Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 816, it's Monday and it's Guest-O-Rama Monday on FALX Morning, joined for a monthly visit by Keri Lippincott, Historic Geneva. Good morning.
Kerry Lippincott: Good morning.
Paul Szmal: Good morning. So you are the Rotarian who's in charge of our weekly programs at the meetings and so if we are unable to get a speaker on a particular week or if somebody has to cancel and change because of some last second thing, you put together games or trivia or things. So tell us about the Halloween candy trivia last week, that was cool.
Kerry Lippincott: Oh my goodness, yes, I had no idea what a success it would be so I just thought with Halloween the following day it would be neat to do some trivia so we did two games. One was candies have like a tagline so the Rotarians had to, I think I gave everyone ten taglines and they had to match the right candy to the tagline and I think there were ten of them and no one got all ten. I think one table might have gotten eight all together and then the other one I gave like a clue like children and you had to guess what candy and I let two answers go sugar babies and Sour Patch Kids which I completely forgot about Sour Patch Kids. One that threw our table off was the, I think it was well-behaved gentleman and drove us crazy was Mr. Goodbar. Was Mr. Goodbar.
Paul Szmal: So, yeah, I thought that was, what I learned is there's some very competitive Rotarians after that episode because there was, oh my. We had to, there were a couple of appeals to the judges because there were a couple of where the answer that you thought of, someone else thought of another one that fit the clue so. Yeah, and I thought, yeah, I thought the judge was very fair, she let them go but no, I mean I think I might have to rethink trivia in the future but we've got some very competitive Rotarians. A lot of fun.
Coming up November 13th, that is next Wednesday, a week from Wednesday, it's a short history of Geneva Cemetery's meet at 5 p.m. at the Geneva Public Library. Tell us about this third and final fall program series on history.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so our theme for the fall program series has been mourning and death and we thought we would give a brief history of all the different cemeteries in Geneva. So we've got Ann Daly will talk about Washington Street Cemetery, John Marks, our curator, will do St. Patrick's, and then Becky Chapin, our archivist, will talk about Glenwood Cemetery. But if anyone is interested, we actually, the first burial ground, if you will, in Geneva was actually on the site of Trinity Church.
Paul Szmal: Oh.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, there was, and then by I think late 1790s where the FLCC campus center is, that was actually the Pulteney Street Cemetery. That was in existence in 1790s, so about 1832, and then in the 1920s when the school board decided to build a new high school, they transferred, or they hopefully transferred the bodies from Pulteney Street Cemetery to what is known as Pulteney and Glenwood at Glenwood Cemetery. So those are the two earliest burial grounds in Geneva, but the staff will go over the others for just a short, short history, and it's free and open to the public and it's at the library. The program is about an hour, so if you're interested in learning more about the cemeteries, join us.
Paul Szmal: All right, a week from Wednesday, November 13th at 5 p.m., and this is kind of ironic being at a cidery and brewery, but it's the History Happy Hour, a brief history of Prohibition in Geneva. Now it's November 21st at Lake Drum Brewing. Now of course, Prohibition was a huge thing for the Finger Lakes because all those wineries, some of them figured out how to get around it, some lost a lot of business.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so it's interesting, although we do have some photos in our collection of alcohol being confiscated, for the most part, Prohibition was unsuccessful in Geneva. So I guess under the Volstead Act, it allowed people, you could make up to 20 gallons a year of intoxicating fruit juice, so that meant hard cider and wine for home consumption. So I think people kind of got around Prohibition by making some alcohol at home. And then of course, Italian Americans do winemaking and had access to local fruit, so they ensured that there was a steady supply of alcohol in the city. Now some restaurants continued to serve alcohol illegally, some owners were arrested, but very few were convicted. So I think it would have been interesting times here in Geneva in the 1920s.
Paul Szmal: So this is November 21st at Lake Drum Brewing downtown, 430 to 630. If you're not familiar with History Happy Hour, it's a rotating slideshow, so you can come in any time. If you don't get there right at the beginning, it'll go through several times, and John Marks will host that and explain a little bit and probably answer your questions.
My favorite thing, and I forgot which winery this was, or maybe there was more than one, but there were some who sold the ingredients as a kit. And on the label it said, do not mix this, mix this, put it outside and let it ferment, because that's illegal.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah. Yes, I think I've seen one of those packets. It was just interesting times.
Paul Szmal: And if you can't make it to History Happy Hour, what John does, within a few weeks he converts the slideshow into a video, and we do post those on our YouTube channel. We'd love for folks to join us in person, but if you can't, you can always go to our website and look for past History Happy Hours. That's one way to do it. The real fun way, though, is to go to the website.
Kerry Lippincott: Yes. Absolutely. November 21st. And this time around, enjoy some cider and beer while learning about prohibition.
Paul Szmal: The holiday market's coming up. You're going to start hearing all and seeing all the ads for holiday shopping. Get into the holiday spirit and shop for gifts or decorations, and that supports Historic Geneva. Tell us some of the things you have and all the dates and details.
Kerry Lippincott: So this year our holiday market is going to be December 5th through 7th, 12th through 14th, and 19th through 20th. But to make the event a success, we do need help from the community, and there are a variety of ways that you can do that. You can donate to any of our booths, so we're looking for one-of-a-kind items for the handcrafted gifts, baked goods, jams, jellies, or pickles for the food booth, and then gently used items for attic treasures or the Christmas shop. You can purchase raffle tickets. Prizes this year include a gift basket from FLX Goods, a gift certificate to Kindred Fair with a bottle of wine, and of course a basket of Finger Lakes Wines, and you can volunteer to work the market. You've got shifts from 10 to 1, 1 to 4, and 4 to 6 on Thursdays through Fridays, and then 10 to 1, 1 to 4 on Saturdays.
If anybody is interested in helping us with the holiday market, you can call 315-789-5151, or you can email me at director at historicgeneva.org.
Paul Szmal: And I can't believe we're talking about Christmas, and it's November 4th. But again, the market will be at the Geneva History Museum Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in December. And of course, you can use not only volunteer help there, but volunteer help in general. So talk about what people can do to help the mission of Historic Geneva.
Kerry Lippincott: Sure. Right now, with the Geneva History Museum still closed, we don't have as many volunteer opportunities, but we're hoping in the new year to have the museum open. So we're always looking for help with taking care of our collections, maybe transcribing oral histories, scanning photos. And then of course, in the season, which is basically May to October for us, we're always looking for help at Rose Hill, helping with the gardens, school programs, and special events. So if anybody is interested in volunteering with us, you can go to our website and look at the various volunteer opportunities that we do have.
Paul Szmal: Now, in terms of fixing up the museum, have you run into any, have you uncovered any historic treasures or anything in the walls or found any asbestos or anything like that?
Kerry Lippincott: No, we did see one in the Hucker Gallery, which was an addition in the 1950s. You could see where the 19th century building met the 20th century building, which was pretty cool.
Paul Szmal: Oh, wow.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah. And now it's covered up, but we got some very good photos. And I think the only other cool thing is the basement was basically the kitchen. And at some point, the kitchen moved from our research room to this hallway. And we found a fireplace that we didn't know was there. And we think that was basically for the stove. So if you're a history geek, kind of cool, but no hidden treasures, no hidden gold or anything like that. Just where the wood is.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's really cool.
A short history of Geneva Cemetery is November 13th, 5 p.m. free, open to the public, Geneva Public Library. The History Happy Hour slideshow, Brief History of Prohibition in Geneva, November 21st, Lake Jordan Brewing downtown, 430 to 630. And then the Holiday Market, December 5th through 7th, 12th through 14th, and 19th and 20th. Go to historicgeneva.org to learn more. Carrie, thanks as always. Great visit and great stuff.
Kerry Lippincott: Thank you very much. Thank you.
