The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will stage an informal reading from a dozen diaries, letters, and memoirs in a Second Sunday program at the Middletown History Center September 8 at 1 p.m.
The Center is at 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville. Admission is by donation.
“The Private Side of History” features four local residents reading excerpts from diaries and letters written between 1863 and 1960, and from memoirs written and recorded more recently.
Readers will be Bill Birns of Fleischmanns, John Exter of New Kingston, Tina Greene of Dry Brook and Annie Pevear of New Kingston.
Revealing their hopes, loves, pranks, aspirations, worries and everyday activities are the following former Middletown residents: Dry Brook hunter Nina Kittle Haynes, man about town James Utter, farmers Willard Hendricks and Will Tuttle, artist Arabella Locke Wyant, New Kingston mother Elizabeth Forrest Scott, Halcottsville sisters Nettie and Sarah Kelly, Margaretville constable George Gilbert, hotel keeper Lore Heppenheimer, four-time Fleischmanns mayor Heinz Pasternak and Charles Snyder, Jr., remembering Arkville of the 1920s.
For information on HSM programs and activities, along with historical articles and photos, visit mtownhistory.org.
Nina and Orson Haynes at Hermit’s Cave, Haynes Hollow