By Mary Hoar, President Emerita, Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, Member of the Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board, and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, January 18th
January 18, 1934: Nathan Friedman, unsuccessful candidate for Justice of the Peace, got an order from Supreme Court Justice William Bleakley to reopen voting machines in 14 election districts. Friedman lost by only 57 votes, and his affidavits claimed errors in the reported count were made.
January 18, 1944: John Doherty, First Aid Director for Yonkers Red Cross, spoke proudly of all the teenaged girls who volunteered to donate blood. He had to refuse their generous contributions as they were too young to donate blood; the age limit was eighteen… and eighteen-year-olds had to have their parents’ consent to donate.
Tuesday, January 19th
January 19, 1934: Alderman William Slater confronted Wayne Laidlaw, an anti-Administration leader, to give evidence of his charges of graft and “banditry” against the members of the Common Council. He stopped him at the door of the Common Council and demanded he “put it on a postcard and say he means me.” Slater believed Laidlaw, more than anyone else or any group, was responsible for the lowering of Yonkers municipal credit rating.
January 19, 1944: De. Joseph Novotny, Pastor of the First Czecho-Slovak Baptist Church, proved the swastika was not a modern symbol of evil, but an age-old symbol. He produced a hymnbook printed in 1576 in Ivancice in Czechoslovakia. At the end the volume, an illustration showed the devil sitting on a throne with widespread arms, with a swastika on his chest! Novotny stated this proved centuries ago, we were given a warning; he believed it was “a prophecy for our times.”
Wednesday, January 20th
January 20, 1931: City Librarian Helen Blodgett requested a new library building be erected on the Waring property on South Broadway; Mayor Fogarty turned her down because “the property was a valuable source of tax revenue.”
January 20, 1945: Twenty-four year old Captain Bernard Diekman, husband of Yonkers resident Leilah Diekman and pilot of a B-25 Mitchell bomber operating out of Corsica, was award the first Bronze cluster to his Distinguished Flying Cross. He received it for “extraordinary achievement in an attack upon enemy supply and troop concentration near Santa Lucia, Italy.” Captain Diekman had led a formation of twelve bombers over the target, “inflicting severe damage” to their target. Mrs. Diekman was the daughter of Rev. Dr. James Wilson, pastor of Central Methodist Church in Yonkers.
Thursday, January 21st
January 21, 1942: Yonkers native Major Thomas J. H. Trapnell, star halfback of the 1926 West Point football team, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for singlehandedly fending off a Japanize advance in Luzon on December 22, 1941. Remaining between the enemy troops and his men, he set fire to a truck on a bridge, waiting until the bridge was fully engulfed in flames before leaving in a scout car to rejoin his troops. Trapnell survived the Bataan Death March following the Battle of the Philippines in 1942, remaining a prisoner of war until he was rescued in 1944 by the Russian forces in Manchuria. Other awards he earned during WWII were two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, to name just a few. He retired as commander of the Third US Army and a three-star general in 1962.
January 21, 1947: Three well known Yonkers residents appeared as character witnesses for Patrolman William Daly, on trial for bribery; interestingly enough, all three, Judge Charles Boote, Judge Martin Fay and State Senator William Condon, fudged on the subject of their age!
Friday, January 22nd
January 22, 1933: Harry Garing of New York City, Grand Dragon of the New York Klu Klux Klan, asked Mayor Joseph Loehr for permission to use Larkin Plaza and Lincoln Park for public meetings to discuss “Americanism and Its defense.” The Mayor had no immediate comment.
January 22, 1947: State Senator William Condon. Assemblyman Malcolm Wilson and Mayor Frank announced Yonkers would receive $900,000 from the State for veterans’ housing. Yonkers created two and three room apartments, with sixty-four units in the old Yonkers High School building on South Broadway and sixteen units in the Labor Temple. Barracks for 120 veterans’ families also were built on part of the Grassy Sprain Golf Course.
Saturday, January 23rd
January 23, 1910: Yonkers Health Officer Dr. W. S. Coons notified officials our water supply, particularly the portion obtained from the Nepperhan River, was found to be “far below sanitary standards and was endangering the health of the city;” water samples were infested with typhoid.
January 23, 1916: The will of Montgomery Cowperthwaite of 309 North Broadway was filed; his estate was valued at $1,445,366. President of the family furniture company that sported his name, Cowperthwaite was widowed and lived in his home with five servants at the time of his death. Ancestor John Cowperthwaite founded Cowperthwaite’s in 1807, with a store at Chatham Square. Now the oldest furniture business in America, Cowperthwaite and Sons has two large establishments, one in Chatham Square close to where the original store was located, and the second in Harlem at Third Avenue and 121st Street.
Sunday, January 24th
January 24, 1935: Elsworth Bunker of Yonkers was reelected Vice President of the National Sugar Refining company, a company Bunker’s father had co-founded. After his retirement from the sugar company, Bunker went on to become an ambassador to the O. A. S., Argentina, Italy, India, Nepal and South Vietnam, serving Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.
January 24, 1950: Yonkers boxer Roger Donoghue made his County Center debut and took the bout when he TKO’d Jimmy Demetrios in the sixth round. It was his 14th straight win since becoming a professional boxer in 1948 at the age of 18.
For more information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and our upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.
