John and his brother Anthony opened the bakery at 63 Guy Park Avenue.  Eventually John became sole proprietor.

O’Brien recalled that Izzy Demsky, who became the actor Kirk Douglas, came in all the time for his favorite doughnuts.  Doughnuts were cream filled, jelly filled or plain—plain doughnuts were three for a nickel.  Vidulich’s also featured charlotte russe, pumpernickel and other breads, sticky buns, coffee cake or kuchen, plus special kuchen for Christmas and Easter.

In addition to Vidulich’s shop on Guy Park Avenue, near the former junior high, John Vidulich operated a second bakery for some years on Market Street.  His brother Nicholas was proprietor of a bakery at 300 Locust Avenue.

In 1953 John Vidulich’s health declined and the bakery was taken over by his son John, Jr.  The father died that year.  John Jr. relocated Vidulich’s Bakery to the corner of Glen and Lincoln Avenues on Market Hill, also in 1953.  A popular item in newspaper ads from the 1960s were Vidulich’s chocolate doughnuts.

The bakery closed March 6, 1971 and John Jr. went to work at Dan Dee Donuts at 169 Market St.  The matriarch of the family, Josephine Giuffre Vidulich, died that year.

In addition to his baking skills, John Jr. was a well-known local golfer.  His brother Larry Vidulich was golf pro at the Antlers in Fort Johnson, Amsterdam Muni and ultimately at the North Shore Country Club in the Chicago area.

Virginia Vidulich O’Brien, now 91, married her late husband Richard when he was a student at Dartmouth College.  Virginia worked for many years in press relations and other jobs for the Saratoga Harness Track.  She conducted tours for school children in the morning hours.  She received kudos from Amsterdam sports columnist Art Hoefs in 1968 for her role in Howard Tupper’s television coverage of the harness track on WRGB.  She is the only woman inducted into the National Harness Racing Hall of Fame.

Amsterdam resident Diane Hale Smith recently visited O’Brien and took her sticky buns from Amsterdam’s newest bakery, Dolci on Bridge Street.

“They got her personal seal of approval,” Smith said.

O’Brien recalled Smith’s mother—Dorothy Bennett Hale—who used to work at Morrison Putman’s Music Store on Market Street and oversaw listening booths where O’Brien and others could enjoy music of the day for free.

Tomorrow

Wednesday, March 29, 2023-Mark Sullivan discusses his historical novel, The Last Green Valley that chronicles how members of a German family living in Ukraine were able to escape clashing armies in World War II and find a new life in America.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Remembering Teddy Roosevelt

The junior high was dedicated to the former President on October 2, 1925 with the main address given by state education commissioner Dr. Frank P. Graves.

Friday, March 31, 2023-Episode 468-Alan Maddaus is author of The Prestons of East Street, the Story of a 19th century American Family.  The lives of seven Preston family members from Galway, N.Y., were impacted by events including Civil War, the Second Great Awakening and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the natural disaster claiming the most lives on US soil. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, March 28, 2023

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