Founder's Day

It was in 1876 on this date that a baby was born in Coudersport who would change the fortune of Potter County for generations to come. He was Charles Cole, benefactor of the fine hospital that still bears a shadow of his name, today known UPMC Cole.

My newspaperman grandfather wrote of his friend and contemporary Mr. Cole: "Charlie Cole, a Coudersport boy not so many years ago, made a fabulous fortune. He left it to the town and county where he first saw the light of day. Golly is delighted that Charles Cole hung onto his pennies, nickels and dimes until at the time of his passing, his fortune was maybe ten million dollars. He had seen much in his life but always he loved his home town and county. He proved it when he left his great wealth to restore health and preserve the lives of Potter Countians."

There are many stories told about this Potter County hero - Charles Cole. He made his fortune at IBM and accumulated enough wealth to retire back to Potter County in the 1920s, still a young man.

Mary Domaleski wrote in a biography of Mr. Cole, published in The Potter Enterprise for the new hospital's dedication: "Charles Cole was a retiring man, a mystery man, reluctant to reveal to the public his many philanthropic deeds to indigent friends or strangers. He loved to fish and to hunt and spent any hours in his camp near the Wingerter farm at Cross Fork. He named it Daniel Boone Camp for it was presumed that it was constructed on a trail that Daniel Boone once traveled. It was on his many trips through the Potter County countryside that he became keenly aware of the destitute, the desolate, andt he distance they had to travel for medical aid and comfort. He felt this neglect must be overcome." 

Mr. Cole's will made provisions for the bulk of his estate (some estimates say as much as $9 million) to fund the construction of a hospital upon the death of his widow. Mrs. Cole was persuaded that the community deserved the hospital her husband had endowed sooner rather than later and the fine, sprawling Charles Cole Memorial Hospital opened in the fall of 1967.

Mrs. Cole remarked during the dedication: "It is a joy seeing the fulfillment of the dream of my late husband. Today Charlie's dream is a reality, a reality that demonstrates one man's concern for the welfare of his brothers, and is a reminder of those words of grace, 'May God bless us and make us mindful of the needs of others'." 

A former co-worker at Charles Cole Memorial Hospital messaged me this morning to remind me that today is the day we annually celebrated as Founder's Day. Mr. Cole's birthday celebration included refreshments, prepared by the Hospital's Dietary Department and served by volunteers from the active Hospital Auxiliary. Mr. Cole's widow, Edith Pinney Cole Leonard Irwin, would be front and center as special guest, greeted by Hospital Administrators and staff and the community.

I stopped by UPMC Cole this afternoon, wondering if perhaps I would happen upon a Founder's Day celebration in progress but the only sign of Charles Cole was a large oil portrait hanging in the lobby of the hospital and its predecessor, a smaller version of the painting, unearthed a few years ago, and hung in the hallway where donors are recognized. And this plaque, hung during my time as Public Relations Director at our fine community hospital. 

The Golly's Folly Sign

Writing practice - a la Natalie Goldberg - harnesses stream of consciousness and when in practice, I'm letting my brain travel where it will, finding the words and then moving them through the mechanics of handwriting onto the notebook page. It's then I remember some random snippets from a long-ago childhood. And such it is with "Snuffy" Smith and the Shirey family and the Golly's Folly sign.

It's at the top of mind this month because Mrs. Shirey (I simply cannot bring myself to call her by her first name - Edith or even Edie) is soon to be celebrating her 100th birthday and the family is planning a card shower as part of the celebration. It's the Shireys' oldest son, Thomas Tucker Shirey, who went all through school with me and just a few years ago sat on my back porch and reminisced about all things childhood - as we tend to do when celebrating the 55 years since high school graduation.

Tommy Shirey could spin a good story, a story good enough to keep his classmates entertained and enthralled. Even the teachers were tolerant of his storytelling. Tommy's stories were long and sometimes convoluted and often involved tales of his little brother, Herbie, and someone called Snuffy Smith. 

For the longest time, I thought Tom's Snuffy was the person, the cartoon character on the comics page of my parents' Buffalo Evening News. But it turns out that "Snuffy" was the nickname of Mr. Shirey's childhood chum and he and his family were frequent visitors to the Shirey home.

But it all became somewhat more clear to me when this sign appeared on the back porch of our family camp. To this eight-year-old, it was bright and cheerful hanging over the flagstone porch, painted by "Snuffy" Smith.

From an article in The Potter Enterprise, September 1958

Bill Smith ("Snuffy), Freedom, Pa., paid a call to Golly Saturday afternoon. He was accompanied by his brother, Jack, and Bob Butcher, Conway, Pa. The trio was guided by "Buzz" Shirey.

What a quartet that made!

"Snuffy" is an Enterprise reader and a Golly fan. And what do you know –

He brought to Golly a sign to be erected at Folly in the Nine Mile. It is a work of art!

Now he has Golly away out in deep water. How is Golly going to even scores? The answer to that one is going to cause this old timer to do some thinking – and doing.

Golly tried in his feeble way to express to "Snuffy" his thanks. Since the donor had never even seen Folly, we took a run over to get a quick look at the little woods abode, a glance at the tiny lake and a snort from the gushing spring of pure cold water, regretful that time was so limited. "Snuffy" pointed to the exact spot where the splendid sign should be erected and that is where it will be.

Wonder what better we could do than broil a thick juicy steak over charcoal and serve plenty of good coffee brewed in an old tin can, to "Snuffy!" –

And his brother, his friend and even to "Buzz" Shirey. 

From 1959 - 

"Snuffy" Smith of Freedom, Pa., accompanied by our own Buzz Shirey - they were boyhood friends – invaded the Nine Mile wilds Friday to extend a greeting.

"Snuffy" is an artist in the making of signs, and late last summer he brought a unique sign to be erected at Golly's Folly. We were so choice of it that we waited until this summer to erect it. That saved a long hard winter's toll of rain, sleet, snow and ice. He may have been checking up to learn if it was erected in the proper place and was plumb, level and square – or words to that effect.

However, we like to think he came to extend a friendly greeting, and right welcome were both callers.

The hired girl served coffee and Golly served sparkling spring water without sulphur flavor, and as a trio, we smoked the pipe of peace on the cottage porch.

That's the story of the Golly's Folly sign as I know it. Here's a printed piece of paper I unearthed from among my mother's things. That's my grandfather on the back porch, watching over the antics of two boys at the pond. I assume they're my cousins, Bill Fish III and Fred for it was likely a photo taken by Uncle Bill Fish but look closely to observe the sign in its "proper place."

A Shelter In The Woods

I've come across so many, many evocative stories my grandfather told about his 'shack in the woods' along the Nine Mile in Potter County. It was this piece, written in 1965 just after the camp had been sold, that sent me, again last week to that spot he so loved. And he sent me a couple of messengers to welcome my arrival on that sunny Sunday afternoon - two little chipmunks scampered in front of me as I made my way down the path, a special something tucked under my arm. (Read about his chipmunks here.)

Golly's Folly, aged 35 years, passed away Saturday. During its existence there were many joyous events, many happy gatherings of family and friends, some petty annoyances and one tragic conflagration that destroyed the original hideaway in the Nine Mile woodland, too the lives of two keen young men, and seriously burned two others. The fire occurred April 15, 1954.

Golly has striven for 11 years to erase that sad tragedy from his mind and Time has mercifully given its assistance.

The date of the lease of the land on which the original building was erected was April 23, 1930. That was a joyous day and every hour that could be spent away from duties of producing the Enterprise each week, was spent in clearing a spot in the woods, near a marvelous gushing spring of pure and almost ice-cold water, to erect a shelter.

Money was lacking to hire help and it was a case of do-it-yourself. There was the cutting of trees and the digging stumps with pickaxe, shovel and crowbar to clear a spot for the 16 x 24 camp.

A foundation was dug for a fireplace. When eventually a stone mason appeared to build the fireplace he hesitated about erecting one on a foundation he had not built, fearful it might not sustain the tons and tons of stone and brick. It stands today, true and level.

The brick for the chimney was from paving brick. It was at the time of Coudersport building a new bridge over the river on Second Street. The brick pavement was torn up 200 feet or more on either side of the new bridge and there was so much brick the borough did not know what to do with it. It was given away.

Golly paid only for hauling the brick to the cabin site and there it is still in service. It was surely a lucky break and it held down costs.

Lumber, much less expensive than at present, came from the mill of the Gray Chemical Company at Roulette. The late Monta C. Burt headed that industry. He was a good friend of Golly and made prices as low as possible. Cherry lumber was priced the same as hemlock.

Roofing and nails came from Taubert's Hardware, and the late James R. Taubert, another good friend, made prices reasonable as well as extending credit.

It was necessary to hire a carpenter to build door and window frames, but outside of this and mason work, it was amateur building all through.

How happy we were, before winter, to have the place enclosed and useable, and cheering flames heating and lighting it!

Having worked on a close budget, estimated at $500, we were again happy that we had exceeded that amount by only about $20. However for years there was the work of grading the grounds and seeding, planting evergreen trees – that deer destroyed – and scores of other jobs.

There were scores of parties – some mixed and some for men only – all happy gatherings.

Finally came a time when we envisioned a miniature lake. It was but a dream at first, but the dream eventually came true. It adds to the joy of living in the woods, to observc a wood duck or a beaver there, or a deer walking daintily to the small body of water for a drink, or to watch a kingfisher dive for a minnow or listen to a chorus of spring peepers trilling their mating song. The lake cost money and hours and hours of labor but is has been worth all of it.

When that sad day in April 1954 came, much was destroyed but the big chimney marked the spot, the lake was still there, and the wonderful spring was sending forth its ever-flowing cold water.

Golly pondered.

The small insurance was promptly paid but was only a pittance toward erecting a new building. The debris left was an awesome mess and building costs had doubled since 1930.

It was decided to rebuild, and with willing helpers of the family, the work was finally completed. It cost plenty but a much better building resulted.

But old relentless time has taken its toll and Golly is no longer able to spend time at Folly. It was decided to sell.

Saturday the deal was completed. There is no longer a Golly's Folly. Just as we had no further use for the sign, "Golly's Folly," it disappeared. A vandal evidently wanted it to add to his other tokens of thievery.

It was not easy to hand over the key in exchange for the good-sized check, but it was done. Now Golly must be content with the memories – wonderful memories – of 35 years of his folly in building a shelter in the woods.

It was the sign story that caught my eye for whether it was taken by a well-meaning family member or friend or indeed by a thief who had second thoughts about being such a scoundrel, I have no idea. I only know that it's in my possession now, given to me by my brother Tim who had been charged with its safekeeping. The paint's faded and chipping but I carried it with me to the Nine Mile on Sunday afternoon, and for just a brief moment, it rested there on the back porch, just below the spot where it hung for so many years.

And speaking of the sign, I have the story of the sign to tell in a future blog post.

Adams Confectionery

 

Have you ever looked up at the three-story building in the middle of the Main Street block between Second and Third Streets? There in letters long faded by decades of sun and rain, you can read "Adams Confectionery."

A friend who has stood on Main Street in recent weeks holding signs for the various demonstrations against the atrocities being visited upon our nation by the Trump administration. asked me, a long time Couderean, if it had been a candy factory. And so began the quest.

The story begins with one John Adams who is listed here in this story from 1916 as being from the "Greek-American Store."

Here's more about Mr. Adams' Greek-American Store in an advertisement from 1917. And notice the location at the corner of Main and First Streets. I am thinking that would put it at the site of the present-day Coudersport Pharmacy.

Later in the same year, Mr. Adams was adding a metropolitan appearance to his Greek-American store.

In 1923, we're introduced to a new location for the Palace of Sweets.

And finally, here is Adams' Confectionery (late 1923)

Mr. Adams' success was short-lived, however as the following notice appeared in early 1924.

It didn't take long for someone else to re-open Candyland but after this article in 1924, the trail goes cold.

And as for Mr. Adams, here's a mention of him from 1936 though it seems the reporter was not sure if it was the same John P. Adams?

How Small We Are!

Miss Green was my fifth grade teacher. I cried on the summer afternoon my mother came home from work as a linotype operator at The Potter Enterprise with the news that my name appeared on the list of students assigned to Miss Green. I had been holding out hope that Mr. Anderson would be my teacher and that Debbie Beier and I would be in the same room. I was bitterly disappointed.

I settled in to Miss Green's classroom on the second floor of the downtown school that fall and learned her rhythms and also learned not to snicker at her singing voice for she made me stand in front of the class one fateful day. "Janie Heimel, if you think you can sing so well, come up here and sing a solo." It still brings a flush of shame.

my artist brother Steve doctored this
magazine cover to imply Shepard was
looking at a playboy model.

It was the miracle of space flight that captured Miss Green's attention that winter of 1962. She told us about Mercury program, with its lofty goals of manned spaceflight. She told us of the bravery of Alan Shepard as he rode into space in Freedom 7 the previous spring, setting the stage as excitement for John Glenn's trip around our planet built that winter.  Friendship 7, a fitting name for his spaceship, and I can still hear the inflection of excitement in her low-pitched voice as she shared that bug-eyed look that commanded our attention and captured my imagination. 

It was Miss Green who made sure we took our turns in the auditorium as the drama of John Glenn's daring trip around the earth played out on the lone television on the auditorium stage. Others may correct me, but I remember cheering as he was cleared for the third of three orbits and the splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, all narrated by that most trusted of our generation's icons, Walter Cronkite of CBS News.

Who can forget those moments of silence as communications ceased when the capsule plummeted toward earth? And finally the voice of John Glenn, our All-American hero, "Boy, that was a real fireball!"

I was a teenager, watching the report on the console television in Susan Frederick's comfortable living room when the Apollo 1 rocket blew up in a fireball on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy, killing the three astronauts aboard. That was 1967.

It was 1969, just after I graduated from high school that the trio of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins set off for the moon. Cronkite's trusted voice told us of touchdown on that warm summer night. "Man on the moon, oh boy," he said as he moved the familiar glasses from his face to wipe his eyes, much like he had in announcing the death of JFK just five years earlier.

NASA's recent Artemis II mission to the moon unfolded for me mostly on the internet - something Miss Green likely never imagined. The old excitement - and apprehension - all came flooding back to this baby boomer. The delight of the four brave space travelers - Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen - the sharing of spectacular image after image, the seriousness of their mission and our collective breath-holding as they made their way back around from the dark side of the moon and then, finally to the splashdown, this one in the Pacific.

Since then, the Artemis II astronauts have been making the rounds of talk shows and podcasts telling their story - NASA's story. 

My fifth grade self could likely have been one of the children asking questions of the astronauts in this episode the The Daily by the New York Times.

Questions like: "Why did you go on this mission when it was super duper, duper, duper risky?" and "Can you drink soda in space?" and "What is it like to go to the bathroom in space?" and finally, "who farts the most in space?"

And then there was this: "My question for the Artemis crew is, how do you think people will look back at this mission in 50 years?" That's a question Miss Green might have posed, perhaps thinking of us eager fifth-graders who would still be on this planet 50 years hence.

This one, the red-faced solo singer, writes here, 64 years later,  looking back, looking forward, still marveling, still in awe of all things space.

Gleamite

Living in the same town (such a small town!) where I grew up, nearly every day a long-forgotten memory surfaces and demands I give it attention. Such it was with Gleamite.

My childhood chum - still a chum today - lived on North West Street in a big foursquare that was shingled in the palest shade of pink - perhaps it was salmon. And her father owned a rambling building that was tucked up against the hillside just a couple of houses down on First Street. The Gleamite building she called it.

I stored that word away in the back of my brain until Monday when, after thumbing through the 1981 Potter Enterprise newspapers upstairs at the Potter County Historical Society, I wandered over to take a look at the old post office boxes. And there it was!

And next to that jug, this advertising piece was propped.

Old newspapers tell me "Gleamite Sold Now in 41 States" according to the 1931 headline.
"The demand for Gleamite is rapidly growing. It is a floor cleaner and more, and more big concerns are learning its value. It is now sold in 41 states and has the endorsement of five of the leading floor manufacturers... the growth of this industry leads the Enterprise to the opinion that a few smaller businesses might be developed right here in Coudersport, rather than to bring in larger industries. Every man can make his own opportunities at his own door step."

Gleamite ads like this one began to appear in the local newspaper in the 1940s.

 

And this one, also from 1940.

There was a fire at the Gleamite plant in 1946.

And as the newspaper reports, Gleamite soon was back in business.

from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Gleamite was sold to Howard Lincoln & A.R. Thompson in 1951 and was listed in Mr. Lincoln's obituary in 1973 as one of the companies he owned.

My chum doesn't recall when her father purchased the building. "The building was empty and out of commission. Dad stored appliances and stuff in there." She goes on, "I loved climbing around on the crumbling porch and deck in the back. I don't think I ever went inside."

From there the trail goes cold. How did yesterday's housewives ever give up their friendship with Gleamite?

Spring Ritual

 

Nine Mile Leeks

The leeks were calling this afternoon as the skies cleared. Leeks - known as ramps in West Virginia - grow in the wet areas of Potter County's woods.

It's a bit of a family tradition, gathering leeks in the spring. They are plentiful adjacent to the camp that my family owned through the early 1960s and that's where we harvested enough to make a leek dip to share with friends this evening. (I wrote here about Potter County leeks a couple of years ago.) 

Harvesting leeks was a tradition in Arthur's family too. Often we took trips to the Knox Lot, the family's woodlot on Fishing Creek Road where they grow in hollows where rivulets spring up in the spring. 

The Metzgers were among those stalwarts that served hundreds of folks for leek dinners at the nearby Hebron Grange Hall in the 1950s, continuing through the early 1960s.

Here's how my grandfather told the tale in his weekly "Golly" column.

Almost time once more for leek dinners but –

The old original event of the kind, the one that started the whole leek dinner idea, will not be peddling leeks this year.

The project was started by Hebron Grange a dozen or more years ago to augment the bank account of the organization. It went over to the public with such success that each year more and more came to dine on the odoriferous greens, plus other splendid foods, and the project became a burden.

A dozen or more Grange families might be assigned the duty of combing the woods, each digging a bushel of leeks, cleaning and washing them. It was not a small task. Each year the crowds increased.

Finally the Grangers decided to resign from leek gathering. Other organizations and public eating establishments went into the business and there are plenty of places where a leek supper may be enjoyed but –

Not served by the famous Hebron Grange.

Here's a post about the Hebron Leek Dinners that I wrote for our farm blog.