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Down the Decades

May 20, 2025 Edition

Compiled by Lee Hermann, Muse, & Ruth Huggler
Posted 5/20/25

110 Years Ago - 1915

While it is known that Narrowsburg is the center of the Sullivan County egg belt, the fact is not appreciated. To have shipped nearly 400,000 eggs in a day less than two …

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Down the Decades

May 20, 2025 Edition

Posted

110 Years Ago - 1915

While it is known that Narrowsburg is the center of the Sullivan County egg belt, the fact is not appreciated. To have shipped nearly 400,000 eggs in a day less than two weeks is to have accomplished a feat of which the bustling little town may be justly proud, and which some larger towns will eye with envy.

While endeavoring to loosen a piece of rope which he wished to use in binding a load of hay, John Stephenson of North White Lake knocked down a scythe which was hanging nearby. In falling, the scythe struck Mr. Stephenson in such a manner as to nearly sever his nose. He was hurried to Dr. Duggan’s office at Bethel where he was treated and is doing well.

Last Saturday, the trustees of the two-department school at Hankins contracted with Harry A. Drennon for the principalship during the coming year.

At Drew M.E. Church, Port Jervis, Ethel I. Baird and George J. Reynolds, both of Milanville, Pa., were united in holy matrimony last Thursday morning.

Drawing youngsters to school for pay is surely something new in Sullivan County. Nevertheless next fall we will see it in operation. Pupils will be hauled from five outlying districts to the central school in Youngsville at prices ranging from $175 to $300 per district. The world does move, but this looks like a foolish move.

Ethel E. Bennedum of Lake Huntington was married May 5 to Theodore Siessen at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Bennedum.

Mrs. George Homer Sr. of Callicoon sold her Hankins property to Charles Cargin. Mr. Cargin recently disposed of his Pennsylvania farm and has purchased a home in Hankins to be near his work, that of manager of the Hankins creamery. Mrs. Homer moved to Callicoon about two weeks ago.

100 Years Ago - 1925

A play, “Aaron  Slick from Punkin Crick,” a three-act rural comedy will be given at the Hortonville Grange Hall on Saturday, May 16, under the auspices of the Beechwoods Home Bureau unit. The admission is 50¢ for adults and for the children, according to age.

Long Eddy — Last Friday evening the truck of Dowe Simon and the new Chevrolet of Carl Wagner collided in front of Blaine Hagadorn’s. Fortunately no one was hurt.

One of the earliest and lowest flying planes seen here sailed over the Delaware Valley Sunday morning taking a southern direction. The hour was 6:45 a.m. and this plane was a gray one whose outline and color were easily seen. A trail of smoke and a white object which could be seen without the aid of field glasses proved it was traveling nearer the earth than usual in this section.

Long Eddy, May 11 — At the annual school meeting held on Tuesday evening, Arthur Beesmer and Archer Wood were elected members of the Board of Education for three years.

North Branch — Philip Hess is treating his house to a coat of paint. Frank Greening is doing the work.

Walter Stewart has been improving his house quite some lately also. He had an electric light plant and plumbing installed and now he is having the house painted.

Many of the boarding houses which had been closed for the winter are now being opened up and renovated for the summer season.

90 Years Ago - 1935

Concrete has been poured for the westbound side of the new Erie bridge on the last span. Waterproofing materials will be applied this week and in about a month the westbound trains will be run over the new track. When that occurs a section of the old bridge will be removed so that the new bridge can be completed. The guard rail on the upstream side of the bridge is being erected.

Sheriff Walter Flynn who has been ill at his home for several days suffering from pleurisy, is under the care of a physician.

Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Hess of Callicoon were elected delegates to the annual meeting of the Dairymen’s League Association to be held in Syracuse June 20th.

On Thursday afternoon, while Edw. Wormuth was plowing for Mrs. Buch, a part of the plow broke and scared the team of horses which pulled Mr.  Wormuth over the top of the plow. He received a bad cut on the head, numerous bruises and was knocked unconscious. Five stitches were required to close the wound. As this paper goes to press, Mr. Wormuth has regained consciousness and is resting comfortably.

So intensely did Miss Lydia B. Adams dislike her neighbors in the village of Liberty, where she had lived for many years, that in her will she directed that no public notice of her death be given anyone in Liberty and that her property on Columbia Street not be sold to anyone living on that street. Miss Adams further directed that the antiques she possessed be disposed of at public sale to persons living anywhere outside the town of Liberty.

Last Sunday, the Junior teams of Mileses and Fremont Center crossed bats in an exciting game at Fremont. Both teams fought viciously for victory but Fremont Center won the laurels, the score being 27-23.

80 Years Ago - 1945

Fortunate indeed is the four-year-old daughter of Postmaster and Mrs. Dillmuth of Milanville. She fell into a swollen brook. Rescued by a man who just happened to notice her, she was taken from the water more dead than alive. Two hours of heroic work administering artificial respiration and oxygen saved her life and she is well again.

The alibi that he was “hurrying home to milk the cows,” didn’t keep state police from arresting Roy Merle Hess on speeding charges. Hess, clocked at 80 miles an hour, was committed to jail for five days in default of bail.

A man with some real grit is Teamster Lawton, who drove his car from Mileses to Honesdale with two fractures of his leg.

The Callicoon Men’s Bowling League is nearly over for this season with only two more weeks of matches. Contests are hot these days for top position with the Callicoon East Siders well out in front. Quite a race is now on for the high average with Charlie Sprague and Fran Henke battling to the finish for the $10 prize.

Two  Delaware Valley boys are now freed from German prison camps and both will be home soon. Nick Felske and Warren Miller were both prisoners of the Germans and during the past week their folks have heard the good news of their release. We’ll be glad to welcome them back home among us.

70 Years Ago - 1955

Assistant District Attorney Leon Greenberg was named president of the Mountaindale Fire Department Wednesday evening.

The  VFW Buddy Poppy and the American Legion Memorial Poppies are now on sale. Both of these organizations do wonderful work with the proceeds from the sale of the poppies.

Miss Joyce Muir, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Muir of North Branch, was highly honored last week when she was chosen to meet and entertain Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. The latter was a guest of Potsdam State Teachers College where she delivered a lecture during the 14th Spring Festival last week.

Nine Delaware Valley nimrods left here yesterday morning for some Canadian lakes in search of some big specimens of Great Northern Pike. In the safari, which started here at 5 a.m., were Charles E. Bertsch, Carl Oestrich and son, Freddie, Chapell Peake, Elmer Hess, Franklyn Hahn, Walter Oestrich, Robert  Oestrich and Stephen Bleier.

Mr. and Mrs. Eben Hill celebrated their golden wedding anniversary last Sunday at the home of their son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Lindsley.

60 Years Ago - 1965

Miss  Sally Ellmauer and Thomas  Eronimous were married at the Reformed Church in Youngsville.

At the Arden Theater, Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr in Quo Vadis.

Mrs. Anabel Wells, 90, of Jeffersonville died in Liberty.

Severe loss and damage were averted when a forest fire blazed along Route 97, between Callicoon and Hankins. Companies called on to assist were Hankins, Mileses, Callicoon, Fremont Center, Long Eddy and Narrowsburg. The fire was apparently started by sparks from a passing train.

Liberty’s Maimonides Hospital and Monticello Hospital are working on a merger.

50 Years Ago - 1975

Mayor Ida “Skippy” Frankel put her OK on the Chestnut Street housing project which has been approved this week by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

One boxcar tipped over and five others left the track of the Erie-Lackawanna at 10:30 a.m. Thursday on the White House curve, four miles west of Callicoon.

Miss Nancy Seaman celebrated her 104th birthday this week at the Liberty-Loomis Hospital where she has been a patient since November of last year when she broke her hip. Born May 13, 1871, she is the oldest and only surviving child of the six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Tillson of Grahamsville. Miss Seaman ran a general store in Neversink for over 50 years. She is the oldest documented resident of Sullivan County and celebrated her 100th birthday by taking her first helicopter ride.

Harold Roeder III, son of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Roeder Jr. of Hortonville, received the Judges’ Distinguished Performance Award at the Yamaha Regional Electone Organ Festival in Washington, D.C. The special award is given for outstanding performance.

A daughter, Virginia Nora, eleventh child of Dr. and Mrs. John Stirna of Narrowsburg, was born May 5, at the Wayne Memorial Hospital.

Ruby Wilcox of Damascus, Pa., became the bride of Scott E. Milk of Long Eddy on March 29.

40 Years Ago - 1985

Louis Kaplan, former Village of Woodridge mayor and lifelong area resident, died Sunday, May 12, 1985, after a short illness in the Horton Memorial Hospital in Middletown. He was 77 years of age. 

Retired Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals Lawrence H. Cooke of Monticello has been selected as the keynote speaker at the 69th Annual Jeffersonian Dinner, sponsored by the Sullivan County Democratic Party, to be held at the Concord Resort Hotel in Kiamesha Lake on June 5.

North Branch Fire  Chief Robert Theadore sustained second degree burns Sunday afternoon escaping a fire in his own barn. The barn had been in the family for years and more recently was used to store hay and quite a bit of equipment, together with housing a horse. Theadore returned a farm tractor to the shed and was refilling it with gasoline when the fire occurred. The building was completely destroyed along with various items stored therein.

For the first time in several years, voters in all the Sullivan County school districts passed the proposed budgets, although Roscoe and Fallsburg passed by only a small margin.

Robin Pelton of Livingston Manor was named Miss Initiative at the Miss Sullivan County Teenage Pageant held Sunday, May 5. She was also named second runner-up.

On May 19, the Livingston Manor Chamber of Commerce will hold a testimonial dinner to roast Mack Weiner, prominent area businessman and longtime involved citizen of the Manor where he has lived since he was 1 1/2 years of age. Mr. Weiner and his wife, Jean, are the owners of Monticello Travel Agency. A tennis enthusiast, Mr. Weiner’s favorite partner is his wife of 43 years who was a former NYC champion. The Weiners travel in excess of 100,000 miles a year, often playing tennis against other travel agents.

The historic Dr. Frank Chester Frisbie home in Hobertville, Buckingham Township, Pa., will be host to an open house for the Equinunk Historical Society on May 19. Wellington Lester will discuss the life of Dr. Frisbee. The house is located quite close to the area occupied in the 19th century by the Holbert and Branning Factory.

30 Years Ago - 1995

Sullivan County Community College will host a gala benefit May 20 for the ambitious Stephen Crane ‘95 Festival and its production of “The Third Violet,” a musical adaption of Crane’s novella, at the Seelig Theatre of the college.

James Newton, longtime music educator at the Livingston Manor School, will be honored at a retirement dinner on June 3. During his tenure, he took the school band on statewide tours all over the northeast and made arrangements for them to play at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. Mr. Newton is also the director of the popular Callicoon Center Band.

John Bankich of Neversink was honored as “Driver of the Year” by George and Carol Gershowitz, owners of the Gershowitz Bus Co., during their third annual dinner to celebrate New York State Transportation Service Personnel Week. Bankich has driven a school bus for the Tri-Valley Central School for eight years and is one of 100 of Gershowitz’s “exceptional team players.”

The New York State Public High School Athletic Association recently released its list of varsity teams that qualified as NYSPHSAA Scholar/ Athlete Teams during the 1994-95 sports seasons. The following Sullivan County teams qualified for this award: Monticello Girls Skiing — combined alpine and nordic, coached by Buddy Goldsmith and Chris Stahl; Monticello Boys Skiing — combined nordic and alpine, same coaches as the girls’ teams; and Tri-Valley Boys Basketball, coached by Andy Taggart.

20 Years Ago - 2005

Julius Cohen of White Lake, a lifetime area resident who was a real estate broker, investor and developer and a partner in the Gersten-Hillman Insurance Agency in Monticello, died Saturday, May 14, 2005 at his home at the age of 79. The son of the late Isidore and Fannie Krinsky Cohen, he was born in Hurleyville.

Colleen Flynn of Fremont Center shot her first turkey while hunting on May 6 in the Town of Fremont. The tom tipped the scales at exactly 19 lbs. 

Medicine Shoppe International, Inc. has awarded franchisee Lisa Morana of Liberty its Community Service award for hosting monthly diabetic support groups and giving exceptional customer counseling.

Ann Marie and Ed Lohr of Callicoon recently returned from Mississsippi where they attended their great-granddaughter’s christening on Mother’s Day. The gathering of four generations of family included the child’s mother, Monique Bosarge, great-grandmother Ann Marie Lohr, infant Connely Marie, and grandmother Deborah Young.

Will Conklin of Neversink shot his first turkey on one of two special youth hunting days, on April 23. The 14-year-old shot a tom weighing 26 lbs. and sporting a 7 1/2-inch beard and 1-inch spurs.

10 Years Ago - 2015

Rescued from an unheated car nearly two months ago, Tawny is on the mend and up for adoption. The veterinarian who treated the four-year-old pit bull after she was found severely neglected in Liberty on March 22 affirms she is doing well. Tawny had a severe skin infection, leading to the loss of much of her hair. The new nonprofit Catskill Animal Rescue, led by animal control officer Joanne Gerow and Amy Kristt, found a foster home for Tawny, now a happy, healthier-looking pit bull.

A motorcycle accident claimed two lives over the weekend. According to Undersheriff Eric Chaboty, 59-year-old Gus Kerkoulas of Hortonville was driving a 2001 Harley-Davidson south on Route 97 near Cochecton around 4 p.m. Saturday when he failed to negotiate a righthand curve. Without leaving any skidmarks, the bike shot across the road and into the woods on the other side, ejecting passenger Emmy Curran, 38, and then Kerkoulas. Chaboty said the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate, but no cause for the accident has been determined yet.

The Holy Cross Communion group recently completed religious instruction and members Melissa Estremera, Justin Burgos, Virginia Coulby, Michael Coulby, Haley Boice, Ethan Hoch, and Kayla Wood received their first Holy Eucharist. Instructors were Eileen Crum, Delphine Hoch and Linda English.  

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