Bound Volumes, Hometown History
April 23, 2026
110 YEARS AGO
Monday was opening day at the new offices of the Oneonta Light & Power Co. The company has for several weeks been busy in remodeling and redecorating the store at 172 Main Street. From ceiling to floor, the room has been refinished, the artistic new iron ceiling painted a flat white, the side walls finished in a delicate shade of oatmeal paper, and the wainscoting in Lincrusta. All the new wood fittings are in Circassian walnut, and the overhead lights a new type of Brascolite, a semi-indirect system that filled the entire interior with subdued brilliance. The visitors were cordially received by Mrs. Gilbert A. Lane, wife of the local superintendent. After coffee, tea and cakes had been served, opportunity was given to inspect the various appliances for use of gas and electricity which are on display, and to watch them in operation. Besides gas and combination ranges in variety, there are shown gas and electric irons, automatic water heaters, toasters, waffle irons, griddles and all the multitude of modern devices which make the kitchen in summer a delightful place to be instead of one of torment.
April 1916
50 YEARS AGO
“We often operate on the mistaken notion that it is possible to determine age on the basis of behavior,” said Dr. Sidney Saul to a Hartwick College audience last night. “But, behavior transcends age.” According to Doctors Sidney Saul, “agelessness is a way of looking at human needs.” They stressed that many of the needs and concerns of the elderly are those underlying all of humanity. Most often, the needs of “love, affection and belongingness,” and “self-esteem” are denied to the elderly by social institutions or the people around them. Budget allocations for preventive programs in nursing homes are often the first to be cut in times of economic strain, the doctors asserted. Another dimension of the problem is that in the 1970s the average life expectancy of any individual is much higher than that of a century ago. “Society is now faced with at least three categories of the elderly—the young old, the middle old, and the old-old,” Dr. Sidney Saul said.
April 1976
30 YEARS AGO
Activist Angela Davis will deliver a keynote talk on “Racism in the Criminal Justice System” at SUNY Oneonta’s Third Annual Undergraduate Women’s Conference at the State University College at Oneonta at 6 p.m. on Saturday in Chase Gymnasium. A reception for Angela Davis, a book signing and the Students of Color Coalition Fashion Show will follow her talk. The Conference is free and open to all in the college’s Morris complex. Among a broad schedule of breakout session titles are “Sexual Communities & Sexual Fictions,” “Women, Sexuality & Image,” “Babes of Our Lives: Reading Women in Popular Culture,” “Sexual Harassment: It’s Against the Law,” “Women, Resistance & Change,” “Empowering the Feminine: Toward Global Healing,” “Reflections on Power: Women, Rape and the Holocaust,” “Buckets of Blood: Creating and Contesting Images of Women in Popular Culture.”
April 1996
20 YEARS AGO
The governor is wrong to warn about the state being bankrupted, NYS Senator James Seward (R-Milford) said in defense of the Legislature’s budget. Gov. George Pataki has forecast deficits every year and he has been wrong, Seward said. Three years ago, the governor vetoed parts of the budget and lawmakers overrode the vetoes 120 times, Seward added. “I disagree with the governor about his vetoes of our ‘Family First’ budget. It’s my view the tax cuts and restorations in the budget are constitutional and are in the best interests of the people in our area.”
April 2006
