Tag Archives: November

Something to Do in November!

November seems like the month of NO. No snow. No leaves. No sun. No fun. November.

But, let’s face it. We’re not completely at the mercy of the elements. We can still find ways to enjoy ourselves.

Sooooo, what CAN we do? Hmm.

Our museums have inside activities. Rockwell Museum and Arnot Art Museum are each hosting a portion of a show that explores Crafting Identity. We saw the foreign works at Arnot, and found them thought-provoking. We also enjoyed again seeing the permanent collection, heavy with 19th-century representational works, but we like to expand our horizons. We’ll soon be catching the domestic pieces at Rockwell, too.

Glenn Curtiss Museum is having a “First Across” centennial exhibit on the US Navy’s 1919 expedition that made the first transatlantic flight, in a Curtiss seaplane. (Eat your heart out, Charles A. Lindbergh.) National Soaring Museum opens its dollhouse and miniatures show on November 16… always worth a drive up the hill. And Corning Museum of Glass has a special exhibit on the role of glass in our first moon landing, fifty years ago. Yates County History Center in Penn Yan has a special exhibit on Groffdale Mennonites… their faith, their customs, and their lives among us.

Off-Monroe Players in Rochester does a free Gilbert and Sullivan production every November… this year it’s Ruddigore, with six performances between the 15th and the 24th. OMP performances are always a load of fun.

Clemens Center in Elmira is presenting productions that range from Disney Holiday Party on Tour to The Diary of Anne Frank.

Our region has deer, bear, and bobcat hunting seasons on some dates in November, along with squirrel, pheasant, ruffed grouse, and various small predators.

On the other hand, that can put a crimp into your hiking. But minimally you can still walk, and let’s face it – even though it’s snowing as I write this, that doesn’t have to keep us immured inside, and on top of that there will be PLENTY of nice days this month (along with some bad ones). Take a walk down the Main Street in Naples or Canandaigua… follow the audio tour of Bath… hike the rail trail through Elmira, which has just installed new mileposts.

When you get a half-way decent day, visit the marinas or waterfronts at Penn Yan, Geneva, Hammondsport, Canandaigua, Watkins Glen. They’re a very different world, and a much quieter world.

Go, not necessarily to the mall, but just to your local supermarket. Stroll through, taking the time to EXPERIENCE your visit. Take in all the Thanksgiving decorations, and get yourself into the season a little bit.

If you’re out on a walk or a drive, especially with kids, see how many decorative turkeys you can spot along the way. If each of you takes one side of the street, you can make a little contest of it.

Make sure you get your Scouting for Food bag out. And/or make a gift to the Food Bank, or to your church’s food pantry, to help those who are hungry as the year gets cold.

Put your bird feeders back out! Thanksgiving to Easter is a good rule of thumb here in bear country. Our juncos are back, here in Bath, though in reality they only go up to Mossy Bank Park – they’re pretty much altitude migrators, rather than latitude migrators. Birds in your yard are a promise of spring!

November, 1901: A Busy Month for Socialites

Glenn and Lena Curtiss, along with their infant son Carlton, spent Thanksgiving Day in 1901 visiting friends in Rochester. It they had stayed at home in Hammondsport, they could have attended Union Services at 10:30 that day in the Methodist Episcopal Church on Lake Street, where Glenn’s grandfather had once been pastor. At the Presbyterian Church they could have attended a Thanksgiving Fair, with “Chinese curios, Angora cats, cut flowers, potted palms, …other things too numerous to mention, and a fine supper to finish off with.”
If Lena had chosen to make her own Thanksgiving feast, she could have gone to C. G. Kay for “Thanksgiving Eatables.” Cape Cod cranberries were 10 cents a quart. A package of sage leaf cost a nickel. She could have gotten three pounds of raisins for a quarter, or half a pound of chocolate candy.
The Curtisses could have enjoyed many other social events that long-ago November day, if they were in fact so inclined, although Carlton’s poor health doubtless slowed them down; this was the only Thanksgiving he would ever see.
They could have joined one of Mrs. Benedict’s dancing classes in the newly opened Opera House Block. (Do you think Glenn would have liked that?) They could have watched Bath-Haverling clobber the Hammondsport home team 16-0 in football. On November 7, from 3:00 to 6:00 and again from 7:30 to 10:00, they could have attended a chrysanthemum show and sale at the home of Mrs. W. Brown. Fifteen cents would have gotten them admission, coffee, and wafers.
Glenn didn’t become a Mason until 1914, but the Lodge was moving into its new rooms in the Opera House. Citizens’ Hose Company had ladies’ night on the 25th. The Epworth League literary society met at the home of Miss Florence Voorhees to discuss the life and work of Edward Eggleston. A “jolly party” went on at Germania Wine Cellars, but those were all people from Rochester. The Curtisses could also have slipped over to the Casino Opera House in Bath for a delightful love romance, “When We Were Twenty-One,” presented by “a strong and popular company.”
Lena would not have been eligible for a mysterious group formed one Friday evening in November of 1901 at the home of Miss Adda Shull. All members of the “M.M.M.” were “bachelor girls,” but they refused to reveal what the initials meant. Hammondsport Herald editor Lew Brown archly conjectured that they might stand for “Merry Marriageable Maidens,” “Merciless Man-Hating Maidens,” or any number of other possibilities. He also twitted them in verse. Members would say only that their goal was to discourage matrimony, improve their proficiency at Pedro (a form of the card game pitch, which seems to have been wildly popular around Hammondsport in 1901), and encourage the production of “palatable culinary products.”
While Lew Brown would have his fun with the M.M.M.’s over the next several months, he was conscientious in reporting women’s issues. In fact, if the paper’s columns reflected his views, he supported woman suffrage and the increase of women’s rights. On November 13 he published lengthy extracts from an essay by Ava Stoddard of M.I.T. analyzing why women’s pay was less than that of men. Miss Stoddard stated the reason was political – established workers feared competition from women, and women were not in a position to force improvements. “Give women the ballot,” she urged, “and… ‘Equal pay for equal work’ will be realized.” She would probably be horrified to see how little that is true more than a century later.
Of course, Hammondsport also had some more prosaic interests back then. Sheep worrying was still a problem. J. S. Hubbs added an iron fence to his home on Sheathar Street. Miss Grace Ellis was working at Smellie’s Pharmacy, as the telephone and telegraph operator. Trappers and hunters were busy taking muskrat. Concrete or limestone sidewalks were being installed, along with a crosswalk at Lake and Wheeler. Lown’s in Penn Yan held its winter millinery opening on the 14th and 15th.
Out in the big wide world, variolid (a mild form of smallpox) had broken out in Corning. The Soldiers’ Home in Bath had 1706 inmates. The New York Central Railroad settled a strike by agreeing to a 10-hour day (down from 12), plus overtime. The Boers beat the British badly in a South African battle. A coastal storm devastated sections of Long Island and New Jersey.
The Treasury Secretary ordered a buy-back of US bonds; our government had so much money, the surplus was starting to drain the economy. The Board of Naval Construction was doing all it could to solve the problem, proposing 40 new ships in addition to the two battle ships and two armored cruisers already on the ways. And the Navy’s first submarine boat, Fulton, submerged for over 15 hours in New York on the 25th.
Just in case you were wondering, the weekly Hammondsport Herald ran its first Christmas ads on November 27, the day before Thanksgiving.