Hall of Fame - 1988-1989

Inducted 1988

Of the twenty men and women who have been inducted into the Dansville Area Historical Society’s Dansville Hall of Fame, two of them were still alive when they received the honor. When “Wutz” Rauber was informed of selection back in 1988, he replied with a letter to the Historical Society expressing his appreciation. He also mentioned the other inductees, many of whom were personal acquaintances:

“Treasured memories include boyhood visits with Asa O. Bunnell on the veranda of that beautiful home he had christened “Top Col.”  On at least two such occasions, we shared grapes I had picked, without permission, from the nearby vineyard of John Michel.  Mr. Bunnell’s snow -white mustache had a purple fringe when he informed me that all fruit tasted sweeter when acquired ‘extemporaneously.’

“There were pleasant chats with Mr. Owen on the lakeside lawn of his summer home at Cottonwood Point which jutted into Conesus Lake. Reference to his nickname “F.A.”  brought a smile and nod of acceptance. Nevertheless, this young visitor chose to address him as “Mr. Owen.” The dignity of this man and his scholarly attitude, softening by an ability to make one feel at ease, led to several lakeside visits.

“Several flights in Lynn E. Pickard’s open cockpit, Waco biplane were exciting excursions in the early days of civilian aviation. At that time, takeoffs and landings were on a rough Maple Street field dotted with very tough stubborn clumps from a previous alfalfa planting. Lynn’s determination later transformed it, and adjacent land, into Dansville’s fine modern airport. Good fortune permitted me to be informed of his ultimate goal and the technique he devised to reach it.

“There were countless hours of discussion, research and writing with William Dunn Conklin, an area analytical historian without peer. These were educational and enjoyable indeed… just being with, and working alongside, the master. Our years of friendly association provide a host of cherished memories.”

Wilfred J. Rauber was born in Dansville in 1907. He graduated from DCHS and later Alfred University. He was employed at the Dansville Post Office for 37 years, rising to the position of Superintendent of Mails before retiring in 1969. He was a long-time secretary of the Dansville Board of Trade (the forerunner to the Chamber of Commerce), and served for ten years on the Board of Education.

He was appointed Village and Town Historian in 1949, a position he held until 1986. Nobody, before of since, has done more to promote and preserve Dansville’s historical legacy than Wilfred Rauber did in those years. He spent countless hours in gathering together the photographs and other artifacts that make up the North Dansville Historical Files in the North Dansville Town Hall. He was also a key figure in the formation of the Dansville Area Historical Society and in the acquisition of the old St. Patrick’s rectory for use as a museum. In 1979, he was honored as Citizen of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce.

But more than anything else, he wrote. Over the decades, he wrote hundreds of articles on local history for the Dansville Breeze and Genesee Country Express, covering just about every facet of Dansville’s rich history.  These humorous and well-written articles are a treasure trove of knowledge that would have otherwise fallen into obscurity — they are still well worth seeking out by local history buffs. He also launched the “Old Photo Album” feature which still runs in the Express. His journalistic efforts won him accolades from the New York Press Association which gave him an award in 1968 for Historical Series in a Newspaper.  His magnum opus was his privately printed 1980 book, D&M and DL & W – Putting Dansville on the Railroad Map . Twenty years after his passing, “Wutz” Rauber’s name is still synonymous with Dansville history.

In his writings on local history, William Conklin was typically self-effacing; he always referred to himself as a “compiler” instead of an author, and in his most significant publication, he refused to give himself any credit at all. But students of the history of Dansville know better: few, if any, did as much to preserve Dansville’s rich historical heritage and make that history accessible to future researchers as did William D. Conklin.

Born in Rochester, Conklin attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1912, then transferred to Columbia University, graduating from its School of Journalism in 1913. For the next three years he worked as office editor for the New International Encyclopedia . After serving in World War I, he came to Dansville in 1919 to work on the editorial staff of the F.A. Owen Publishing Company where he would be employed for more than four decades. He was an active community leader serving on the library board, the Dansville Board of Trade, the Dansville Memorial Hospital, the Dansville Red Cross, and the Community Chest. For his many contributions to local causes, the Chamber of Commerce voted him “Citizen of the Year” in 1967.

Following his retirement in 1960, Conklin set to work in earnest on his major project: the preservation of local history. And although it’s true that his writings held little in the way of narrative drive, as a “mere” compiler, he gathered together information from numerous sources – particularly letters and newspaper articles – and provided his readers with a wealth of information on various subjects of local interest. His most significant work, and the only one to have been professionally printed, was the anonymously published Clara Barton in Dansville (1966), a treasure trove of archival information on Dansville’s most famous resident and on the creation of the nation’s first local Red Cross chapter.

But Conklin was just warming up. Over the next several years, he would release a series of other collections of local history: Acorn to Oak – The Story of the Dansville Public Library (1969), The Jackson Health Resort (1971), F.A. Owen of Dansville (1972), and finally, The Dansville Board of Trade (1983), the last one written in his nineties. He moved to Poughkeepsie in 1983 where he lived until his death at age 97

Inducted 1988 – 1989

The Dansville Airport was the creation of Lynn E. Pickard (1889-1968), who was 22 years old when, in 1911, he was witness to the first airplane flight in Dansville. Joining the Army Air Force in 1918, he was commissioned as a pilot with combat rating; later, he obtained a commercial pilot’s license.

From 1919 on, his Waco biplane was a familiar sight over the skies of Dansville. His hand-picked landing field was a 50-acre plot of land just off Maple Street. His campaign to make it into a bona fide airport came to fruition in 1927, and on October 2 a crowd of 10,000 was on hand for the dedication, complete with an aerial circus and even a mid-air wedding ceremony. The Dansville Airport was established with federal aid, with the town and village governments sharing the cost of upkeep. There was, as yet, no hangar on the site, just the words “Dansville Airport” spelled out in large letters on the ground.

But Pickard’s work was not done. He continued to lobby for the improvement of airport facilities, warning that, should it not be brought up to Department of Commerce standards, its existence could be short-lived. In the mid-1930’s a number of federally-sponsored Depression-era work relief projects were directed at the airport. The landing fields were enlarged; some of the maple trees that gave Maple Street its name had to be removed for safety’s sake. A hangar was constructed in 1934, at a cost of $14,000. Also, in 1933, Dansville Flying Service Inc. was formed for the purpose of operating and promoting the Municipal Airport; Maxwell Sweet was its first president.

In 1939 the U.S. government okayed the installment of a field lighting system, as well as a weather bureau station and a teletype system. The World War II years were busy years for the airport. Civilian pilot training classes were begun in 1940, under the supervision of the Civil Aeronautics Aviation Authority. 1941 saw $186,000 in federal defense funds spent for runway reconstruction and an improved surface water drainage system. And Lynn Pickard was among those who led flight training courses for enlisted men, beginning in 1942.

For 38 years until his retirement in 1990, James Schwenzer managed the Dansville Municipal Airport as president of Genesee Aviation Inc. Now operated by Sterling Airways, the Dansville Airport continues to serve its community, and has become a particular favorite of glider pilots and balloonists. The annual Labor Day balloon rally, begun in 1982, draws many tens of thousands of spectators and dozens of hot-air balloon operators.

Some postwar milestones: 1947–Charles Lindbergh makes a brief one-hour stop at the Dansville Airport. 1948–the first direct air shipment of freight by air from Dansville, a 1000-pound delivery from Foster Wheeler to a factory in Indianapolis. 1957– the first jet aircraft to land in Dansville, a Canberra fighter bomber.

Inducted 1988

Another of Dansville’s largest, and longest-lived, industries owed its existence to the dreams and ambitions of a teacher who strove to improve the teaching profession by spreading teaching ideas across the country, in a magazine he originaly produced in the attic of his mother-in-law’s country store.

Frederick Augustus Owen was born in 1867 in the tiny hamlet of Beachville, near Rogersville (South Dansville).  He was educated at the Rogersville Seminary. which had been founded in 1842; but by the time Owen returned to work as a teacher, hard times had forced it to close.  Undaunted, he reopened the school and quickly brought it back to success.  At the same time, in 1889 he started a correspondence school for teachers, the Empire States Teachers Class (later renamed the American Correspondence Normal).  In those days, it was still a common practice for teachers to assume their new profession straight out of high school, with no education in such things as child psychology and teaching methods, which his correspondence school sought to address.

To further that end, in 1891 he introduced a magazine, Normal Instructor, a humble 16 page periodical which he published in the low-ceiling attic of his mother-in-law’s South Dansville grocery store.  It was in Owen’s own words, “dedicated to the interest of American school teachers,” and was intended as a medium of the exchange of ideas and methods of teaching children of elementary school age.  From a shipment of 20,00 free samples came 500 subscriptions resulted; but over time, the circulation of what eventually became Instructor magazine would surpass 250,000 copies.

Rapidly outgrowing his modest South Dansville location, Owen moved the buisiness to Dansville in 1892. Over the next decade, the Instructor Publishing Company (later renamed the F.A. Owen Publishing Company) would expand from one building into another, until the impressive 3000-square-foot plant on Bank Street was completed in 1903 (next to the park that would be renamed Instructor Park in 1954). For most of the 20th century, F. A. Owen’s company would be part of Dansville’s “big three” industies, along with Foster Wheeler and Blum Shoe Manufacturing Company.

Owen married Grace Fenstermaker; his two daughter Helen and Mary, would both hold high positions in the company. In addition Owen served as vice-president of the Worden Brothers Manufacturing Company (which made the Dansville’s soldiers monument), and as president of the Dansville Board of Trade.

• “The Story of Silk” 1907, 36p, F.A. Owen Publishing Company, Dansville, N.Y
• “Farm Animals” 1946, 24p Dawson, Mildred A, F. A. Owen Publishing Company

The DAHS Museum has at least six children's books published by F A Owen.

Inducted 1988

If anyone has ever adhered to the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” Frederick Driesbach was that person. For nearly a quarter of a century, he tried, tried, and tried again to establish a hospital in Dansville. His first two attempts met with little success, but his third attempt finally took hold, and it was in large part due to his dedication and doggedness that Dansville has been home to a hospital building for nearly a century.

A distant relative of two other Hall of Famers, Daniel Faulkner and William Perine, he was born in South Dansville and educated at the Dansville Seminary (the building was erected in 1860 to accomodate the village’s first high-school-level educational facility). He later went to Geneseo Normal and thence to Columbia University, where he earned his medical degree in 1889. In 1890 he married Laura Bastian (who died in 1918, Then, in 1920 he married for a second time to Irene Leahy).

Upon obtaining his degree he began practicing in Dansville, initially in partnership with Dr. James Crisfield; later he would establish an office in his own home at 100 Main Street. From the outset, it was clear he was a man with an eye toward the future – he was the first physician in town to own an X-ray machine. In 1890, 25-year-old Driesbach and George L. Ahlers of Pittsburgh converted the now-vacant Seminary building into the Dansville Medical & Surgical Hospital. They served as medical supervisors with other physicians on the staff. For a while it prospered or at least got by, but financial difficulties eventually mounted and overwhelmed the facitity, and it closed in 1903. Dr. Driesbach returned to his Main Street practice, taking his X-ray machine with him, but he was not ready to give up on his idea entirely.

In 1905 another stab at a hospital was launched in the same building, this time to function primarily a hospital for epileptics.  Christened Glenwood Hospital, it would fail after just two years, only to be rededicated in 1908 as a cancer research hospital, with the support of Buffalo’s Dr. Roswell Park.  Frederick Driesbach was on the staff, as were Benjamin Andrews, James C. Dorr, and Charles V. Patchin.  Much to Driesbach’s disappointment, it went belly up after only a year.  (Years later, The Seminary building would become the King’s Daughters Home.)

The turning point came in 1913, in an unlikely place; a restaurant and inn.  In 1911 the Colonial Inn was opened in the former Bradner family mansion by Elizabeth Swartz, a former employee at the Jackson Health Resort.  She let rooms for both permanent tenants and visiting tourists and provided meals for both tenants and the general public.  In 1913 Dr. Driesbach approached Swartz with a request: that a portion of the Inn be converted into a surgical facility and some recovery rooms.  This unlikely collaboration proved surprisingly successful, a least for a while, but by1920, it looked as if things were about to go under yet again.

This time, however, Dr. Driesbach refused to give up, and with the help of Dansville Breeze editor Baynard Knapp and nurseryman William J. Maloney omong others, $100,000 was raised to purchase the entire building and transform it into Dansville General Hospital.  Driesbach would serve as medical chief of staff, with Swartz heading the dietary department.  Over the next half-century, the hospital (rechristened Dansville Memorial Hospital in 1948) would prosper and expand, until replaced by Nicholas H. Noyes Memorial Hospital in 1973.

In addition, Frederick Driesbach served as Livingston County Coroner from 1899 to his death in 1947. He was the first president of the Dansville Automobile Association, formed in 1915, and he served one term as Village Trustee (1899).

Books:

Fred R. Driesbach, M.D., Dansville Hospital pioneer, Author William D. Conklin in 1973

Inducted 1989

He was Dansville’s premier newspaper publisher of the 19th century, and a friend and supporter of both James Caleb Jackson and Clara Barton.  Today However, He is Best known as the author and publisher ofthe first comprehensive history of Dansville.

Asa Othello Bunnel was born in Lima.  At age 14, he came to Dansville to apprentice himself at the office of the Dansville Herald (which would eventually become Genesee Country Express).  In 1860, he launched his own paper, the Dansville Advertiser, of which he would be the owner, editor, and publisher for 48 years.  (His counterparts at Dansville’s other two papers…yes that’s right, Dansville once supported three thriving newspapers… were Oscar Woodfurr of the Express, And Joseph “Old Zimmerhackle” Burgess of the Dansville Breeze.)  Although he never sought public office, through his paper he would be the primary spokesman for the local Republican polotics for decades.  His Democratic countrpart was Oscar Woodruff of the Express; indeed, their respective newspaper offices were literally across the street from each other in the center of Main Street.  (The Bunnell Block Now houses the Star Theater.)  In addition, Bunnell served as secretary and treasurer of the New York Press Association; he co-founded the Coterie, a local literary/social club whose membership also included Clara Barton and Harriet Austin; he was a charter member of the Livingston County Historical Society (1875); and he was the first president of the Dansville Board of Trade (1889).

His lasting legacy, however, was the ambitious and comprehensive history of Dansville that he published in 1902.  Dansville 1789-1902, which includes a number of historical essays previously published in the Advertiser, covered the entirety of Dansville’s history, from the original Indian settlements to the highlights of the village’s first century of existence, and remains a primary source of information to anyone interested in Dansville’s heritage.

Bunnell, who had married Anna Carpenter in 1863, retired from Publishing in 1908, and spent his remaining years in his hillside home, “Top Col.” (Sadly, Tops Col burned to the ground in 1925, taking with it many irreplaceable historical records that bunnell had collected)