This 4th Of July

Enjoy Virtual Parade

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

What do Franklin Delano Roosevelt and elephants have in common?

Both will be part of a county-wide parade this Fourth of July – virtually, of course.

“When Springfield announced that they would be cancelling their 4th of July parade” – the second-oldest continually running such parade in the country – “I knew we had to put something together that would uplift people,” said Michelle Bosma, New York State History Day coordinator at The Farmers’ Museum.

She partnered with historical associations across the county and asked them for photos of parades in days gone by to create a “virtual parade” for The Farmers’ Museum,

It will available beginning 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 4, on www.farmersmuseum.org.

“We were doing virtual programming and we came up with the idea to do this parade,” said Todd Kenyon, the museum’s communications director. “We want to let people know the history of parades in the area, and we have so many great images in our collection.”

And that’s when Bosma found FDR. “He was in a Cherry Valley parade in the 1930s,” she said. “I had no idea!”

The photo was sent by Sue Miller of the Cherry Valley Historical Society.“The photo is from the sesquicentennial parade on July 20, 1932,” Miller said. “Roosevelt was governor then, and he’s riding in Wilkie Maddox’s car.”

Following the parade, she said, he gave a speech on the steps of Village Hall.
The photo she sent Bosma was from a postcard she found at a show in Virginia. “I recognized Wilkie right away!” she said. “I paid $8 for the card.”

Not to let Oneonta’s great parade history go unrecognized, Bob Brzozowski, Greater Oneonta Historical Society executive director, sent a photo from that collection, depicting elephants walking down
Main Street.

“We have a poster from the Ringling Brothers in 1901,” he said. “They were here for five days in May, and they had a circus parade every night. I imagine that’s where this image is from.”

Similarly, John Philip Sousa brought his band by railroad to the city five times, and each time it would march up Broad Street to Main, playing for crowds gathered on the sidewalk.

“People like Tony Mongillo (b. 1924) would talk about seeing elephants on Main Street in his lifetime,” said Brzozowski. “It was a big deal. It might be nice to have them again!” (Mongillo would also talk about having to shovel out the elephants’ freight cars.)

And no Fourth of July is complete without fireworks, so Brzozowski also submitted a panoramic from Stephen Joseph, who photographed the fireworks in 2015.

Bosma, a Springfield native now living in Cherry Valley, was also inspired to create the parade from her own family’s collection of photos.

“My grandfather purchased a Kodachrome camera in the early 1960s,” she said. “He always took pictures of the parades, and the earliest color photos we have are from 1963.”

Her grandmother, Mae Robertson, owned Glimmerloch Farms, and, like many in Springfield, was active in the annual parade.