Presidents office - correspondence

Call from president's office, re correspondence of President Yu. I said would take it, and went over this am to get the 8 binders of material. Will go in waiting to be processed shelves...

Summer cookout

For some years in the '90s, early 2000s, the college put on an annual cookout for staff and students on the mall each summer. That is being revived, and was contacted for images of previous cookouts to use in promotional material. Found, scanned, and sent to them images from summer '01.

Genealogy requests

This is a typical genealogy request, of a sort I get regularly. It can be a little time consuming to answer, but it helps keep me in touch with our older records, history of the school, and after all these folks went here, and we have a certain connection and obligation to them I think. It's quite possible that grand children or gr-grand children of theirs are students here now, or will be!



My grandmother, Sarah Amanda Clark Bird (1866-1964), her sisters Myrta Blanche Clark (1879-1964) and Mary Helen Clark Bentzien (1873-1955) and their brother Horace Leslie Clark (1862-1893) all graduated from the predecessor of SUNY-Brockport. Looking at the information online from the 1917 alumni list, I found Mary Helen and Horace as well as Horace's wife Mary Gardner and her sister Christina Gardner.  These four graduated between 1888 and 1994.  Christina Gardner lived with her sister Mary Gardner Clark in Brockport until their deaths and kept in touch with the Bird family in Medina throughout their lives. 

What I don't know and would like to learn is when Sarah and Myrta attended, how long students took to finish, and whether  there are other records showing where they went to teach after graduation.  I know that Sarah taught in a country school in Niagara County, Mary Helen taught on Long Island but lived most of her life in California, and Myrta became head of the Englih Department in a high school on Staten Island before returning to retire on the Clark family farm near Medina.

USA Diner

Received a query re the history of this diner, found entry in Chesnut's Encyclopedia of Brockport, scanned and sent to them. That book would be a neat addition to the local history in the Digital Commons, but not sure if the MM House would give permission or not, will have to check.

Betty Bolger (Castelein) '42

Met her at the Hartwell Society luncheon this past Friday. She is quite active and alert, and has vivid recollections of the school back then. She was in the old building her first year, and of course her class were the first to graduate the newly constituted Teachers College in 1942.

I called and am going to visit her next week. One interesting connection is that her husband was a welder on Hartwell Hall's construction, and that "Sidewalk Superintendent" book has a photo of a young welder - her husband? Will bring, and also want to ask her about the letter archive she mentioned, she started a sort of chain letter thing with class mates in the '50s, once a year, everyone write, say what they had been doing that year, it could be a fascinating look at the life of a set of people over time.

Walter Kingsley Class of ????

Local history researcher, asking what year this person graduated. His brother, Charles, shows as graduating in 1886, but no Walter in the alumni directory for the 1867-1922 period. Will need to check in the old student register books when I get a chance.

Yearbooks ?

Alum looking for yearbooks for '64, '65, called back, got their email, then emailed them the link.