Every year, good things happen, although sometimes you can only see in retrospect… sometimes a seemingly insignificant event leads to great things in later years.
*Sometimes too, the good stuff is what DIDN’T happen. In our family in 2018, nobody wound up in the hospital, and nobody died. That the first time since 2011! We had six bad years in a row, then ’18 was good! Woo hoo!
*But almost every year at this time, I pause and take a look back to honor the losses we’ve suffered in the previous year.
*We lost a number of businesses in 2018… businesses that in some cases have been part of our scene since the 19th century, then all the way through the 20th century, and well into the 21st century.
*Two long-established daily newspapers… the Hornell Evening Tribune and the Wellsville Daily Reporter… merged to operate as The Spectator (the name of their already-established joint Sunday edition). In this case the businesses continue, but with the loss of two hallowed names and, as ever, more tightening of the belt on the ability to gather, interpret, and report the news.
*Babcock Ladder closed its doors in Bath. Babcock started out, under another name, as a company making milk churns in the 19th century. Wooden ladders became its forte under Babcock ownership, but now it’s gone.
*So is M. J. Ward, also in Bath. Some years back they closed and demolished the last grain elevator operating in Steuben County. For well over a hundred years they’ve purveyed feed and grain, along with all the other paraphernalia of garden, farm, and lawn.
*Bong’s Jewelers in Corning got started when Benjamin Harrison was president, and has been in the same family ever since. They survived the flood of 1972 on Market Street, but Jeff Bong closed the doors for the last time on New Year’s Eve, to start enjoying a well-earned retirement.
*Also on Market Street Donna’s Restaurant lost its lease, but was able to relocate, to a collective sigh of relief among locals.
*We need to remember that Trooper Nicholas Clark was killed responding to a call about an armed and suicidal man.
*And while I wouldn’t place the two losses on a par, we should also remember that apparent shooter Steven M. Kiley then took his own life… a loss for his family and for the children of Bradford Central School, where he’d been a principal.
*At Steuben County Historical Society we lost long-term member Harold French, a U.S. Navy veteran of the Korean War era.
*Gordon Pierce passed away. Gordon was a volunteer and a former board member at Steuben County Historical Society, also active with Avoca Historical Society, the Methodist Ramp Guys, and in Masonry.
*Henry Dormann died last year. He was a benefactor to Steuben County Historical Society and other agancies, but he is best remembered as having donated a new building to Davenport Library, now Dormann Library, in Bath. He brought in Gerald Ford and Walter Cronkite for the dedication, and his gift triggered a boom of building and renovating among area libraries.
*John Roy left us on Christmas Day. He was a long-time president of Steuben County Historical Society, and he taught for 31 years in the Campbell-Savona schools. John had graduated from the old Savona High School in 1960.
*Bea O’Brien passed away last year. What can I possibly say? She was 98 years of age, and a vetrean of World War II (as a navy nurse). I met her in 1996, soon after we moved here, at the Bath Area Writers Group. I last saw her last summer, on a lawn chair at a concert in the park in Hammondsport.
*She met George during the War, and they were married for 68 years. She lived half a cnetury in Loon Lake. Her book “One Track” is about George’s life as an Erie Railroad man. Poet, nurse, writer, volunteer, historian. It’s impossible to say enough about Bea O’Brien.
*These are losses for the community as a whole. But for Harold, Gordon, John, Bea, and Mr. Dormann, I can speak personally and from the heart as I say thank you. And safe journey.