HOMETOWN History

Aug. 23, 2019

150 Years Ago

Tell Your Wife – If you are in trouble or quandary, tell your wife – that is, if you have one – all about it at once. Ten to one her intervention will solve your difficulty sooner than all your logic. The wit of woman has been praised, but her instincts are quicker and keener than her reason. Counsel with your wife, or mother, or sister, and be assured light will flash on your darkness. Women are too commonly adjudged as verdant in all but purely womanish affairs. No philosophical student of the sex thus judges them. Their intuitions, or insights, are subtle, and if they cannot see a cat in the meal, there is no cat there. In counseling a man to tell his troubles to his wife, we would go further, and advise him to keep none of his affairs secret from her. Many homes have been happily saved and many fortunes retrieved by a man’s full confidence in his “better-half.”

August 1869

100 Years Ago

With four gold service stripes on the sleeve of his uniform, Private James H. Harrison, once mourned as dead, returned to Oneonta Friday, after 23 months service overseas. He is at the home of his sister, Mrs. H.C. Whitcomb, 50 Spruce Street. Private Harrison was a member of the famous Second Division, which was made up half of regular infantry and half of Marines. The division made for itself a most gallant record. It played an enviable role in five great battles in which American troops were engaged – Chateau-Thierry, Soissons, St. Mihiel, the Champagne and the Argonne. It was shortly before the signing of the Armistice that Mrs. Whitcomb received official notification that her brother had been “killed in action” in October. Having received letters from him after the date on which he was “killed,” Mrs. Whitcomb thought that some error had been made. She notified the Red Cross Service Bureau and also asked the War Department for an investigation. In a few weeks it was established that Private Harrison was in good health. However, another soldier by the same name and in the same company had been killed and the notification sent to Mrs. Whitcomb by mistake.

August 1919

80 Years Ago

President Roosevelt addressed appeals for peace to Adolf Hitler and President Moscicki of Poland, suggesting three methods for avoiding war. These methods were 1. Direct negotiation. 2. Submission of the controversy to impartial arbitration. 3. Agreement to adopt the procedure of conciliation, selecting a conciliator or moderator. President Roosevelt told Hitler: “The people of the United States are as one in their opposition to policies of military conquest and domination. They are as one in rejecting the thesis that any ruler, or any people, possess the right to achieve their ends or objectives through the taking of action which will plunge countless millions of people into war and which will bring distress and suffering to every nation of the world, both belligerent and neutral….Because of my confident belief that the cause of world peace – which is the cause of humanity itself – rises above all other considerations, I am again addressing myself to you with the hope that the war which impends and the consequent disaster to all peoples everywhere may yet be averted.”

August 1939

60 Years Ago

Oneonta’s first foreign-exchange high school student has arrived here. Miss Marketta Karkinen, 18-year-old honor student, who hopes to become a doctor, is now settled with Dr. and Mrs. Carroll E. Rusch, 35 Cedar Street, her foster parents for the year. The Finnish miss was selected as a foreign exchange student by the American Field Service and will attend Oneonta High School. She will be a senior. Miss Karkinen is the daughter of the headmaster of the Commercial School at Lahti, Finland, a city of 60,000 population north of Helsinki. Marketta, who has already studied four years of physics, geometry, algebra, two years of biology, and one each of zoology and botany, said it is not uncommon for a Finnish woman to become a doctor. In her application to become an exchange student Marketta wrote: “I think America is a free and progressive country which has already achieved great things in many fields and is a land of the future.”

August 1959

40 Years Ago

Despite double-digit inflation, stagflation, recession and depression, Beth Walter’s business is picking up. She’s a janitor. And every morning, when the city is fighting to come awake, she’s in the parking lot of the Clinton Plaza sweeping up after last night’s revelers. On the job since mid-May, she took over when her brother-in-law quit. “He got a job with SUCO,” she said. “Now, he’s going to go to work for the railroad.” Beth’s job consists of sweeping sidewalks, cleaning up the parking lot and picking up garbage. She doesn’t do lawns. “But, I’d like to,” she said. A college-trained janitor (she worked on the maintenance crew at Cornell University), she said she has no bigtime janitorial ambitions. “I’m really into horses,” the 18-year-old said. “Someday, I’d like to own some horses and teach riding.”

August 1979

20 Years Ago

When plans were announced to convert the Perkins Family Restaurant in the Town of Oneonta into a Denny’s restaurant, the new owner was eager to get started. As a result, the restaurant’s menu and a few signs were quickly changed, and Denny’s opened within a couple of weeks. But the speedy opening prevented major changes to the overall look of the place. Now that the business has established itself, plans are being made for some further dramatic improvements. “We’re basically going to be bringing a whole new look to the place, both inside and outside,” said Kristin Murphy, a manager at the restaurant. “It’s going to be really, really nice.”

August 1999