Yearbook and School Newspapers

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Girl Reserves

The Rochester Public Library has a pretty good run of yearbooks from Monroe High School. But they are missing The 1931 Monrolog. This one that I have and scanned has a bunch of loose pages but you can’t tell in the digital version.

The title page lies. It says it is the yearbook for the January and June classes. There are pictures of 74 students in the January class, 180 in the June class, and also 13 students that will be graduating in August. Those senior pictures are only 1 x 1.25 inches.

The picture is of the “Girl Reserves.” I have no idea what that group did.

I scanned an issue of Monroe Life that is dated Sept. 22, 1932. It is the student newspaper for Monroe High School. I checked the card catalog for the Rochester Public Library and I found that they have issues of this newspaper from 1932 to 1966. That might be a source of genealogical information that you might want to look at if someone in your family attended Monroe H. S.

I also scanned 7 issues of Monroe Doctrine, the student newspaper of Monroe Community College:
Vol. 7, no. 2; Oct. 4, 1968.
Vol. 7, no. 5; Dec. 20, 1968.
Vol. 8, no. 4; Oct. 16, 1969
Vol. 8, no. 4; Nov. 6, 1969
Vol. 8, no. 7; Nov. 13, 1969.
Vol. 8, no. 8; Nov. 21, 1969, a group of students went to a Vietnam War protest in Washington, DC.
Vol. 8, no. 24; May 14, 1970. Has editorials after the shooting at Kent State University.

I had taken a “gap year” between colleges in 1969 – 70. So where was I when the shooting at Kent State took place? I was in Army Basic Training. I joined the Army Reserves in early 1970 after I realized that I might get drafted and be heading to Vietnam. At that time the Reserves didn’t go into war zones.

I scanned those Monroe Doctrine issues 3 or 4 times. They have turned beige over the years but when I scanned them, they came out bright orange. It took some time to clean them up and look nice and white. Some of the issues had cut-outs. They all had been folding for many years and some paper was missing from the folded area.

Rochester Public Library only has issues of Monroe Doctrine from Jan. 1963 to June 1964. SUNY Digital Repository has issues from 1963 to 2019 and also issues from 2022 to 2023.

Hit Songs of 1976 – #27

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Want more disco? Well here is “More, More, More” by The Andrea True Connection. This song was written and produced Gregg Diamond.

“More, More, More” got up to $4 on the Billboard chart for the week of July 11 -17. On the Cash Box chart it got up to #3 for three weeks (June 27 – July 17).

Andrea True was a porno star in the 1960s and early 1970s under many different names. This was her attempt to change from those movies to music. She did release other disco songs but they didn’t ever get very far up the charts. In her later years, she was reportedly working as a counselor for those struggling with substance abuse and an astrologer. She died in 2011 at aged 68.

Hamlet Scrantom, Part 2

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Some of you didn’t get last week’s message about new things on the GenWeb. That’s because some spammer was using a RocHistory.com mail address as a return address. So some websites blocked all emails coming from RocHistory.com including a real messages from me.

Last week I posted three smaller diaries/journals of Hamlet Scrantom, an early resident of Rochester. He was the first person in 1812 to live on the 100 Acre Tract that is now downtown Rochester. Those from last week were:

Hamlet Scrantom’s Day Book, 1807 – 1822

Hamlet Scrantom’s Journal, 1840 – 1842

Hamlet Sceantom’s Diary, 1843 – 1844

Now there is a much larger journal kept by Hamlet:

Hamlet Scrantom’s Journal, 1824 – 1850

This one is over 160 typed pages. Actually there is a gap. In 1838 he moved to Buffalo and lived with one of his sons. He didn’t record anything for those years or maybe it wasn’t transcribed as it didn’t pertain to Rochester. He did move back Rochester in 1838. Then we have the two books from last week that cover from 1840 to 1844. Then this journal starts again in 1845. On page 150 there is a mention of Hamlet’s death on April 10, 1850 at aged 77.

Hamlet records a lot of deaths in Rochester. Most of those can also be found in old newspapers but I’ll bet you he recorded a few that didn’t get mentioned in the Rochester papers. He also records births of his grandchildren.

Hamlet got a thermometer in July 1825. At first he records temperatures 5 times a day and later just 3 times a day. His thermometer broke in April 1828 but someone gave him another one in Nov. 1828. Lots of other weather related notes.

He mentioned that on Oct. 26, 1825 there was cannon fire along the Erie Canal. That was the day that the Canal officially opened. He also writes that the next day the Village of Rochesterville was illuminated in the evening to celebrate the opening of the Canal.

Hamlet writes notes about family and other coming and going. Some are a Wadsworth family members. At first I thought they were the Wadsworth family from  Geneseo but reading more of those notes I figured out they were a Wadsworth family from Connecticut that was somehow related to Hamlet.

All these were transcribed as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression.

Hamlet Scrantom

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Hamlet Scrantom

Last week’s project was to scan transcriptions of personal diaries by Hamlet Scrantom. His was the first family to occupy a lot in the Hundred Acre Tract of Rochester. That would be the lots owned by Rochester, Fitzhugh, and Carroll on the west side of the Genesee River.

These three documents were bound together:

Hamlet Scrantom’s Day Book, 1807 – 1822

Hamlet Scrantom’s Journal, 1840 – 1842

Hamlet Sceantom’s Diary, 1843 – 1844

These were transcribed as a Works Progress Administration project during the Great Depression. At that time the original manuscripts were at the Rochester Historical Society. I imagine that they are still there.

The binding on these was tight and some of the scans ended up with lines of text looking wavy.  But that shouldn’t be much of a problem.

A lot of the writing is very mundane. Hamlet wrote a lot about weather. The Day Book starts when he was living in Turin (Now Lewis Co.), NY. It appears that he sold groceries while there. He doesn’t get to Rochester until page 41. He had someone who was to build a log cabin for him in Rochester. But when the family of 8 got here the cabin was not finished. So they lived a couple of months in an small framed house owned by Enos Stone on the east of the river. They finally moved into the log cabin on July 4, 1812. That cabin was where the Powers Building is now.

Hamlet started working in a saw mill owned by Enos Stone. By the end of 1812 he had created 35,827 feet of boards.

Hamlet records cost in English money at first. Those are Pounds, Shillings and Pence, Then he records costs in dollars and back again in English money. English money was a  lot more stable than dollar at that time.

Hamlet records early deaths. He also notes people visiting. He also records lots of fires. If you search for “burnt” in the Journal there are 17 references. There are 27 references for “burnt” in the diary.

This week I am doing another diary by Hamlet that is big as all the above three together.