Bound Volumes, Hometown History
September 21, 2023
90 Years Ago
Guiding Your Child by Alice Clarissa Richmond: Mildred is 16 and looks old for her age. The other day she drove 40 miles or more, alone in her car, to call on a boy whom she had met a few weeks before. Her father, who would not have approved of her escapade, was out when she made her getaway. According to her mother, he is too strict and old-fashioned, so Mildred schemes to keep him in ignorance of her doings. There are two deplorable features in such a situation. First is the very real danger which the child runs in driving about the country in such a foolhardy manner. Sixteen is quite old enough to drive a car and to have an interest in social contacts with boys. But it is not old enough to have ripe judgment either in a road accident or a social crisis. The other unfortunate aspect of the case is the undermining of the father’s influence. If the child gets into any kind of dilemma her mother will have only herself to thank for granting excessive freedom to the girl at an age when she still needed supervision.
September 1933
70 Years Ago
Male high school graduates in the Oneonta area can apply today for the “Top Secret” training courses in atomic weapons technician school. Sergeant First Class Anthony A. Angelotti, area Army and Air Force recruiter, announced yesterday that an official release issued by the Department of the Army calls for male personnel to be trained in handling atomic artillery. The call for atomic arms technicians is the result of the government’s rapid strides made in atomic weapons development since WWII. The request also comes a week after the Army Department sent six atomic cannons to Europe to bolster NATO defenses.
September 1953
50 Years Ago
Another Oneonta landmark will be razed next week. The venerable River Street school building, which for the past few years has housed the Sixth Ward Athletic Club, will be torn down. Fred Delello, one of the club’s directors, said current plans call for construction of a new, one-story building on the site. The new structure will house the club meeting rooms, and may be built large enough to house several small stores. The brick school structure was built in 1888. “Vandalism at the site has increased and “the building is becoming an eyesore,” Delello said.
September 1973
30 Years Ago
A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital racked up another year in the black for 1992 with a profit of about $121,000. However, that sum marked a steep decline from the nearly $1.5 million in profits the hospital reported for 1991. For neighboring Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown the financial picture was far worse. Bassett’s balance sheet went from $824,000 in profit for 1991 to a loss of $6.8 million in 1992, the second largest in New York State.
September 1993
20 Years Ago
The Oneonta Italian American Club is sponsoring the showing of a video titled “Heaven Touches Brooklyn in July.” The video delves into an incident in Nola, Italy and the legend of St. Paulinius, a fifth-century bishop who engineered the rescue of a group of village children who were kidnapped and held as hostages by Barbary pirates. The first wave of Italians from Nola migrated to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg district in 1887. For 116 years since, residents have gathered outside the parish church every July to witness the raising of the “giglio,” a four-ton, five-story tower of aluminum and wood dedicated to the memory of the bishop who freed the captive children of Nola.
September 2003
