The Sullivan County Historical Society held its annual meeting and awards dinner at the Rockland House on Sunday. The Historical Society honored the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project and The Frederick Cook Society each with a History Preserver Award at the dinner. 

Accepting the first History Preserver Award were Marisa Scheinfeld, Founder and Project Director of the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project, and Project Visual Coordinator and Photographer Isaac Jeffreys. 

Sullivan County Historian John Conway said a few words about the recognition the Historical Marker Project received. Conway is involved in ensuring the accuracy of each historical marker, doing so since the project was founded by Scheinfeld, Jeffreys and Historical Preservationist Louis Inghilterra in August 2022. 

“One of the reasons I am so fascinated and impressed by the job that Marisa has done with this project - and Isaac and the others,” Conway said, “is that probably about 15 years ago, I had several phone conversations with Jerry Klinger, and he tried his best to convince me to take on this project.”

Conway said that he told Klinger he was not interested in doing it, as he didn’t have the time or the willingness to engage with the necessary associations to get commission markers up. 

“That was probably the best thing that ever happened to the world of history because it ended up with Marisa and her team,” he said. “They’ve done a job well beyond anything that I had ever envisioned this thing becoming. That worked out for the best and I know the kind of work that has gone into this; it’s very impressive the job that she has done.”

Of the 20 planned historic markers for the project, funded by Jerry Klinger and the Jewish American Society of Historic Preservation, the program has completed and sited nine markers in Sullivan County. 

Five more markers are planned for 2025 - four in Sullivan and one in Ulster County - and the final six in 2026 to add to the markers in Monticello, Mountaindale, Swan Lake, Fallsburg, Kiamesha Lake, South Fallsburg, Hurleyville, Bethel and Woodridge. 

“During the process of the project, I had a lot of people telling me that there was nothing there, there was nothing left, and it took me a long time to tell people, well you’re not looking,”  Scheinfeld said. “Because not only is there personal history there for me, but there’s a collective history for millions of people. Not only for people who grew up in Sullivan County but people who found their way here - artists, writers, musicians and countless people who came to this area and this county because they were excluded from going to other places in America. 

“That’s one of the most beautiful things about the Borscht Belt is the Jewish community which has long felt an exclusion,” Scheinfeld continued. “They found this kind of place of refuge and welcomed many other minority groups who also created places of refuge in this area.”

Accepting the second History Preserver Award for The Frederick Cook Society were Patricia Burns and the Cook Society’s Executive Director Carol Smith. 

“I was really surprised that the Historical Society has been so supportive,” Smith said. “Everybody in that organization kind of rallied around me and helped me to bring this project to fruition. I really want to thank [Burns] who has been the foundation of the Cook Society for so many years. One of the stories I love about [Burns] is when I was rummaging around in the archives, I found Royal Danish Copenhagen teacups. I thought that was interesting and I set them on the counter. 

“About a week or so later, [Burns] said we might want to put them away and said they were presented to Dr. Cook by the Queen of Denmark,” Smith continued, “and that’s how it all began.”