history

Since 2018 I have been writing nostalgic stories for The Batavian about growing up in Batavia, New York, in the 1950s and 1960s. In some of those stories, I made mention of some of the businesses that were located in what we always called “Downtown.” 

Due to “urban renewal” in the 1970s, most of these establishments and their buildings no longer exist. 

Recently a reprint in The Batavian of the last chapter of Anne Marie Starowitz's book “Back In the Day” made mention of a lot of these places, and it got me thinking about my experiences in some of them. As a young boy and a teen, I had no reason to go into a hat shop, a paint store or a furrier. But I certainly patronized the two movie theaters that we had. As a teenager, I did a lot of hanging out at Kustas Kandies and, to a lesser extent, Critic's Restaurant, and I got a lot of my clothes at McAlpine-Barton Clothiers (the owners were next-door neighbors of my grandparents on North Lyon Street).

Time-Honored Theaters
Our two movie theaters were The Dipson Batavia on the northwest side of Main Street between the Post Office and State Street and The Mancuso Theater on the southeast side of Main between Center and Liberty Streets. I would say that despite the two theaters being in competition, both were well attended, depending on what movies were being shown. Prices were certainly reasonable with a lot of movies (we called it “going to the show”) being $1 and even less for kids.

It's odd how memory works, but I really can't recall exact details about either theater. Mancuso's seemed to be a little fancier and, later on in the 70s split into twin theaters so they could show two movies instead of one. 

My younger brother (by 11 years) Jim's first job was as an usher at Mancuso's and he certainly has some stories to tell. I do remember a young usher at Dipson's named Lester who took his job very seriously. Unfortunately, we kids weren't very nice to him and often gave him a hard time.

I know that I must have seen the big blockbusters of that time like “Ben Hur” and “The Longest Day,” but I cannot remember specifics (of course, I have watched them on TV since), like who I was with or what theater I saw them at. I do recall that most movies, especially the kid ones were preceded by cartoons. I assume we got popcorn, but I think oftentimes we brought our own candy in our pockets. We'd stop at Corrigan's or some other mom-and-pop grocery first and stock up. 

I don't remember if we bought drinks, but I'm sure they didn't cost $5 or $6 like they do now. 

My brother still works in the theater business and he will certify that way more money is made on concessions than tickets. I don't know if that was the case 50 or 60 years ago, but we didn't contribute much to the concession intake at all.

I'm pretty sure that it was not the norm for 10-year-olds to go to the movies alone, but I distinctly recall being dropped off at Mancuso's in 1957 for a movie called “Heaven Knows Mr. Allison.” War movies were my favorites then (I never did serve in the military, though) and that's probably what attracted me to it. It starred Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as a “salty” Marine and a nun who were randomly stranded on a Pacific island during World War II. When the Japanese came and set up an outpost, the two of them had to hide out in a cave. Mr. Allison, as the Sister called him, fell in love with the nun, but of course, she told him that her life was committed to God and a relationship with the Marine could never be. Corporal Allison eventually disabled some Japanese artillery to enable an American landing on the island, and the two were rescued and went their separate ways. Deborah Kerr was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. 

Why do I so vividly recall going to this movie and not other bigger, splashier ones? That's the conundrum of memory, I guess.

One thing for sure about going to the movies back then was that if you really wanted to watch the movie, you should not sit toward the rear, Those rows were populated by teenagers who were there only to take advantage of the warm, dry theater to “make out” or “neck” (those are some funny descriptive terms aren't they? ). I was certainly no ladies' man, but I can remember coming out of some movies and having no idea what film I had even attended. I specifically recall one time when I told my parents I was at a friend's house when I was at Mancuso's with a girl instead. When I didn't come home on time, my mom called the friend's mom, and of course, I was in trouble for lying. It was surely embarrassing (and still is if I think about it) to try to explain to my mom why my lips were swollen. 

Teenagers.

Both theaters were occasionally used for music, but Batavia was certainly no usual stop on entertainers' tour agendas. Much to my delight, though, in June 1964 just before I graduated from Notre Dame, Mancuso's hosted a pretty big-time show -- my first rock and roll concert. 

Like most teens at that time, I was all in on the “British Invasion.” The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Gerry and The Pacemakers (did Gerry have a heart condition? ) and more were all over Top 40 radio. WKBW from Buffalo was the local station of choice with DJs Joey Reynolds, Tommy Shannon, and Danny Neaverth. So when I heard that The Searchers, with their big hits “Needles and Pins and “Love Potion Number #9,” were going to headline a show in our little town, I was ecstatic.

It was almost 60 years ago, so I don't remember too many details of the show. Danny Nevearth was the emcee. There were five bands on the bill and two shows at 6:30 and 9:15 ( I don't recall which one I went to) so the opening acts must have only been able to play a few songs. I can't recall anything about the first two acts: Ronnie Cochran and Ronnie Dio and the Prophets. Ronnie Dio was 21 at the time of the Mancuso show and grew up in Cortland. He later went on to be the lead singer of Black Sabbath, taking Ozzie Osborn's place. Many consider him to be the best “Heavy Metal” singer of all time.

The third band was The Dovells, a dance band from Philadelphia. Their lead singer was Len Barry who went on to later have a big hit with”1-2-3”. They performed their choreographed song “Bristol Stomp,” and another dance tune called “Do The Continental,” which many years later showed up in the John Waters movie “Hairspray." They were followed by Dick and Dee Dee, whose popular hit was “Mountain High”. The only thing I recall about them was that I was shocked to find out that Dick was the one with the high falsetto voice and Dee Dee sang the lower range.

The Searchers did not disappoint, playing their two hits I mentioned earlier along with a set of other tunes that were hard to hear over the screaming teenage Batavia girls. My first big rock and roll show started me on the road to many, many more as I went on to college and through life. Going to see live music is still my favorite thing to do. 

Thanks Mancuso's.

Teen Hangouts
A big venue in the lives of most teens in the '50s and '60s was the local “soda shoppe.” For my friends and me (and many others of our age) it was Kustas Kandies on the north side of Main Street. Mrs. Kustas, who held down the counter and table area, was well-liked by all the kids and hired a number of them to work there, too, including a couple of my classmates, Mike Palloni and Madonna Mooney. She was pretty tolerant of teens hanging out there as long as you bought something and didn't get too rowdy. Most of my meager funds were spent on Cherry Cokes and French Fries, but if I happened to have a little extra cash, Kustas had delicious cheeseburgers in the style of McDonald's Big Mac or Carroll's Club burger. Like many restaurants of the time, there was a jukebox at every table, and we fed them coins to play all our favorite tunes. I'd bet The Rolling Stones' “Satisfaction” was #1 in the rotation. Hey, hey, hey, that's what I say.

Across Main Street and slightly to the west was Critics, formerly The Sugar Bowl. Critics was more of a pre- or post-date restaurant, though. Mr. Critic (real name Ernest Criticos who, after urban renewal, relocated his restaurant to Greece Town Mall outside Rochester) did not brook any nonsense from teens. He wanted to appeal to a more adult crowd, and if teens hung around longer than 30 or 40 minutes, especially without buying a meal, out you went. It was just a little fancier than Kustas, though, so if you wanted to impress a girl before or after a date ( a movie, let's say), you would take her there. It wasn't a soda shop, but into the 60s, another date spot was Your Host Restaurant in the East End Plaza, but not downtown. You probably needed a car to get your girl to Your Host.

Classy Clothiers
It's hard to believe, but in a small city of about 18,000 people, there were three men's clothing stores (not counting JCPenney) in downtown Batavia. There was Beardsley's, Charles Men's Shop, and McAlpine Barton's. 

I really don't recall ever buying anything at Beardsley's, and I have no idea why not. I'm pretty sure that when I was a student at St. Mary's Elementary School from first to eighth grade, we bought our school uniforms from Charles Men's Shop. For the boys, they consisted of light blue shirts, dark blue pants, and a dark blue clip-on bow tie. Probably Charles had a deal with the school. 

My mom would buy two pairs of pants for the year, and they would take a beating, so multiple sewing repairs were required. I wouldn't even want to guess how many bow ties I probably lost in 8 years. At Notre Dame High, those of us who earned them got our letter sweaters at Charles, too, again probably a deal between the school and the store. Other than those things, I don't recall frequenting that haberdashery very often.

When my grandparents, Anna and Henry (Henrik) Newhouse, moved to Batavia from Brooklyn (after emigrating from Denmark) in the 1920s, they bought a house at 25 North Lyon Street. There they raised my mother and three other children. Grampa was a tool and die maker at Doehler-Jarvis, which is why they moved here. My two uncles, Walter and Robert (who is the last family member of his generation at age 93) followed their dad's career path and became tool and die makers also. Their neighbors at 23 North Lyon were the Bartons of McAlpine – Barton Clothing store. It was originally McAlpine-Brumsted, but the Bartons bought out Brumsted and the business carried on. So, the reason why we patronized that store is because the Bartons were neighbors and friends of my mother's family.

The store was located on the south side of Main Street on the corner of Center Street (ironically, Charles Men's Shop, McAlpine's competitor for many years, is still in business and now occupies that building). LaRay Barton and his son Charlie ran the business, and LaRay's wife Eva took care of the office. My mom, Anna Newhouse Reilly, worked in the office for a number of years, too before going on to become the office manager for William Dipson of the aforementioned Dipson Theaters. Another long-time salesperson that I recall was Fred Darch.

McAlpine-Barton's had two floors for clothes shopping, the main floor and the basement. The offices were on the second floor. The main floor had two parts: the main room, which was for suits, sport coats, and slacks, as they referred to dress pants. Then there was a side room for what they called “leisure wear”. This would be sweaters, dressier polo shirts, and so on. The basement, where I got most of my clothes, was more for teenage or younger people's clothes like t-shirts and jeans, which they called “dungarees”. It wasn't like most of the places you go to get clothes now, though, where you pretty much wait on yourself unless you ask for help. There was always a salesman with you and assisting you.

I do have fond memories of McAlpine–Barton's, mostly because all the salesmen were friendly and willing to help you find what you were looking for and ensure a good fit. (note: I honestly do not recall any female salespeople at Barton's. It was probably a combination of it being a men's store and the chauvinism of that era. Also, later on, the family opened The Pendleton Store for women's clothes, managed by Charlie, and they had all female salespeople). Of course, my brothers and I got extra good treatment at McAlpine-Barton since LaRay and Charlie knew our family.

I moved to the Rochester area after graduating from St. John Fisher College there in 1969, so I wasn't living in Batavia for the Urban Renewal, which took place in the 1970s resulting in the demolishing of most of the downtown buildings. Dipson Theater, Kustas Kandies and Critics are long gone. Mancuso Theater still stands but is now a church. Finally, as I mentioned previously, the building that housed McAlpine-Barton is now home to the still-in-business Charles Men's Shop.

From following a couple of Facebook pages devoted to remembering the Batavia of old I realize that there are a substantial number of people who lived through the tearing down of a majority of downtown buildings who are still grieving and angry about it. Their feelings are that Batavia as they knew it was ruined forever. Nonetheless, even though the population of the seat of Genesee County has declined by about 5,000 since the '50s and '60s, it is still a city, and a number of its citizens are still trying to make it a viable and valued place to live.

For those of us who grew up in Batavia, New York, back then and are still living, we have our photographs, paintings and especially our memories that can remind us of the way things used to be.

Dipson Theater Painting by Pat Burr.
All other images courtesy of Genesee County History Department.

While significant events were happening on the national stage — the assassinations of prominent political motivators, the Cold War, the New Deal and open racism with the existence of slavery — folks right here had their own thoughts, feelings, and ideologies that unfolded into the Genesee County landscape.

Local citizens cared deeply when President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed in the 1960s within six years of one another, and this area was full of introspective people — activists, philosophers, independent thinkers and keepers of a heavily agricultural region -- as well as those that were tolerant and welcoming of varying opinions while others were more dangerously skewed.

These details have been unearthed through the research and documentation of Genesee County Historian Michael Eula for his upcoming book, “Historic Chronicles of Genesee County.”

Although it’s not yet out for purchase, Eula teased it during a recent county meeting, also explaining to legislators that he had to switch publishers due to some artistic differences. It was enough of a tease that The Batavian interviewed Eula about the upcoming release, now being published by History Press and set for an April 15 publication date.

Overall, it’s a comprehensive social and political history from 1802, when the county was founded, to the present, he said.

“I wanted to explore a number of topics that hadn't been explored. And I wanted to address issues that had been ignored in the county's past, which is what comes up, with one exception in this in the Historic Chronicles,” he said. “So, you know, for example, when people looked at wars, they would look at things like the Civil War, that was a big one, I looked at the Cold War, and how that played out in Batavia in 1956, for example, no one had done that. And I also looked at the county's reactions to three key assassinations in the 1960s, President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. That's the first chapter in this book. So I look at different aspects of the county's history by looking at things that had national links, and that had not been addressed by others who have done the county's history before.”

Artistic differences?
As for those editorial differences, Eula had been working with SUNY Press, which, he said, had requested some revisions, including a change of his title, reverting the term of woman slave to instead read enslaved, and — this, he said was the final straw — asking that he insert they for the pronouns he or she in some cases. 

The Batavian contacted SUNY Press for comment, and Senior Acquisitions Editor Richard Carlin said that the publisher does not change gender pronouns for historical figures from he or she to they. 

“We follow the guidelines of The Chicago Manual of Style in the copyediting and preparation of all of our manuscripts,” he said. That manual does have two uses for they, one being when a person does not identify with a gender-specific pronoun or is of unspecified gender.

At any rate, Eula and the publishing company were having difficulty proceeding with the book’s finale, so Eula moved on to History Press and is happily working with Acquisitions Editor Banks Smither. History Press falls under the larger umbrella of Arcadia Publishing, the country’s largest local regional publisher, Smither said.

“The company publishes books by local authors on local subjects, and we market and sell them exclusively in the local market for brick-and-mortar sales. So his book, for example, will sell in accounts throughout the county and maybe a little bit of the neighboring counties. But that's it for brick and mortar, and then we'll put the book online, and then on our website, and then ebook and all that. But our expectations are just itself, as you know, to the local audiences that care about it. We have been doing this for a long, long time,” he said. “So we're looking to sell to people who walk into the bookstore or walk into a gift shop … and want to buy a product that's vibrant and talks about their community. And it's written in a way that I like to describe our style as kind of a feature piece in a magazine, a little breezy, a little easy for the general audience, but also still substantive about the local history. And so, we are finding that academics like Michael are sometimes better off publishing with us because we can reach a wider audience.

“He’s the County Historian, that's an official office in New York State. And so every county has one, and we work with a bunch of them to publish in their communities, and they just have great platforms for it,” Smither said. “So he came to us, I was intrigued by the manuscript. We're continuing to look for more and more products in every town that we can. We do see local history continue to increase in salience in every community in the country. Our business itself has grown substantially over the last 15 years.” 

About the book
There are six meaty chapters sandwiched between a preface and conclusion that cover:

1. In Only Six Years: Genesee County Reacts to the Assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK;

2. Batavia Explodes: Cold War Anxiety and the Preparedness Drill of 1956;

3. Immigrants to White Ethnics Italians and Irish;

4. Hoover, Roosevelt, the New Deal in Genesee County;

5. In Western New York? The Ku Klux Klan in Genesee County in the 1920s;

6. Activists, Farm Women and Professionals

Some locals may have heard Ray Cianfrini’s talk about the Ku Klux Klan’s existence in Genesee County back then, and Eula incorporates Cianfrini’s research into an expanded chapter that raises questions about what was going on at the time.

“My whole chapter is titled Western New York question mark … and I talked about the growth of the Klan, and then it's collapsed by 1924. And to me, how do we explain that? And how do you know who was resisting that? And how do you explain the rise of the Klan, when about three percent of the population of the county was African American?” Eula said. “So what's feeding into this raises a lot of issues. Prohibition was one. Immigration was another. I think people might find that interesting.”

He also made what he found to be interesting political findings about the Hoover years.

“You know, some of the reasons why Republican candidates, unlike most of the rest of the country, were still winning elections here during the Depression, Herbert Hoover won this county in 1932, for example, when Roosevelt was winning much of the rest of the country. Why is that?” Eula said. “And then just very human stories about the Depression that I pulled from different sources.

“And then, finally, the last chapter is a chapter on women's history. So chapter six is about middle-class women … and I looked at a number of things in that chapter, including diaries that we have, right here in the archives, that were kept by farm women. Pretty fascinating stuff, you wouldn't think that when the women were so busy with animal tasks, at home, and on the farm, were reading serious philosophy and really thinking about it in their diaries,” he said. “Women who had more resources, and more access to political power to another woman.

He will delve into women who did not have such means, poor women and women slaves, in a second book that he is working on, he said, but that’s for another story. 

In this book, he covers the suffrage movement, which was big in Genesee County.  That doesn’t mean that everyone was on board with it, however, and Eula also covers women who opposed suffragists, conducting meetings in their Batavia homes at the turn of the century. 

“And what was striking about both sides is their willingness to have conversations with people that they were in disagreement with. I thought that was a striking difference from our own day, where people tend to get so partisan that the conversation dies out,” he said. “You had women who were suffragists who would invite women who were members of groups that were opposed to women having the right to vote into their home to have discussions about both sides of the issue, say in 1904. 

“And then, some of the activists were earlier on involved in the abolitionist movement. Here I talk about some of those, there was a big abolitionist movement here. And there were also people who supported slavery. And so I talked about them as well,” he said. “And they were women who were involved in the abolitionist movement, who then later, or their daughters became involved in the suffrage movement. So it was a seamless movement from one focus on one aspect of civil rights to another.”

One of his favorite chapters is the one about the Cold War, he said. While doing his research, he learned just how much locals, through their letters to the editor, disagreed with the Korean War, which has often been shadowed by Vietnam as being so highly controversial.

"I really enjoyed doing Chapter Two on the Cold War because it led me to a lot of other reading to give a context. And since the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, and the archives were open, a lot of what we thought the Kremlin was planning, actually, there's no evidence for it. So that caused the question how much of The Cold War anxiety was really warranted. So that leads to really fascinating questions,” he said. “And in that chapter, I talked about, for example, of course, we had, even after the Korean War ended in 1953, there's still a peacetime draft. So young men had to be concerned about where their draft numbers were. We often think of that, something like that with regard to Vietnam and forget that was going on a long time before Vietnam. And even when it was peacetime or relative peacetime after the Korean War. And so it was, it was definitely seen as a very serious reality.”

Eula uses examples from today, such as with behaviors around COVID, and traces certain traits that have been passed on over the centuries and generations from political parties — such as people who were “steadfastly Republican.”

“Meaning they believed in individualism, they believe that there should be as little state interference in people's lives as possible,” he said. “Now, another question I lead the reader with is, ‘will that continue into the future? Or or will Genesee County look very different by the next century?’ One's guess is as good as anyone else’s,” he said. “But at least up until I am with that book, the feeling that there shouldn't be too much-centralized authority is one that's very paramount in Genesee County's culture. It's a very conservative culture in that sense. 

“And I don't mean conservative in terms of a political party, Republican or even Democrat, I mean, conservativeness sensitive, individuals should be able to make their own decisions about what their own lives look like. And so those in authority here have to tread very carefully.”

Another conclusion from his studies?
He thinks that kind of conservative nature comes from the rural landscape and agricultural economy here, he said, and given the wide base of the agricultural economy, “farmers tend to be very independent.”

“Primarily over half the county's acreage is devoted to farming at any point in time, and that produces a very different political culture. And interestingly enough, I think it's one that incredibly has taught much more tolerance than more urban industrial cultures tend to that I was really struck by,” he said. “There is a willingness here to hear the other side. Even though you disagree. I used the example before of the suffragists' movement.”

I was looking at our collection of Pat Burr’s drawings of old Batavia in the 60s and was amazed at all the stores that dotted Main Street. You really could walk down the street and, beginning at one end, mail a letter, buy a car, smoke a cigar, look for a gold watch, buy plumbing supplies, pick up your dry cleaning, buy paint, order a drink, have your picture taken, see a movie, eat a doughnut, have your shoes repaired or buy a new pair of shoes. 

If it was afternoon, you could have a drink, buy a sewing machine, smell the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread, pick up a prescription, buy a wedding gown, buy new shoes to go with the dress, order a man’s suit for the wedding, buy children’s clothing (you might need another drink after the cost of the wedding gown), have your eyes checked, purchase new furniture, drink a cherry Coke, register for new china, and have a late lunch. 

Continuing west on Main Street, you could make a bank withdrawal for the wedding, buy more jewelry, possibly a wedding band, pick up some fresh produce, purchase a new hat and a real mink coat, pick up another prescription, and buy more jewelry.

Now, see if you can match the names of these establishments and their merchandise with their locations on Main Street going east from Jefferson to Bank Street. 

In the 60s, on the north side of the street, there was Mancuso’s Dealership, Chris’ Gifts, The Smoke Shop, William Maney’s Store, Marchese’s Produce, and six jewelry stores, Krtanik, Martin Berman’s, Valle’s, Francis and Mead, Rudolph’s and Brenner’s. Clothing stores were plentiful: Alexander’s, Town Shop, Helen’s Darlings, A.M. and M. Clothiers, and Smart Shop. Bon Ton and Bell Hat Shops, Humboldt’s Furriers, and Charles Men Shop were also located on that side of the street, along with the beautiful Dipson Theater. 

There were two paint stores, Mosman’s and Sherwin Williams. There were many restaurants and drinking establishments: Mooney’s, Hamilton Hotel, Young’s Restaurant, Mike’s Hotel, Main Grill, Vic’s Grill, The Dagwood Restaurant, and Jackie’s Donuts. A favorite bakery was Grundler’s. A soda shop and candy store was called Kustas’. The furniture store was Bern Furniture, and the dry cleaner store was Jet Cleaners. Lawing Picture Studio, Singer Sewing, Genesee Hardware, Western Auto, and the drug stores of Whelan and Dean Drugs were located on different corners. There were four shoe stores: Ritchlin, Cultrara’s, Endicott and Johnson, and C.E. Knox. The shoe repair was called Boston Shoe Repair. 

How many of you could match the store with its location?

If you were traveling down the opposite side of the street, you would begin with the Court House and pass the County Building, where a beautiful Christmas tree would be on the lawn. Eventually, you would hope to have a deed to your new home filed at the clerk’s office. You couldn’t miss the Hotel Richmond on the corner that was now just an empty shell. Located within the building of the hotel was Rapid Dry Cleaners. Next was the three-story JC Penney Department Store. 

If you needed a uniform, The Uniform Shop was at your disposal. Kinney’s Family Shoe Store was located next to the Camera Shop. Caito’s Liquor Store was followed by Beardsley’s Men’s Store, Sleght’s Book Store, Bank of Batavia, Sugar Bowl, SS Kresge’s, Scott and Bean, Dean’s Drug, M & T Bank, Thomas and Dwyer, C.L. Carr’s Department Store, Marchese Produce, Good Friend Shop, Rudolph’s Jewelers, JJ. Newberry’s and WT Grant. 

Imagining all these stores decorated for the holidays makes you nostalgic for the simpler times and slower pace when the highlight of your week was going to the city on a Friday night to meet friends and shop! 

Thank you, Urban Renewal, for taking our Main Street. But you couldn’t remove our memories. Thank you, Pat Burr, the artist, for preserving Main Street with your beautiful artwork, that we are lucky to have your entire collection. 

Main Street lives on in our hearts. 

Photos by Pat Burr paintings of old Batavia taken in 2010 by Howard Owens at the Genesee County Nursing Home.

The Batavia Cemetery Association sold 160 tickets -- a sellout -- for the 2023 Ghost Walk on Saturday, which is the third or fourth straight sellout for the association's major fundraiser, said President Sharon Burkel. 

"The money goes for the upkeep of the cemetery," Burkel said. "We have some small investments, but we mostly survive on fundraisers and donations."

Beyond raising money, the 10 stops on the walk help tell the story of early Batavia, from Joseph Ellicott to Dean and Mary Richmond, William Morgan, and John Yates.

"It also brings awareness of the cemetery so people realize that it's here," Burkel said. "They can come and walk through and enjoy the architecture and the genealogy and the history.  There's some very impressive people in here."

Summer highlights of the 60s included going to the neighborhood park, swimming in the afternoon at the New Pool, and attending the four lawn fetes scheduled throughout the summer. 

The summer recreation program was divided into eight parks. Every neighborhood had a park, and the names of the parks all have a little local history.

Austin Park was named after George Austin, a jeweler who died in 1914 and left some of his money to be used to develop a public park. 

Mrs. George Farrall gifted Farrall Park's land. The land was originally a pasture. 

Kibbe Park is named after Chauncey Kibbe.   In 1934, with the help of federal funds and purchasing land from Chauncey Kibbe, Kibbe Park was born. 

John Kennedy Playground was formerly known as Cary's Woods. It was located on Vine Street. In 1954, the park was built on land sold from the city to the Batavia School District. 

MacArthur Park got its name from Douglas MacArthur. During WWII, the city organized an air raid observation post with headquarters in the baseball dugout at the ballpark. In 1961, the city cleared a small land area and built a picnic shelter with tables and grills behind the stadium.

Pringle Park was named after Judge Benjamin. Pringle also had a playground that was used for the summer recreation program.

In 1927, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Woodward from Le Roy gave the land along Richmond Ave. across from Robert Morris to the Batavia School District. This began the creation of Woodward Field. In honor of Mr. Woodward, his name is on the ticket booth, along with his good friend Andrew McWain, the editor of The Daily News at the time.

In 1915, the city owned a tract of land on Pearl Street that was left to the city in the will of Robert Williams. This was originally his farmland. Today, it is Williams Park.

The parks were open from 9 a.m. to noon and then from 1 to 5 p.m. Your days were filled with baseball and volleyball games and arts and crafts, and the summer's culmination was the Park Parade. Main Street closed, and the streets were crowded with spectators and store employees. Your park was judged on your float and your scrapbook. You became proficient in making hundreds of paper crepe flowers and how to add the flowers to chicken wire. The goal of each park was to create a unique float to represent the park. 

Friends were made for life at your neighborhood park. 

In 1959, the building contract was awarded to Ed Leising to excavate a choice piece of land in MacArthur Park. It would be the home of the new community pool. When it opened in 1962, another chapter of our childhood was created.     It was a 60-foot by 100-foot pool that could accommodate 600 swimmers. Your afternoons were spent swimming in what I thought was the largest pool I ever saw. You rode your bike to the pool, paid your .25, and were given a key to a locker. When you left, you were given your quarter was returned, which we immediately used on one of the vending machines when we left the pool. 

Another wonderful memory of summer in the 60s was the church picnics, or as many called the lawn fetes.   St. Joseph's Church began the summer with its fete on the first June weekend. Rides, games, food, baked goods, and a beer tent were there. My favorite part was the mammoth parade that opened the weekend's picnic.  

Our Mighty St. Joe's Drum Corps highlighted the parade. Main Street was packed with spectators. Parents and children in strollers lined Main Street. St. Joseph's Drum Corps was founded in 1931 by the Rev. T. Bernard Kelly, pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Batavia. St. Joseph's Drum Corps operated as a parade corps until the late 1950s, when it became a field competition corps. During the 1960s, Mighty St. Joe's rose to National and International prominence, consistently ranking among the top ten junior corps in the country.

The end of the lawn fete was marked by the lucky winner of the raffle ticket. You couldn't forget the grand prize, a new Cadillac that would be raffled at midnight Sunday evening. If you didn't want the Cadillac, you could choose $10,000. 

St. Joe's wasn't the only church that had a lawn fete. 

St. Anthony's had one on a smaller scale, but it was just as fun. I loved their baked goods booth. They also had a popular beer tent.   

When our daughters were little, we would walk to the fete. I remember one year carrying our youngest daughter from the fish pond, screaming. She wasn't ready to leave, and when we got home, we discovered that she had a rubber fish in her hand from the fish pond. 

Sacred Heart Lawn fete was very special to me because you could always find my wonderful father-in-law in the church garage counting money. He was always happy to give his granddaughters cash for the games. It was a smaller lawn fete, but every booth had a church member operating it year after year. 

Every church supported the various lawn fetes. St. Mary's also had a Lawn Fete. 

It was the community that benefited from the summer events. My memories span from when I was nine to when the last lawn fete was held in 2017. It ran for 61 years. When you think of our lawn fetes, you remember the long lines for the waffle booth or the smell of Italian sausage,  pepper, onions, or, respectfully, Polish sausage being grilled at Sacred Heart's Lawn Fete. You got used to the sound of the game I've Got It or someone yelling Bingo.

So many of these beautiful memories are gone. I regret that children today will never experience the fun. We all remember walking the tarmac of the various lawn fetes, walking in their park parade with their float, or swimming in the New Pool. My heart is filled with great memories and the sadness of dealing with all the changes we baby boomers must accept. 

As you read this today, I hope you smile and remember our summers in Batavia. Smile and be thankful we lived at a time when lawn fetes, the park program, and the New Pool filled our summer days. 

Photos courtesy of Genesee County History Department.

Press Release:

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Guest Speaker Series on Thursday, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. GCC professor, author, and historian Derek Maxfield will be sharing his presentation "Victorian Deathways" on the many customs surrounding mourning and death in Victorian era culture. "In light of the 200th anniversary of the great and historic Batavia Cemetery, it seems fitting to examine American attitudes towards death. This may seem morbid to some, but how a society observes death - like other milestones – tells us much about their culture and values. The Victorians, in particular, created a number of fascinating ways of observing death – from redesigning cemeteries to the language we use to talk about it. This talk will focus mainly on antebellum Victorian culture, roughly 1835 to the outbreak of the Civil War." Admission is $5 or $3 for museum members. Please contact the museum at 585-343- 4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com. “This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by GO ART!”

Genesee County will soon be graced with two fantastic celestial events and Dan Schneiderman of the Rochester Museum of Science Center is heading our way to tell us everything we need to know! Join Dan for a FREE public talk being held at the Holland Land Office Museum on Sept. 12 at 6 p.m. as he discusses the science & history of solar eclipses and how to prepare for this extraordinary astronomical opportunity. Reserve your seat by September 7 by phone or email at 585-343-4727; hollandlandoffice@gmail.comThis is a free event (Donations are always accepted for Holland Land Office Programming.) To learn more about how Genesee County is planning to celebrate these events please visit GeneSEEtheEclipse.com. “Genny the Cow” Genesee County’s eclipse mascot will also be on site for photo ops! 

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Trivia Night @ the Museum on Thursday, Sept.14 at 7 p.m. This month's topic is the ship of the pilgrims, The Mayflower. Admission is $5 or $3 for museum members. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Guest Speaker Series on Thursday, September 21 at 7 p.m. We welcome local presenter and researcher Joseph Van Remmen, as he shares his well-researched theory of how the city of Buffalo got its name. There are a number of theories thrown around, but Mr. Van Remmen's is one you might not have heard of until now. Admission is $5/$3 for museum members. “This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by GO ART!”

Come to the Holland Land Office Museum on Saturday, September 23 from 1 - 4  p.m. as local author Rob Thompson will be signing copies of all of his works. Rob lives in Attica and is most known for his books on the Linden Murders, but he has also just written a new book on the Sullivan Campaign of the Revolutionary War, "Behold & Blush: The Sullivan Expedition", which was waged against the Seneca in the Genesee Valley. He will also have copies of other works including Candles in the Rain and Swinging in the Rain. Copies of each of his books will be available. Prices range from $10-$15. 

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Java with Joe E. morning presentation series on Thursday, September 28 at 9 a.m. The museum welcomes the Town of Batavia Historian, Bernida Scoins, as she shares the life and works of Batavia native author John Gardner. Bernida will also have artifacts and items related to Gardner for display. Admission is free with coffee and donuts. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

The 200-year history of the Historic Batavia Cemetery is on display at the Holland Land Office Museum in a show curated by HLOM Director Ryan Duffy and Cemetery Association President Sharon Burkel.

The display opened on Wednesday.

"All the people who founded this community are buried in there," Burkel said. "These people came from Connecticut, Massachusetts, in the late 1700s, early 1800s. They came in wagons, probably drawn by oxen and horses. I always ask people, would you do that? Would you leave your home in those areas and come this far, make your way through Indian Territory and everything else to establish a city? A lot of them were very influential nationally, like Dean Richmond. These people held a great deal of power. (The cemetery is) Also important when you look at all the streets in the city. All the names on the streets are all the people that are buried in that cemetery. And the reason that it's on the state national register -- because most of their homes and businesses are gone. And that was one of the main reasons we got designated."

Burkel said the city's first cemetery was on South Lyon Street, by the Tonawanda Creek, but when there were floods, bodies washed away, so they moved it over to what is now known as Harvester Avenue but was originally Cemetery Street. It was owned by the Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Church.

In 1823, the Batavia Cemetery Association was formed and that not-for-profit organization took over ownership and still owns it today. 

Duffy said HLOM had some artifacts related to the cemetery, but the association loaned to the museum much of what is on display. 

"It was about creating a new space, but also shining light on another local hidden gem that people tend to forget about sometimes," Duffy said.

Preparing the display was an interesting task at times. He had to research what organizations some metal grave markers represented, and some of the artifacts the museum already had in its inventory hadn't necessarily been connected to the cemetery before. 

"There was a little bit of detective work going into some of this, which always makes it a little more exciting," Duffy said. "Going through things that are here in the museum, we didn't necessarily know they were connected to people in the cemetery because we hadn't really taken a deep look into them. So it uncovered a lot of things that we didn't even know we had."

I've enjoyed walking the streets of Batavia this summer. I am going to take you on one of my walks. This walk is like taking a trip back to when I was young. Everything is jumbled, but certain places take me back to that time. 

Walking down Liberty Street, I stopped and looked at a small new park. That was the place where my favorite bakery stood, Pellegrino's. I loved their jelly doughnuts, bread, and pizza. I loved the smell of garlic and onion from the open windows as I walked to Mass at St. Anthony's Church.

Walking by St. Anthony's Church makes my heart so sad. I can imagine hearing children playing outside for recess or walking quietly into church for Mass. I remember being at my Aunt Maggie Worth's wedding and her wedding reception at the Community Center.  I never imagined St. Anthony's would close; I know more churches will follow. Back in the day, when those church doors opened, hundreds of people would pour out of the doors, another sad chapter. 

Walking by Kibbe Park, I remember taking our daughters swimming in the wading pool. If we needed a part for our television set, there was a neighborhood store on Jackson Street we could walk to for a part for our TV set.  

Now I'm walking by the Pok-A- Dot, and that reminds me of all the times our dad took us there to give our poor mom a break from her six kids. 

Southside Deli, the former Riccobono's, is where we bought Italian cheese for Sunday sauce. Joe Rose's novelty store on Ellicott Street was where you could buy all those crazy gadgets we loved. Was that where my brothers bought caps and Chinese handcuffs? They even sold fake poop and fake vomit.  

You can't forget Angie's Restaurant, located near Joe Rose's. 

I'm now on Main Street, which fills me with sadness like all my baby boomer friends. No sense rehashing what we lost, but we shared great memories from Main Street in its heyday.  

I'm now walking by St. Joseph's Church and the school I attended as a child. Those memories are filled with nuns, jump roping, and playing basketball on the tarmac. We didn't have a gym then, so we made our fun.   

I was trying to look into Quartley's store window on Washington Ave the other day. I remembered all the mom-and-pop stores on almost every street corner. The store closest to you was your favorite. When I was young, my store was Red and White on Ross Street. We would take our recyclable glass pop bottles to the store to get our change for making purchases from the penny candy box. 

Growing up on Evergreen Drive, John Kennedy School was in our backyard. We watched it being built. I remember roller skating with our ball-bearing skates on the sidewalks, hoping I would not lose the skate key. 

Now walking has taken me to our New Pool behind MacArthur Park. It was a summer filled with swimming and friends. We couldn't wait for the doors to open, pay our 25 cents, and get our key for our locker. We wore the key on our ankles.   

Every park I would walk by had another special memory because in the summer, our days were spent at our park, and our park would be competing in the Park Parade in August. 

Walking down Richmond Avenue, I stopped and looked at the hill at State Street Park, what we called it back in our day. Going down that hill in our flexible red flyer wooden sled was so much fun on Saturday afternoons. 

It seems now that I'm in my  70s, those cherished memories just bring a smile and sometimes tears to my eyes. There is one word that describes how I am feeling:  nostalgic. It was a slower lifestyle, surrounded by family and friends and creating our memories. I hope you can also feel that contentment of the 60s I am reliving on my daily walks! 

Photos by Anne Marie Starowitz.

Even many of Bethany's oldest residents, said Town Supervisor Carl Hyde, have come to accept the unpleasant but unavoidable and undeniable reality of the situation. The old Town Hall, built in 1832, must come down.

The town is currently accepting bids from demolition contractors.

But there is a plan in place to preserve a bit of history and provide residents with a new park where the town hall currently stands.

"It's a hard decision that we had to come to, but the reality is, I can't raise taxes. I can't double everybody's taxes to come up with $2 million to save the building," said Town Supervisor Carl Hyde during an exclusive tour of the structure with The Bataivan. "It's a hard spot as a town supervisor to be in when you have to deal with something like this."

There are several factors that have the town in a seemingly unsolvable dilemma.  

• The town has been trying to sell the building for many years with no takers, even offering to sell it for $1 if the buyer will ensure it is usefully occupied;
• One reason there are no buyers, and why the town can't use the building, is to make use of the second floor for any public purpose, is an elevator needs to be installed, as well as make other ADA-compliant upgrades;
• The building isn't connected to water and can't be connected to water unless a new water district is approved for the hamlet, and there's no guarantee that will happen;
• Under current state law and regulations, the building needs plumbing connected to a septic system.

The septic system issue is its own set of complications, Hyde explained.

"For this building to be used for anything, somebody's going to have to put in a septic system," Hyde said. "So the property line goes to 15 feet off the back of the property. On the north side, the property line is the edge of the building. And then you have what little bit of property there is out front. So there's no property to put a septic system in."

If the town wanted to install a septic system, it would have to tear down the highway department building behind the structure, and then that building would need to be replaced by a new structure at another location.

That's another "astronomical" expense, Hyde said.

So the price tag to save the building is at least $2 million, and then there's no guarantee the building can get public water.

"We've reached out to Genesee Valley Museum in Caledonia-Mumford, a place on Long Island and a place in New Hampshire, to donate the building to have them come to take it apart, relocate it, and they're not interested because of the cost factors," Hyde said.

It's a beautiful building inside and out, but state officials have said emphatically that it has no historical value. No famous historical figure ever visited it. Nothing of historic significance ever happened inside the building. There is no barrier to tearing it down, and Hyde said the town board feels it's left with no other option.

"So we've got some structural issues plus the ADA issues plus the no septic issues plus the no water issue," Hyde said "We can't use it for anything. What we're going to do is take the building down before it falls down, and we're going to turn the property into a green space."

A green space that preserves the history of the old town hall.

"The cupola is going to stay on the property, the yoke is going to stay on the property, and the bell is going to stay on the property," Hyde said. "That's going to be the centerpiece of a display in the middle of the green space. So the town board has put a lot of work and effort and thought into doing the best we can with what we have to do."

Hyde plans to be on hand during the demolition, especially when work crews get down to the foundation.  Nobody knows if there is a cornerstone with a lockbox of 1832 history in it.  Hyde wants to make sure the structure is thoroughly searched for such a historical artifact. 

As many artifacts as possible from the building are going to be stored by the county for safekeeping.

The request for proposals process from contractors closes on June 27.  Hyde said the town has set a budget for demolition but doesn't want to release that figure so it doesn't influence bids by contractors.

Hyde said he's already spoken with some contractors about trying to preserve as much history as possible from the old building.

"We've told them as they're tearing the walls down and stuff, they're gonna be looking for oddities; what's between the walls? We don't know what's between the walls."

It's not easy to be the town supervisor responsible for overseeing the destruction of one of the town's most recognizable landmarks, but Hyde sees no way out.

"I grew up here in Bethany," Hyde said. "The town court was here, the town clerk was here, the town supervisor, the office, this was the town hall. But unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, such as water, septic, this whole ADA thing -- unless somebody wants to write a check for $2 million and guarantee water, we can't figure anything out."

Performing artist Annette Daniels Taylor had planned to review the life that Adeline “Addy” Barbara most likely endured for her 46 years in captivity as a slave in Batavia, but that wasn’t the focus of Monday morning's Juneteenth memorial service, so she turned to a poem titled “Dreaming.”

The piece journeyed back into memories of tall trees, running barefoot, glistening cocoa-brown skin under the hot sun, smiling teeth, beautiful souls, and dancing with one another.

“We danced to drums of waterfalls, drums of hoofbeats, drums of heartbeats, drums of rain storms, drums of drought, drums of baby's breath, drums of aching souls, drums of flying feet, drums of running legs,” Taylor said at the Historic Batavia Cemetery. “Drums without shame, drums without whips, drums without cuffs, drums without ropes, drums without branding irons, I still hear them beating, but only in my dreams, dreams of freedom.”

Addy’s last name was Barbara, though she belonged to the Rev. Lucius Smith, an Episcopal priest who owned her as a member of his family. She was a slave from the tender age of four until she died in 1857 at age 50. The memorial service was to honor and dignify her life for those 46 years in between.

The Rev. Shiela Campbell McCullough performed a memorial service and dramatic reading, proclaiming Addy “free at last.” Way down yonder, in the graveyard walk, I’m gonna meet with my God, and we’re gonna have a talk, she said. “I’m free at last, I’m free at last.”

“Thank God almighty, I’m free at last. And in the words of Harriet Tubman, I’d rather be dead and in the grave than be a slave,” McCullough boldly said in Addy’s spirit. “I’m free at last.”

“Her marker reads Addy for 46 years, the faithful colored servant of the Reverend Lucius Smith and family, died Jan. 28, 1857 … This means that Addy began her burden for the Smith family at the age of four; this is Lucius Smith's marker, very symbolic, as you can see, even in death — even in death — her slave master overlooks her,” McCullough said. “The word servant and this X on her marker, connotes the idea that Addy had a choice. The word servant is an exchange of a kind or pleasant word that is being substituted for an explicit or offensive word. In this context, the use of the word servant camouflages the truth that Addy was indeed a slave. She was the slave of the Episcopal priest, Reverend Lucius Smith. And she was burdened with the lifelong responsibility of sacrificing her own humanity for the benefit of another person.

“The word servant downplays the psychological burden of surrendering one's humanity. So today, as a community, we gather, acknowledging the truth of Addy’s condition. Addy was not a servant, she was a slave,” McCullough said. “We join hands and hearts today to remove the veneer and allow the truth to take its rightful place. Addy was a slave.”

Batavia’s St. James Episcopal and First Presbyterian churches had established plots in the cemetery since 1823, which is why Lucius Smith and his family were buried there. The Rev. Deacon Diana Leiker spoke on behalf of St. James to assure folks that the Episcopal Church is righting those wrongs of the past.

“The church as a whole is working very, very hard with our black brothers and sisters to learn more, to be open to what we did, to help people to heal. We are recognizing all of the despicable, tragic things that were done on behalf of the church or with the church being complicit in letting things happen,” Leiker said. “So we just want you to know that this is wonderful. We had no idea that Lucius Smith owned someone. So we're really thankful that this was being brought to light. And we just want you to know we are doing a lot of hard work nationally.”

Rev. Roula Alkhouri, of Batavia First Presbyterian Church, was one of the organizers of the special Juneteenth event. It came about from McCullough’s pain that bubbled up after learning about Addy. It raised questions of how to move on yet not ignore an important piece of the past.

“What do we do with this pain? What do we do with this history? And so we've been talking and praying and thinking, and so that's kind of like, okay, Juneteenth is coming up, can we celebrate her humanity? Can we look at the story and reclaim it in a different way? And so that's what brought it together for us,” Alkhouri said. “And then we talked, we connected with (Batavia Cemetery Association President) Sharon Burkel, and said, Can we do this? And she said, Absolutely.

“I feel like always, whenever we bring up the hard parts of our lives or our history, it brings healing. You know, it's like, people don't want to talk about the painful stuff. But if you don't, you'd never heal," Alkhouri said. "And if you don't honor the lives of people who suffered, then it gets repeated in different forms. But it does, always, I mean, you see it in families the same way, not just the nation. So we're hoping to be part of that healing for the nation.”

A monetary gift will be used to add another inscription on Addy’s headstone. This will help to tell “a different side of the story and reclaim her humanity and her being created in the image of God,” Alkhouri said.

Press Release:

Richmond Memorial Library will host its Spring program of History by the Hearth on Thursday, June 8 at 7 p.m. 

City Historian Larry Barnes will share his research as presented in a new monograph:  "Black Batavians: Who they are, their local history, and aspects of our larger culture that have especially shaped their experiences."

Deborah Wood, Special Collections Librarian at Richmond Memorial Library, will finish the evening with Within the Collective Memory: Why now? And a sneak peek at the exhibit Juneteenth: A Day of Celebration, on display June 15-21.

Richmond Memorial Library is located at 19 Ross Street in the City of Batavia. Find the library online at batavialibrary.org. 

I use the Richmond Memorial Library daily, tutoring different students. I told one student about Mary Richmond and how she was responsible for financing this beautiful building in memory of her son Dean Richmond Jr.   

Baby boomers grew up walking or driving by the Dean Richmond mansion as part of our daily scenery. Yet, all I seem to notice now is what is gone—most of all, our Main Street. 

I can't forget cruising down Main Street in the 60s. You would drive from the Big N, Eastown Plaza, to the Red Barn or the old Tops Market, now Harbor Freight. Back then, most cars had bench seats, and if you were with your boyfriend, you sat in the center, showing you had a boyfriend, or if you had bucket seats, you would sit on a pillow on the console. In my early teens, the memories were always from spending time outdoors. It was from swimming in the New Pool or, if you were adventurous, the Sandwash, now known as DeWiitt Park, dancing on the tarmac of the tennis courts at MacArthur and Kibbe Park, or winter skating on the frozen tennis courts.

One of my favorite memories was watching St. Joseph's Drum Corps marching down Main Street or watching one of their competitions at Woodward Field. Of course, it also helped if you had a crush on a corps member. Then, on a quiet evening, you could hear them practicing at the Sylvania parking lot.   

Everyone knew who you were, so if you decided to do something you didn't want your parents to see, you soon realized they knew it by the time you got home. We walked to any place we wanted to go. When we were young, we belonged to the neighborhood park and participated in the annual summer craft fair parade. 

You could drink when you were 18, so you would try to get a drink when you were 17. I only know that because my brother took me to our favorite bar on Ellicott Street, Louie's.  

We had house parties. My 18th  birthday was very memorable; my class and the faculty of Notre Dame were invited. Thanks, Mom and Dad! 

Our favorite places to stop after school or on a Saturday afternoon were   Critics and Kustus soda fountains. You would sit at a booth in Critics, drinking your cherry Coke, eating French fries, and putting quarters in a personal jukebox. Then, on a Friday night, you would all meet at Pontillo's for a pizza and hang out with your friends.

The churches were packed for Sunday Mass or Sunday services. Everyone seemed to belong to a church. In the Catholic Church, females had to wear a hat at Mass, and if you didn't have a hat, you used a bobby pin and clipped a tissue to the top of your head. Stores were closed on Sunday. I found not eating pepperoni on our pizza challenging on a Friday night. No meat was allowed on any Fridays.

Our high school dances at Notre Dame ended with a prayer at 11 p.m. with the lights on in the gymnasium. At 11, my dad was waiting outside to take me home. I made sure the eye makeup was off before he saw me

I recently turned 73, and I find solace in remembering old Batavia and the fun we had that did not connect us to a cell phone. 

I don't think I will ever stop remembering my good old days. They just make me smile and make me grateful I grew up in a time with a large family, a station wagon, going under a bridge and blaring the car horn, or punching your brother when you see a Punch Bug Volkswagen Beetles,  and visiting the popcorn and peanut man at his stand on Main Street only to name a few.

As I type this, I sit in the former Ebling Electric store, now The Coffee Press.

This business owner knew the value of saving our old buildings and creating a new place for friends to gather and create their memories.

Press release:

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce "Appraisals on Main: HLOM Appraisal Day" on Saturday, May 20, from 10 a.m. 3 p.m. at the Batavia First Presbyterian Church, located at 300 E. Main St., Batavia.

The community is invited to bring any of their treasures and heirlooms that may be collecting dust to see what they may be worth.

Appraisers from Bontrager Real Estate & Auction, Cottone Auctions, and Schultz Auctioneers will be available to give their expert opinions.

There is a $5 charge for each item appraised, with a limit of 5 items per person.

All attendees are required to register for an allotted time slot. The online registration form can be found at the museum’s website.

Information can also be found on our website, www.hollandlandoffice.com or by contacting the museum at either (585) 343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com

Press release:

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of its Guest Speaker Series on Wednesday, April 19, at 7 p.m. The museum welcomes local author and presenter Rick Falkowski as he shares the histories of those who made our area what it is from its beginnings in the early 1800s. The subjects include such significant persons and events as Red Jacket, Joseph Ellicott, the War of 1812, and the Erie Canal, among many more. Copies of Falkowski's books will be available. Admission is $5 or $3 for museum members. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of its Concert Series on Thursday, April 20, at 7 p.m. as it welcomes back local guitarist and musician Steven Kruppner. The concert will be an hour and a half from 7-8:30 pm featuring a wide array of tunes, focusing on the singer-songwriter as a storyteller. Admission is $5 or $4 for museum members. If you would like to attend, please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com.

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of its Java with Joe E. series on Thursday, April 27, at 9 a.m. This month's presenter is Larry Barnes, the City of Batavia Historian. Larry will be sharing his travels across the United States over the past decade to the other locations named Batavia, all nine in total, the others in: Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Montana, and California. He shares the origins of their names and compares their features to our own community. Admission is free, and coffee and donuts will be provided. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

Greg Kinal taught social studies at Pembroke High School for 52 years.  He's also a history buff, and after his retirement in 2022, for another project, he compiled a history of the school district.  He provided The Batavian with a timeline of the district's history to share with readers.

The Pembroke Central School District- A Timeline

CORFU

• In the 19th century, rural schoolhouses were strewn across towns and villages. They usually consisted of one-room buildings with a single teacher to teach a number of grade levels.
• In 1811, the first school opened in the Town of Pembroke. It was private and was operated by Anna Horton. She ran it in her home in the village of Long’s Corners, now named Corfu.
• In 1814, a village meeting was held to determine the future of education in the village. The meeting was held at the home of Josiah Lee, who was part of a team to accomplish this.
• By 1819, a log schoolhouse existed on what is today Alleghany Road, the present site of the Pembroke Intermediate School.
• The year 1820 saw the first public school open in the village of Long’s Corners.
• The 1860s witnessed Long’s Corners now being called Corfu. In 1867, a new schoolhouse was located in Corfu at 39 South Alleghany Road. James McGraw was the teacher as well as the head of the fledgling district.
• Twenty years later, the Corfu residents planned a new school. However, there were complications. The school would be built where an existed cemetery was located. So, in 1881, graves were relocated so the new school could be built. The location is the present site of the Intermediate School. The new building was a two-story wood-frame structure with three classrooms on the first floor and a large room upstairs for the high school. The Corfu residents were proud to witness the graduating class in 1884 of just four girls.
• The 20th century witnessed more school expansion. In 1906, a two-story addition was added to house another elementary classroom, a cloakroom downstairs, another high school room, and a new principal’s office.
• On June 13, 1906, the Corfu school became an accredited high school and was then known as the Corfu Union Free School District.
• (Note: A common school district is a school district first created by legislative action back in 1812 to operate elementary schools (kindergarten through eighth grade). Even though they lack the authority to operate a high school, common school districts remain responsible for ensuring a secondary education for their resident children. The term union free school has nothing to do with unions of any kind. A union free school district is a school district generally formed from one or more common school districts to operate a high school program, which common school districts cannot do.)
• The Corfu school became a teacher training center between 1913 and 1916, to help supply teachers to rural grade schools.
• In 1930, a moveable building was added to the rear of the Corfu school at a cost of $2,500.
• In the middle of the Great Depression, the Corfu Union Free School District believed a completely new building was needed to deal with a growing population. The District hired architects Harbach and Kideney to produce plans for the new school. The cost of the new school was $156,363. The new school would be funded in a number of ways. $70,363, or about half the cost would come from a New Deal program called the Public Works Administration, with $86,000 coming from a bond issue paid for by taxpayers.
• The District believed the best location for the new building would be directly behind the school built in 1881. Ground was broken in January 1935 and the new school was completed on February 1, 1937. The old school was leveled shortly after the new school opened. The Batavia Daily News reported that the new building was a “two-story fireproof structure of red brick trimmed with Indiana limestone, 158 feet wide across the front and 56 feet on the ends and 100 feet deep in the center where the auditorium is located.” This building could house 350 students. In 1940, a new auditorium was added.

EAST PEMBROKE

• In 1856, a number of “interested and generous citizens” met and pledged $3,413 toward the building of a new school in East Pembroke.
• On October 7, 1856, the Old Rural Seminary opened on School Street in East Pembroke on an acre of land donated by Rev. Daniel C. Houghton. The previous March, 15 trustees were elected to oversee the running of the school.
• The new school had a principal named I.A. McFarlane, who was paid $600 for his services, and the teaching staff included Helen Page, Elizabeth Rich, and Helen A. Gould. In today’s world, McFarlane’s salary would be a lot higher, and there would be many more teachers.
• Changes occurred toward the end of the century. In 1893, the Old Rural Seminary became the East Pembroke Union Free School. They could now operate a high school program.
• Like other rural areas, East Pembroke was broken up, education-wise, into Districts that led to some consolidation. In the late 1890s, repairs were made to the East Pembroke school building at a cost of $600, and in June 1897, the East Pembroke High School graduated its first class of one member, Leona Seamans.
• The East Pembroke School was a site to behold. The two-story structure had a cupola on top with a bell. Boys entered the building in one entrance and girls at the other.

CORFU-EAST PEMBROKE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

• In 1938, the New York State Education Department required that rural school districts be consolidated into centralized districts.
• Corfu and East Pembroke each had to prepare their own consolidation plans. However, their plan was negated and the State mandated they join both school buildings into one district.
• The plan instructed that the existing Corfu building would house grades 1-12. Then, a new building would be built in East Pembroke to house grades 1-9. Grades 10-12 at the existing East Pembroke School would be bused to Corfu.
• On September 7, 1938, the Corfu Union Free School and the East Pembroke Union Free School officially became centralized.
• The two schools, plus the 18 rural districts from the towns of Pembroke, Darien, Batavia, and Alexander, would now make up the new Corfu-East Pembroke School District.
• The Public Works Administration (PWA) would once again play a role in the Corfu-East Pembroke District. The Batavia Daily News reported on September 30, 1938, that “controversy over school centralization in the Town of Pembroke appeared ended today with the approval of a $340,000 bond issue for construction of a combination junior high and grade school at East Pembroke and an addition to the present Corfu High School.” The $340,000 bond issue represented only 55 percent of the total cost, with the remaining 45 percent to be furnished by the PWA.
• This building project for the school also included the construction of a bus garage, the purchase of school equipment, and acquiring land for the school and athletic field on West Avenue in East Pembroke. Also included in this monetary package were funds for the Corfu school to purchase land for an athletic field.
• The East Pembroke School construction began on December 27, 1938, with numerous speakers, including Master of Ceremonies, and Principal Laurence B. Lane.
• The East Pembroke School was completed for the 1940 school year. In 1958, the schools were realigned, and East Pembroke became a K-6 building, while Corfu maintained its K-12 status. (Note: Historian Lois Brockway said kindergarten did not come to Pembroke until 1949).
• In the early 1960s, school overcrowding led to the Corfu and East Pembroke Grange halls being used for 6th-grade classes. Also, the growing student enrollment meant that regular school hours had to be adjusted. The Corfu High School went on split sessions during the 1960s, with grades 9-12 attending classes from 7:55 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. and grades 6-8 attending classes from 12:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.
• With the new buildings, students had physical education classes in the gymnasium instead of recess and playing games outdoors. Buses were now used to pick up and drop off students at their houses.

PEMBROKE CENTRAL SCHOOL

• The student population increased in the Pembroke district, and officials realized a new high school needed to be built. The new school would be built at the corner of Routes 5 and 77. Ground was broken in August 1962, and the new junior/senior high school opened its doors in January 1964. The district principal (now called superintendent) was Laurence B. Lane.
• The Pembroke Central School became a 7-12 building and could hold 800 students. The Corfu and East Pembroke buildings each became K-6 buildings.
• The late 1960s brought about more improvements in the district’s buildings. An addition was added to the East Pembroke School, which opened in 1967, and a large lecture hall (the Round Room), and 17 instructional classrooms (the 500 wing) were added to the high school, along with a swimming pool, library research center, guidance offices, and a cafeteria.
• The elementary schools saw a major educational change in 1971. The new superintendent, Dr. Richard Nealon, along with the Board of Education, decided that elementary students’ education would be better served by having the East Pembroke School be a K-2 building and the Corfu building serve as a 3-6 building, becoming the Pembroke Intermediate School.
• This move was not popular. Some teachers in both schools chose to retire rather than switch buildings.
• With the 1970s came more improvements. In 1972, the Wilson Choate Outdoor Education Area was dedicated along with the Kip Mantor football field.
• On June 10, 1987, Pembroke Central School suffered a horrible tragedy. Three Pembroke students and their Driver Education teacher were killed in a DWI accident. The following year, Pembroke’s Redesign Team, part of the Art Department, created a memorial sign to be placed in front of the school. The Pembroke Community Rainbow Memorial Committee, including students, school and community members, constructed this memorial. Dedicated in 1988, it serves as a reminder of the tragedy, as well as a marquee for school events. In 2022, the memorial’s marquee was upgraded to an LED digital sign, bringing a beautiful addition to the front of the school.
• The last major renovation at Pembroke Central School came in 2008. Taxpayers passed a $25 million bond issue to upgrade the three buildings. It took two years to complete. In those two years, infrastructure upgrades were done at the Primary and Intermediate schools, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, electrical and lighting and plumbing. The high school received most of the updates. Tiles were replaced, and new ceilings, lighting, and floors were installed as well. New boilers were also on the list for refurbishing, along with upgrades to the technology and home economics room. The “Round Room” was turned into an art and music center, the auditorium was air-conditioned, new offices were built, and a new library complex was added.
• The Pembroke community has a lot to be proud of with its school community. They have come a long way from Anna Horton’s 1811 school in her home, to our modern educational facilities of today. One wonders what the future holds for this dynamic community that has always risen to the challenge of caring for our most precious commodity: our children.

Submitted photos:  Top photo, students at Pembroke High School in a typing class in the 1970s.

Pembroke High School under construction in 1963.

Corfu High School.

East Pembroke Seminary.

Pembroke High School students in the 1970s.

We all know -- or should -- that Sherman burned Atlanta, but like all historical characters who have become more myth than human, there is more to General William Tecumseh Sherman than his march to the sea during the Civil War.

The Ohio native was an intellectual, insightful man with a keen understanding of human character, said Derek Maxfield, a GCC history teacher who has written a 160-page biography of Sherman.

GO ART! hosted a reception on Friday evening to celebrate the release of "Man of Fire," published by Savas Beatie as part of the Emerging Civil War Series. 

"Somebody like Sherman is a lot more complex than what popular culture makes him out to be, and that was part of one of the reasons I wanted to write this book," Maxfield said. "Here's a character who is not that simple."

In popular culture, Sherman is remembered for burning nearly all of Atlanta to the ground on Nov. 15, 1864, largely because of Gone with the Wind. From Atlanta, Sherman marched his Union soldiers to Savannah (the March to the Sea) as they destroyed everything in their path.

"I think one of the tasks of a good biographer is to make somebody more human, make them more easily understood," Maxfield said.

It as tough, Maxfield said, capturing somebody as complex as Sherman in 40,000 words, but he thinks he's produced the best short biography yet of the Union general.

This is the first biography written by Maxfield but his second book.  Previously, he wrote "Hellmira: The Union's Most Infamous Civil War Prison."

Among Sherman's more positive traits, Maxfield said, was his intellectual strength.

"He used to love to quote Shakespeare, so he was very literate, and I think that part of him is lost," Maxfield said. "He is known as this arsonist and barbarian, at least to the South, and even some of his partisans want to remember him that way. I think it does him a disservice because he's probably the most intellectual of all of the generals in the Union Army.

"I also think that he had a deeper understanding of people than many in the administration, perhaps save Lincoln. I think that, ultimately, that understanding of human nature is one of the keys to the Union victory because he could understand how to break the will of the Confederacy and end the war sooner."

The most unredeemable aspect of Sherman's life, Maxfield said, came after the Civil War.

"I think you have to be careful judging people of another time and place by 21st-Century values, but the thing that punches me in the gut is he's the author of a federal policy in the late 19th Century to kill the buffalo in order to subdue the Plains Indians," Maxfield said. "That's the one that I find the most unredeeming."

The book, Maxfield hopes, will find an audience among people with an emerging interest in the Civil War while also appealing to people who have already read a good deal about the war between the states.

"I always envisioned it as a general audience book for somebody who might not even know a lot about the Civil War," Maxfield said. "I was aiming kind of broadly, but certainly anybody who has an interest in the Civil War, I would hope that they would find this of value."

For more about the book, click here.

Photos by Howard Owens. First and second photos, Derek Maxfield.

Tracy Ford, actor and teacher, dressed above as Sherman, wrote an essay published at the end of the book entitled "Becoming Sherman."  He's signing a copy for fellow actor Daniel Snyder, who played Arthur Brisbane in the one-act play written and produced by Derek Maxfield, Brothers at Odds: The Brisbane Story

Press release:

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce its Garth Swanson Memorial Scholarship for 2023. This scholarship was created in honor of Garth Swanson, who was the Stafford Town Historian, a History professor at Genesee Community College, and a former board member and officer of the museum.

This $500 scholarship is open to any graduating senior in Genesee County planning on attending Genesee Community College or current student attending Genesee Community College and have an expressed interest in history or plan on working in the history field in the future

Completed applications should be mailed or emailed no later than May 1st. They can be emailed to Ryan Duffy at duffyhollandlandoffice@gmail.com. Or Mailed to Ryan Duffy, Executive Director, Holland Land Office Museum, 131 W. Main St., Batavia, NY 14020.

The application is available on both the museum’s website and Facebook page. You can also contact the museum for the application or further information.

Press release:

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Trivia Night @ the Museum. This month's topic is Julius Caesar. Admission is $5 or $3 for museum members. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

Get in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit at the Holland Land Office Museum with Batavia natives No Blarney! as they return to get us off our feet and dancing to traditional Irish music on Friday, March 10th at 7 pm. Tickets $5 per person and $4 for museum members. Please R.S.V.P. to the museum by email at hollandlandoffice@gmail.com or call the museum at 585-343-4727. Seating is limited, so get your spots now.

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Java with Joe E. series on Thursday, March 23rd at 9 am. This month's presenter is Don Burkel. "There were thirteen children in the Upton Family, six were girls. The first was born in 1822, and the last in 1846. They became the primary correspondents of their brother, Emory, while pursuing careers and goals which were examples to other women. This is their brief yet interesting story of their contributions."

Admission is free, and coffee and donuts will be provided. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

The Holland Land Office Museum is proud to announce the next edition of our Guest Speaker Series on Thursday, March 30th at 7 pm. The presenter will be Holly Watson of the Linwood Gardens. Linwood Gardens is a rare example of a Western New York country place from the early 1900s with a unique horticultural history and enduring connections to its community. Join family member Holly Watson for a behind-the-scenes look at the history of the people, peonies, and property during this presentation. Admission is $5 or $3 for museum members. Please contact the museum at 585-343-4727 or hollandlandoffice@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

In 1900 only 4,000 cars existed in the United States.  However, by 1905 there were 25,000 cars manufactured in the United States.  The world’s first filling stations began opening the same year. 

The first stations were most likely a pump on the sidewalk in front of a general store.  Motorists lined up to buy gas, causing quite a disturbance as the cars blocked horses and pedestrians. By 1910, 500,000 vehicles needed gas for refueling. With this problem came a solution: a new type of filling station, the drive-in station.       

In 1914 when the government broke up Standard Oil, which controlled most of the oil in the U.S., many smaller companies were born.  Suddenly, the new companies competed for customers.  Gas, cheap and plentiful, gave the motorist a choice of where to purchase gas.  With the smaller companies came the competition between the local stations. This would be known as the gas wars.  Different stations would drop their prices to encourage people to buy gas at their stations.  The prices would drop periodically for a short time.

Many customers chose their gas station by its service, location, or their similar ethnic backgrounds to the owners of the stations.  A favorite in the ‘40s on the south side of Batavia was Mrs. Rose Argulski’s station at 338 Ellicott Street.  She became a well-known fixture pumping gas at her station.

Articles found at the Genesee County History Department give insight into the various gas stations and the promotions used to lure customers to their stations. For example, a 1939 article described William King’s Service Station on West Main and Porter as one of the oldest service stations. Jimmie Scibetta had a Sinclair station on West Main Street and Montclair.    He stood behind the Sinclair motto for all of its products, a “Factory of safety in its motor oils.”

Many catchy slogans appeared, and a team of uniformed attendants eagerly gassed up the car, cleaned the windshield, and checked oil and tires as the driver sat in the car.  To promote the sale of gasoline, many stations offered incentives such as Green Stamps, dishes, glasses, steak knives, and different automobile coins, to name only a few.   Many newlyweds’ china was from a gas station as a gift for buying its particular gas. 

In the ‘50s, the gas price averaged about 18 cents a gallon, and a new car cost $1,500.  Batavia’s West Main Street was home to 19 service stations, and East Main had 12 stations.  Side streets also had gas stations. For example, Ellicott Street had four stations, Walnut, Hutchins, and Center Street had one station each, and on Clinton Street, there were three stations. Over the years, the names of the gas stations changed, but many of the service stations remained on the original property. 

Some of the names of the 53 stations in Batavia in the ‘50s were: Acheson’s, Argulski, Athoe, Atlantic, Barrett, Batavia Motors, Bob Folger, Boudreau, Campbell’s, Chilano’s, Corey’s, Davis, Day C. C. and Son, Dibbles, Didget, Diegelman’s, Dobson, Frontier, Genesee GLF, Genesee Hygrade, Greening, Gulf Service Station, Hudson and Seward, Kohl’s, Lambkin Bros, Leo’s, Mancuso Motors, Mc Wain, Moretto’s, Nichols, Oaks Auto Service, Paul’s Atlantic, Post’s, Richardson’s, Snyder, Warren Roberts, Winslow,  and York.       

In the '60s, the number of gas stations speckled our main streets remained similar to the gas stations in the '50s.  A gallon of gas cost 32 cents

The first self-service gas station was located on Clinton Street Road. Instead of an attendant coming to your car and asking how many gallons of gas you wanted, you would exit your vehicle, open the cover on your gas tank and pump your gas.  The price of your gas would register on the gas pump.  The driver would go into the station and pay for the gas.

In the ‘70s, the oil crisis forced the United States into gas rationing because of OPEC‘s (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) embargo against the United States.  The embargo that went into effect did not allow any countries in OPEC to sell oil to the United States. With gas rationing, cars were allowed to purchase gasoline on alternate days, according to whether the last digit on their license plate was even or odd.  This resulted in long lines at the gas pump. Some gas stations had to close because they ran out of gas!

In the '80s, the price of gas rose to $1.25 a gallon.  By 2006 a gallon of gas could cost $2.95 a gallon, and today the national average is $3.27 a gallon.

We don’t see slogans such as Go Well with Shell; Esso, Put a Tiger in Your Tank; Gulf, The Gas with Guts; or from Texaco, You Can Trust your Car to the Man who Wears the Star.  Now, after you gas up your cars, you walk into a convenience store to pay, and you can also buy groceries, sandwiches, get a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and in the spring buy mulch for your gardens, gas for your grill and ice for your picnics! 

Many a baby boomer will remember the cost of gas. Still, they also supported their favorite gas station in the ‘60s and ‘70s and possibly the attendants’ names that so graciously took care of their automotive needs.  Some women even met their future husbands at the pump!