Allegany Area Historical Association

Allegany Area
Historical Association
October 2010
w w w. a a h a . b f n . o r g
Issue XXIX Vol. 3
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
What a day we had for Heritage Days! After a summer of hot, humid weather, Heritage Days dawned with
moderate temperatures, and low humidity - perfect for getting together and meeting and greeting old
friends. For whatever reason, we had fewer in attendance than in past years but those who came certainly
enjoyed themselves. When we first started 28 years ago, there were not a lot of summer festivals, but now
there are at least two or three every weekend. But we will continue with Heritage Days as it is a great way
to celebrate life in Allegany. Our big display this year was about “Allegany Businesses Past & Present”, and
focused on three Allegany businesses celebrating major milestones. Duggan & Dugggan Construction is
25 years old this year, Tasty Twirl is 50 and Potter Lumber Company is 100 years old, with all of these
under the original ownership. A big “thank you” to Charlene Sendlakowski for putting the exhibits together
- she did a fantastic job. I hope you are able to stop by and see it. Thanks to Marge Geise, our
chairperson, and also to all the other hard workers who make Heritage Days a successful fund raiser for
us. We showed a net profit of $1,164.13, which will go farther than it used to, thanks to our new energy
efficient furnace and on-demand water heater.
For Heritage Days we publish a 10-page flyer to advertise our events, which also contains items of interest
from the Allegany Citizen of 1960 as well as the the 1960 high school class picture. If any of our out-oftown members would like a copy, please let us know but be sure to give us your “winter address” if you are
in the process of going South for the winter.
We didn’t have as many people stopping by this summer to see our building and collections, and to trace
their ancestors. Perhaps the economy had something to do with it as there didn’t seem to be as much
leisure travel happening. We are open in the summer, from May through September, from 1 to 4 p.m. on
Wednesdays, and have volunteers on hand to help with any questions that people may have. Of course, if
you happen to be in town in our “off season”, you can always get hold of one of us and we will be glad to
help you in any way possible. It’s a real pleasure for us to be able to answer your queries, and we always
learn something about Allegany that we didn’t know.
A few years back, the Absolut Nursing Home in Allegany asked for pictures of Allegany to use as hall
decorations, since many of their residents are from the Allegany area. We found several for their use, and
are now in the process of getting some more for them. We have been told that these pictures are a
pleasure for the residents to see, and it jogs the memory of a lot of them. So if you have pictures of
Allegany and don’t know what to do with them, or would allow us to make copies of them, we would
appreciate it as they will be put to very good use.
FRANCIE POTTER, PRESIDENT
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———— RAFFLE ————
Since we are always looking for ways to make
money for our group, Anne Conroy-Baiter
volunteered to do a watercolor painting for us
to raffle off. She did a beautiful watercolor of
our Heritage building. We were delighted since
her mother, Joanne Martiny Conroy, had done a
drawing of the Heritage Center which is on all
our stationery. So now we have two versions of
our building. We raised $354.63 when the
painting was raffled off during Heritage Days,
and it was won by Beth Deitz of Allegany. Thanks
to Anne for her generosity in donating the
painting to us - we deeply appreciate it.
WE GET MAIL——————
Member Eileen Rehler Shannon,
who lives in Fullerton, California,
sent a nice note requesting more copies of the
articles we ran about Uncle Al Rehler. She also
sent memories of marching in the girls’ Drum
and Bugle Corps circa 1936-1938. She says they
marched to the cemetery on Memorial Day, and
also in the Firemen’s Parade in the summer. The
majorette was Ruth Eaton. She wonders if
anyone remembers marching in the Corps and
if anyone has a picture of the girls in their snappy
uniforms. They wore white satin blouses with
long puffy sleeves and royal blue skirts that were
calf length above saddle shoes and bobby socks.
She’d like to hear from anyone in her graduating
class of 1938 from St. Elizabeth’s Academy. They
were a class of 10, five of whom were “day hops”
from Allegany and Olean, not residents of St.
Elizabeth’s. Her address is 1412 Kensington Dr.,
Fullerton, CA 92831.
DUES—DUES—DUES
Joanne Martiny Conroy
Anne Conroy-Baiter
October is the month to pay your
dues! A single membership is $10, family
is $15 and a patron membership is $20 or
more. Make your check to AAHA and mail
it to PO Box 162, Allegany New York
14706. Don’t forget - do it today! We
do not send out reminders to members
since each member gets the newsletter we take this method of telling you to renew
your membership, and it saves us postage.
If you paid your dues at Heritage Days,
you are paid for the year. If you don’t
renew your membership , we will take you
off the mailing list and I know you don’t
want to miss our always interesting articles,
and updates on what is happening in your
old home town. RENEW TODAY!!
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The following article is from Cattaraugus County Judge Michael Nenno. He is already hard at work on a sequel.
The Allegany Nennos
For several years I have enjoyed the newsletter put out by the Allegany Area Historical Association. After
complimenting Madame President Francie Potter on the quality of her work, and telling her some of my
family stories, she suggested that I write down some of the family history. The family history has a great
amount of research that was done by Betty Nenno Wilson and Orma (Mrs. James) Carls. Both can be
credited with a tremendous amount of effort to go back to our roots in Alsace-Lorraine, provinces of
France, Germany or Prussia, depending on what date you looked at the map. There are several of the
settling families of Allegany that came from that area. I had often wondered why they would come here,
and when I traveled to that area of the world several years ago, I developed a theory that whoever got here
first contacted those that followed and told them, it was just like home in Alsace-Lorraine with rolling hills
and big, wide valleys.
In any event, my great-great-grandfather, Michael Nenno and his bride Catherine Berwanger Nenno arrived
in New York City from Alsace-Lorraine, then took the Erie Canal to Buffalo. They settled in South Buffalo
and eventually purchased land in Cheektowaga in 1847. Their oldest child, Nickolas, was born in Buffalo in
1837. They left Buffalo and arrived in Allegany in the 1850’s, where their youngest child, Barbara, was
born in 1856. Michael and his wife are both buried in the first row of graves behind the old St. Elizabeth’s
Motherhouse.
One of Michael and Catherine’s sons was Louis, my great-grandfather and father to Frederick Nenno, my
grandfather. When Michael and Catherine Nenno arrived in Allegany with their seven, soon to be eight,
children, like all good Catholics of the time, the family went forth and multiplied, often with other good
Catholic families, many of which resided south of the Allegheny River. Louis’s first wife and mother to his
first eight children was Frances Riehler. Louis and Frances’s son Fred married Lena Gallets, daughter of
Joseph Gallets, builder of the “Gallets House” on the Four Mile Road.
The early Nennos were often farmers, and like most farmers became familiar with many other trades as
they had to be self-sufficient. My grandparents had a small farm on the Four Mile on which they raised a
few farm animals, cows, horses, pigs, etc., and a sizable chicken/egg operation. My grandfather was also
an oil drilling contractor with his partners Albert Gallets, my grandmother’s first cousin, and George Carls,
whose brother married my grandmother’s sister Barbara Gallets. It is hard to swing a dead cat in Allegany
without hitting one of my relatives. In addition, my father’s two sisters, Kathleen and Rita Nenno, married
two brothers, Clayton and Alfred Eaton. It gets worse, or not, as my mother’s two brothers, Frank and
Clair Simms, married two of the Carls girls, Teresa and Ruth, who are sisters to George Carls. By the way,
Aunt Teresa just turned 96 in March and Aunt Ruth turned 91 last December and both are doing quite well.
It is a bit complicated - if necessary I can provide a diagram.
My grandfather had his own oil well operation with 14 wells on his property on the Four Mile road. At
times he owned other properties with oil production, but during my lifetime I only knew about those wells
on the Four Mile farm. My grandfather died in 1956 when I was 10. He had been ill for several years and
my father, Louis, had pumped the wells for my grandparents as long as I can remembers and until his
death in 1965, Ernie Carls, my grandparents’ next door neighbor, pulled the wells when necessary with his
team of Belgiums. Both my brother and I helped my father in the pumping operation. As a driller, my
grandfather had access to dynamite and other tools of the trade. My theory is that before television, you
had to make your own entertainment. Practical jokes were a favorite of my grandfather. Such jokes often
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involved considerable effort on the part of the jokesters. I will relate two such stories with which I am
familiar.
One time the partners had a drilling rig in the Rock City area adjacent to Route 16. The rig sat a distance
from the road, but the drillers could see on-coming traffic. They constructed an out-house near the
highway and strung a cable back to the rig. When the drillers spotted a vehicle approaching, they would
pull on the cable which would in turn lift the arm of the dummy that was sitting on the throne facing traffic.
In the dummy’s hand was a roll of partially unrolled toilet paper. Some of the on-coming drivers might
have run off the road startled by the sight, but I would guess that most were greatly entertained. I have
included a picture that we found in my grandmother’s collection.
My Dad, Fred Nenno & ìFriendî
George Carls & ìFriendî
Father of Jim & Hank Carls
Another time the pranksters decided to have what they thought would be a little fun at the expense of a
neighbor on the West Branch. The story goes that said neighbor was not very popular in the area, but I will
not include his name to protect the innocent. Granddad and partner George hauled a couple of bales of
straw and a stick of dynamite up to the West Branch property. They put the straw and dynamite behind the
victim’s stack of firewood. They lit the straw and headed for home. The fire was spectacular and the
dynamite was an even more spectacular finish. The two pranksters, fearing that they had overdone it,
hurried back to Granddad’s home on the Four Mile. My grandmother told of the two pranksters trying to
wipe out the tire tracks in the driveway with brooms so that nobody would know they had been out that
evening. It seems that the Ku Klux Klan was active at the time of the joke. In this neck of the woods the
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Klan was not only anti-Black, but also anti-Catholic and anti-Jew. The victim, a Catholic, fearing that the
conflagration was the action of the Klan, attempted to call the State Police. Small towns are wonderful,
where everyone knows the other’s business. The telephone operator, known as “Hello Central”, had
knowledge of what was happening and continued to tell the victim that the line was busy. Eventually he
did get through to the State Police, but by then the pranksters were safe at home shaking in their boots.
There are many more stories that I could tell, maybe in a future edition. In the case of the above story, no
one was injured nor was there much property damage as the wood pile survived. These people were hard
workers and hard players. Think of the effort that it took to put a wagon on top of a barn, a popular
Halloween prank, of even tipping over an out-house.
Had I been older I think that some of my relatives could have supported my law practice keeping them out
of jail. What would today be considered felonies were viewed as good fun, for the most part. As it was my
Allegany relatives did a nice job supporting my law practice with pleasant matters such as real estate
transactions.
Joe Catalano found a broken plaque in his building, which was the old fire house, and gave it to
Charlie Fortuna, who gave it to AAHA. It apparently lists fire department members who served in WW II and
later conflicts. It reads like a who’s who of Allegany.
PROUDLY WE PAY TRIBUTE TO THE MEMBERS OF ALLEGANY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
WHO ANSWERED THE CALL.
Fred Atchison
Donald Boone
James Spindler
Gerald Williams
Frank Fortuna
Albert Fanelli
Leslie Cross
Karl Hiller
John Crisafulli
Harold Dentler
Charles Fortuna
Eugene Norton
Lawrence Johnson
John Stedman
Lawrence Hughes
Clarence Keim
Albert Libby
Donald Nudd
Don Nohlberg
Melvin Peterson
Dominic Rado
Duane Stahley
Wilbur Bingerman
Martin McRae
Joseph Grandusky
John Bovaird
Howard Grandusky
Earl Dentler
Richard Finch
Larry Brandel
Joseph Crisafulli
Theodore Van Dixon
Paul Gaylor
James Bergman
Thomas Monroe
Fran Phielshiefter
Carl Jones
Glen Kane
John Moshier
Francis Norton
Merle Ostergard
Louis Rado
Andrew Rehler
Robert Wenzel
William S. Anger
David Higby
George Peterson
Harold Dunham
Francis Cleaver
Peter Fortuna
John Giardini
Richard Brown, Jr.
Lawrence Crisafulli
Eugene Foster, Jr.
David Higby
Wayne Hughes
Emerson Needham
Arthur Yehl, Jr.
Howard Klice
Lawrence Kane
Robert McCaffrey
William Nenno
Thomas O’Toole
John Rado
Charles Smith
Arthur Wenzel
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Memorials
For: Ed Dornow
From: Marion McCabe
For: Kathleen Vossler
From: Patrick and Kathy Premo
Michael and Martha Nenno
Loretta Eaton
Ed Wintermantel
For: Richard Elling
From: Marion Elling
For: Anne McLaughlin Kane
From: John and Jillian Walsh
For: Robert Wolf
From: Duane and Caroline Clark
For: Raymond Karl
From: Kathleen Karl
For: Daniel McCaffrey
From: Joseph and Helen Stayer
John and Jillian Walsh
For: Marjorie Wintermantel
From: Carol Livingston
Don and Peg Bergreen
Michael and Martha Nenno
For: Paul Kelly
From: Marion McCabe
For: Margaret E. Robinson
From: Bill and Kay Palmer
For: Jenny Scarlato
From: Margaret Warren
For: Jay Bellamy
From: Bill and Kay Palmer
For: Mary Gilbert
From: Bob and Francie Potter
For: Sally Lippert
From: Ed Wintermantel
For: Jean Stevenson Trowbridge
From: Charles and Bernadette Ried
Bob and Francie Potter
Margaret Green
Alice Altenburg
James and Marcia McAndrew
Orin and Margaret Parker
For: Jeffrey Keim
From: William and Louella Keim
Helen McCully
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EARLY ATTIC AND MORE by William Bonhoff
For the past fifteen years or more I’ve been telling my wife that we should clean out 55 years of early
attic so we can move to Florida. She agrees but we never, and I mean never, get to it. The attic is too hot
in summer and the winters are too cold to work there. There would be a break for a week or two in April
and maybe a few weeks in the fall after it cools off. Of course April is bad because there is a lot of yard
work to do and planting new flowers. By then we are too tired. Sometimes, and more so lately, we have
hired some neighborhood kids to come for some of the yard work, but then we have to be out there to
supervise them.
If I could just get my wife motivated to throw out her stuff then it would make room for my “good
stuff”. The upstairs closet has clothes in it that she hasn’t seen in years and are three sizes too small.
There is always the chance that she will grow back into them again, but then, they’re out of style. Now you
talk about cook books, knitting books, pattern books - if you need any please call soon. There may be
some first editions there! During the many years of quilting, you can’t imagine the number of boxes of
fabric you can accumulate in fifty-five years. She’s buying more tomorrow.
Now, as far as my stuff is concerned, it is all good and valuable. After all, I still have my electric train
from when I was six years old. It’s antique and I can’t throw that out. And then there are my painting
books (I may take up painting again), photograpy book (which I don’t read...I was a professional
photographer), and ten years worth of National Geographic magazines. Nobody can throw those away.
Also, there are first editions of “The Bobbsey Twins” and the “Titanic”...and don’t forget “The Hardy Boys”
series. She just doesn’t understand why my stuff is more important than hers. And then there is my old
Army uniform with all the stripes and ribbons and my old Army combat boots hanging on the wall. You
just never know when I might need them again. Oh, I almost forget, we have thousands of slides and
photographs from our past life. What can we ever do with those? We used to show slide programs of our
wonderful trips to our friends, but now, even they don’t come around anymore. I guess they are just
jealous.
Our kids say that when we are gone they’ll back up a truck to the attic window and get rid of everything.
I can’t wait to see that truck coming up the driveway for my wife’s stuff. Maybe we should take more
pictures before they take it away. You know, as the kids get older I hear them say, “Don’t throw anything
away, it might be worth something”. I think they are referring to my stuff. I don’t know whether they are
thinking ‘antiques’ or ‘garage sale’ junk. If it’s a garage sale, my wife has the corner on that market. When
we have a sale we’re lucky to only lose a buck or two after we pay for the newspaper advertising. If it’s not
sold it goes back into the cellar for next year. I should tell these buyers that if they don’t buy it now the
opportunity will be gone forever——until next year. Maybe that’s not a good idea, they may not be back
next year. One year we put up a sign that said, “If you don’t find what you want, ask, we probably have
one in the attic”. That didn’t seem to help any. Not only that, they never asked for anything! Don’t you
hate it when you are selling something for a dime and all they want to pay you is a nickel. One year my
wife put two brand new wire baskets in the garage sale. I’d had them for years and I was going to use
them when I picked apples from our trees. They sold to the very first early bird that came in and I never
got a chance to bid on them myself. For fifteen years I’ve threatened to go buy two new ones at twenty
dollars each. But now the apple trees are gone so we don’t have that problem anymore. I did plant two
new trees that I probably won’t take care of either so maybe I don’t need the baskets after all.
I am seriously thinking of buying a large trailer to store all our valuable stuff (mostly mine). This way
we can take it with us. Not only that, it will save a lot of decisions, and may even save our marriage. We’ll
write you from Paducah, the site of the world’s largest quilt museum, and maybe next year I’ll ask her
again when the truck is coming for her stuff.
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NEXT MEETING - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 - 2 P.M. - HERITAGE CENTER
Did you ever wonder what you would do if you bought some land and found a forgotten cemetery on
it? That’s what happened to Lois and Dick Siggelkow when they purchased land for a summer home
on Bryant Hill Road in Ellicottville in the 1960’s. They will speak to us about their efforts to preserve
and restore this forgotten cemetery. After years of research they discovered some important history
on the residents who once lived on Bryant Hill.
Lois, born in South Dakota, received degrees from the University of Wisconsin and taught Home
Economics at various grade levels for many years in Madison, Wisconsin and Buffalo. She was the
Ellicottville Town Historian for 18 years. Dick was born in Madison, Wisconsin, received a PhD from
the University of Wisconsin and served as Vice-President for Student Affairs at SUNY Buffalo. He was
a Professor in the Dept. of Counseling at UB. A veteran of WW II, he retired from the U.S. Army
Reserve as a Colonel. He is the author of two books.
It’s hard enough to track down your own ancestors - imagine trying to do that about people you
never knew! Come join us for their interesting talk on Sunday, October 10 at 2 p.m. at the
Heritage Center, 25 North Second Street, Allegany.
www.aaha.bfn.org
Allegany Area Historical Association
P.O. BOX 162
Allegany, NY 14706
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INSIDE SPECIAL ISSUE:
Presidents Report
A Couple of Pranksters
Valuable Stuff
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ALLEGANY, NY 14706