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 Bronxville, NY - Especially rich in its diversity of topics and time periods, the newest edition of The Bronxville Journal has just been released, the fourth in a series of volumes of primary research into the people and events that have shaped our community’s past.
Marilynn Wood Hill, Life Chair of the Bronxville Historical Conservancy and editor of the Journal since its inception, notes that the focus of this issue is not only on how history is made, but also on the variety of ways in which it is recorded – in poems, in photographs, and in our memories – as well as in the more conventional historian’s prose.
Centennial Suite, the poem written by Bronxville’s poet laureate John Barr to commemorate the village’s first one hundred years, is included in this volume as a special way of celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Historical Conservancy. Its entrancing stanzas, rich in historical content, offer a poet’s interpretation of our beginnings, while "The Spirit of Place," a comparative photo essay, presents visual imagery demonstrating how photographers -- 80 years apart – serendipitously captured similar scenes in their viewfinders.
Village Historian Eloise Morgan has written the story of Roy Chapman Andrews, a famous explorer -- complete with gun, boots, and a wide-brimmed hat – who, when he wasn’t engaged in exotic expeditions around the world, lived in Lawrence Park. Some believe he may even have been the model for the lead character in the legendary film series, Indiana Jones.
Serving as both editor and contributing writer, Marilynn Hill shares her research into the twilight years of the Confederacy’s only first lady, Mrs. Jefferson Davis, when she spent her last summer’s holiday at the famed and never-to-be-forgotten Hotel Gramatan. Hill tells of an unusual historical record of Davis’ stay in Bronxville – one of her paintings, created in the hotel’s environs, which now hangs in her old home in Mississippi.
Native Bronxvillian Dale Hanson Walker, in her article, "The Artists of the Curtain," offers a number of delightful images and accounts of her great grandfather, artist Edward Morange. He, along with his partners, brothers Frank and Richard Gates, were famous for the set designs they created for dozens of Broadway plays.
For Anne Fredericks, who came to Bronxville as a one-year-old, our most recent national election brought back stark memories of the election of 1936 when Bronxville bloomed with sunflowers for Republican presidential candidate, Governor Alfred Landon. She shares her memories in "Election Fever in Bronxville: 1936."
Marcia Manning Lee, the first female mayor of Bronxville, also shares her memories of politics in the past in her piece, "Rebels in Suburbia: Women’s Liberation Comes to Bronxville." She writes about the “rebels in white gloves” who “revolutionized gender expectations in this traditional, genteel community.”
The 92-page volume includes these seven major stories beautifully illustrated with archival photographs, sketches, and full color reproductions. It can be purchased locally after the first week in November through the Conservancy’s website: www.bronxvillehistoricalconservancy.org, or at Womrath’s Book Store on Pondfield Road in Bronxville, Copies of past Journals are also still available for purchase.
The Bronxville Historical Conservancy was founded in 1998 to further the understanding and appreciation of the history and current life of the village of Bronxville. Activities such as the publication of original research in The Bronxville Journal, also include the presentation of programs, other publications, lectures, and special events that foster an awareness of the village’s architectural, artistic and cultural heritage. It also lends its support for projects designed to strengthen and preserve those legacies.
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