By Mary Hoar, President Emerita Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, September 19th
September 19, 1945: Colonel James Seaver, Bayberry Street, was winging his way home on a nonstop flight from Japan! The weather officer of a B-29 Superfortress, Seaver landed in Washington DC about 6 pm; from there he headed home to meet his younger son, born while he was overseas. The Colonel played football at Roosevelt HS, and graduated from Dartmouth College.
One of the passengers on the flight was Captain Kermit Beahan, the bombardier who dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
September 19, 1945: The Yonkers Red Cross Canteen Corps, headed by Mrs. Luther McConnell, was on pier service at Piermont to meet the Aiken Victory and the 1,970 men returning from the war on the ship.
Tuesday, September 20th
September 20, 1945: City Marshall George Donnelly and Probation Officer Theodore Murin stopped a twenty-six year old man from jumping out of a fourth floor window at City Court! Emil Pallo was arrested at his home for disorderly conduct, abusive language and threatening his mother with a knife; while waiting in the court, he bolted up the stairs to the next floor. Donnelly and Murin gave chase and found him perched on a windowsill. They grabbed him and held him until the emergency squad arrived. Judge Fay committed Pallo to Grasslands Hospital for observation.
September 20, 1946: As part of St. Joseph’s Seminary’s fiftieth anniversary celebration, Cardinal Spellman preached at a solemn high mass for Alumni Day, celebrating the several hundred former seminarians in attendance. After the mass, dinner for 601 guests was served in the students’ dining room, prepared by staff and served by seminarians. Among the honored guests were Bishop James Cassidy, the only surviving member of the original faculty, and Right Reverend Arthur Scanlon, the only living former rector of the school.
Wednesday, September 21st:
September 21, 1896: The first classes were held at St. Joseph’s Seminary.
September 21, 1945: Although Vincent and Matilde Ragone, Morsemere Avenue, were notified their son Private Vincent Ragone, Jr., was killed in combat July 1944 in France, the family had hopes of his survival. Brother Eugene Ragone had a letter written by Vincent two months after he was supposed to have died. Even more intriguing, an unidentified solder came to Yonkers to find the family. Since both parents were at work, he was unsuccessful. However, he told a neighbor he was looking for the Ragones to tell them Vincent was living, had been a German prisoner of war, and was reduced to skin and bones. When the father died seven years later, his obituary reported Vincent Sr. was a Gold Star father whose son was killed in action in France.
Thursday, September 22nd
September 22, 1946: The Senate-House Joint Committee majority decided responsibility for Pearl Harbor lay with the Hawaii Navy and Army Commanders, Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel, Bronxville Road, and General Walter Short of Dallas. They stated, “The errors made by Hawaiian commands were errors of judgment and not dereliction of duty.” The two failed to “integrate and coordinate their facilities for defense.” Kimmel was relieved of his Hawaiian command mid-December 1941, had his rank reduced, and retired from the Navy early 1942. In May 1999, Strom Thurmond dubbed Kimmel and Short the two final victims of Pearl Harbor; the US Senate passed a non-binding resolution to exonerate Kimmel and Short, and requested the president restore them to full rank. It never happened.
September 22, 1946: Twenty-five thousand men, women and children thronged the grounds of St. Joseph’s Seminary to attend vesper service and benediction, part of the Seminary’s week-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of its opening! Attendees heard Francis Cardinal Spellman describe the $750,000 library to be built on the grounds, and bestow a papal blessing on all who attended. After having supper with the faculty, the Cardinal visited the students, and gave them the next day off… to clean the grounds! He gave them a second day off, allowing the seminarians to go home to visit their families.
Friday, September 23rd
September 23, 1926: Mayor William Walsh joined Public Safety Commissioner William Cameron criticizing Judge Boote for his leniency suspending sentences of convicted gamblers.
September 23, 1927: Stating “It is but the duty of a good Republican to accept defeat,” Ulrich Wiesendanger, defeated in by Alfred Watson for the Republican nomination for Mayor, urged his supporters to “remain loyal to the party and to assist in a Republican victory in the coming elections.” Wiesendanger had served as Mayor 1924-1925; Watson had stepped in for a few months in 1923 after Mayor Walter Taussig took his own life.
Democrat Thomas Larkin won the election.
Saturday, September 24th
September 24, 1928: The French government notified James Currie, a landscape gardener living on Van Cortlandt Park Avenue, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for heroism on the French battlefields during the World War.
September 24, 1953: Children in Miss Meyer’s First Grade Class in School Eight received a letter from Buckingham Palace! Written by Rose Raring, Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth, the letter passed on the Queen’s thanks for the stories they wrote on the Coronation, and wrote the Queen was “interested to see” them. The Queen sent her “sincere thanks for their good wishes.”
Sunday, September 25th
September 25, 1940: Yonkers School Superintendent William Ankenbrand proposed School Ten on Clinton Street for Yonkers new aviation mechanics’ school, claiming it was the most efficient means of launching the defense program.
September 25, 1942: Corporal Robert Tompkins of Knowles Street arrived home to continue convalescence. Seriously wounded June 3 when the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor in Alaska where he served with the Quartermaster Corps, he spent three months at Barnes General Hospital in Vancouver, and then came home. After his 30-day furlough, he reported back to the hospital for additional treatment
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For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.
