Question: This early wheelchair holds an honored place at the Female Charitable loan closet at 10 River St. Do you know what is significant about it?
Last week’s answer: This year marks the 35th year of the Baldwinsville School District Fourth Grade Colonial Festival. The two presenters shown in the photos last week are the late Walt Thomas and his wife Clara Rose. It is thanks in a large part to them that this event is so successful.
Since colonial life is a large part of the fourth grade social studies, the idea of a festival was born by a group of fourth grade teachers. Many of them had brought a crafter into to their classroom, so it is no surprise that the idea of creating a festival to be held in the school bus garage. Since Clara Rose and Walt knew just about every crafter in the area, they were the go-to people to help staff the event. The first few years, Bonnie and Jack Pauldine generated all of the workings out of their classrooms. Today, it has become a well-oiled machine. Most of the presenters are volunteers; some have even come from as far away as Oxford to give the fourth-graders a look and feel for the early life of the settlers that came here. Many have been here for multiple years. Without the willingness of these people to share their craft, this event would not take place.
Many graduating seniors have said the was one of the most memorable events in their school career — and many readers wrote in to identify the photos, which goes to show how those memories lingered. Karen Rice, clerk to the Lysander planning, zoning and codes department, emailed the following:
“We were just talking about this the other day when my sister was getting things ready for a garage sale,” Rice said. “She had a little tin sconce in there and I told her she couldn’t get rid of that because one of her kids made it at Colonial Days. She didn’t remember her kids ever doing that and I told her all of our kids did and that it was open to all fourth-graders. My kids went to the bus garage…not sure of any other locations. I’m also not sure what she did with the sconce.”
This mystery also attracted plenty of attention on our Facebook page:
“What a treasure for the entire community,” Tish Evans wrote.
“This was so much fun to attend as a kid,” posted Nicole Reyna. “Great memories!”
Clara Rose Thomas was again a presenter this year. She has only missed one year in the 35 years, and that’s because she was crafting elsewhere.
It’s people like Clara Rose and Walt and all of the other people who have given their time over the years to this event that makes Baldwinsville such a great place to live.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.