Local History - Cobleskill in Autumn 1945

COBLESKILL - As autumn settled over Cobleskill in mid-October 1945, the pages of The Cobleskill Index reflected a town in transition: the war was ending, soldiers were returning home, and community life was gradually finding its rhythm again.

Throughout Schoharie County, familiar names appeared in the “Military Service Jottings,” a column that listed returning veterans with the same care once reserved for casualty reports. Franklin M. Slater, son of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Slater of Cobleskill, was among those discharged that week after serving more than three years overseas. His route home traced the path of countless others from Marseilles to Boston then finally back to upstate New York. Captain John Holmes, stationed at Pawling, awaited his discharge as well, ready to return home after years of service. The Index pages overflowed with such announcements.

Sergeant Sheldon Dante, Staff Sergeant Edward Higley, Corporals Anthony Hevilacqua and Byron Christman, and Petty Officer Harold Bradner were all noted as home again, trading uniforms for civilian life. For some, the experience remained vivid. One soldier wrote of crossing the French countryside by boxcar, sleeping by the door to avoid being stepped on, and looking out over hills like the ones around home, except we haven’t as many pines. While the war columns dominated, the heart of the issue belonged to everyday life resuming. The town’s churches printed their weekly guides the Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Wesleyan congregations all listing sermons and socials. Zion Lutheran announced a Wednesday supper and fellowship night, the Baptist Church planned a choir practice and anniversary party, and the Methodist Church reported a sermon titled “On the Threshold.” The revival of community gatherings hinted at a return to normalcy after years of absence and worry.

Social pages included news from Richmondville, Seward, and Center Valley. Families visited across towns, students returned to schools, and farmers filled their silos beneath the first heavy frosts of October. Reports of ice on water pails reminded readers that winter was close. Wedding announcements also filled the columns, marking a season of reunions. In Richmondville, Mrs. Pearl Shafer of Cobleskill and Gerhard Rottingen of Richmondville were married at Zion Lutheran Church. The bride wore a fuchsia suit with black accessories and carried roses and swansonia. Another marriage joined Seaman Robert Francis Dunlavey of Albany and Miss Laura Mae Cottone at Richmondville, while Barbara Keegan and Dorwin Hamm wed in Middleburgh. Each notice carried careful detail colors, flowers, and family names  as though the paper itself were restoring joy one paragraph at a time.

Elsewhere in the issue, The Pleasant Brook Hotel operated by George Charles for a decade, changed hands. The local golf club held a benefit bridge night that raised more than $200, while Mrs. Fenton Hess and Miss Eva Van Auken won the evening’s prizes. Another women’s benefit bridge followed that Friday, chaired by Mrs. David Rich and Mrs. Button. Advertisements gave the paper its familiar local texture. Bradner’s on Main Street promoted “Saranac and Groff gloves in buckskin and horsehide,” while the Powder Puff Beauty Salon announced it was “now open” with two operators ready for appointments. 

At the Park Theatre, the week’s lineup included Marshal of Laredo and A Song to Remember, with showtimes starting early “owing to the unusual length of this attraction.” Even amid the cheerful return to domestic life, The Index preserved the solemn dignity of the wartime years. It listed medals, honors, and the long routes home a quiet acknowledgment of the cost behind the small-town comfort that was finally returning. Soldiers’ names appeared beside church suppers, and war notes shared the same columns as birthday announcements and furniture ads.

By mid-October, Cobleskill was once again defined by harvests, weddings, and the steady hum of village life. The first cold mornings signaled the change of season, but for the people reading The Index that week, the greater change was the feeling that peace had finally arrived not in headlines, but in the return of neighbors, in a pie social, and in the sound of the church bells ringing once more over the valley and the end of war.