Allegany Area Historical Association

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Allegany Area Historical Association November 2017 w w w. allegany.o r g Issue XXXVI Vol. 4 PRESIDENT S REPORT One of our members, Ellen Peck, passed away in October after a long battle with cancer.

1 Allegany Area Historical Association November 2017 w w w. allegany.o r g Issue XXXVI Vol. 4 PRESIDENT S REPORT One of our members, Ellen Peck, passed away in October after a long battle with cancer. Ellen was the twin sister of our Corresponding Secretary, Eileen Shabala. She always had a ready smile and a twinkle in her eyes. Ellen believed in making someone happy each day but could be tough as nails when she had to be, and she needed that toughness and that happiness as she was a secretary at school for 30 years and dealt with kids on a daily basis. She was very active in her church and community. Our condolences to all her family and friends. We are still looking for pictures of businesses on Main Street. Contact us if you have any you would be willing to share. Please let us know if your mailing address changes, particularly if you go south for the winter. We pay once to mail the newsletters out, we pay again if your newsletter is returned to us because of a wrong address, and then we pay a third time to r your newsletter to your (new) correct address. Also, please let us know when you come back north to your regular address. A gentle reminder to pay your dues, if you haven t already. We value your membership. Francie Potter, President Our 34th annual CHRISTMAS COOKIE SALE Will be held on Saturday, December 2nd at Nature s Remedy, 120 West Main Street from 9:30 to 2 p.m. This is our only fundraiser of the year. If you don t get a call asking you to bake some cookies, just call our chairperson, Diane Boser, to volunteer your services. The complete effort of all our members and friends is what makes this sale so successful every year. On Sunday, December 3rd at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Center, 25 North Second Street, we will hold our 35th annual COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS SERVICE which is always a nice way to start the holiday season. Rev. Daniel Buringrud, Pastor at St. John s Lutheran Church will conduct the service. An ensemble from St. John s will also participate. At the service, we will once again take up a collection of money and paper products to benefit Genesis House, the homeless shelter in Olean. Anything we can gather for them is needed, and very much appreciated. Thank you in advance for your support of these two events.

2 Part two of Bob and Carolyn McCoy s oral history with Wes and Judy Martin, May 2017 In 1966, the hardware store got into the kitchen cabinet and kitchen design business. The design business had to be done at night as that was when the customers were home and when Bob could get away from the business. Carolyn said that when Bob designed a kitchen, he really took pains about it asking the customer if they were right or left handed, if both husband and wife cooked, how they stored things and that added to the success of the design business. In 1971, Bob went to a kitchen show in Syracuse where he ran into his old boss when Bob was in college who was now in the kitchen cabinet business. One thing led to another and Bob was offered a job designing kitchens and selling cabinets. Bob and Carolyn discussed it and went to Schenectady to meet him at his home, and after a lot of talk and back and forth, Bob and Carolyn decided to accept his offer. So they went back to Schenectady. They had one weekend to find a place to live there and bought a house in the country. For whatever reason the lady living there would not show them the inside of the house but it had a solid front door with a brass knocker and a nice area outside, so they took a chance and bought it. It turned out to be a great place for them. After they were in they found out a bit of the house s history. It was originally built by a nurseryman. Of course, the first thing Bob did after they moved in was to remodel the kitchen! In 1978, Bob s brother, Ray, who was with his dad at Allegany Hardware told Bob that their father was going to retire and Ray didn t want to run the business by himself. So they moved back to Allegany. They sold their Schenectady house and started looking for a house back in Allegany. The Allegany banker told them of a house on the corner of Pine and Second Street that had been re-possessed by the bank and the price was reasonable, so they were going to buy that. Meanwhile, Carolyn was taking their daughter, Pam, to an interview in Columbus, Ohio and stopped to stay overnight in Allegany. Bob s dad told Carolyn of a ranch house in the country that had just had the price dropped by $10,000. Carolyn and Pam went to look at it and fell in love with it. After calling Bob, Carolyn put $50 down and bought the house. In 1985 Bob and Ray found out that West State Hardware in Olean was going to be sold. They looked at it but decided not to buy it. Tom Moody, the owner, then sold all the merchandise and offered them the empty building for rent. After much discussion, they decided to go ahead and open up a hardware store there. After remodeling it, Ray ran the Olean store and Bob was in Allegany. In 1990, the big box stores were moving into the area and sales were dropping. So they put all their eggs in one basket and moved everything to West State. They rented out the Allegany building to Education First. In 1994 they decided they needed more space than the store on West State Street offered and looked at the old Olean Fruit Market on East State Street. It had a lot of frontage but was in very bad shape but they decided they could bring it back. It took 6 months of working at night and weekends but they did it. The building was so big that they were able to remodel parts of it for rental space. In 1996 Bob got a call from the Allegany Fire Department that the Allegany building was on fire. The smoke damage ruined all the Education First merchandise and that went out of business. They decided to sell the building as it was with all the fire damage and Louie Magnano bought it. Bob decided in 1999 to retire from the business but remains active in the community, serving on the Board of Directors of the Allegany Area Federal Credit Union. Caro-

lyn, meanwhile, was busy taking care of three grandsons. Pam s youngest was born prematurely and required a lot of care so she asked her mother if she could take the three older boys, which she did.

3 lyn, meanwhile, was busy taking care of three grandsons. Pam s youngest was born prematurely and required a lot of care so she asked her mother if she could take the three older boys, which she did. Another grandson was there also so they had Cousins Camp. They did a lot of enjoyable things on the property, walking in the woods and along the creek and paddle boating in the pond across the road. Wednesday nights were Just Ice Cream nights along with healthy fruits to go on top. They even had their own Pinewood Derby with wooden cars they made and decorated. Everyone had so much fun that this became an annual summer affair for many years. Ray continued to run the business by himself for another five years and then he decided to retire and close things down. So they had a liquidation sale and closed a chapter in their lives and in the business face of Allegany. Page Some of the things Bob has seen over the years mirror the course of technological progress. When he was a teen, some of his friends got ball point pens from Christmas, which were new things on the market then. Of course, television made an impression when that came along. In the comics, Dick Tracy had a two-way wrist radio and all the kids were sure this would never happen in real life now that s a reality. Historical events made a big impression in their lives. Carolyn remembered when World War II ended that the Jewish family who lived in the apartment below her cried to think that the concentration camps would finally be over. Bob said when JFK was shot that he heard it on the radio at the store and went home and watched the whole proceedings on TV, and never went back to work that day. When the World Trade Center was hit by planes, Bob had been out and when he got home Carolyn told him the news. She had been having her coffee and watching TV when she learned about it. They both knew that this was something the country would never get over. Carolyn talked about their children a son and two daughters and how they were raised to be independent, and how proud she and Bob are of the children. Bob remarked that during his entire life he had never been unemployed. It may have been due to a number of circumstances the times he lived in or his taking advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. He also noted that small family-owned businesses have a notoriously short life span, usually dying out after two generations. Very few make it to three generations. Worth Smith Company, a competitor of Allegany Hardware for many years, is one, and Potter Lumber Company made it to four generations. The McCoys lasted two generations which is the norm. Bob and Carolyn feel very blessed to be able to know their great-grandchildren. Bob never knew his great-grandfather so this time in their life is special, and they deeply love all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and are very proud of them. Our thanks to Bob and Caroline McCoy for doing this oral history with Wes and Judy Martin another piece of Allegany history saved. Correction to the previous installment from Jerry Collins... Since I am the only Krampf left around, I have to mentin a correction to Bob [McCoy] s story. It was not Bob Krampf and Martha Wayland Krampf, but rather Bud Krampf and Martha Whelan Krampf. Bud s real name was Harry Krampf II. Martha s Dad owned a very successful wholesale distributing business in Olean. Ed. Note - Blame it on my hearing!

4 MEMORIES The article in our October newsletter brought back memories for me of life in Ann Arbor during the war. Clothing was rationed, along with everything else, during the war. We had an unusual way of getting our skirts. We raised chickens and the feed came in flowered cotton sacks. When my parents bought feed, my two sisters and I tagged along to pick out the sacks we wanted because they would be our new skirts. Mother had an old treadle sewing machine and she used those chicken feed sacks and anything else available to make our clothing. Socks were darned until there was more darn than sock. Nothing got thrown out. Holey jeans are fashionable now but then we patched the jeans that had holes, using jeans that had finally seen their day. When bacon was cooked, the grease was saved to use as shortening since real shortening was rationed. This may account for my high cholesterol today! We sold eggs from our dozen chickens around the neighborhood. When a hen stopped laying, it became Sunday dinner. My mother grew up on a farm in Kentucky and knew how to kill a chicken, which process was a huge source of wonder to the neighbor kids. The way to pluck the feathers from a dead chicken was to put it into a bucket of hot water. Unfortunately, the job of plucking the wet feathers fell to me and my sisters who, being younger, weren t much help. I am here to tell you that there are few things in this world that smell worse than wet chicken feathers! We had a garden, known in those days as a Victory Garden, on a rented plot of land across the Huron River. Mother canned everything from the garden that she could, and it was kept in our cold cellar, a room in the cellar with a dirt floor that was cooler than the rest of the cellar. In my opinion, the worst job in the garden was not the weeding or the watering, it was killing potato bugs. You used two flat rocks and went down the rows of potatoes knocking the bugs onto one flat rock and crushing it with the other rock. After a while, you found two more rocks and continued on. There was a cemetery next to the garden and we would sometimes go there for a bit of shade. Water came from a well down the hill a bit. You had to take the lid off the well and dip a bucket in to get water. Unfortunately for us kids, snakes liked to live just under the lid. We got scared quite often by the snakes, who seemed just as scared of us. Most people didn t have freezers then. There was a building where you rented a frozen food locker if you wanted to freeze anything, like meat. We had an icebox all during the war as steel was reserved for the war effort. We, along with a lot of other people, didn t have a refrigerator until the late 40 s. The food was cooled by blocks of ice cut from the nearby Huron River during the winter, as well as from the many lakes around Ann Arbor. As the ice melted, the water fell into a tray under the icebox. It had to be emptied quite often, as I remember. I also remember the kitchen floor getting mopped a lot from spilled water as we went from the icebox to the sink. None of this was unusual to us everyone in town was doing the same thing, saving, scrimping, anything they could to make their ration stamps go farther. I remember quite well the tremendous celebration of VE Day. Our dentist was on the second floor of a building overlooking the University of Michigan campus, and we went there to see the celebration. I had never before seen so many people in one place people waving flags, horns honking, church bells ringing, what seemed like all of Ann Arbor celebrating. Though we knew that the war was only half over, we could see the end. We would be glad to share your memories of the war please send them in.

5 Treasurer s Report October 1, October 1, 2017 This report is presented to give you an understanding off our sources of income and our expenses. AAHA receives no public assistance from Village, Town or State INCOME: Book & Map Sales Christmas Cookie Sale Donations Donations/CRCF Donations/Memorials Membership Dues Raffle (Don Black Table) Yearbook sales TOTAL EXPENSES Citizen Printing Copy Machine Dues Paid to Other Associations Fire Extinguishers Greater Olean Chamber of Commerce Grounds Maintenance (D. Swatt) Insurance (Erie & Niagara) MISC National Grid NYSEG Post Office (Box Rental/Permit Renewal) Post Office (Bulk Mailings) Programs Yearbooks (New 2017) TOTAL

Some information about the Nature s Remedy store where our Christmas Cookie sale will be held: Erastus Willard (born in 1823, died in 1888) began a mercantile business in the

In 1884, Frederick Smith became the sole owner. He operated the store until his death in 1918.

Clarence Smith continued running the store until 1959. Geary s Early American Store occupied the building from 1960 until 1993.

Memorials For: Tom Walsh From: Milt and Chris Bailey Carol and Betsy Livingston For: Lynn Shaffer From: Vince and Karen Streif For: Gary Forness From: David and Melissa O Dell

6 Some information about the Nature s Remedy store where our Christmas Cookie sale will be held: Erastus Willard (born in 1823, died in 1888) began a mercantile business in the late 1840 s in Allegany. Frederick Smith joined him as a clerk in 1857 and in 1868 became a partner in the general store known as Willard and Smith. In 1884, Frederick Smith became the sole owner. He operated the store until his death in Edward Smith then purchased the stock and the building and maintained the store until 1931 when Smith (Clarence) and Schultz (Howard) took over until Clarence Smith continued running the store until Geary s Early American Store occupied the building from 1960 until From 1994 to 2001, Fabulous Shirtheads took over the space. Nature s Remedy has been there since Memorials For: Tom Walsh From: Milt and Chris Bailey Carol and Betsy Livingston For: Lynn Shaffer From: Vince and Karen Streif For: Gary Forness From: David and Melissa O Dell For: Gary and Lola Forness From: Alice Altenburg For: Bob Frisina From: Al and Peggy Frisina For: Ellen Peck From: Francie Potter Margaret Parker Lucy and Robert Benson, Jr. Eileen and Bob Shabala Mr. and Mrs. David Deitz Hans and Charlene Sendlakowski Bill and Trina Giardini Bill Frasier Kathy Premo Donald and Reta Derx Marcia Karl Sam and Sherry Quattrone Daniel and Cindy Pikulski Mike and Roseanne Capra Carol and Betsy Livingston

The 36 x 80 foot building was erected in 1854 at the corner of Maple and North Second Street by George Bascom who owned most of the land in the village at that time. Mr.

7 Since there has been a lot of talk about businesses on Main street, we thought you would like the following article from our March, 1993 issue. Memories of 91 West Main Street and Dieteman s Ice Cream Parlor The building occupied by the Dieteman Brothers had quite a history before it became an ice cream parlor. The 36 x 80 foot building was erected in 1854 at the corner of Maple and North Second Street by George Bascom who owned most of the land in the village at that time. Mr. Bascom operated a grocery store there. He then had the building moved to 91 West Main Street in There was a grocery store that until Bascom s death in Several owners conducted businesses there until Sid Brooks purchased it and ran a bakery. He succeeded in bringing down the price of bread and pastry in Allegany. Brooks retired in 1908 and sold the building to Henry Gallets of South Nine Mile Road. They had an ice cream parlor, operating it for two years before retiring to the farm. They rented the building to Sam and Frank Pfirsch who operated a bakery. Later the building was purchased by the Pfirsches in 1910 and an ice cream store was added. Sam Pfirsch continued in the business until Lawrence and Ernest Dieteman purchased it in They operated under the name of Dieteman Brothers. Fr. Paul Feichter, now located at St. Anthony s Friary, has vivid memories of Dieteman s Ice Cream Parlor for he and his family lived over the store during the years Fr. Feichter recalls that the ice cream parlor was the favorite gathering spot for St. Bonaventure collegians, seminarians, high school students, and locals from the Allegany-Olean area. It was an especially popular spot after football and basketball games. Fr. Feichter describes the ice cream parlor thus: When one entered the front door, on the left was the cigar and cigarette stand usually presided over by Pete Dieteman, who also baked luscious pies. Next on the same side was the soda fountain where all the ice cream goodies were prepared: cokes, sodas, shakes, Mexican sundaes, etc. On the same side was a long counter with stools where pies, sandwiches, etc. were served. On the right when entering was where the candy and baked goods were sold. Along the west wall were booths with an Atwater Kent radio at the end near the south wall. Behind the south wall was the kitchen and bakery. In the middle were tables and chairs. The whole area was occupied and used. The ice cream was made downstairs. One hundred pound cakes of ice were stored in the ice house behind the main building. Changes occurred in Jesse Fegley, a pharmacist, opened a drug store in the west portion of the store under the name of Allegany Pharmacy. In 1935, Ernest Dieteman purchased the interest of his brother and Mr. Fegley. The name was changed to Dieteman Cut Rate Drugs. Prescriptions were discontinued about Dieteman continued to operate until May, 1945, when Joe Hirsch purchased the stock and the name became Joseph Hirsch s Ice Cream Parlor & Confectionery Store. Unfortunately, the store was destroyed by fire on December of Memories of pleasant times spent there are all that are left. (Ed. Note the site is now occupied by the Other Place.)

8 Allegany Area Historical Association P.O. BOX 162 Allegany, NY Return Service REquested NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 32 OLEAN, NY Inside SPECIAL Issue: Presidents Report Victory Garden Mmmmm, Ice Cream... NEXT MEETING We will meet on Sunday, November 19 at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Center, 25 North Second Street. Bob McCoy, who formerly owned Allegany Hardware, will be our speaker. He will talk about some of the businesses that used to be on Main Street. He touched on some of them in his oral history interview, which concludes with this issue. Bob moved back to Allegany in 1962 and has seen many changes to the street. But he lived in Olean from an early age and remembers well some of the Allegany businesses from that time. The buildings themselves haven t changed a lot but the businesses have, reflecting the changes in the economy, the rise of big box stores, and internet shopping. Bob will add to our knowledge of our local history. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2 P.M. HERITAGE CENTER 25 N. 2ND STREET, ALLEGANY w w w. a l l e g a n y. o r g Like us on Facebook: /AlleganyAreaHistoricalAssociation

Allegany Area Historical Association

Allegany Area Historical Association March 2010 www.aaha.bfn.org Issue XXIX Vol. 1 PRESIDENT S REPORT AAHA lost a longtime valued member with the death of Judge Paul B. Kelly in November. Paul was one