Annual meeting features Fleischmanns talk

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will hold its annual meeting and luncheon Saturday, Oct. 26 at noon.

Marilyn Mayes Kaltenborn will be the featured speaker, with a talk on “Growing up in Fleischmanns in the 1950s and ‘60s.”

Space is limited. Reserve your spot by October 20 ($20 per person) by calling 845-586-2860 or emailing history@catskill.net.

The luncheon, catered by Anna Blish, will be followed by a business meeting that includes the annual HSM Executive Committee election. HSM members will be asked to approve officers Diane Galusha (President), Bill Blish (Vice President), Marilyn Pitetti (Treasurer) and Amy Taylor (Secretary). Pat Moore is up for re-election as a trustee, and Doris Warner is also a trustee candidate. Both are for three-year terms.

In her illustrated presentation, Marilyn Kaltenborn says, “I hope to give the audience a sense of what it was like to live within an hour’s drive of nearly all of my living relatives, to be distantly related to many of the year-around residents of Fleischmanns, to attend Fleischmanns High School, to work on Saturday mornings at my father’s veneer mill, and to live in a village that became a small city every summer when thousands of tourists (for whom English was a second language) came to town from New York City.”

Kaltenborn, daughter of Murray and Bertha Cowan Mayes, graduated at the top of her class at Fleischmanns High School in 1967, the year before the school merged with Margaretville. She earned a B.A. in mathematics at William Smith College and a law degree at Albany Law School. She worked at the NYS Tax Department for over 30 years.

Upon retiring, she started to write true stories about her Fleischmanns upbringing which resulted in a 2013 memoir An Uncommon Childhood: Growing up in the Catskill Mountains During the 1950s and 1960s. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on October 26.