Lonely hearts killing case linked to Amsterdam
By Bob Cudmore
Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder
An Amsterdam woman was the step-daughter of a 1949 victim of a notorious murderous couple.
Mary C. Fay was listed in the 1930 census as a hospital nurse living in Albany with her father, Matthew Fay, and step-mother, Janet J. Fay (nee Flinn).
Mary Fay married a prominent physician, Alton Spencer. In 1940 Mary and Alton were living in Canajoharie with their daughter. They subsequently moved to Amsterdam.
Matthew Fay, Janet Fay's husband and Mary Spencer's father, was a steamfitter. Matthew and Janet lived on Caldwell Street in Albany until Matthew's sudden death in 1946.
At the end of 1948 Janet Fay, then about 60, was lured into a romantic relationship by Raymond Martinez Fernandez, a native of Hawaii who wore a toupee.
The late historian David Fiske wrote in a New York History Blog article, "The modus operandi was to use 'lonely hearts' ads to lure lonesome women into romantic situations in order to make use of their financial resources. In several cases (at least) the victims were then murdered."
Fernandez was joined in the scheme by Martha Beck. Beck, who had children in Florida, was originally earmarked to be one of Fernandez's victims, but the couple fell in love.
Fiske wrote that Fernandez began courting Fay at her Albany apartment on New Year's Eve of 1948, "Beck stayed out of the way at a hotel. After their initial meeting, Beck was introduced as the sister of Fernandez (a ploy used with other victims). Before long, Fernandez proposed marriage to the lonesome widow, and she accepted."
Fiske said Fay introduced her new friends to the Spencers at their Summit Avenue home in Amsterdam in early 1949. Dr. Spencer told the Albany Times Union, "We weren't suspicious in any way."
A short time later Fay took several thousand dollars from her bank account, left Albany and went to Valley Stream on Long Island with Fernandez and Beck.
Mary and Alton Spencer received a typed letter supposedly from Fay that did make them suspicious.
"We received many letters from Mrs. Spencer's stepmother," Dr. Spencer told the Times Union. ''None ever were typed. We thought it was very unusual." Mary Spencer went to Albany and convinced police to search for her step-mother.
Police found that Fay was murdered in Valley Stream after Beck became jealous when she saw Fernandez in an embrace with Fay. Beck, who weighed 200 pounds, bludgeoned Fay with a hammer and Fernandez then strangled Fay with a scarf, according to prosecutors.
The couple then went to Michigan, having found another lonely victim there. Fiske wrote, "Their killing spree halted when they were arrested in Michigan, where they admitted to having murdered a woman and her young daughter. Because they were in a state with no death penalty, they also felt comfortable telling police there about a widow they had murdered in New York State."
Police found Fay's body in Ozone Park in Queens, buried in the cellar of a house the killers had rented. Mary Spencer went to Queens to identify her step-mother's body.
New York State, which had a death penalty then, extradited Fernandez and Beck. Fernandez blamed Beck for the killing. He did tell police he had murdered 17 women, but authorities could not confirm that.
Both were found guilty after a 30 day trial that summer. Mary Spencer testified about the visit the two killers had made to her Amsterdam home.
Fernandez, 36, and Beck, 31, professed their love for each other before being executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison in 1951. The case has been the subject of a book, e-book and 1970 film.
Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.
518 346 6657
bobcudmore@yahoo.com
Weather prophet Cousin George
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder
Weather prophet George Henry Casabonne was once described in a newspaper story as "cocky as a blue jay and scrappy as a bantam rooster."
Casabonne, five foot two, worked as a stonemason, farmer and General Electric factory hand. His 1974 obituary stated he was born in Northville in 1886. In 1959, though, he told the Gazette he was born in Tribes Hill.
He married Lydia Kruger and they had four children. Starting in 1917 the family maintained a farm on West Line Road in the town of Charlton in Saratoga County.
Casabonne burst onto the local media scene in the 1930s, following in the footsteps of a weather prognosticator called Uncle George Van Derveer of the town of Florida. Amsterdam Recorder managing editor Bill Maroney was reputedly the first to call Casabonne "Cousin George."
Widely published historian David Pietrusza grew up over A. Lenczewski’s Bar and Grill at the corner of Reid and Church Street in Amsterdam. Cousin George was a regular at the bar and sometimes entertained the patrons by playing his fiddle.
Pietrusza said Cousin George was famous for his weather predictions but also well known for his ability to douse for water.Pietrusza recounts in his Amsterdam memoir "Too Long Ago" that Cousin George accurately predicted the end of a summer drought and Pietrusza witnessed the event by getting soaked walking home from the library.
Cousin George said he based his forecasts on lunar phases, the size and prevalence of woolly bear caterpillars and his own weather records. He maintained that "satellites and Sputniks" zooming through space led to unexpected wind currents and rain here below.
He delivered seasonal forecasts to local media and was known for coming up with creative explanations for prognostications that went awry.
Cousin George was a favorite of newspapers, radio and then television. He performed on the Pete Williams country and western television show on WRGB.
He did not comment on global warming and was a media star before development of social media.
Cousin George did take some ribbing because of the squeaky sound of his violin. He could clog dance and tap dance. As a show-stopper he would do a high kick.Toward the end of his life Cousin George moved to his daughter Georgianna Chirickio's home on Lyon Street in Amsterdam.Former Recorder reporter Steve Talbott's desk at the paper was closest to the door in the 1970s when Cousin George was ending his run. Talbott tended to receive walk-in news releases first, including visits from Cousin George with his seasonal forecasts.
In 1973, Cousin George's daughter drove him to the paper. When asked about her father's health, she looked down sadly and said he was not well. Cousin George died the next year.Talbott said, "Stan Silvernail, the managing editor, a great guy and good editor, was the keeper of the Cousin George memory file. He would tell us young reporters about how Cousin George would admit to his occasional mistaken forecasts. There was a picture in the Recorder files of Cousin George shoveling shoulder-high snow in the Recorder parking lot on a day when he had said there would be no snow."On March 16, 1974 he sent his granddaughter to the Recorder with his spring forecast the day before he was admitted to Amsterdam Memorial Hospital.
The newspaper reported, "Cousin George's last forecast was among his best, and right on the button." He died March 21, 1974 the first day of spring.Snow turned to rain as Cousin George had predicted. He was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Fort Johnson.
Bob Cudmore is a free lance writer.
Perth, Amsterdam and the Moon
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder.The name of the class of 1938 valedictorian at Perth High School may be inscribed on a plaque left on the Moon during an American lunar landing..
Stanley J. Jevitt, Sr., was born in Avoca, Pennsylvania, the son of Antoni and Julia Dziewit. The spelling later was changed to Jevitt. Stanley was the sixth of eight children.
Antoni and Julia were Polish immigrants who originally settled in Amsterdam. They moved to Pennsylvania where they had a farm and where Antoni worked in the mines. A doctor told Antoni he had early stages of black lung disease and advised him to stop mining. The family relocated to Perth, buying a farm on McQueen Road.
After high school, where he was also class president, Stanley Jevitt earned a degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Alabama, known for its program in rocket science. He was the first of his siblings to go to college; Perth school superintendent John Paris said if his parents couldn’t afford college, he would see to it that Stanley’s bill was paid.
Jevitt learned to fly while in college, graduated in 1942 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Stationed in Alameda, California, he was crew chief on the Martin Mars flying boat, a huge seaplane that flew supplies between California and Honolulu.
After the war Jevitt worked at Schenectady General Electric on development and testing of jet engines. He also operated Sacandaga Sea Plane in Mayfield. He gave flying lessons and transported customers by seaplane on fishing and scenic trips. Jevitt taught his wife Dorothy, an Indianapolis native, several of their six children and three of his brothers to fly.
In February 1948 Jevitt survived an airplane accident on snow covered Mayfield Lake. According to the Leader Republican, Jevitt was landing on what he believed was a couple inches of snow on top of the frozen lake. However there was actually 16 to 18 inches of snow cover. The plane nosedived and turned over on landing. No one was injured but volunteers worked for hours turning the plane upright and towing it off the lake using toboggans.
Jevitt left GE and worked for other aeronautical companies: Bell Aircraft, Lockheed and Martin Marietta. He joined NASA in 1966 at Cape Canaveral in Florida. In a news release in May 1969 NASA reported that Jevitt was playing a key role in the launch of Apollo 10 that month.
His niece Frances Luzinas said Jevitt was on a list of engineers whose names were inscribed on a plaque left on the moon, most likely during Apollo 11 in July 1969.
NASA’s public information office said it does not have any information on official plaques left on the Moon with Apollo employee names on them. However, NASA said there were unsanctioned actions by employees and contractors that were not formally documented. The NASA statement continued, ‘Unfortunately, we have no way of confirming whether or not Mr. Jevitt's name was on an unofficial list/plaque.’
In later years, Jevitt was assistant to the chief engineer on the Space Shuttle and contributed to development of the Shuttle’s rocket booster.
He died at age 77 on April 18, 1998 at Cape Canaveral Hospital in Cocoa Beach, Florida and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
AMSTERDAM’S ROCKET MAN
Petrone Square, the corner of Church and Main streets in Amsterdam, is named in honor of Rocco Petrone. Petrone was born in Amsterdam in 1926, the son of Italian immigrants. He was launch director and what the New York Times called a ‘driving force’ in the Apollo moon program. He died in 2006.
Cudmore in The Gazette
https://www.dailygazette.com/life_and_arts/history/cudmore/
Dinner at Isabel’s in 1944By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder
The prices on a 1944 menu from Isabel’s Tavern at 280 West Main Street in Amsterdam are eye-opening.
If you and companion (as food writers say) dined at Isabel’s in 1944, you could have had shrimp cocktail as an appetizer for 35 cents each. Fancy filet mignon with fresh mushrooms cost $1.75 per person, served with spaghetti or French fries plus two vegetables. You could have had a Manhattan before dinner for 35 cents and perhaps companion would have enjoyed a Courvoisier after dinner for 60 cents. The total bill, not including tip, would have been $5.15 for dinner for two. That would be worth over $90 today.
Isabel’s offered less expensive fare in 1944. You and companion could have dined on one of the Italian specialties, spaghetti and meatballs, for 50 cents each. You could have split an Italian Combination salad for 50 cents. Each of you could have had a 15-cent glass of burgundy for a total bill of $1.80 for dinner for two.
For a light meal, you could have considered two Western egg sandwiches, each costing 20 cents.
As this was wartime, the federal Office of Price Administration or OPA controlled Isabel’s prices. This federal agency regulated prices and rationed meat, gasoline and other items during World War II.
The Isabel’s menu states, “All prices are our ceiling prices or below. By OPA regulations, our ceilings are based on our highest prices from April 4 to 10, 1943. Our menus are available for your inspection.”
Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon in his “Annals of a Mill Town” noted that affluent people were able to lessen the impact of wartime meat rationing by dining at Isabel’s and other restaurants.
The OPA distributed a controlled number of red stamps to each family allowing meat purchases.
Donlon said, “Unlike the original rationing in Europe, the U.S. restaurants did not require red stamps from dining patrons and as a result the more affluent were eating out, enjoying meats of higher grade while saving the red stamps issued for home supply. Both money and proper connections helped to ease inconveniences.”
Isabel’s 1944 menu also advertised its facilities for weddings and special parties and would take reservations by telephone at 2490.
The 1944 menu was “snitched” from Isabel’s by Ray Goldstein according to Phyllis Byron of Watervliet, who sent the document.
Local radio station, TV cable owner, and elected government official Joseph Isabel died in 2022. He said some years ago that the family restaurant was started by his grandfather, also named Joseph Isabel, in 1929. Isabel’s parents, Guy and Ida, became sole operators in the 1940s.
“My mom was born here and my dad came here from Pisciotta, Italy,” Isabel said. “He started out as a barber. My uncle Alex Isabel was Recreation Commissioner, Hector worked for Mohasco and Nunzio sold autos.
“My mom and dad were great cooks. He cut all of his own steaks and had a showcase in the dining room where you could pick out your own steaks.
“After my dad died in the early 1970s, my uncle Lou Frollo, Jerry (Pup) Isabel, Mike Aldi and my sister Mildred and her late husband Bill Buono assisted my mother. It was a real family operation.
“My mom sold the restaurant to Mike Aldi in the early 1980s. Mike worked for them as a part time cook and was like family to my dad. Mike also ran Aldi’s TV on the South Side. He ran the restaurant until he had a heart attack in the early 1990s. After that, it changed hands a few times before it closed.”
Bob Cudmore is a free lance writer. bobcudmore@yahoo.com
Fairview Cemetery
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
It was built on a 110-acre parcel of land once owned by Revolutionary War surgeon Dr. David Shepard on a hill on the north side of the Mohawk River, partially in the city and partially in the town of Amsterdam.
Dr. Shepard and his family lived there until his death in 1818.
By the late 19th century, after changing hands several times, the land was purchased by Warren K. Nibble of Troy. Nibble wanted to build a resort there, but when many of his financial backers turned against that idea, they decided to use the land for a cemetery.
The Amsterdam Daily Democrat agreed, “The site had natural beauty with soil well adapted for a cemetery.”
The project was laid out by landscape engineer G. Douglas Baltimore. Many remains were moved to Fairview from other cemeteries, thus many stones pre-date 1899 in Fairview’s oldest section (Section 1).
Fairview Cemetery was eventually converted to a not-for-profit corporation owned by and operated for the benefit of lotholders. A volunteer board of trustees oversees the operation.
In 1901, the Daily Democrat reported, “The new chapel and mausoleum on the grounds of Fairview Cemetery has been completed and accepted by the association and is now ready for service.
The chapel’s Gothic architecture was built of granite and erected by contractor Dennis Madden of Amsterdam. The interior is marble and the ceiling is oak. There are stained glass windows throughout. The original cost of the building was $20,000.
The chapel was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Benjamin Button in 2017 and a replacement roof was completed this year.
A gateway of stone and iron was erected on Steadwell Avenue as the entrance to the cemetery in 1902.
Many of Amsterdam’s prominent citizens were buried at Fairview: the Shuttleworth family, who founded the factory that became Mohawk Carpet Mills; the Chalmers family, who operated knitting and button mills; and manufacturer John R. Blood, among others.
Now, in 2024, the placement of two historic roadside markers will enhance the front entrance. One marker is dedicated to Fairview Cemetery and the second is for the Admiral Dahlgren cannon, located in Veterans section 9.
Amsterdam city historian Rob von Hasseln said the Dahlgren cannon was forged for the U.S. Navy during the Civil War in 1864 in Providence, Rhode Island. After the war, the cannon was installed on the USS Monongahela, Pensacola and Essex. It was then stored at Washington Navy Yard before coming to Fairview.
Next to the cannon is a display of its cannonballs which are red, not black. This distinctive color was a way to match the correct balls to be fired with the cannon. In later years, the gun was retrofitted to use conical-shaped shells.
One of the first pieces of property in America purchased by the Cudmore family, immigrants from England, was a cemetery plot at Fairview. My grandmother, Elizabeth Copp Cudmore, was buried there in 1934. Her husband Harry lived another 22 years and also was buried at Fairview as were my parents and sister. When I was a child, we visited the cemetery in the summer and had picnics among the tombstones.
An evening to remember—Paderewski’s Amsterdam concert
Ignacy Paderewski, world-famous pianist and composer who served as an early prime minister of Poland in 1919, performed at Amsterdam’s former junior high school on Guy Park Avenue on March 26, 1933. According to historian Hugh Donlon, Paderewski was invited by Reverend Anton Gorski, founding pastor of St. Stanislaus Church, one of the city’s predominantly Polish-American parishes.
Paderewski and Gorski were distant relatives by marriage. Donlon said “(Paderewski) came more to show his appreciation of the intense loyalty of Amsterdam Poles to their native land than to any other purpose.” Historian Jacqueline Murphy wrote in an article for Historic Amsterdam League that the concert was a benefit for the Sisters of the Resurrection orphanage.
Paderewski’s performance raised nearly $2000 and enabled the Sisters to pay off their bank debt.
The Sisters had opened a nursery on Park Street for children of women working in city mills in 1926. The nursery closed the next year and the Sisters then opened an orphanage on Brookside Avenue. Murphy wrote, “The ongoing increase in the need for their services soon overtaxed the Brookside Avenue facility and in 1932 the orphanage relocated to the former Gardiner Blood residence at 118 Market Street on the southwest corner of Market and Prospect.” Donlon recalled the 1933 concert in a column written after Paderewski’s death on June 29th, 1941, “Those of us who were fortunate enough to get into the auditorium—and it was crowded—are now even more privileged to claim with pride, ‘I heard him.’"
Among the first to greet the pianist in Amsterdam was Division Street physician Dr. Julius Schiller who had heard Paderewski when he played for the first time in America with the Chicago Symphony in 1891.
Donlon wrote that in Amsterdam Paderewski played as though he was among “a small group of personal friends.” The program began with a Bach fugue, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and a sonata by Schumann.
Donlon, who had spent many years as a church organist, wrote, “Before the evening was over he had wandered far from that musical fare. In response to wild enthusiasm he went from one Chopin composition to another, and finished with the brilliant Military Polonaise that left his spellbound audience wishing the joys of the evening might never end.”
“He was an old man then, Paderewski was,” wrote Donlon. “The passing years, with their heartaches, were taking their toll, and there were times when he played as one tired, very, very tired. But then he would rouse himself and show flashes of his old-time technical mastery and poetic fire, his weariness concealed beneath flawless stage posture. “Those who were thcre need no jogging of the memory. Those who were not there-well, they missed Amsterdam at its musical best.”
The Sisters of the Resurrection Children’s Home on Market Street, made possible by Paderewski’s concert, filled a need.
Murphy wrote, “At times there were as many as 12 to 16 infants no more than nine days old being cared for at the home. And not only did the home care for children, but from time to time, it also helped others in need; a student from Poland who was unable to return to his home because of the world situation spent seven years under the care of the Sisters who made it possible for him to complete his medical studies, “The Children’s Home was closed by the diocese in 1960 and the Sisters’ ministry relocated to Massachusetts. The building was demolished in 1966 for the Route 30 South arterial.”
There was also a Protestant-based orphanage called the Children’s Home on Amsterdam’s Guy Park Avenue
Joseph Bucci’s Guadalcanal diary
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder
Joseph A. Bucci fought valiantly on Guadalcnal in World War II and then furthered the war effort as a public speaker back home. Bucci was the son of Charles and Mary Bucci who lived at 12 Lark Street in Amsterdam’s East End. Charles Bucci had served in World War I. Joseph Bucci’s brother Anthony fought with the Army Air Corps in World War II.
Joseph Bucci was a graduate of St. Mary’s Institute in Amsterdam and the University of Notre Dame. He was among the first local men to enlist in the Marines in January, 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December. He had been working as a life insurance agent for John Hancock. He also was a candy salesman.
By October Bucci was among those fighting the Japanese in a long campaign on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. Bucci and six others were pinned down by Japanese artillery in the Battle of Matiniku River. The small band had missed orders to move from their foxholes to another position.
Through one long night and the next day the seven endured the artillery barrage and Japanese attacks. The seven Marines were credited with killing 175 to 200 enemy soldiers.Then Bucci and his comrades came under American artillery fire in a Marine counterattack. Ultimately the seven Marines were reunited with their unit.
By November Bucci was wounded by three pieces of shrapnel. He contracted malaria and was shipped to a hospital in San Diego, California. It was there he learned he was to receive the Silver Star for his actions on Guadalcanal. He was promoted to Sergeant.
He was home on leave in July 1943 when the Recorder printed an account of Bucci’s actions on Guadalcanal written by Marine private Eddie Lyon, who had interviewed Bucci at the San Diego hospital. Bucci and his parents went to the Recorder offices to read the story and have their picture taken.
In December 1943, Bucci was still at home, assigned to the Scotia Naval Depot on Route 5, today an industrial park. He had applied for Officer Candidate School. That month Knights of Columbus Council 209 in Amsterdam honored Bucci at a dinner and presented him with a special ring. Bucci was honored or spoke at numerous gatherings while home on leave. “When I was in the South Pacific, I dreamed of getting home,” Bucci told the Knights of Columbus, according to a newspaper account. “Just at the present I wish I were down there again.”
He added, “It is my fond wish and hope that this international mess will soon be over and that all of us can come back to the good old American way of life. However, I expect to be shoving off again soon and in whatever part of the world I am I will have this ring with me, a reminder of your thoughtfulness and I will be thoughtful for you.”
Bucci became a second lieutenant in October 1944.
He attended Albany Law School after the war and in 1948 became head of the new Montgomery County Probation Department.
A 1951 clipping states that he was promoted to captain in the Marine Corps Reserve by President Truman. He and Louanne Wilkes of Albany married in 1953 and moved to California where Bucci worked in the Ventura County Probation Department.
In their later years Bucci and his wife moved to Virginia to be near one of their two sons. Bucci died in 2010 at age 96 at Lovingston Health Care Center in Arrington, Virginia. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
"Walking the horses"
In the early 1900s, thoroughbred horses owned by carpet mill magnate Stephen Sanford walked each summer to Saratoga Springs from Sanford’s Hurricana Farm in Amsterdam. Racing Hall of Fame trainer Hollie Hughes, who served three generations of Sanfords, recalled the annual trek in Alex M. Robb’s book,”The Sanfords of Amsterdam.” The trip began at the Sanford horse farm on what is now Route 30 in the town of Amsterdam.
Efforts are underway to preserve remaining buildings at the complex, originally called Hurricana Farm but later known as Sanford Stud Farm. “First, we’d go up to Hagaman, a couple of miles away, and then we’d head for Top Notch, or West Galway, as it’s called,’ Hughes said. ‘That would be about five miles. Then we’d go three miles straight east to Galway village. Then we’d go to West Milton, about seven miles farther east, and there we’d stop at the old Dutch Inn and feed the horses and men. My, those breakfasts tasted good!
By that time it would be close to daylight. “On the way over, half the horses would be under saddle with boys up. After breakfast the saddles were put on the others which had been led by the men up to this point, and we’d walk the remaining ten miles to Saratoga, coming in by Geyser Spring.” In 1901, Sanford built his own stable on Nelson Avenue in Saratoga. He had as many as 35 horses at a time.
When asked why he kept so many horses, the industrialist replied he was not in the raising business for margin, in other words for profit. Author Robb, an official of the New York State Racing Commission in 1969 when he wrote his book about the Sanfords, said Stephen Sanford started buying the property that would become Hurricana Farm in the 1870s. His doctor recommended he take up farming as a hobby to help with what may have been stomach ulcers.
And Robb said that Sanford’s sons, John and William. encouraged their father in this enterprise because of their own interest in fast horses, especially jumpers. William died in 1896. From 1903 through 1907, the Sanfords invited the people of Amsterdam to the Sanford Matinee Races at Hurricana on the Sunday closest to Fourth of July. Trolleys ran up to Market and Meadow Streets.
From there, horse drawn wagons took people to the farm. Some automobiles went to the farm as well but were not admitted to the grounds. There was food, drink, music and, of course, horse racing. Some 15,000 attended the event during its last year. New York State outlawed betting in 1907 and racing stopped at Saratoga.
Temporarily, the Sanfords sold most of their horses to out-of-staters and Canadians, according to Robb. Stephen Sanford was blind the last five years of his life. Born in 1826, he worked with his father John and then on his own to create the famuly carpet mills. Stephen Sanford went to West Point, served in Congress and was a friend of Ulysses S. Grant.
The elder Sanford doted on his grandchildren, in particular his namesake, born in 1899. He gave young Stephen a Shetland pony almost before the youngster could walk. The boy called the pony Laddie.
The grandfather bestowed the nickname Laddie on his grandson as well. Stephen Sanford died February 13, 1913. Six months later, racing resumed at Saratoga along with the first running of the Sanford Memorial. Stephen’s elder son John continued to head the carpet mills and racing stables created during his father’s lifetime. According to Robb, John Sanford inherited $40 million at his father’s death.
Bob Cudmore and The Historians
2014-2024
Thank You