Latest / This Week in Westchester: The Podcast / Westchester, Explained 05: Uncovering Westchester’s History and Why It Matters with Historian Joyce Cole

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Westchester, Explained 05: Uncovering Westchester’s History and Why It Matters with Historian Joyce Cole · This Week in Westchester: The Podcast

• 0:06
  Catherine Cioffi: Hi, Westchester.
• 0:07
  Catherine Cioffi: I'm Westchester County Government Communications Director, Catherine Cioffi.
• 0:11
  Catherine Cioffi: As an extension of This Week in Westchester, the podcast, we welcome you to "Westchester, Explained." In today's episode, I speak with a gifted historian and genealogist and a very good friend to Westchester County, Joyce Cole, all about Westchester's history and how our past isn't just preserved in our county's archives.
• 0:31
  Catherine Cioffi: It's waiting to be discovered in our homes, our attics, and even behind our walls.
• 0:36
  Catherine Cioffi: This conversation explores how everyday discoveries can uncover powerful stories and reshape our understanding of the past.
• 0:44
  Catherine Cioffi: Now, Joyce wears many hats as the historian for the Village of Ossining and as an Ossining 250 board member, but she also is the executive secretary to the Commissioner at the Westchester County Department of Emergency Services.
• 0:58
  Catherine Cioffi: Over the years, Joyce has helped to deepen my appreciation of Austning and Westchester County.
• 1:04
  Catherine Cioffi: And hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll also understand her ability to inspire people to care about the past and truly value the history that we are privileged to have all around us here in Westchester County.
• 1:17
  Catherine Cioffi: This is Westchester Explained.
• 1:20
  Catherine Cioffi: Let's begin.
• 1:21
  Catherine Cioffi: I'm here with Joyce Cole.
• 1:30
  Catherine Cioffi: And you have two titles.
• 1:31
  Catherine Cioffi: Well, you have three titles in my world.
• 1:33
  Catherine Cioffi: So, one, you are a neighbor.
• 1:36
  Catherine Cioffi: You're an Ossining resident.
• 1:38
  Catherine Cioffi: You're part of the Ossining community, a pillar in the Ossining community.
• 1:41
  Catherine Cioffi: You are the Ossining Town Historian.
• 1:44
  Catherine Cioffi: Village.
• 1:44
  Catherine Cioffi: Village historian.
• 1:45
  Catherine Cioffi: Oh, excuse me.
• 1:46
  Catherine Cioffi: Sorry.
• 1:46
  Catherine Cioffi: Village historian.
• 1:48
  Catherine Cioffi: Just gave you way more geographical area.
• 1:50
  Catherine Cioffi: Um, and you're also part of the county community because you are the executive secretary to the commissioner in the Department of Emergency Services.
• 1:58
  Catherine Cioffi: So you wear so many hats.
• 2:00
  Catherine Cioffi: So many hats.
• 2:01
  Catherine Cioffi: Um, are there any other hats that I'm missing?
• 2:03
  Catherine Cioffi: My favorite one.
• 2:04
  Catherine Cioffi: Grandma.
• 2:05
  Catherine Cioffi: Grandma.
• 2:06
  Catherine Cioffi: That's a great hat to wear for sure.
• 2:09
  Catherine Cioffi: So we're here today to talk.
• 2:12
  Catherine Cioffi: I mean, we could talk emergency services.
• 2:14
  Catherine Cioffi: We could talk so many different things, we could talk being a grandma, but we're actually here with you today to talk about your role and your hat of being the Austning Village historian.
• 2:25
  Catherine Cioffi: Um, it's such an interesting time in our county, in our state, and our country, because we are approaching the 250th anniversary of uh of how we all got started here.
• 2:39
  Catherine Cioffi: Um, and with that anniversary coming, uh, something that you mentioned to me that I think is fascinating is that people are finding all kinds of things in their homes that they didn't know were there.
• 2:50
  Catherine Cioffi: Can you explain what's going on?
• 2:52
  Joyce Cole: Absolutely.
• 2:53
  Joyce Cole: So it's springtime.
• 2:54
  Joyce Cole: People are doing their spring cleaning, uh, they're going through their homes, they're renovating, and people are finding things in their walls.
• 3:02
  Joyce Cole: Uh uh Westchester is full of rich history.
• 3:05
  Joyce Cole: And particularly in Austin, we have a lot of development going on, especially in our downtown.
• 3:11
  Joyce Cole: And even the Olive Opera House has found in the construction happening there phone books from the early 1900s.
• 3:18
  Joyce Cole: So they've been calling me to come get it.
• 3:20
  Joyce Cole: And a directory of phone book is so rich in historical information.
• 3:26
  Joyce Cole: It helps us to tell a better story about our community at that time period.
• 3:31
  Joyce Cole: So these things that they're finding are giving us a glimpse into the time period in which it covers.
• 3:36
  Catherine Cioffi: So, you know, obviously since the Revolutionary War, you know, we have history books and we all learned it in school, what happened.
• 3:44
  Catherine Cioffi: But that wasn't the whole picture.
• 3:45
  Catherine Cioffi: We now know that the history that I learned, the history you learned in school, that wasn't the full story.
• 3:51
  Catherine Cioffi: So why is this, does this fill in those gaps?
• 3:55
  Joyce Cole: Absolutely.
• 3:55
  Joyce Cole: So we don't get a full picture, you know, we only get 40 minutes in each class, and the history books are really specific in what they want to cover, but it's lived experiences, the people, all of the people that contributed to that time.
• 4:09
  Joyce Cole: So it's living in our house, it's living in our basements, it's living in grandma's letters.
• 4:14
  Joyce Cole: So we have to dig back and get those documents in order to fill in the gaps where the history books uh don't cover it.
• 4:22
  Catherine Cioffi: So tell me a little bit about about like the phone directory, the different things that you're finding and the information you're getting from them.
• 4:28
  Joyce Cole: So a phone directory, people are like, oh, I'm just gonna find, you know, someone's phone number.
• 4:32
  Joyce Cole: Absolutely not.
• 4:32
  Joyce Cole: You're gonna, a lot of phone books early on would tell you uh the person's name, their occupation, their spouse's name, uh, where they live, the businesses are in there, what um organizations, fraternal organizations were around at that time, even your school board, your school board's name is in the phone book.
• 4:52
  Joyce Cole: So you're finding out so much about the community in a phone book that I can actually piece together a narrative and tell you about whatever year it's covering just from the phone book.
• 5:02
  Speaker: Wow.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:03
  Speaker: And so from the phone book that you found at the opera house, were there things in there that you didn't know that you learned?
• 5:08
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 5:09
  Speaker: Tell me all about.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So you know, we love to find people's names.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: The the Ossining has very old names that people have been there from the beginning, from the onset.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: So seeing the names of the people and they're still their families are still in Ossining today, telling them, look, I found your great-great-grandfather in the film book, and this is where they were living.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And even people that are calling and doing research outside of Ossining, a lot of times they'll call and say, I have a family member that lived there in 1912.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Can you, is there some direction you can give me to help me?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I'll go directly to a directory.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I found where they live.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: This is where they live.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: The house is still there, and I could send them a picture and then a copy of the directory.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So it's it's a wealth of information in a phone book.
• 5:53
  Speaker: And this is, I mean, we're talking Ossining, obviously, because I I live in Ossining, you live in Ossining, you're the Ossining village historian, but this is all over Westchester County.
• 6:01
  Speaker: This is happening.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So I even broader, so not just Ossining, there is a picture someone gave me.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It was so exciting.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I was at uh in Tarrytown giving a talk on history, it was actually black history, and I was talking about the county center.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: In the early years, the county center would have these amazing concerts, and they had a concert uh with black people from all over Westchester County, every municipality had a contingency inside of this chorus, ended up being approximately 700 people.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And I've been talking about it for about five years.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And I said, you know, there's no picture that I can find.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: It's not in the Westchester County Historical Society, it's not in the county archives.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I've I couldn't find in any historical societies.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I said, but I found plenty of articles about the people and what they sang.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: And Paul Robeson came and was the uh the uh guest uh singer at one of them.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And a lady gets up, she says, I think I have a picture.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And I did not believe her.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I said, There's no way this lady has a picture.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: And she says, No, I do.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: It says Westchester County, uh County Center, 1931 on the bottom.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And I said, Ma'am, are you serious?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So she dropped it off and she was absolutely right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I now have a picture.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I called the County Historical Society, I said, Look, do you have this?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: They said, No, I think that's a rare find.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So in there, I'm able to identify approximately 300 people by face that we never seen before that was a part of this concert.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So that is going to touch every municipality in Westchester County.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And some people will see a relative they have never seen in picture before.
• 7:38
  Speaker: Wow.
• 7:39
  Speaker: You know, is is part of it also that in the 1930s when this was happening, these concerts were happening, uh was it that the history that was being recorded was only of certain parts of the community and not of the whole community?
• 7:55
  Speaker: Is that part of it?
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So no, because I was able to find out about the um the concerts in the newspaper.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I love the newspaper back then.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I call them the newsy paper.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like uh if you watch Bridgeton Lady Whistledown, that's what it felt like with the newspaper because they report on everything.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So actually, where we think that there was exclusion, it was not, it was reported in the uh the regular newspaper, and I say regular, not a black publication.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Um, and I'm able to see it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I just oftentimes there's not pictures.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So we would not always get pictures of those events, but I get to find out.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So now I have a picture.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's exciting.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Inside of it was my great-grandmother.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: In the picture?
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: In the picture.
• 8:38
  Speaker: Oh my gosh.
• 8:39
  Speaker: So she wow.
• 8:40
  Speaker: Um, that's amazing.
• 8:43
  Speaker: That's really amazing.
• 8:44
  Speaker: And um, well, I feel like your story, uh, your family story is also fascinating.
• 8:50
  Speaker: And I know because you've told it to me before, but do you want to tell the listeners about it?
• 8:53
  Speaker: I mean, you your family has been in Austin for Over 120 years.
• 8:58
  Speaker: Unbelievable.
• 8:59
  Speaker: So do you want to tell us real quick what it is?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Uh so my family came from Bertie County, North Carolina because of the first black pastor in Austin, uh, Reverend Henry Edward Doors.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: He was bringing up a lot of uh black people, saying that Austin was a safe place and a place where you'd be able to thrive safely and to bring your family.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So he had with this huge house on Hunter Street that he called Doors Ranch.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: In Doors Ranch, he would bring up families, get them to settle in, get their house of their own, and bring up some more.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And my family came with him uh in the early 1920s.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: The other side of my family had been here already.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Um my Smith Gordine side had already been in Austin since the late 1800s.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Uh so my family in researching them is how I found out more about Westchester County because all of our families are interconnected in some way.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Um, so I would find that's how I found out about the Hudson Hills uh golf course.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: My uncle was one of the first two black men in Westchester County to play at Wingfoot and to try out for the open.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I was researching him when I accidentally fell upon the first black country club in Austin, and I could not believe it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So I quickly forgot about my uncle's history and dove deep into this country club that connected not just Austin, but uh people from Pelham, Connecticut, the city, Yonkers, Newershell.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And it told this fantastic story of this beautiful imposh, I have to say, country club that said it was right here in Westchester County and is owned by the county today.
• 10:34
  Speaker: Well, I we did a really wonderful event marking that as the first black golf course, black-owned and operated golf course.
• 10:44
  Speaker: Um, there's a beautiful plaque there.
• 10:45
  Speaker: For anybody who's in the area, please pass fine seed.
• 10:47
  Speaker: We had a great event there.
• 10:49
  Speaker: And the history of that golf club was just fascinating.
• 10:52
  Speaker: And then also, unfortunately, the history of why it closed and why it didn't succeed.
• 10:57
  Speaker: Do you want to just tell everyone real quick?
• 10:59
  Speaker: Sure.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Uh so it was a wonderful club, but we have to think about the time period uh that we had Jim Crow laws in the South.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Uh, it was not the best time uh for black people anywhere, north or south.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It was a little easier here, but uh, we had a lot of unwritten rules.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And one of them was you should stay in the area that was designated for you.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So them going into which is Newcastle, Osne, we're both fighting over the border of this.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Uh they did not want this black contingency during the Great Depression, by the way.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: They had money during the Great Depression to buy this club.
• 11:33
  Speaker: Oh my gosh, and tell them why, because I thought this was fascinating.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Well, you told me.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Tell them why they were.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, black people were not welcome to save money in their in banks.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times they would hold on to their money or we're we create our own banks.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So during the Great Depression, people were losing money, the bank was crashing, we weren't in the banks for the most part.
• 11:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker: I I never knew that.
• 11:53
  Speaker: I never knew that when you told me that it really amazed.
• 11:56
  Speaker: It's just amazing how that was.
• 11:59
  Speaker: I was a fact that again didn't learn that in school, but was happy to learn it.
• 12:02
  Speaker: So I'm sorry, so keep telling us.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was pretty interesting.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: There's a black investment group.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Now, this investment group was just not just looking to uh have a place of leisure.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: They did want to have a place of leisure that was safe because it was not always safe for us to congregate, but they also wanted uh construction companies, everything that we could do for ourselves, they were trying to create a business uh and get people qualified to do it and educated to do it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: So they found this country club of a um a white man actually owned it from Florida and he was he lost his money and he was trying to sell.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And he was incredible.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: He was protecting the identity of these black investment people because the surrounding community wanted them out.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: They said we don't want them here.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Uh I remember the best story of that day uh when they came up to do a walkthrough.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And the commute, the surrounded community said, there's no way they're gonna come up and they're gonna, you know, act uh disorderly.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: So they sent the sheriff and they said, you know, just be ready because they're they're not gonna act appropriate.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And he said in the article, this is the most dignified group of people I've ever seen in my life.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: He said it's such a dignified um event.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And it just gives me great pride because I already know that, but just to see it in writing when they expected them to act otherwise.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Uh, but they tried everything they could to get these people out, but they were used to, I mean, the Klan was called on them.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: We had the Klan here in Westchester.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: They were called on them.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Uh, they didn't that did not scare them.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: How they got them out was legally.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: They tied them up in court until the money ran dry.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And then it uh went into bankruptcy.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: But they did run it successfully for a season.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And I mean, the who's who of everyone came.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The cotton club, uh, you know, all of the singers from that time period all were here.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker: I live very close to the to the golf club.
• 13:48
  Speaker: And um, it just every time I drive by, they think of the stories you told, and and just to have such a rich piece of American history so close to where I live, it really um feels very special.
• 14:00
  Speaker: Very, very special.
• 14:01
  Speaker: So we I know we got off track and I knew this was gonna happen because I could talk to you all day about this.
• 14:05
  Speaker: But so the the items in the homes, um, again, like as we're approaching the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, finding these little things, what should people do if they're digging through the attic, digging through mom stuff, grandma stuff, whatever, and they find something, what should they do with it?
• 14:21
  Speaker: Call me.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I'm only playing my husband's gonna put me out if I collect another thing.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: But uh whatever municipality you're in, I want people to know that the items in your you are a piece of the puzzle.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: We all are our history, our relatives coming into this country, making contributions.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Everything you did helped us to get to this moment.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So you are part of the fabric of this 250 quilt that we are building.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So the letters from grandma, the letters from grandpa that served this country in war, any war between the revolution to now is relevant and vital to us telling our rich story of how we became this beautiful country in 250 years.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So if you have a historical society in your community, you have a historian in your community, or if there are groups, there are plenty of genealogy groups and people that want to collect, call the county archives, call the county historical society because we are looking for those items.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It may seem little to you or insignificant, but trust me, a historian or a researcher, you're giving a gem and it's gonna make a difference.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And it might be a piece of the puzzle that solves a community history piece that they've been looking for.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Um, like I said, with the picture that the woman had, she thought it was just a picture, but absolutely not.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: She just finished the puzzle for me.
• 15:46
  Speaker: Wow.
• 15:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:47
  Speaker: I think a lot of people don't realize that almost every municipality has an historical society.
• 15:52
  Speaker: Do you want to expand on that a little bit?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So every every community does have a historical society.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: It's usually run by volunteers.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So sometimes it's not open all of the time.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So I would suggest sending an email or calling.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But if not, the County Historical Society is open every single day, Monday through Friday.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: You can get them, they know how to reach out to local historians.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So if the historical society and your municipal historians are separate, so you can um call on both.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: You could call on the historical society or your municipal historian and give some direction on how to preserve uh your memories.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I did something in Austin pretty um, it was like a give and take.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I had a community scanning day because I knew that people's pictures hold significant pieces of our history.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So I said, if you bring in all of your pictures, I will digitize them for free.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So I had volunteers and we scanned for free.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Then I said, but the only caveat is if I see something I know that we need, I gotta have it.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I gotta have a copy.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Um, but it was wonderful.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: People from the community were coming in.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They don't know what to do with these pictures.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: So we had a scanning day.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And I was in partner with the Austin Public Library, and we were scanning for a day.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: That is so smart.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 17:07
  Speaker: It no, it's it's I mean, the Austin, um, again, I'm I'm a little partial here, but the Austin uh what you run there, there's the museum too, which is really incredible.
• 17:17
  Speaker: And um uh the story behind my trip to the museum, which which Joyce was part of, um, so my son, we would pass the museum, and my son, my youngest son, said to me, you know, I I live here and and I've never been to the museum.
• 17:33
  Speaker: I've spent I've lived here my whole life, I've never been to the museum.
• 17:35
  Speaker: And I said, Well, you're you're right.
• 17:36
  Speaker: I've never been to the museum either.
• 17:38
  Speaker: And so I reached out to the historical society, reached, ended up reaching out to you and and asked, you know, can we come visit the museum?
• 17:45
  Speaker: My son, he was in fifth grade at the time, he was interested, he wanted to learn about his community, and we did the tour of the museum, and it was incredible.
• 17:51
  Speaker: I mean, there's always these little tidbits of information that you hear about as a resident of any community, like, oh, this street was named after, I heard it was named after this person, I heard this person lives here, I heard this is what happened here.
• 18:03
  Speaker: And when you visit the museum, you visit the historical society, you learn, you learn the full, the full, the full thing.
• 18:09
  Speaker: Um, I remember on the tour that we did with you, we learned about the band of brothers.
• 18:15
  Speaker: And not the band of brothers.
• 18:16
  Speaker: The you told us the story about how the draft was done based on the amount of men in a community.
• 18:24
  Speaker: Do you want to tell them that story?
• 18:26
  Speaker: It's such a great story.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was lure that uh it was in Austin about emptying the men out because the population of the prison increases Austin's population.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So we haven't quite confirmed if that is actually true, but we did have a large segment of the men and women that went off to war during World War II.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Uh so we had, I mean, when I look at some of the people's history, that's one of my favorite uh subjects, is helping people recover the military uh history in their families.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Um, but a lot of uh households were emptied out of the men.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So my great-grandmother, every male in the house was emptied out plus one daughter.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And that was not um singular to my family.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: It was quite a few families that were emptied out.
• 19:11
  Speaker: Unbelievable.
• 19:11
  Speaker: And it was on that tour also that you told us this great tidbit of information that you can foil your relative's military records, which I hadn't, I mean, I worked for the government, I had no idea you could do that.
• 19:24
  Speaker: We did it.
• 19:25
  Speaker: Yes.
• 19:26
  Speaker: And we um my husband's grandfathers uh fought for the United States.
• 19:31
  Speaker: My my family did not, they fought for Italy, but um, we foiled my husband's grandfather's military records, and we found out one of them had been shot.
• 19:42
  Speaker: And his own children didn't even know, had no idea that this is that this had happened.
• 19:46
  Speaker: It was fascinating.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Can you tell everybody how that works?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So we're entitled to, so this actually is because of the county that I know this.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So in my capacity at DES, I'm the FOIA officer.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So I understood what FOIA law means.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: There is information from the government, transparency and government, freedom of information uh that you are entitled to.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Um, you're not gonna get everything if you're not a direct descendant or descendant of the person, but there is uh access to the records that all of us are entitled to.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So if you go to the National Archives, now it's even simpler.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know when you do it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Did it online.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And you can get it for free.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Uh it's wonderful.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: But you go online and you get the records of the service person or your family because when they came back, a lot of them were traumatized.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: They did not want to rehash what they went through.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: But it's important that we honor what they went through for us.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And when it's your family member, the pride that you feel, the sense of empowerment and um contribution to this country that was made by way of your ancestor makes you feel really proud.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And as we're talking about the 250th, that's all part of it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: We want to honor our service people from the revolution until now that have contributed greatly to this country for us to be free every day.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So I always encourage people to look up those records.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: They can actually reach out for me and answer me on that.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: But if you Google uh military records online, it will come up the National Archives, and you can search for your the service person in your family with uh some information you do have to have, like their name, their social security number.
• 21:23
  Speaker: We had to, yeah.
• 21:24
  Speaker: It was some, but it wasn't anything overly burdensome.
• 21:27
  Speaker: I think we had the social security for one grandfather.
• 21:30
  Speaker: We didn't have it for the other, but we had something else.
• 21:32
  Speaker: I think it was like his place of birth or something.
• 21:34
  Speaker: I mean, it wasn't, it was information that we were all that we were able to get very easily and we got the records very quickly.
• 21:40
  Speaker: And it was really, really amazing.
• 21:42
  Speaker: And of course, you know, we shared it with everybody in the family and we were very excited about it.
• 21:46
  Speaker: Um, because you're right, it is empowering to know where you fit into the puzzle.
• 21:50
  Speaker: And for my boys, you know, to know where they their ancestors fit into the puzzle, it's it's important.
• 21:55
  Speaker: It's important to know where you came from seeing go forward.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: How connected was.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We be, you know, if we just know where we fit.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: We all will, it's about place.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: We all we all will want to feel like we have contributed, our family has contributed.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Even with my kids and doing this research now, when we came back from North Carolina from the plantation, when they were learning about enslavement, it's a hard topic, but they felt really good because they were able to contribute something to the conversation.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So it helps.
• 22:24
  Speaker: So, you know, as we're approaching the 250th anniversary, you know, it it's an in it's a difficult time in our country now.
• 22:33
  Speaker: And we're looking back on a history that is uh difficult and and not, you know, it has a lot of blemishes and and flaws.
• 22:41
  Speaker: How do you how do you sort of take it all in and how do you where do you put all this information?
• 22:48
  Speaker: How do you how do you handle it?
• 22:49
  Speaker: How do you handle being an American, knowing the history, knowing the difficult history, and kind of knowing where we are right now in a difficult time?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Um in terms of how to uh explain it to people or grappling with the history.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Grappling with the history.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So in any story, even if you look into your family, your family's not perfect.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Your family has issues.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: They all do.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: That's we have the special people in our family that we wish they would do things differently.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Um we're not happy with every choice that we we even make.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So that's our country.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to look at it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It's our country.
• 23:24
  Speaker: We're a complicated family.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: We're a complicated family, and we don't always treat everybody in the family right, but it's still our family.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So that's how I approach the storytelling for me.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: It's people don't even understand how I could talk about my family being enslaved and I'm not crying.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: It's part of the story.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: What I'm very excited about is that I know.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Knowing.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So just understanding where we have been, how complicated it was.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: But in inside of anything terrible, you will find beauty.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And the beauty of me finding there is my, yeah, my family was enslaved.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, there were enslaved people in the onset.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: But who were those people?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Those people were skilled individuals.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: They worked them because they understood how to do the jobs that they were doing.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: So I look at not only the ugly, but what's beautiful inside.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Even inside of their trauma, they were able to create people that led up to me being born.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So you try to find the beauty.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So, yes, our country has complicated history.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It's not the best history, but the story is the story.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And that's how we are.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: That's what where we're at today.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So I think it's criminal that we suppress any part of our history because the story is the story.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: And we need to understand where we were so we don't repeat it again.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And we're repeating things because we don't understand it that happened initially, why it happened, and how we can overcome it because we're just we all need to be educated.
• 24:51
  Speaker: That's a really unbelievable explanation of where we are.
• 24:55
  Speaker: You know, in looking back on our 250 years of a very complicated family called the United States, what do you think is the uh one historical event, or or or maybe it's a few historical events that you really feel like every American really needs to better understand?
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: So right now, I think with the 250th coming, we need to understand the beginning, right?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: We need to understand what was happening.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: We were under the regime of a king.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: We did not want to be under the regime of a king anymore.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: We wrote this declaration of independence, like this is why we want to start our own.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: We do not want to be suppressed, we do not want to be governed this way, we want to be free.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And then think about today.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: It is a parallel.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: We don't want to be under, you know, you want to, it's so um, if you just listen, it sounds like maybe I'm in 1776, maybe I'm in 2026.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: But we want to understand the beginning.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: And then when we start talking about this war, they were people, they were your ancestors that were fighting for this country.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And then we start talking about the conditions.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: They were fighting with little provision, they didn't have a lot of food, the women were vulnerable, the children were vulnerable, there were a lot of sicknesses.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I need people to understand where we really started, to really sit down and think about that.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And that the people fighting did not look one way.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Black people were fighting, indigenous people were fighting in the war.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So, one thing I'm very proud of when I was born, I'm a bicentennial baby.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I was born in 1976.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: So we've been really celebrating this, the um the formation of our country from the beginning.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: And when I was in school, they told us every year, you are all bicentennial babies.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: You are very important.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So this means a lot to me because I feel very connected.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: See the whole thing with connection.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: They made sure we were connected.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: So for me, knowing the beginning and who fought, in who was here is important as we're telling people you do and do not belong.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: But we were here from the beginning.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And all of the people that were here from the beginning, including the people that the land belonged to originally, the indigenous people were fighting too, uh, to help with this new country after the country was taken from them.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So it's really these stories.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And then I love to see when we move forward.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Um, I love war history.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: So when we're talking about the Civil War, and then we're talking as we approach Juneteenth as well, and people are like, well, why is that an everybody thing?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's an everybody thing.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: We've always celebrated independence.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: That independence in 1776 was not everybody's independence.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody wasn't free inside of here, but eventually they became free, and now we're celebrating independence again.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So that is our story, not singular story.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It's our story because in that fight, it didn't look monochromatic either.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Everybody was fighting.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Everybody that was here was a part of it.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So it's our story.
• 28:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Speaker: You know, when you when you when you explain it that way, the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about the way the Revolutionary War was was like, first of all, oh my gosh, how how lucky are we that it actually worked out?
• 28:15
  Speaker: Considering they didn't have food, that it probably didn't have proper clothing, they were sort of pushed together.
• 28:22
  Speaker: So how lucky are we that that worked out well?
• 28:24
  Speaker: Um, but also like, how perfectly American and beautiful is it when you tell a story about how everybody pulled together?
• 28:33
  Speaker: Didn't matter what you look like, everybody pulled together.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't welcomed in the beginning for everybody to pull together, but we have all these great, I need people to get out, get on the calendar, the county calendar for uh what's gonna be happening all over this county for the celebration and commemoration of the 250th because the first Rhode Island Regiment, there's gonna be a whole encampment.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Go to Yorktown, they're gonna be doing all kinds of wonderful.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: They are, but they'll be in encampment.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: A lot of battles, the Battle of White Plains.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be all of these things going on, and we need to start going so we can understand.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, we were the neutral ground, but there was a lot going on in this county, a lot of um battles, skirmishes, people were going through taking things from people.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: There's great stories.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, we had spies.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't love a spy story?
• 29:22
  Speaker: Wow.
• 29:23
  Speaker: I mean, you hear up here about it.
• 29:25
  Speaker: You know, you heard about the Battle of White Plains, Battle of Yorktown.
• 29:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker: Um, but you don't really know much, at least I don't.
• 29:32
  Speaker: I don't know much beyond the name.
• 29:34
  Speaker: But it's really so so we played Westchester County played a huge role.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, absolutely.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, and that's why people should go out.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I love immersive learning.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So if you don't want to read a dissertation or you don't want to read a big book, go to these events because the historians and the researchers that have put together these immersive experiences, you will walk away with such a rich understanding of the revolution and why your town or village played a part and what happened there.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So I love that, you know, you go to Terrytown, you got Benedict Arnold and Andre.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about that story.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And the boots inside the boot had names of Elijah Hunter from Ausning, who was a double agent during the revolution and started a church.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And then we're talking about the culprit spy ring, and that's what the FBI studies in order to understand uh what they do was all during the revolution.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So there's so much to learn from the revolution, but everyone loves a spy story.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I love that's my favorite.
• 30:35
  Speaker: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 30:37
  Speaker: No, it's, I mean, how lucky are we that we live here?
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 30:41
  Speaker: How lucky are we?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I left and went to school and came back because it's the best place to live.
• 30:45
  Speaker: I also I left after school and came back.
• 30:48
  Speaker: Came back real quick.
• 30:50
  Speaker: Yes.
• 30:51
  Speaker: Um, but this is really terrific.
• 30:53
  Speaker: And and and to your point, the 250th anniversary, there are events all over and all over Westchester County.
• 31:00
  Speaker: And so people should absolutely take advantage and learn more.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Learn more.
• 31:05
  Speaker: And you don't have to go outside.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of these things are taking place virtually.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Or just in your town.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: In your town, virtually.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I like to say that because not everybody can get out.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: True.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: That's virtual.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: But they shouldn't, you know, feel like they can't participate in a lot of these things.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: They're part of it too.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's stuff happening from the colleges to the cemeteries.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're doing walks.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: We're doing a walk in Austin in the cemetery because that's where all our history lies, all of those uh people.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: But get out, get out.
• 31:32
  Speaker: Westchester's gorgeous.
• 31:33
  Speaker: Get out and explore it.
• 31:35
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 31:36
  Speaker: This is great.
• 31:37
  Speaker: And I'm really excited.
• 31:38
  Speaker: I always get excited when I talk to you.
• 31:40
  Speaker: Makes me, I'm always proud to be an American.
• 31:42
  Speaker: Um, my family hasn't been in this country that long, but we feel tremendously part of it.
• 31:48
  Speaker: And I'm always very proud to be here because I know what my family went through to get here.
• 31:52
  Speaker: Um, and then when I talk to you, I just feel like my heart swells and I get even more proud.
• 31:57
  Speaker: And it's just, it's very, very exciting.
• 31:59
  Speaker: Very exciting.
• 32:00
  Speaker: Anything else people should know or anything they should look for?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: So as we're we're going back to the beginning, as we're cleaning out our closets and going through the attics, I just want you to take a moment and not throw it out.
• 32:12
  Speaker: Okay.
• 32:12
  Speaker: We're not throwing it out.
• 32:14
  Speaker: If you don't live in Austin, call your local historical society.
• 32:19
  Speaker: But they can always reach out to you at the Austin Historical Society and you can let them off.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So that we're separate.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So your municipal historian and your historical society are most likely separate entities.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: So call it somebody.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: If not the County Historical Society, because you are absolutely a part of the picture.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: And something in your house is gonna solve a mystery that has been plaguing us that we need to understand more about our communities, and you'll learn more about yourself and your family.
• 32:47
  Speaker: So exciting.
• 32:48
  Speaker: So exciting.
• 32:49
  Speaker: Um, you're tremendous.
• 32:50
  Speaker: You're just wonderful.
• 32:51
  Speaker: I can talk to you all day.
• 32:53
  Speaker: So we're definitely gonna have you come back and thank you and talk about more things.
• 32:56
  Speaker: Um, maybe we can come back and talk about Juneteenth.
• 32:59
  Speaker: That's a good one.
• 32:59
  Speaker: That's a good one.
• 33:00
  Speaker: Okay, all right, we're gonna do that.
• 33:02
  Speaker: Well, thank you again so much for joining.
• 33:03
  Speaker: And we'll talk to you soon.
• 33:04
  Speaker: Talk to you soon.