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We have learned that the Friends of the Village of Cooperstown Library will be collecting books, videotapes, CDs and DVDs at various times throughout the year for their annual book sale next July. The first collection date will be on Wednesday, November 15 from 10:00 a.m. until noon. All materials collected will be sold at the library at the annual July sale. Proceeds from the sale are used to fund a speaker program, summer children’s events, purchase of computers, and materials for the library. Additional collection dates throughout the year will be February 10 and April 14, 2007. Donors who need help in bringing books to the library should contact Lynda Selover at 547-8192. Some time ago now, we received a nice e-mail from former Cooperstonian Bill Hermann who had read about damage to stone bridge over the Susquehanna on the Fernleigh-Over Clark Estate. He wrote: "There was before the stone bridge, a wooden Victorian design bridge. Mr. Stephen Clark, Sr. had a 9 Hole golf course constructed on the other side of the river. As I understand the story, the wooden bridge was not wide enough for his golf cart, soooooo _ the stone bridge was constructed. Following his death, however, the golf course and the bridge were pretty much let go. Great chunks of the bridge had fallen into the river and often were noticed and reported by people who went under the bridge in their canoes. There was an old, old, fellow in Cooperstown who was a master stonemason and did much of the repairs on the old stonework around and in Cooperstown. I cannot at the moment recall his name. Anyway, he usually took six or seven young fellows as apprentices during the summer months. The Cooperstown manager for NYSE&G for many years was William Burnett. His son, Billy, was one of those apprentices and loved the stonework. Once he saw Mr. Stephen Clark, Jr. on the street and asked for permission to work on repairs for the stone bridge offering even not to charge for his time. Mr. Clark agreed to have him do the work and I am sure that Billy was paid. That, as I recall was in the 70’s and I do not know that any work has been done since. Therefore, it is also very likely that the stones removed by the most recent renegades were loose and again in need of repair. Well, the story probably has a good ending. The bridge will be repaired again ..." We believe that the stonemason of whom Bill speaks was Pete Jones. However, we are not absolutely certain of that. If anyone knows for certain, please let us know. We thank Bill for sharing his memories with us. We always enjoy hearing from him, particularly when he is sending us, as he says, " ... Cooperstown History 101 lesson for the month ..." More recently we received a nice note from George S. Cooper, a member of the CCS Class of 1935, who sent us a clipping from this paper of the "Gift of Life" kidney walk which was held, due to inclement weather, on the indoor track at the Clark Sports Center. It brought back memories for George of the leather covered track above the basketball court in the old YMCA gym where he used to run some 80 years ago. George points out that it was the YMCA gym then and later became the "New Clarks Gym." With the advent of the current Clark Sports Center, the "New Clarks Gym" was renovated for use by the Baseball Hall of Fame. George, who grew up at 78 Fair St., worked at Williams Meat Market with the he-we’s grandfather, Barney Brady. He remembers being paid $10 a week. He would love to hear from anyone here in town who ran around the old track. His address is 1337 Quintana Way, Fremont, CA 94539. We thank George for writing and trust he stays in touch. In closing, we must admit that we always find upgrading our computer capabilities to be extremely frustrating. Our comfort level is never good with computers and to have to give up that which we know in favor of that which the computer industry thinks we need is never to our liking. However, we do seem to be adjusting fairly well and have managed to save more information from the old computer than we originally thought. At first we thought everything was gone. However, that is not true and we have managed to upgrade a number of documents, including such things as "The Women of Cooperstown" and the he-we’s "Walk Around Christ Church." Our height of our joy at recovering those documents was in great contrast to the depth of our despair when we thought they were gone. All in all, it has made for quite the roller coaster week for which, we hasten to point out, there was no additional charge above and beyond the price of the computer. We remain, In these Otsego hills, The Ellsworths The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.
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