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General News: Historical Society Talk on School Days
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| This building on Idlewild Avenue in the village once housed both high school and elementary school students. |
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| This photo of the 1936-37 Cornwall-on-Hudson high school basketball team was one of several presented at the Historical Society lecture. |
August 26, 2011
By Charlie B. Scirbona
With the new school year right around the corner the Cornwall Historical Society took some time after their Monday meeting to look at school years gone by.
Former Village Historian Collette Fulton and Historical Society Vice President Susan Kamlet gave a presentation called “Schools Days,” in which Fulton talked about the original schools in the village and town and Kamlet talked more about her time as a teacher at the Cornwall-on-Hudson Elementary School.
Fulton said the first public school in village was on Mountain Road, and dates to some time between 1840 and 1860. The building still stands and is used as a private residence.
Another more notable building that was once a school is the apartment building on Idlewild Avenue. The building was built first in 1869, and later added onto to look like it does now when it was made the combined high school and elementary school.
Kamlet’s part of the presentation was more focused on her time as a teacher and then school librarian at Cornwall-on-Hudson Elementary School. She told stories of the school as it was in the 1970’s. In one the cafeteria staff, when the school’s cafeteria actually made the school lunches, gave her a recipe for chocolate cake fore 300.
“I remember when they would bake cookies, I could smell them all the way up on the third floor in my class room,” said Kamlet.
She also talked about some things that happened in the past that would never happen today, like former Principal Ron Young cutting up pieces of cardboard for students to use as sleds during the recess in the winter, or former fourth grade teacher Jenette Stowe bringing in her son dressed up as a revolutionary war solider, complete with snare drum and musket, when she taught her class about US history.
“You always knew when he was in the building because then you’d hear the drum roll and then the musket fire, and of course you can’t do that anymore,” said Kamlet.
She added at the end of her presentation and slide show that she hadn’t been involved much in the community where she grew up in on Long Island, but that changed when she moved to Cornwall-on-Hudson.
“Without realizing it, over the years, I’ve became part of the community,” said Kamlet. “And that’s why I stayed after I retired.”
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