Features

By Julia Green
Just behind the Absolute Construction building off Route 30 in Kelly Corners is a large woodpile. Surrounded by a wall of trees, fractured sunlight filters through and throws shards of light on piles of firewood still dusted with early morning frost.
Amid it all is Kelly Corners resident Ralph Felter Jr. wielding a splitting maul, a mortal-sized, modern-day Paul Bunyan in a button-down flannel shirt and dark blue pants held up by similar-colored suspenders. Tarps cover piles of cut wood stacked around the woodlot, which is carpeted by a two-foot thick layer of wood chips and sawdust.

By Brian Sweeney
Jane’s Dancing Bear Auctions debuted in July at the former Masonic Hall on Bridge Street, Roxbury. Proprietor Jane Wahrburg said it was a longtime fascination with buying auction items that led to her decision to go into the business for herself.
Jane explained that she had long been a fan of Roberts’ Auction in Fleischmanns and was also an avid collector of antiques. About the same time that the Roberts family was closing that business, Jane was contemplating a career change after working many years as a bookkeeper.

By Matthew J. Perry
Although he describes his weekly turn as art critic for The New Yorker magazine as “the best job in the world,” Peter Schjeldahl, a longtime resident of Bovina, doesn’t seem to take praise for granted.
Artists, after all, are famous for their adversarial relations with critics. And then there are the art historians. Schjeldahl, a dropout of two colleges and largely self-taught, seems pleased by the notion of himself as a misfit among academics and others who use their degrees as a basis for opining about art. They can say what they like about him; after all, he’s been writing about art for 40 years.

For 100 years or more, dozens of enormous maple trees towered over Margaretville’s sidewalks, dappling them in shade. Unfortunately, in order to make room for sewer and water lines, they were all cut down in the fall of 2000. But those grand old trees, it turns out, were neither lost nor forgotten. And we have Gary Mead, a master wood craftsman, to thank for that.

The Caribbean’s got nothing on the Catskills. At least, not if you ask Terry Cohen.
Cohen, 90, moved to St. Croix last October to live with her grandson, Jonab, and his wife, who were expecting a child. But four months later, she was back.
“Why did I come back from St. Croix?” she asks. “Because there’s so much to do here.”

By Brian Sweeney
A group of Margaretville Central School students and alumni recently experienced a nine-day travel adventure to Ecuador, including several days at the Galapagos Islands. The trip was organized by MCS science teacher Alan Seidman and his wife, Leslie. The couple began planning the excursion several years ago as their “dream trip when they retired” from teaching. The Seidmans have postponed retiring from their careers in education, but the trip was “a go” a year-and-a-half after 21 people agreed to participate.

Who would have imagined any connection between a southern African country, where life expectancy is just 34 years, and the lush mountains of New York? But over the past three years, Hobart resident Dennis Gaboury has been building links between our community and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. He has accomplished this by founding ZimKids, a project that helps feed, clothe and educate Bulawayo’s orphans, encourages their creativity and teaches them about the dignity of work.

The Margaretville Telephone Co. is in the process of being sold, as detailed in a front page story. Following is a short history tracing the expansion of the company.
The Margaretville Telephone Co. was started in 1916 when John A. Birdsall purchased from the Bell system the local exchange. Three years earlier, the local phone exchange, with seven subscribers, was located on the Lockwood home (later the site of Kelly’s Hotel).

Steven Brinberg has toured the world as Simply Barbra, and on Saturday, June 28, he stops in at The Roxbury Arts Group for a special cabaret appearance. This will be a night of unparalleled glamour and sophistication, at once witty and moving. And, unlike many star impersonators, this man can really sing!