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IT’S ELEMENTARY – Lessons from the New Baltimore Schoolhouse

(3 customer reviews)

$15.00


Edited: By Francine Matalon-Degni
Foreword: By Ted Hilscher
Preface: By Bob Degni
Release Date: May 2016
Softcover: 144 pages
Size: 6” x 9”
ISBN: 978-0-9825208-9-5
Published By: Flint Mine Press

Matalon-Degni’s collection of oral histories and the photos that accompany them shed a sociological, cultural, experiential and historical light on people whose lives were anchored by the four-room, Union Free District 10 elementary school in New Baltimore, New York from the 1930s to the early 1960s.

No matter where you grew up, you’re sure to be captivated, informed and inspired by 19 people who are happy to share their schoolhouse with you.

Description

A COLLECTION OF ORAL HISTORIES

Francine Matalon-Degni’s collection of oral histories and the photos that accompany them shed a sociological, cultural, experiential and historical light on people whose lives were anchored by the four-room, Union Free District 10 elementary school in New Baltimore, New York from the 1930s to the early 1960s. Walk up the Church Street hill and climb the nine front stairs to a beloved place of learning, teaching and creating. Share in the games of imagination and school humiliations, play on the big rock, wade across culverts, swim across the Hudson to Hotaling Island and back; run through this hamlet free as a bird, then return to the schoolhouse for lessons in friendship, generosity, community, and respect. No matter where you grew up, you’re sure to be captivated, informed and inspired by nineteen people who are happy to share their schoolhouse with you.

THE AUTHOR
Francine Matalon-Degni is a photo stylist in New York City who was a confirmed city girl until she heard the cardinals sing in New Baltimore.

PRAISE
This book is truly a gift to the community, but its greater importance may be in how it contributes to strengthening that community. — Janet Angelis, Past President, New Baltimore Conservancy

This collection of memories preserves an understanding of life in a small town along the Hudson River. Nostalgic offerings reveal the rites of passage and sense of community experienced by children in an idyllic time. — Carol Melewski, New Baltimore Conservancy

Projects like this will live on for a long time. Imagine the joy of a researcher in the future finding an image of their grandparent or great-grandparent in grade school. That joy makes a local historian happy and underscores a reason to keep going to preserve local history.  — Robert Hallock, President, Greene County Historical Society

Matalon-Degni’s charming oral histories will joggle every readers’ memories and the photographs will tickle their hearts. They did mine. — Harry Sturges, Historian, Town of Coeymans


Additional information

Additional Information

Weight 1.75 lbs
Edited by

Francine Matalon-Degni

Foreword

by Ted Hilscher

Preface

by Bob Degni

Release Date

May 21, 2016

Softcover

144 pages

Size

6” x 9”

ISBN

978-0-9825208-9-5

Published By

Flint Mine Press

Reviews (3)

3 reviews for IT’S ELEMENTARY – Lessons from the New Baltimore Schoolhouse

  1. Chuck Friday
    5 out of 5

    :

    Congratulations Fran on your ambitious project about our hamlet. Thank you for your interest in our past.

  2. Chuck Friday
    5 out of 5

    :

    Congratulations Fran on your ambitious project about our school. Thank you for taking such an intense interest in our hamlet and its residents — past and present.

  3. Aurelio Orlandini
    5 out of 5

    :

    I recently read Fran’s book and found it to be a most interesting and eminently readable ethnography of life in small-town America. What it was like to grow up and eventually grow old in a place where a deep sense of community meant everything. A modern day “Our Town” told in the voices of those who experienced it, and for those who still live there, it remains so to this day. A “testament”, that is ever more important in this age of growing pessimism and despair that one of the most important tenets of our culture, the “American Dream” is disappearing or has become increasingly unreachable for most of us. As a retired Anthropologist, who has both taught and done fieldwork I feel that this book would do well in a classroom environment to give both hope in, and an understanding of one of the cornerstones of American culture, small-towns, to present and future generations.

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