March 8, 1932 More Winter Weather

Dewitt Diary, Tuesday, March 8, 1932

Worst storm in several years.

Cold tonight and a strong wind yet tonight.

Electric service off for more than a day.

Snowbanks 5 feet deep south of my garden.

March 6, 1933 National Bank Holiday Declared

On March 3, 1933 Dewitt noted “Cloudy and mild. Fairly good sleighing on most roads. Banks closed their doors today by order of the governor.” Herbert H. Lehman was governor, following Franklin D. Roosevelt who had just won the 1932 election to become the next President of the United States. The governor was acting in accord with many other states. His actions were a prelude to one of the first acts by the new President.

President Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933. At 1:00 am, Monday, March 6, 1933, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation ordering the suspension of all banking transactions, effective immediately. He had taken that oath of office only thirty-six hours earlier.

The terms of the presidential proclamation specified that “no such banking institution or branch shall pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transferring any manner or by any device whatsoever, nor shall any such banking institution or branch pay out deposits, make loans or discount, or transact any other banking business whatsoever.”

For an entire week, Americans would have no access to banks or banking services. They could not withdraw or transfer their money, nor could they make deposits.

During that time congress enacted several new laws, which allowed for the orderly reopening of the banks and the successful reversal of the runs on banks.

The Wheeler National Bank of Interlaken reopened on March 15 and moved forward to continue its place as a strong leader within the community.

Interlaken Review March 10, 1933
www.fultonhistory.com

Interlaken Review March 17, 1933
www.fultonhistory.com

Dewitt’s Diary Monday, March 6, 1933

Buzzing wood today up at the woods. Clear and mild. A National closing of the banks by order of President Roosevelt.

Tuesday, March 14, 1933

A few large banks opened today.

Wednesday, March 15, 1933

Our bank and most other banks are open after several days holiday. The president of the US declared a bank holiday to safeguard the people. 

March 5, 1971 Getting out of town

Dewitt Diary, Friday March 5, 1971

Temperature 24, clear, wind blowing some.

We shoveled some more snow from the house roof. Most schools were closed. Very few roads are open.

Clipped the bills on the chickens.

About 3:30 Pete and Marian called from Waterloo that they were coming after Leland to go to Florida so Le got ready, and he went up to the corner on D. Parson’s snowmobile. I walked with his suitcase and other things on sled.

Snow became sticky this afternoon.

Our road is not open yet tonight. Ithaca reported 22 inches of snow. Temperature 30 tonight.

The snow in the yard around the barn is piled up the worst in years.

Have a ski track to the road that we walk in.

Some fields are blown almost bare by the fierce wind of yesterday.

Many main roads not open tonight. 

March 4, 1953 Thinning Out the Windbreak

 Dewitt’s Diary March 4, 1953

Wind back in the north this morning. Temperature 54 early.

Cutting the wood for filling the wood shed soon. 

Saw another robin by the house this Morning.

We cut every other tree in windbreak row next to house. They are crowding each other too much.

I planted them in 1927 and they are 12 inches in diameter. It is a fine windbreak.

Temperature 35 tonight and getting some colder.

Undated photo of Dewitt's home with the windbreak in the background.
Interlaken Historical Society Collection, papers of the Dewitt C. Bassette Jr. 

Tuesday, April 19, 1927

We set 50 Norway Spruce trees north of the house for a windbreak today.

We made a new board gate this afternoon.

March 3, 1949 Tri-Village Pennysaver

Harry G. Gleason published the first issue of the Tri-Village Pennysaver on March 3, 1949. For the next 65, almost 66 years, this weekly paper arrived in the mail or on our doorstep.

What began as a home-based business on Railroad Avenue soon grew, and he moved around the corner. He turned an old feed store across the street from the Lehigh Valley Train Depot into the home of the Pennysaver.

Railroad Avenue home of Harry Gleason where the Pennysaver was first produced.
Interlaken Historical Society Collection

The former feed store on Geneva Street purchased by Harry Gleason
for the Tri-Village Pennysaver
Interlaken Historical Society Collection

When the paper was preparing to close in 2015 the Interlaken Historical Society was given a number of old copies of the paper, including the one labeled, “Harry’s First.” It was duly accessioned, and then we made a point to add a copy of the final issue to collection as well.

Front page of Volume 1, No 1.
Collection of the Interlaken Historical Society

Detail from the back page of Volume 1, No. 1.
Collection of the Interlaken Historical Society

In his article on the Tri-Village Pennysaver for the Covert Memories 1950-2015 volume, Bill Irwin notes the four owners of the publication between 1949 and 2015. Harry Gleason, Bill and Kathy Irwin, a Sheboygan, Wisconsin publication, and Times Shamrock Publications. [Covert Memories page 84]

Detail: front page of the last issue of the Tri-Village Pennysaver.

A special thank you to Tammy Reynolds and the Pennysaver for the donation of the items noted above.

Dewitt’s Diary: 1949 and 1950

Thursday, March 3, 1949

Cloudy temperature 25. A few snowflakes and cool north wind. About an inch of new snow. Leland and Edna went to Seneca Falls. Leland tried for operator license to drive. I took some feed to town. Worked in the woods this afternoon. Drove over to Edna’s folks this evening. Clear 20 tonight.

Friday, March 3, 1950

Frost in the air and north breeze. It blowed fierce early in the night. Temperature 2 above this morning. Pheasants are sure eating corn I put out in front of the house. About a dozen every morning out there.

According to the Albany weather bureau it was the coldest day of the winter. Temperature zero tonight and still.

March 2, 1904 Incorporation of Village Approved

The Spring of 1904 had a number of events occurring which overlapped and influenced each other. The aging Lehigh Valley Railroad station was in need of replacement, and the Railroad was wanting to change the name of the station to be more inviting for arriving passengers. At the same time the Farmer village residents were seeking to become incorporated, thereby giving them street lights and better sidewalks and roadways.

To find a new name for their station the Railroad asked for suggestions and offered that if a new name could be selected, they would build a new station.

It is interesting to look at the newspaper articles to see what was being said about the incorporation, not very much. Official notices were placed for the petition for incorporation, for the public hearing to discuss the issue and the election notice. Only one article mentioned discussion, and that was reporting on a debate held by the Bradford Debate Club. The article in the February 19, 1904 issue of the Farmer Review noted, “Last Friday evening was very pleasing to all in attendance. Six young men debated the subject, “Farmer should be incorporated,” and both sides of the question were well argued. The judges awarded the decision to the affirmative side.”

March 4, 1904 Farmer Review: Farmer Incorporated. The future destiny of Farmer was favorably decided on Wednesday afternoon, March 2, 1904. One hundred and eighteen votes were cast—72 for and 48 against the proposition, making a majority of 26 in favor. The election of officers will take place in due time, and some system of street lighting arranged for. The roads and walks will be properly cared for, and we are able to assure the Lehigh Valley railroad company that our village will try and be as attractive as the new depot they propose to build here.

The new name for the station went into effect on May 1, 1904. Later that month the Farmer Review included a notice about the name changes and a bit of the paper’s history.

Special Notice May 15 the Lehigh Valley railroad company changed the name of their station at Farmer to Interlaken. Postmaster F. H. Johnson, on Monday, received notice from the postmaster general that the post office name will be changed to Interlaken at the beginning of the next quarter, on July 1, ’04. [1904] 

This paper was started by the present publisher on July 23, 1887, as the Saturday Morning Review. At the solicitation of D.C. Wheeler and Rev. Lewis Halsey, the name was changed to the Farmer Village Review, to incorporate the name of the village. When the “Village” was dropped from the post office name, in 1892, the word was also dropped from the paper’s name. At the end of the present volume, July 23 next, we shall again change to keep pace with the onward movement of our village, and will call it The Interlaken Review. Farmer Review 5/27/1904 [As it happened, the Review changed its name with the first issue in July, rather than waiting for later in the month.]

It should be noted that the name change did not come without controversy. Even though the Lehigh Valley Railroad had first offered the new depot in exchange for a new name, and had awarded Georgiana Wheeler the honor of the name she had suggested, there were still those who “asked them to reconsider their decision to change the name of their station at Farmer to Interlaken, and, instead, call it Creston.” Farmer Review article April 8, 1904

In the end, all three, Station, Post Office and Village were called Interlaken. This was the name suggested by Miss Wheeler, the local teacher, after she had spent time in Interlaken Switzerland, and thought it fit well with our area.

The renaming of Farmer to Interlaken was the main question on the March 21, 1905, ballot to elect officers for the village. “The question: ‘Shall the incorporate name of the village of Farmer be changed to the village of Interlaken,’ was the real centre of interest at this election, the name of the post office, depot, telegraph, express and telephone offices already having made that change…seventy votes were cast.” When counted 47 said yes, 23 no and one was blank. The article noted the change “takes effect immediately upon the filing of the certificate of the vote,” which happened at 7:06 p.m. on March 21, 1905. [Interlaken Review March 24, 1905]

As a side note, I have yet to find any information on who or why the name of Creston was proposed. What has been found were several poems on the question of incorporation and name changes. One is shared here from the June 3, 1904 Interlaken Review.

Interlaken

Interlaken now, you see

Farmer though, we used to be;

But we’ve enterprising grown,

And must reap as we have sown.

Citizens when they go away,

Will not be bothered all the day,

By having strangers asking how

It happens that they follow the plow.

Electric lights and sidewalks laid,

Every new improvement made,

All are proud of this new town

That has turned old Farmer down.

We have left old friends for new,

We have left old Farmer true,

On the old we’ve turned our backs,

For the new are making tracks.

Farmer had to us grown dear,

It was a friend for many a year,

When long away and homeward bound,

How sweet to us the name would sound.

Of course the name was very humble,

And we would be the last to grumble,

But Farmer has a back seat taken

For this new-fangled Interlaken.

Two notes: the new railroad station was not built until 1910, and that will be covered in June as its own Snippet From the Past.

The Historical Society is sometimes asked, “is the Farmers’ Museum on Main Street a museum for the Village of Farmer?” The answer is no, it is a museum for the farmers and the agrarian way of life of this area and all rural areas. Just the reverse of the poem’s comment.

Dewitt’s Diary March 2, 1954

Temperature 28 this morning. South west wind and broken clouds. One inch of snow.

Had a shooting in the House of Rep in Washington yesterday. Five members wounded.

The United States Capitol shooting incident of 1954 was an attack on March 1, 1954, by four Puerto Rican nationalists; they shot 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols from the Ladies' Gallery (a balcony for visitors) of the House of Representatives chamber in the United States Capitol. They wanted to highlight their desire for Puerto Rican independence from US rule.

The nationalists, … began shooting at the 240 Representatives of the 83rd Congress, who were debating an immigration bill. Five Representatives were wounded, one seriously, but all recovered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_shooting_incident_(1954)

February 29, 1928 A Sixteenth Birthday Anniversary

What is it like to only have a birthday every four years? On Wednesday evening, February 29, 1928, Thomas P. Hause, owner and editor of the Interlaken Review was given a birthday party, and unlike “Sweet 16” parties of today, this party was an opportunity for the people who knew him in the 1860s, and since then, to acknowledge his many accomplishments.

Dinner was served, as it was for many special occasions, at the Goodman Hotel and was organized by the Chamber of Commerce. The Ovid Gazette and Independent paid tribute to “Tom” with an article on the front page of the March 2^nd issue.

Speakers for the evening noted the value of the newspaper he founded in 1887, and still operated, his work within the whole newspaper industry, and his assistance to the community at large. T.P.’s son, Frank Hause, was able to talk about Dad, and growing up in the community.

When given the opportunity to speak after the many other guests, “Mr. Hause could not find words to express his appreciation of what had been done for him and said about him during the evening.” Instead, he gave each guest a souvenir. The small piece had a miniature facsimile of the front page of the Interlaken Review (An Extra Edition) which gave a short history.

The Extra Edition prepared by the Interlaken Review in honor of T. P. Hause's birthday
Collections of the Interlaken Historical Society

The two inside pages of the extra edition.
Interlaken Historical Society collections

The back cover of the extra edition.
Collection of the Interlaken Historical Society

Missing from the evening was Frank’s son Robert, who shared grandpa’s birthday, being born on February 29, 1924. The family had arrived that afternoon from Jamestown to attend the evening’s party. Robert’s younger brother “was taken down with mumps that afternoon, so Robert was barred from making his appearance to the great disappointment of the assembly. He was, however, represented by a little birthday cake with one candle set beside the grandshire’s cake with its sixteen candles.”

As noted above much of the text was taken from an article in the Ovid paper. The report clearly showed the esteem others held for Mr. Hause.

Local historian Wheeler A. Bassett once wrote...

  What proved to be of far reaching benefit to the village was the founding of the Saturday Morning Review by Mr. T. P. Hause. Mr. Hause was an apprentice in the office of the Ovid Independent and came here in the summer of 1887 and started a printing office in the house opposite the Reformed Church. The first paper came out July 23, 1887, as the Saturday Morning Review, afterward changed to the Farmer Village Review, then when the name of the place changed, it became The Interlaken Review. Ever since then the Review has been identified with every forward movement for the betterment of the Village and community, and today stands second to none in the County. Unstinted praise should be accorded Mr. Hause for the influential part he took in championing incorporation, good roads, fire department, electric lights, etc.

Thomas Purdy Hause died on January 24, 1929. He and members of his family are buried at Lake View Cemetery, Interlaken.

Dewitt’s Diary Wednesday, February 29, 1928

Mild and melting some this morning. I sold 4 bushels of potatoes at $1.25 this morning. 

Oiled up my new harness this afternoon. 

Leland is sick with a cold today. 

North wind and colder tonight. Edna washed today.

Monday, February 29, 1932 

Worked in the woods this afternoon. 

Big epidemic of measles and whooping cough. They have the whooping cough in school so I suppose the kids will have it too.