Folk Painter Nellie Bly Ballard featured on WIOX

Last Tuesday,  August 9, 2016, I featured the late artist Nellie Bly Ballard on Catskills Folk, my bi-weekly radio program on WIOX, 91.3 FM community radio for the Catskills.  Nellie was active in the mid-twentieth century in Roxbury painting landscapes of her native area.  Some of her paintings were farm portraits, some were views of familiar valleys or villages, and others whose locaitons we have not been able to identify may have been fictional.  Though she only painted for the last two decades of her life, Nellie was very prolific and a number of her paitnings have survived in collections around the Northeast.  Catskills Folk Connection, along with the Roxbury Arts Group, will be presenting her work along with paintings by another local artist, Don Strausser, at an exhibit called "Growing Up To Brush" in October at RAG's Walt Meade Gallery in Roxbury.

Here is a photograph of Nellie Bly Ballard in her studio with a number of her paintings, followed by examples of paintings that may be in the October exibit:

Nellie Bly Ballard in her studio at her home on Bridge Street, Roxbuy, NY

John Ballard Century Farm

Farmer Getting Ice

Roxbury Run Development, Denver, NY

Margaretville Square Dance July 9

On Saturday July 9, from 7 to 10 p.m., John Jacobson and The Tremperskill Boys will offer another rollicking square dance, this time in eastern Delaware County, at the American Legion, 903 Main Street, Margaretville, NY  12455. (If you're not a GPSer, the Legion is to the left as you face the Catskill Watershed office building, formerly the offices of the Catskill Mountain News.)

We're hoping that our post card mailing, as well as listings on community events sites, and announcements on the radio will bring in not only beginners, but also experienced dancers whose families have taken part in traditional music and dance in the Catskills for generations.

The Tremperskill Boys will be playing old-time, familiar square dance tunes with calls by John Jacobson, who learned them from Hilt Kelly, the Catskills' legendary fiddler and square dance caller who passed away last year. All the square dances will be taught, including the traditional customs of square dancing (for example, once you start a dance stay with it so the other six people have someone to dance with!).   Between sets of squares, the band will keep your feet tapping with traditional and contemporary fiddle tunes and waltzes.

Admission is $7 per adult, under 13 free. Refreshments will be available.  For more information about this and future dances, call Ginny Scheer, 607-746-3521, or e-mail at vscheer@juno.com.

Catskills Folk Connection is supported by the Roxbury Arts Group and the square dance series is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts Folk Art Program, Governor Cuomo and the NYS Legislature and the O'Connor Foundation.

Summer Square Dances Scheduled!

Tremperskill Boys and guests play for a square dance in memory of Hilt Kelly, 2015.

Catskills Folk Connection kicks off its season with square dances in western and eastern Delaware County.

On Saturday, June 18, 7-10 p.m., with the Tremperskill Boys, John Jacobson will call a rollicking square dance in Walton.  It will take place in the Parlor at the Walton Theatre (you may know it as the "coffeehouse"), 30 Gardiner Place, Walton, NY 13856.  There will be dances to satisfy beginners, for whom dances will be taught, and squares for experienced dancers.  Admission is $7 per person, under 13 free.  Refreshments will be available.

On Saturday, July 9, 7-10 p.m. the same band and caller will offer a lively square dance in Margaretville.  It will take place at the American Legion, 903 Main Street, Margaretville, NY 12455. Beginning dances will be taught and more complex Catskills dances will be offered.  Same admission; refreshments available.

You may notice that we are scheduling our dances differently than in previous seasons.  For many years CFC dances took place on Saturday or Sunday afternoons.  But traditionally in the Catskills square dances were Saturday night entertainment.  So this summer our dances will be on Saturday nights, still offered as family entertainment, as they were in decades past.

Bring your kids and friends for a fun evening with the Tremperskill Boys, John Jacobson, and Catskills Folk Connection.

Catskills Folk Connection is sponsored by the Roxbury Arts Group, and its programs - such as these square dances - are funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts Folk Art Program, Gov. Cuomo, the NYS Legislature, and the O'Connor Foundation, and are supported by WIOX Community Radio.   Contact: Ginny Scheer, vscheer@juno.com, 607-746-3521.  

Adirondack Fiddlers Honor Memory of Catskills Fiddler Hilt Kelly and Adirondack Fiddler Loren Eddy

Linda Kelly Armour calls "Wabash Cannonball" based on her memories of accompanying her parents, Hilt & Stella Kelly, to innumerable square dances as she was growing up.

On April 10 my son and I ventured north to Schuylerville, east of Saratoga Springs, for a memorial program dedicated to Hilt Kelly and to another fiddler who had died.  Members of Hilt's family were present - son Lynn and daughter Linda, and Linda's husband Jim.  Listen tonight, April 19, on WIOX 91.3 FM or wioxradio.org at 7 p.m. to hear to recordings that go with these photos. Wonderful round and square dancing began and ended the program which included solemn tributes to both fiddlers as well as music from the Adirondack Fiddlers.  There were several callers from the club and Hilt's daughter, Linda Kelly Armour, pleased everyone with a rendition of "Wabash Cannonball."
 --Ginny Scheer, Folklorist.

Dancers at the Adirondack Fiddlers tribute to Hilt Kelly, dancing to Ron Bailey's "Mountain Girl"

Vernacular Architecture: Six Stone Houses in Roxbury

Catskills Folk Connection is proposing to study six 19th century stone houses in Roxbury, not only to document their history, their construction, and their builders, but also to understand more about their occupants' lives and what the houses may have meant to them.

Right now, Catskills Folk Connection is in the process of contacting the owners to obtain permission to study each house's historical documents, its exterior and possibly its interior, and to interview current residents/owners about the house.  The houses are:

1803: The Stone Tavern Farm, at the head of Meeker Hollow.

1806-1812: The Hardenburgh House, on Route 23 between Grand Gorge and Prattsville.  

1808:  The Underwood House, on Route 30 between Roxbury and Margaretville

1813: The "Stone Jug", at the intersection of Burroughs Memorial Road and the Hardscrabble Road

1828: The Walter Stratton House, on New Kingston Mountain Road, just above the Manhattan Country School Farm

1829:  The More family house, just off Route 30 north of the hamlet of Roxbury.

On a recent Catskills Folk radio program on WIOX (91.3 FM and wioxradio.org)  I discussed these houses briefly, and promised more as our study progresses.  I noted that the two story houses have what is known as a classic Georgian facade consisting of a center door flanked by two windows on the first floor, with five windows placed symmetrically above.  It is hard to drive either the main roads or the back roads of Delaware County without seeing many houses with this facade which can indicate an interior central hallway or an entry with a central winding stairway.  

These stone examples are early and may give some insight into whether or not such houses were built as two story houses all at once, or if they started out smaller.  Two of the one story stone houses have the Georgian facade, one the earliest stone house and the other the latest.  In between the other two one story stone houses have off center entries, related to a different interior plan.  The Walter Stratton House is an example of the "hall/parlor plan" in which the entry goes directly into the parlor, with a large "hall" or kitchen on the other side.

How were the houses built and where were the materials sourced? How do the six stone houses resemble or differ from other houses built in the area? Who lived in these houses?  How did the occupants change them to meet their current needs?  What kind of uses did they make of the spaces inside? 

These are some of the questions we will be trying to answer in our study of the six stone houses in 2017.  If you have information you would like to share about any of the six houses, don't hesitate to contact me at vscheer@juno.com or 607-746-3521 or by mail at 761 County Highway 2, Delancey, NY  13752.  Anything we can find out about these fascinating houses is welcome! --- Ginny Scheer, Folklorist