Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.15, it's the Tuesday, FLX Morning. Carrie Lippincott with Historic Geneva is normally with us on Monday, but that was Labor Day and we were off, so she graciously moved to today. Good morning.
Kerry Lippincott: Good morning, good morning.
Paul Szmal: Always good to talk about the history of Geneva, starting with another of these downtown walks. This will be this Friday at 5, supposed to be perfect weather, and John Marks, the curator, will lead it. What are we looking at this week?
Kerry Lippincott: So this is going to be our final walking tour of the summer season, so he's going to be taking us down Seneca Exchange Castle and Linden Streets, taking a look at the architecture and the various stories behind the buildings. It's a rain or shine, I think it's going to be mostly shine, and it's $5 a person. We'll meet at the corner of Seneca Street and Scott LaFaro Drive, and that's where the tour will also end.
Paul Szmal: That sounds good. 5 o'clock on Friday is supposed to be really great weather. Another History Happy Hour, too. I've been wanting to get to these. I'm going to mark this one down here. At Lake Drum Brewing, we're going to have Victor on to talk about his drum stock coming up later on this week. This will be September 19th, Lake Drum Brewing, from 430 to 630. So for people who don't remember or haven't heard, remind us how these History Happy Hours work.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so these programs are done by our curator, John Marks, and he basically shares a captioned slideshow of images from our collection, and it's on a continuous loop. So you can come right at 430, and I know that there are some folks that do, or you can come anytime between 430 and 630. And if you can't make our History Happy Hours, what John has done is maybe about a week or two later, he converts them into videos which we share on social media. So you can come in person, or you can wait for the video to come out.
Paul Szmal: Oh, that's neat. That's Thursday, September 19th at Lake Drum Brewing downtown, 430 to 630. So again, it just runs on a loop, so if you run into a friend and have a conversation or something, you can look back up and catch what you missed. On September 22nd, Rose Hill Mansion, we have the Fox Sisters and Modern Spiritualism. That's at 2 o'clock. There was a lot of that in that day, wasn't there? People exploring the mystical.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, there was, and my understanding is it's the Fox Sisters that actually started the whole spiritualist movement. It was, gosh, I think it was the winter of 1848, and the Fox family had, I think, recently moved to Hydesville, which is just outside of Newark, when they heard these mysterious rappings and tappings. And so Maggie and Kate Fox, two young ladies, began to communicate with the source of these sounds, and that basically started the spiritualist movement. They started to perform seances around the country, and they basically became 19th century celebrities. I think of Taylor Swift of the 1800s, if you will. And it just brought this new religion on called spiritualism. So Tracy Murphy was going to share their story and how it connects to modern spiritualism today.
Paul Szmal: Reminds me, do you remember the old show, probably not, The Wild Wild West? I do not, but I think they converted it to a movie.
Kerry Lippincott: I'm more familiar with the movie.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, it was set back in that time, and it was kind of a mix between a kind of a Western but a science fiction spiritualist kind of thing, so I'm sure that reminds me of.
The Fox Sisters and Modern Spiritualism, that is September 22nd. That is Sunday at 2 o'clock at Rose Hill Mansion, free, open to the public. And then September 28th at the mansion, you've got Civil War reenactors.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, so we're going to have Ronald's battery there for the day, free and open to the public from 10 to 4. And there will be plenty of opportunities for the public to talk to members of the battery and to explore camp life and what it was like to be a Union artillery soldier. So we will also have, so the soldiers will be stationed all over the grounds at Rose Hill. We'll also have the first floor of the mansion open for self-guided experiences. And again, this is free and open to the public. That is going to be September 28th. That is a Saturday from 10 to 4.
Paul Szmal: And Ronald's battery does a great job. I mean, it's, well, it's so interesting too, because so many of those soldiers were, you know, the just recent draftees or volunteers. I mean, a lot of them had very little experience. They were away from home for the first time and were very young.
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, and what's, I think, neat about Ronald's battery is they're based on an actual battery that was formed in Rochester in the fall of 1861. And the soldiers served with the Army of the Potomac right through the end of the war. And they saw, actually, a lot of the major battles, Antietam and Gettysburg. So this is a good, this is the second year that we've partnered with Ronald's battery. And I think it's a great opportunity for families to come out. I remember last year, we were pleasantly surprised, especially of Boy Scout troops coming out to take a look.
Paul Szmal: Oh, wow. Yeah, and fingers crossed, good weather, because all this is, it's weather dependent. We hope. September 28th at Rose Hill Mansion from 10 to 4, and then guided tours Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 4, Sunday noon to 4. Now, during September and October, the mansion will be dressed for mourning. We'll talk about the losses that that family suffered. Was that something that they would have done in that day?
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, we actually, thanks to family letters and diaries, the Swan family lost three of their sons, and we have the house dressed for Otis Swan, who died in September of 1864 from rheumatic fever, and he was five years old. So when folks come to Rose Hill in September and October, what they'll see is we have a casket on display in the front parlor, while the dining room is sort of arranged for a wait, and we have the windows and mirrors are all draped with black fabric. So visitors are going to see how funerals were community events, and there were, with mourning anyway, there were a lot of rituals and somber gatherings.
Paul Szmal: So for a well-to-do family, or any family I guess at the time, were there funeral homes like we have today, or were those funerals conducted at the home? Would it have been at the mansion?
Kerry Lippincott: Yeah, it would have been right at home. You basically, you know, where you were born most likely is where you would die, and then you had the funeral, you had your viewing was right in the parlor, and then you had the funeral would be also in the parlor, and then it would be, the body would be buried. It wasn't until probably the late 1800s, 1880s, 1890s that you saw funeral homes that we're kind of familiar with today, and then I believe it was the flu epidemic after World War I that really took all the funeral experience out of the home into the funeral home. So we've done to the best of our ability to kind of recreate this, how the Swan family would have mourned for their son, and in October, on October 19th and October 26th, we'll actually have specialty tours where we'll go a little bit more in depth. But for right now, as visitors are touring Rose Hill, they'll actually just get to see what it was like for the Swan family.
Paul Szmal: Now, since the last time we talked, did we have the Niagara Falls trip? We did. How was that?
Kerry Lippincott: Yes, we did. Oh my goodness, it was wonderful. We had an awesome tour guide, and we actually got to go to a farm on the outskirts of Lewiston that was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and their barn was converted into a station. They actually had dug an underground room in their barn, and it was really neat to see.
Paul Szmal: Now you're the president-elect of the Genie of Rotary Club now, and that means this year you do the programs, and I know you just did one recently. You've done a couple on history in Geneva, but one that went over real well was just a bunch of different photos of old stores and things, and we have a few Rotarians that have lived in town their whole lives and knew what they were. It was pretty neat.
Kerry Lippincott: Yes, and I did, just a few weeks ago, I did summer photographs, so it was interesting. Folks got to share their memories. I believe a certain Rotarian had their first beer at the HWS Folk Fest, so it's those kind of memories that get to be shared. I think the club members enjoy it, but I enjoy it too, because they get to, I get to learn a little something too about the photos or where things were, so it's enjoyable on both ends.
Paul Szmal: It's, and I, there's, I don't know, I remember who the company is, but there's a company that publishes all these historical books, and there was one on basically the Beans Hill area, which is a name that some of the younger people don't even recognize anymore, but how much different, like where the radio station is, you know, in the 40s it was almost like out of town.
Kerry Lippincott: It was, yeah, I would say pretty much for most of the 1800s, gosh, and yeah, into the 1950s, 1960s, it was that sort of the outskirts of town, and I think those books are Arcadia?
Paul Szmal: Oh yes, yes. Yeah, and I think you, yeah, I think you are, yeah, most small towns, villages, cities, I think they have Arcadia too, but no, they're just great. I just think the photos are great, because they just spark conversation, and it gets people talking and sharing, yeah.
Paul Szmal: All right, Keri Lippincott from Historic Geneva, we appreciate the talk as always, thanks.
Kerry Lippincott: Thank you, thank you.
