Communities often celebrate Native Sons and Native Daughters – residents who have achieved fame. Hammondsport is justly proud of Glenn Curtiss, Elmira of Ernie Davis, Wayland of Bill T. Jones, Rochester of Susan B. Anthony. Even when living memory fades, the tales are still told with affection and awe, passed down from generation to generation.
It’s also not unusual for people to have only a fleeting contact with a community – living there a few months, perhaps, and then moving on. In some cases that’s just as well. Joseph D’Angelo, recently convicted as the “Golden State” serial killer, was born in Bath, but the family moved to the West Coast when he was still very small.
A number of very interesting people have touched briefly on Hornell… just passin’ through.
TV star Bob Crane – most famous for playing the lead in the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes – started his broadcasting career with a short stint at radio WLEA. He then went on to the New York City and Los Angeles markets before crossing over to television, first as a regular on the Donna Reed Show.
Don Zimmer spent the summer of 1950 playing baseball for the Hornell Dodgers. He later played or managed on six World Series championship teams, besides being named an All-Star and National League Manager of the Year. A Hornell teammate was Charlie Neal — later Gold Glove winner, three times an All-Star, and key player on the 1959 World Series championship team.
Neal and Zimmer were on their way up in 1950, but Hornell must have looked pretty bleak to John Joseph Fox sixty years earlier. He had ALREADY been in the majors, and by 1890 was on his way down. He’d recently spent two years banned from baseball for “general dissipation and insubordination.” We shudder to think what “general dissipation” amounted to in the 1880s.
Frank Kelly Freas was born in Hornell, where his parents were professional photographers, but grew up in Canada. His magazine art won 11 Hugo Awards for best artist of the year from the World Science Fiction Society. He was also a renowned artist for MAD magazine, painting elaborate layouts in full color. Freas further created some 50 MAD covers, every one including Alfred E. Neuman, until he made the mistake of asking for more money.
Dr. Marc Edwards, who was also born in Hornell, was a 2007 Macarthur Fellow (the so-called “Genius” grant). He played a key role in alerting the public to the Flint water crisis in 2015.
In 1867 Carl Myers opened a photo studio in Hornell (then Hornellsville), where he met and married Mary Hawley. In 1875 they started their “Balloon Farm” in Herkimer County and plunged into lighter-than-air aviation, including their pedal-powered “sky cycle,” billing themselves as Carl and Carlotta Myers. They were probably America’s most famous aviators until the Wright brothers came along, and Carlotta the Lady Aeronaut could always draw a crowd.
Charles H. Day was born in Salamanca, and graduated from Hornell High School around 1906. By 1909 he and Glenn Martin were building their first airplane together. He designed the Standard Model J biplane, one of which is in Curtiss Museum. His aviation career… including building up the Chinese industry as the Japanese invaded… lasted until his death in 1955. He’s buried in Dansville (Livingston County).