Greenville Day 2024 Festival comes to Vanderbilt Park

In Events, Events - Greenville, The Greenville Pioneer

September 23, 2024

Greenville Day will be celebrated over a two-day period this Friday and Saturday. Contributed photo

GREENVILLE — Looking for entertainment in September? Come to the 18th annual Greenville Day, a family-friendly outdoor gathering with games, rides, food, fun and fireworks on Sept. 27, from 4 p.m. until dusk, and Sept. 28, from noon to dusk, at the George V. Vanderbilt Park on Route 32.

This year’s beloved event for all ages features inflatable activities/rides, live music by One Heart Band, Julie & the Cruise Directors, and Shannon Roy Band, hay rides, a foam party, pony rides, petting zoo, reptile exhibit, birds of prey exhibit, food trucks and evening fireworks.

If you’re looking to find a special gift for the upcoming holidays, there is also a tent craft fair and business expo, a townwide yard sale, and the Greenville Public Library book sale.

Come spend a family-friendly day in Greenville!

Visit the town website at townofgreenvilleny.com for more information, schedule, and updates.

The fun starts at 4 p.m. on Friday and on Saturday at noon. There will be a $5 cash parking fee. Attendees are asked to follow current New York state COVID-19 advisories.

MORE ABOUT GREENVILLE DAY

Greenville Day is an annual community event held in Greenville’s Vanderbilt Park and organized by the town of Greenville. The event is held to celebrate local community and this year is sponsored by local 501c3 non-profit Community Partners of Greenville, a Greene County Speenburgh grant, and over 50 local businesses and non-profits.

In 2023, over 4,000 people attended Greenville Day. Proceeds raised during the event are reinvested into the town parks and local community projects.

Oak Hill Day highlights town’s history

In News, News - Greenville, The Greenville Pioneer

August 12, 2024

By Melanie Lekocevic

Capital Region Independent Media

The Yellow Deli is housed in a building that once was an opera house, complete with community concerts and square dances. Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

OAK HILL — For a small community, Oak Hill is chock full of history.

That history was celebrated during Oak Hill Day, a time to celebrate all things Oak Hill.

“This is our 19th Oak Hill Day,” said Mary Lou Nahas, historian for the town of Durham and treasurer of the Oak Hill Preservation Association. “It’s meant to celebrate the character of Oak Hill and the people who live here.”

Nahas also writes the Oak Hill & Vicinity column for the Greenville Pioneer.

The day started out with yard sales and also offered fundraisers and other events, including a tour of historic old barns and a fundraiser by The Pizza Box, which sold its comestibles outside the Methodist Church and donated all the proceeds to the church.

Oak Hill Day was created by and continues to be organized by the Oak Hill Preservation Association.

“It’s meant to celebrate the history and up to the current day of Oak Hill and vicinity, and its people,” Nahas said.

Honoring the history of the community is apt as the small community is overflowing with historic structures, including the Mattice Law Office, built in 1826; the Mrs. Osborn House, built in 1850; Ford’s Store, built in 1870; the W.F. DeWitte Hotel, built in 1865; St. Paul’s Church, built in 1834; and the Tremain House, built in 1854, among others.

“We have so many historic buildings,” Nahas said. “The center of Oak Hill is a National Historic District, which is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work with the State and National Registers. They make it a historic district only if they feel there are enough historic properties, so to have a district is pretty significant.”

Oak Hill first got its start as a manufacturing area, benefiting from the proximity of the Catskill Creek.

“When the early settlers came here, they would have used the Catskill Creek for waterpower,” Nahas said. “They had foundries here. So Oak Hill, in the beginning, was a center of manufacturing in the town of Durham, whereas Cornwallville was more farming. Oak Hill’s [manufacturers] shipped their goods all over the world. When that stopped being profitable, it froze in time.”

Nahas has a personal interest in the area’s historical character — she owns the historic IU Tripp Store, which was built in the spring of 1888. She still runs a store out of the building, and its history dates even further back than the late 19th century.

The I.U. Tripp store built in 1888, is on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

“The room in the back was the original Tripp Store, which dates back to 1830,” Nahas said. “The Tripp family lived in the brick house next door. The brick house was built by two brothers from Greenville.”

Like the Tripp Store, many of the historic buildings in town have been lovingly restored and maintained.

“My husband and I bought the Tripp homestead 30 years ago because of its history. After the Tripp family stopped running the store in the 1950s, fortunately the Tripp homestead was owned by people interested in preservation,” she said.

Over the years, the building has had multiple owners, most of them devoted to retaining its historical nature.

“Everybody that owned it liked it for its historical significance,” Nahas said.

The Tripp store is one of many structures in the town that date back well over a century.

Oak Hill is chock full of historical buildings that have been repurposed for a variety of uses. Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

For instance, The Yellow Deli, also on Route 81, used to be a lodge hall and opera house, hosting community concerts and square dances. But over the years, it had become run down and in need of a little TLC.

“It had gone to rack and ruin like these old buildings do, and Sam Stickler, who was associated with Broadway, and some partners bought it and turned it into the Oak Hill Kitchen, probably about 40 years ago,” Nahas said. “When he died, his sister took over some of the properties they owned in town. I think we have a nice mix here of people from the outside and the inside coming together.”

The town’s history is what drew Nahas and her husband to Oak Hill in the first place.

“It was the history that brought my husband and me here and for me, the history is important,” Nahas said. “It’s a small town, but it still has room for growth and there are still some houses for sale.”

Over the years, there have been changes in Oak Hill, though it has retained much of its original flavor.

“In the 30 years that we have been here, Oak Hill has changed, I think for the good,” Nahas said. “When we first came here, people had not invested significant amounts of money in the houses and you could buy quite a nice place for not a lot of money. You might have to put a lot of money into it, but every building that has been fixed up will last a long time.”

The guest house Amaya has been lovingly restored. Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

Happy birthday, Blossom Dearie

In Columns, Columns - Greenville, The Greenville Pioneer

May 2, 2022

By Mary Lou Nahas

For Capital Region Independent Media

Blossom Dearie continued to perform when she was in her 80s. Contributed photo

Every spring when the trees flower and the daffodils bloom, I think of singer-song writer Blossom Dearie, who was born April 28, 1924, in East Durham to Henry A. Dearie and his wife, Margarete, who had three sons from a prior marriage.

She was reportedly named Blossom because a neighbor delivered peach blossoms to her house the day she was born. Or some say her brothers picked them and brought them to her and that they were pear blossoms.

Blossom grew up in her parents’ home on Stonebridge Road Extension.

The Oak Hill Acorn newspaper, published by Carl Ratsch on Dec. 6, 1934, reported “Durham Center Has Gay Thanksgiving Party. Popular Hostess Entertains. One of the high spots of Town of Durham society life was the recent party given by Margarete Dearie for her sons, James, Walter and Francis Birchett. The assembly included the following guests: Mr. and Mrs. Paul Treyer and daughters, Ernest and Helena Millett, Clarence and Helen Mackey, Mrs. Chas. Francis and sons, Gladys Haskins, Helen Haskins, Ruth Proper, Irene Gates, Bonnie Lee York, Blossom Dearie and Stella Pumphrey. Paul Wilson, Sheldon Ives, Carl Vining, Howard Winegard, and Carl Ratsch. The group enjoyed games, music, cards and dancing. The boys returned Sunday to Washington, D. C. where they resume their engineering duties.”

Blossom as a child in East Durham seems determined even then. Thanks to Anne Keary for collecting and sharing the family pictures. Courtesy of Anne Keary

By the age of two, Blossom could pick out songs on the family piano. Piano lessons began when she was about five. Accounts say Blossom was classically trained as a pianist and that she switched to jazz in high school. I’ve always wondered where she was “classically trained” and just recently read that at 10, while living with her stepbrother in Washington, D.C., she received instruction in the classical compositions of Bach and Chopin.

Blossom attended high school in Cairo where the yearbook says she was an accompanist for the Glee Club for three years; a member of art club; her hobby was collecting records; her favorite expression was “Are you kidding?” and that her nickname was Babe.

In her high school class were people some of you will remember: Harriett Abrams (Sis), Phyllis Allen, Carol Duncan, Anna Gustavson, Jeannie Knoblock, Walter Scholer, Maude Goff, Virginia Hempstead, Walter Hoare, Edward Jones, Sally Jones, Jack Knapp, Joseph Kruppenbache and Josephine Maggio.

The class prophecy announces: “Blossom’s wish had come true. She is now a full-fledged model, in demand continually by such firms as Life, Mademoiselle, Esquire, Red Book, American Mag., Cosmopolitan, the Rota Gravuer, and Rouges Gallery. When Blossom’s in the dumps, she takes her mind off her troubles by playing the blues on her grand piano. She doesn’t play ‘Am I Blue’ or anything like that; she resorts to the classic, ‘Deep Purple.’”

After high school in the mid-1940s Blossom moved to New York City to pursue a music career. She first sang with a group and then embarked on a solo career. She travelled to Paris in 1952, where she met Norman Granz, owner of Verve Records, who signed her to a six-album contract between 1956 and 1960. In 1966 she began traveling regularly to London to play in a night club and recorded four albums on the Fontana label.

This photo of Blossom in her New York apartment was widely used for publicity. Contributed photo

Although she had achieved international fame major labels did not seem interested in her, so back in the United States she established her own label, Daffodil Records, in 1974. It was one of the first independent labels founded by a woman and Blossom was the label’s only artist.

When Blossom died in 2009, The New York Times wrote: “Blossom Dearie, the jazz pixie with a little-girl voice and pageboy haircut who was a fixture of New York and London nightclubs for decades, died on Saturday at her apartment in Greenwich Village. She was 84.

“She died in her sleep of natural causes. Her last public appearances, in 2006, were at her regular Midtown Manhattan stomping ground, Danny’s Skylight Room.

“A singer, pianist and songwriter with an independent spirit who zealously guarded her privacy, Ms. Dearie pursued a singular career that blurred the line between jazz and cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs and musicians, she was a genre unto herself. Rarely raising her sly, kittenish voice, Ms. Dearie confided song lyrics in a playful style below whose surface layers of insinuation lurked. Her cheery style influenced many young jazz and cabaret singers.

“But just under her fey camouflage lay a needling wit… Ms. Dearie didn’t suffer fools gladly and was unafraid to voice her disdain for music she didn’t like; the songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber were a particular pet peeve.”

Apparently, this speaking her mind could apply to more than just her music, as some local residents remember.

Blossom Dearie liked songs with the word “spring” in the title. In 1956, she recorded “It Might as Well Be Spring” by Rodgers & Hammerstein (singing in French), as well as “A Fine Spring Morning,” which was composed by Marty Clark and Bob Haynes.

Even if you don’t think you know Blossom, I believe many of you have heard the popular ABC TV math show “Schoolhouse Rock!” The television series began in January 1973 and taught numeracy to a generation of American kids! You can see it on YouTube today.

Or you might have heard the famous Hires Root Beer commercial that Blossom recorded for television. The company then made an album “Blossom Dearie Sings Rootin’ Songs.” The album was available for 50 cents and two bottle caps and included versions of “Days of Wine and Roses,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Blossom at age one with her father in East Durham. Courtesy of Anne Keary

She wrote the song “Hey John” after John Lennon did an imitation of her on the David Frost show in London.

If you want a list of her recordings, check her website: BlossomDearie.com and the Facebook page Blossom Dearie. Anne Keary did a wonderful presentation about Blossom at the Durham Community Center in 2020. The program was attended by people who had known Blossom the person in East Durham and people who had no personal connection but loved her music, which is continuing to grow in popularity.

Today the Dearie house in East Durham is owned by Daniel Rodriguez and Kane Sarhan.

“We’ve tried to preserve as much of the original house as possible,” Daniel said. “At the house were two of Blossom’s pianos as well as documents about her record label.”

Kane said, “It’s been such an awesome experience to get to know her story and childhood home.”

Happy birthday, Blossom!