Thursday, March 21, 2019-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette- Celebrating Women’s History Month-Reid Hill’s favorite teacher Scroll Down for The "Gazette Print Story" Friday, March 22-Episode 258-Michael Davi recounts his 40-year career as a General Electric engineer in his book “PrivileGEd: Experiences From My Unusual 40-year Career With One of America's Most Iconic Companies." Michael Davi Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, March 21, 2019 A slight chance of rain and snow before 10am, then rain likely. Cloudy, with a high near 45. Florence Collins Florence Collins lived most of her life in the house where she grew up on Amsterdam’s Pulaski Street in the then predominately Polish enclave called Reid Hill.
Born in 1911, her parents were Anthony and Pelagia Lulkowska Dabrowski. They had come to America from Torun, Poland, birthplace of Copernicus. Her given first name was long and Polish and, according to her son’s eulogy, she decided to call herself “Florence” because of a neighbor woman who had that name.
A graduate of Amsterdam High, Florence earned her teaching certificate at Oneonta Normal School.
She served forty years as a fourth and fifth grade teacher in her Amsterdam neighborhood’s public school, Vrooman Avenue Elementary.
In 1935 the Recorder reported that Florence and her colleague Imogene Cook directed students in a play called “A Better Plan.” Instead of playing Halloween pranks on people, the characters in the play gave a sick child a “grand surprise on Halloween.”
Florence’s father died in 1937. In 1939 she married Henry Paierski of Schenectady, who changed his last name to Page. Henry took ill and died in 1943. He had been in the engineering department at the Alco locomotive plant in Schenectady.
Florence married her second husband, postal worker Andrew Collins, in 1951. Their son David became a pediatric anesthesiologist.
Florence Collins was an inspiring teacher according to students and fellow educators. Teaching reading was one of her specialties. Collins excelled at helping young students learn to read and also volunteered to help immigrants learn to speak and read English.
Sometimes when she walked home from school, she was accompanied by an honor guard of neighborhood students.
One high point in her career was in 1955 when she and her class of fifth graders produced two programs on the Eskimos of Alaska that aired live on WRGB television.
Sheldon Jackson, a native of Minaville south of Amsterdam, was a missionary who had a major impact on Alaska’s natives, so the television project had a local history aspect. As one of her students that year, I wore a parka and carried a small harpoon on television.
Legendary Amsterdam High basketball coach John A. Varsoke was principal at Vrooman Avenue in 1968 and spoke approvingly of Collins’s work.
“She never hesitates to cooperate and lend herself to difficult situations,” Varsoke wrote in a performance appraisal. “Her patience and concern for individual differences are a few of her attributes.
For her part she was proud that Tim Kolojay and Tom Urbelis, members of Varsoke’s Fabulous Five high school basketball team in the 1962-63 season, were her students.
Collins retired in 1976. Her mother died in 1984. Her husband died in 1999.
When Collins moved into the Sarah Jane Sanford Home on Guy Park Avenue in 2004, administrator Jeanne So remembered “an agile 92-year old” who was “twirling in the hallway outside her bedroom door, wearing a flowing floor-length skirt.”
“I have never forgotten the way you had of instilling into young minds that we were all special,” wrote her 1934 fourth grade student Stanley Goscinski (Gordon) in a letter to Collins in 2011.
“My goal was to teach with enthusiasm and compassion,” Collins replied. “After this letter I feel my goal was achieved. Stanley you have given me everlasting youth through these memories.”
Before her death Collins moved to a facility in Quincy, Pennsylvania near her son and daughter-in-law’s home. She died April 8 at age 105. After services in Amsterdam she was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Fort Johnson. She is also survived by three grandchildren, two of them are medical doctors and the third is a teacher. Bob Cudmore’s guest on Talk of the Town this Sunday, March 24, 2019 on Magic 590 radio is bird expert Rich Guthrie. Richard has fascinating stories about bird migration and courtship plus advice, such as bring the bird feeders in if bears are spotted in your neighborhood! Listen Sunday at 6:30 a.m. to Talk of the Town with Rich Guthrie on Magic 590 and 100.5, plus 1410 and 96.9 in the North Country.
Jason Subik Facebook Feed Amsterdam Mid-Morning Talk Show https://www.facebook.com/jason.subik Jason Subik Show, WCSS Radio Amsterdam 106.9FM and 1490AM Wednesday, March 20, 2019 This Weekend in The Daily Gazette and on The Historians with Bob Cudmore Saturday, March 23, 2019-Today’s Focus on History in the Daily Gazette-Shawn Duffy’s memories of Shaughnessy’s Tavern in Amsterdam.
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