New York Telephone Co.

In Memoriam

Dolores S. Coleman, 92

 February 27, 1929 – November 13, 2021

COOPERSTOWN – Dolores S. Coleman, founder of Coleman’s Answering Service that served the Cooperstown community and beyond for 50 years, died late Saturday afternoon, November 13, 2021, at Cooperstown Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing.  A beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and sister, she was 92.

A native of Cooperstown, Dolores Maxine Snyder was born at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital on February 27, 1929, a daughter of Clifford LeRoy Snyder and Genevieve Veda née Knapp Snyder, and was raised on a farm in Middlefield.  In the summer of 1945, she went to work for “Ma Bell”, which is what New York Telephone Co. was referred to at the time.  One year later, she graduated from Cherry Valley High School with the Class of ’46, and attended (“at the insistence of my father!”) a business school in Utica.  That didn’t last long, and she returned to work as a switchboard operator at the Cooperstown exchange, then located at 52 Pioneer Street, just south of the Pratt Hotel.

It was during this time that she met Charles A. Coleman, and on December 3, 1948, they were married in a ceremony held in the Rectory at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Roman Catholic Church in Cooperstown, with Fr. Patrick Whelan officiating.  Dolores and Chuck first lived on Pioneer Street, and then settled into their home on Beaver Street and raised their three boys.