Monthly Archives: July 2021

Rainy Day Museums

Leave a reply

Rainy summer day? Visit the museum.

Ah, but WHICH museum, you wisely ask. For we have quite a few to choose from!

We recently visited the ROCKWELL MUSEUM in Corning, as we often do when there’s a special exhibit on. Just now there are two complementary photo shows. One is a set of Kodachrome photos from 1975 by Nathan Benn, who was commissioned to take a year shooting film for a “National Geographic” feature on four seasons in the Finger Lakes. I quickly spotted the faces of vintners Walter Taylor and Konstantin Frank, and I loved the view of wine casks in the rising sun. Maybe the most fun picture was the tour boat on Skaneateles Lake, but you could also enjoy Waterloo Memorial Day, Cohocton Fall Festival, or behind-the-scenes at the Glass Works.

The contemporary portrait photo exhibit, by Chris Walters, included Megan Frank (Dr. Konstantin’s great-granddaughter) and Corning Inc. president Wendell Weeks, but particularly aimed to move past the lily-white 1975 collection into non-white and marginalized groups. The photos focused on Asian Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, women Americans, Americans in drag, and Americans protesting or campaigning for a BETTER America. Each exhibit is worth seeing, especially for we who know the region – both together are even better.

We also made a recent visit to GLENN CURTISS MUSEUM in Hammondsport, where “Art at War” is showing through December 31. This exhibit was built from two remarkable collections of fuselage art. Movies and family history have made many people familiar with “nose art” in World War II airplanes, showing pretty girls, menacing monsters, or cartoon characters. These are earlier versions, going back to the Great War, where the art and symbols were painted right onto the fabric covering the airplane’s framework.

Fabric damaged easily, and was routinely replaced, with the old material (including art) often tossed onto the fire without a second thought. For this exhibit we can thank a couple of individuals a hundred years ago, who preserved the art and even the camouflage for us to see today. Of course the museum also includes Curtiss aircraft, early motorcycles, Hammondsport history, and turn-of-the-century life – not to mention the always-popular workshop, where volunteers repair, restore, or reproduce historic aircraft.

Earlier in our summer season we visited SENECA ART & CULTURAL CENTER at GANONDAGON STATE HISTORIC SITE, near Victor on the site of one of the Seneca cities. Besides its captivating museum exhibitry, Ganondagon screens “Iroquois Creation Story,” a remarkable 17-minute film that has won awards from Stuttgart to Los Angeles. It combines animation and live-action, dance and mask. A short walk uphill is a reproduction Seneca longhouse, offering a good chance to get a feel for local life in the 1500s through 1700s.

We actually started our (personal) season at Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, and just last week enjoyed Gmeiner Art & Cultural Center in Wellsboro. Locally we also have Finger Lakes Boating Museum and (of course) Corning Museum of Glass. Our region further offers Rochester Museum and Science Center, Memorial Art Gallery, George Eastman Museum, and the Strong National Museum of Play… Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Museum of the Earth, Roberson Museum and Science Center… not to mention small historical museums broadcast through our counties and communities. Enjoy yourself!

Odd-uments!

Leave a reply

Have you ever found any odd-uments? That’s my new word (copyright!) for monuments that are surprising, quirky, or curious. The Finger Lakes, unsurprisingly given our history of social, religious, and technological experiment, has plenty of them.

In 1793 Charles Williamson founded Bath near the Conhocton River. His job was to sell 1.2 million acres of land between Seneca Lake and the Genesee River, but he also served in multiple public offices and engineered creation of Steuben County. So when Daughters of the American Revolution honored him in 1929 with a plaque on a large boulder in Pulteney Square, site of his original land clearing, it wasn’t really surprising. Not surprising except that while Mr. Williamson WAS in the American Revolution – he was on the other side. While the Scottish officer was in house arrest as a P.O.W. he married an American and gained U. S. citizenship… and eventually, recognition by the D.A.R.

The Pilgrims hadn’t even heard of the Mayflower when a Basque explorer remembered only as Pabos died on June 10, 1618, a long, long way from home. A burial plaque was found near today’s Victor almost three centuries later, and some fifty years after THAT, historian and newsman J. Sheldon Fisher decided that the man’s memory should be preserved. Sheldon told me that he’d always wanted to build a pyramid, so he rounded up some local Boy Scouts and together they did just that. The seven-foot monument still stands on Wagnum Road, near the grave – now over four centuries old – of the all-but-forgotten explorer.

Rochester’s huge Mount Hope Cemetery includes every faith, ethnicity, and time period in the city’s history. There are special sections for Civil War veterans, 19th-century unknowns, and firefighters. Not to mention a monument to that forgotten hero of long ago, the fireHORSE. By getting the fire company to the fires FAST they saved countless lives, often at risk to their own. They’re entitled to a little recognition.

On Main Street in Prattsburgh is a monument from the Knights of Cyprus “To Madame Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress in the world.” Her 19th-century “lyric fire and divine voice” were indeed unforgettable, but the Knights of Cyprus existed only in the imagination of of Charles Danford Bean, who created the monument to the Divine Sarah.

At a grave in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery, a stone obelisk towers twelve feet tall. In nautical terms that’s exactly two fathoms or, as a leadsman testing depths on the Mississippi River would call out, “by the mark, twain!” Samuel Clemens lies here.

It looks like a micro-spaceship, coming in for a landing on Main Street in Lima. But it’s actually a tiny old-time spherical bank vault, commemorating that exciting day in 1915 when Livingston County suffered its first bank robbery. As we understand it the case is still unsolved, but we suppose that the reward offer has expired.

Western New York is apple country. On Boughton Road in East Bloomfield is an easy-to-miss stone with a plaque commemorating the birth of the Northern Spy, one of dozens of strains originating in New York.

“Believe It Or Not,” a Canisteo hillside on Greenwood Street has a living sign spelling out the town’s name with 217 white pine trees. When created back in 1933 it may have been a guide for aircraft, and Robert Ripley featured it in his “Believe it Or Not” newspaper cartoon. Such hillside features are uncommon east of the Mississippi, and even more uncommon for being formed with living trees.

No doubt there’s more! Do YOU know of any odd-uments?

Catholicism in Steuben

Leave a reply

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2018, which inspired me to take an overview of Catholicism in what’s now Steuben County. Currently there are 12 churches in Steuben, organized into six parishes or communities. (Two of those six also have churches in other counties.) There is a chapel at Bath V.A. There used to be one at St. James Mercy Center in Hornell, but I’m not sure whether that’s still the case with the new location and ownership.

There are nine former churches: St. Matthias, Atlanta [or Bloods] (1914-1972); Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic, Bath (1951-1992); St. William, Cameron Mills (1885-1903); St. Joachim, Canisteo (1880-2005); St. Mary Greek Catholic, Corning (1917-1933); St. Ignatius Loyola, Hornell (1931-2004); St. Vincent de Paul, Corning (1913-2018); Immaculate Heart, Painted Post (1951-2019); and St. Mary Chapel, Troupsburg (1866?-1883).

There were also other locations in which there were attempts to plant missions, or where there were intermittent services, but those listed above seem to be the only ones that were formalized.

Until recently St. James Mercy Center (established 1890) was a Catholic hospital, and the only one in Steuben. There were once Catholic orphanages in Corning and Hornell. There are 11 Catholic cemeteries in Steuben County, plus a few inactive ones. As of this writing All Saints Academy (P-8) in Corning is the sole church-connected Catholic school in Steuben, but St. Ann’s Academy (P-6) in Hornell is a private Catholic school. There used to be schools at Bath, Wayland, Hornell, Rexville, Corning Southside (St. Patrick’s) and Corning Northside (St. Vincent de Paul).

Catholic Charities has a substantial presence in Steuben, including Turning Point Ministries and Food Bank of the Southern Tier.

Until recently Immaculate Heart of Mary (Painted Post) was the youngest congregation (established 1951). The youngest congregation now is St. Stanislaus in Bradford (1923), while the newest building is at St. Mary’s in Rexford (1984).

Sacred Heart (Perkinsville, established 1838), is the oldest faith community in the diocese outside Monroe County, and thus the oldest Catholic congregation in Steuben.

St. Patrick’s (Prattsburgh) has the oldest edifice, constructed in 1868 by Irish immigrant parishioners, and periodically altered since. St. Patrick’s, St. Mary’s (Bath), St. Mary’s (Rexville) and St. Mary’s (Corning) were largely Irish when they started out, but the northwest corner churches… Sacred Heart (Perkinsville), St. Joseph’s (Wayland), and St. Pius V (Cohocton) were mostly German-speaking. St. Stanislaus in Bradford was created largely to serve Polish immigrants.

A few curios about Steuben Catholic churches:
*A graduation celebration at St. Vincent de Paul (Corning) swelled in size as family and friends welcomed neighbors seeking shelter during the 1972 flood. The pastor kept an eye on things from the roof.
*St. Ann’s steeple is highest point in Hornell.
*The Rexville church was originally located in Greenwood.
*St. Mary Chapel (Troupsburg) is the only former worship site which has been demolished with no replacement. There’s some confusion about the name of this worship site. The diocese has it as St. Mary, but local folks have long called the associated cemetery St. Ignatius.
*Future birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger (originally Margaret Higgins) was baptized at St. Mary church in Corning. Their relationship went downhill from there.
*During the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan was very powerful locally, members of St. Mary Greek Catholic church in Corning once unintentionally terrorized the neighborhood when they followed old tradition by going out into the night wearing white robes. Later on the St. Mary Greek Catholic edifice was home to the St. Mary Greek Orthodox church, which has just recently opened a new worship center in Gang Mills.
*St. Mary’s church in Bath had a significant physical expansion in 1879, largely due to the fact that 200 Catholic veterans had taken up residence in the just-opened New York State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home.
*Some years ago Hammondsport was designated the coolest small town in America. St. Gabriel’s bills itself as the coolest Catholic church in the coolest small town in America.

The current parishes (or communities) and worship sites are:

ALL SAINTS PARISH St. Mary, Corning. Formerly included St. Vincent de Paul (Corning) and Immaculate Heart (Hornell).
HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC COMMUNITY Sacred Heart, Perkinsville; St. Joseph’s, Wayland; St. Pius V, Cohocton; St. Mary, Dansville (Livingston County).
OUR LADY OF THE LAKES CATHOLIC COMMUNITY St. Patrick’s, Prattsburgh; St. Januarius, Naples (Ontario County); St. Theresa’s, Stanley (Ontario County); St. Michael’s, Penn Yan (Yates County).
OUR LADY OF THE VALLEY PARISH St. Ann’s, Hornell; St. Mary’s, Rexville. Formerly included St. Joachim’s (Canisteo) and St. Ignatius Loyola (Hornell).
SS. ISIDORE & MARIA TORRIBIA PARISH St. Catherine of Siena, Addison; St. Stanislaus, Bradford; St. Joseph’s, Campbell. These are the ABC churches, for Addison-Bradford-Campbell. The parish is named for patron saints of farmers and rural communities.
ST. JOHN VIANNEY PARISH St. Mary, Bath; St. Gabriel, Hammondsport.

Area Catholics were attacked by organized hate groups during the Know-Nothing era of the 1840s and 1850s, and during the Ku Klux Klan era of the 1920s, but nevertheless, as we can see, they persisted!

Even Worse, in Many Ways: The 1935 Flood

Leave a reply

A couple of weeks ago in this space, we looked back at the horrible flood of 1972 – forty-nine years ago. This week I thought we should look at a flood that has almost faded from memory, for it took place 86 years back, on July 8, 1935. That flood killed 44 people here in New York – about twice the toll of Hurricane Agnes.

Like the Agnes flood, it sprang up unexpecteldy, in the small hours of the morning. But in 1935 far fewer households had telephone or radio, and forecasting was noplace near 1972 levels, let along what we’re accustomed to in 2021. Many got the word late, and many never got it at all. On the Conhocton River, EVERYTHING flooded – Cohocton, Avoca, Kanona, Bath, Savona, Campbell, Coopers Plains, Gang Mills, and Painted Post. On the Canisteo, so did Arkport, North Hornell, Hornell, Canisteo, Addison. Hammondsport, Penn Yan, Keuka Village, Watkins Glen, Ithaca, Waverly, Sayre, Owego, Binghamton, Syracuse – EVERYTHING flooded.

Railroad webs were ripped to shreds in Hornell and Bath. The short lines from Greenwood to Canisteo, Bath to Hammondsport, and Penn Yan to Dresden all went broke.

The Bath flood took in the library, the county complex, two banks, the Catholic, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. People used boats and canoes as far out as the post office. The V.A. was cut off for days.

Rushing water wrenched out the rails, steps, and other infrastructure in the gorge of Watkins Glen, and carried the gatehouse down to the Seneca lakefront. Damage barred any further vehicle traffic on Addison’s suspension bridge – it was pedestrians only until becoming a total loss in 1972.

All of “the Flat,” including city hall and numerous churches, flooded in Corning. Corning Glass Works was in the middle of a three-month controlled cooldown on the 200-inch disc for Mount Palomar. They lost the cooling for three days as they moved the generator to higher ground, but the disc came through fine.

Deep gorges were gouged out of roads near Arkport, and streets in Hammondsport. The Catholic and Episcopal churches suffered badly, as did the Academy. The Square in Hammondsport was flooded, and so was everything downhill from there to the Lake. Brandy casks were scattered erratically about, just like the rocks that washed down from the Glen.

Governor Lehman described the devastation as running from Hornell to the Catskills, and from the state line to the Mohawk Valley.

Ithaca got almost 8 inches of rain in 24 hours, with Cortland not far behind. (Normally our area gets about 36 inches a year, including snowmelt.) Norwich and Hammondsport had 6.10 inches. There were 8.52 inches in Delhi, edging out Burdett at 8.50. Ovid had 7.61, Oneonta 5.24, and Haskinville 3.35.

Avoca lost a lot of prime topsoil, and of course tens of thousands of people lost their crops, and in some cases their livestock. Of course, the fact that this was going on during the Great Depression made it all even more of a horror.

Red Cross, National Guard, and Salvation Army were quickly on the scene, and so was Governor Lehman. Help arrived quickly but FORMER Governor Roosevelt, now in the White House, was thinking more broadly, and farther into the future. We’ll see what he was up to in another blog!