COOPERSTOWN – Jessica and Jordin FitzGerald of Sidney had a special New Year’s Day – and New Decade – treat: Their baby boy, Jace FitzGerald, decided to make an entrance into this world a month ahead of his due date.
He was born at the Bassett Birthing Center in Cooperstown 3:55 p.m Jan. 1, 2020. Jace joins a 4- year-old brother Julian at home.
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – Betty Jo Chase, 69, a native of Florida who served for many years as a nurse’s aide at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, passed away following a brief illness Saturday afternoon, Oct. 26, 2019, at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown.
Born Jan. 29, 1950, in Milton, Fla., Betty was one of nine children of Clarence and Leona (Mack) Richardson. Raised in Santa Rosa County, Fla., she graduated from Milton High School and then attended nursing school in Pensacola.
COOPERSTOWN – Donald O. Pollock, M.D., who led a lifetime of service to others, including a distinguished and wide-ranging medical career with Bassett Hospital that spanned several decades, passed away peacefully in his home Sunday evening, Sept. 29, 2019, surrounded by family and listening to the final Red Sox game of the season. He was 89.
He was born in 1930 in East Orange, N.J., the oldest son of J. Ford and Helen (Glasson) Pollock. He was raised in Brookside N.J., where he also attended grammar school before going to Morristown High School. He graduated from Morristown as the valedictorian of the Class of 1947.
QUILT SHOW – 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Celebrate 25th year of the annual quilt show at Silver Jubilee. Features 300+ quilts from artists across the country with featured quilter Jim Bryden in Tudor style historic inn. Lunch available. Proceeds benefit roof project. Admission, $5/person. The Major’s Inn, 12 Marion Ave., Gilbertsville. 607-783-2780 or visit www.themajorsinn.com
By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – “I haven’t heard anything about a dorm?” said attorney Linden Summers, who lives at 1 Elk St., a half-block from Bassett Hospital, as this evening’s hour-long presentation and discussion on the village’s proposed revised zoning code neared an end.
He recalled that five years ago, the Village Board’s effort to adopt a “hospital zone” to give Bassett flexibility collapsed over whether the hospital was planning dorms in the one-family neighborhood surrounding it.
Deputy Mayor Cindy Falk, who led this evening’s presentation, acknowledged there is a provision in the revised code for dormitories
By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – Hudson may just be a dog, but as part of Bassett Hospital’s first K-9 team, he has a lot of responsibilities.
The hospital announced the new security team today.
“The presence of a K-9 team is shown to be extremely effective in promoting safety,” said Harold Southworth, director of Public Safety and Transportation, who along with Andrew Zuk, manager of Security Operations, led the development of the K-9 program.
“Hudson is extremely intelligent and adaptable to the moment. His presence can immediately calm a highly charged situation, and he is an approachable, comforting distraction when called upon, such as for children in the emergency department.”
COOPERSTOWN – Dr. Konika Sharma, a Bassett Hospital internal medicine resident in her third year of training, earned the 2019 E. Donnall Thomas Research Day Outstanding Research Presentation award for a finding that could improve detection of damage to retinas caused by diabetes.
Sharma addressed the question: “Is a hand-held non-mydriatic (no dilation required) fundus camera superior to the referred dilated eye exams for the screening and detection of diabetic retinopathy in the primary care setting?” Her answer was: yes.
MIDDLEFIELD – Mabel (Dubben) Graham, 88, who worked at Bassestt Hospital with Nobel Prize winner E. Donnell Thomas, M.D., died peacefully of natural causes early in the morning of April 2, 2019, in Bellevue, Wash.
She began her life Dec. 3, 1930, in Cooperstown. She was the second child of Dorothy and George Dubben, Middlefield dairy farmers.
Mabel started her schooling in Middlefield, graduated from Cherry Valley Central and finished with a degree from Broome Tech Community College in Binghamton.
EAST SPRINGFIELD – Elaine More, who farmed with her husband in Pierstown and East Springfield, passed away early Saturday morning, April 13, 2019, at Cooperstown Center following a short illness. She was 87.
Elaine was born Nov. 15, 1931, in Cooperstown, a daughter of J. Emory and Wilma (Curry) Bloomer. Raised in Hyde Park, Town of Hartwick, Elaine attended Cooperstown Central School, graduating with the Class of 1949.
PHILADELPHIA – Bassett Hospital’s Douglas M. DeLong, M.D., was elevated to chairman of the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians during Internal Medicine Meeting 2019, ACP’s annual scientific meeting held here Thursday through Saturday.
The Board of Regents is the main policy-making body of the ACP, which is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States, and had members in more than 145 countries worldwide. The ACP is considered second only to the AMA (American Medical Association) in bringing physicians’ perspective to bear in national policy.
A resident of Cherry Valley, Dr. DeLong is the chief of Bassett Hospital’s Division of General Internal Medicine, and an associate clinical professor of medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
By JIM KEVLIN • The Freeman’s Journal & Hometown Oneonta
COOPERSTOWN – When Otsego Now CEO Jody Zakrevsky arrived a year ago, he was told not to bring natural gas to Cooperstown, he said to a Cooperstown audience Monday, April 9, in one of several “Town Hall” meetings he’s convening around the county.
Asked afterward who told him, he said the leadership of Otsego 2000, board President Nicole Dillingham and Executive Director Ellen Pope. “They advised me there would be strong opposition,” said Zakrevsky. “At the time, I took their advice.”
Dillingham disagreed, “We had a cordial meeting to discuss our work, and his work. We never told him what he could do. That’s absurd.”
Otsego Now is the county’s Industrial Development Agency; Otsego 2000 is the Cooperstown-based environmental group.
There are two options to serving Cooperstown with natural gas, Zakrevsky said in an interview the morning after the “Town Hall” – running a line from Oneonta’s NYSEG system; or the preferred option, running a line down Route 28 from Richfield Springs’ Tennessee line, which has a greater gas supply.
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – James J. Stearns, 69, of Hugick Road, a retired dairy farmer whose interests ranged widely to include Percherons, raising unusual chickens, growing roses and day lilies, and playing the organ, passed away on Thursday morning March 21, 2019, at Bassett Hospital.
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – Barbara Atwell Roberts, 87, formerly of Richfield Springs and a retired operating room nurse at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, died Feb. 21, 2019, of heart failure at Concord Hospital in Concord, N.H.
She lived at Havenwood Heritage Heights in Concord for the past nine years.
Raised in the Baptist church, Barb’s unshakable faith guided and strengthened her throughout her life, in happy times and sad times. She lost her son at age 10 and survived domestic abuse. “Let your life speak,” say the Quakers, and Barb did so, with her gentle and forgiving nature, optimism, generosity, and most of all, loving kindness. She walked “cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.”
GLOVERSVILLE – Sally P. Sanford, 78, an Oneonta native who worked for many years at Bassett Hospital, passed away peacefully with her daughters at her side Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, at the Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville.
She was born in Oneonta on March 12, 1940, and lived in Cooperstown, Sun City, Ariz.,, and most recently in Northville in the Adirondacks.