Summer Camp Fun For Fulton Kids

I spent much of my career running Camp Hollis, a children’s camp on the shores of Lake Ontario in Oswego. After attending the camp when I was younger, I worked my way through college as a Camp Hollis counselor, and then oversaw the facility while working for the Oswego City-County Youth Bureau. With so many of my summers focused on Hollis, I never knew that, at one time, the city of Fulton had its own camp for children: Camp SuSIE.

Founded in 1966, the camp’s official name, “Operation SuSIE,” stood for “Summer School Innovations in Education.” The program was the brainchild of several Fulton School District administrators, including Superintendent Glenn Clark. Back in 2014, I met Glenn through the Fulton Library’s Memoir Project. Glenn had agreed to write a memoir about his work with Fulton schools and here’s what he said about why Camp SuSIE was created:

“We determined that one important need for our children was an improvement in reading scores at the elementary level.  A city-wide survey was made to select pupils aged eight to eleven who needed help in reading. We surmised that one way to help those students was to have them spend two weeks in a camp setting, where they would work with a staff of teachers and other personnel to provide schooling, especially reading instruction.”

A 1968 Watertown Daily Times newspaper reported how Camp SuSIE succeeded from its very first summer: “Funds [are] from Title I’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act…Youngsters from Fulton Schools learn through the experience of living together, the constructive use of leisure time, the formation of positive health habits, and the study of academic subjects. It is the only summer school of its kind in the state, and has been termed a success by state education officials, school boards, teachers, [the camp’s] director, and especially the youngsters.”

Glenn Clark made special mention of the all-important leader of Camp SuSIE: “[We chose] Physical Education teacher Angelo “Buck” Godici, to direct the camp.  Mr. Godici later became known as ‘Mr. SuSIE’ in the community.”

A much respected Fulton schools faculty member, Buck Godici taught and coached from 1956 through 1981. Recently I asked Buck how the Camp SuSIE program ran. “We served 80 children for each of three two-week sessions,” he explained. “The first session was for the younger kids, nine and ten year olds; the second for 11 and 12; and the third for 13 and 14 year olds. To staff the program we hired two teachers, two college students and two high school students.”

Buck mentioned some of his staff by name and I recognized a few of them, including former Fulton teacher Tom Brown. Tom reminisced about working at SuSIE’s first location, Camp Totem in Harrisville, New York, a remote area near the Canadian border:

“We’d go up to Harrisville a couple weeks ahead of time and clean the camp up to get it ready. It was out in the woods and was really rough. They had a trough that we used for washing up and campers bathed in the Oswegatchie River.”

Over the years, Buck’s children also served on the staff, including his son Mike, who explained more about Camp Totem’s woodland setting: “All the buildings were log cabins or cobblestone. The camp had no electricity, so Dad hooked up a generator—a tractor engine—to run from dinnertime until lights out so the kitchen could clean up and the kids could get ready for bed. A pump provided water and only one building had a toilet.”

One the SuSIE staff’s jobs involved cleaning up after some unwelcome visitors. “One year, a bear broke into one of the camp buildings, ate our food and destroyed a cabin,” Buck recalled. “We had to hire a security guard to stay at the camp on weekends to make sure that didn’t happen again.”

After using Camp Totem from 1966-1968, SuSIE’s program was held at two other New York state locations: from 1969-74 at a YMCA Camp in Pawling, and from 1975-77 at Star Lake. Lots of Fulton teens and college-aged students had their first job experience as a Camp SuSIE staff member, including Alex Grimshaw.

 “I learned to live and work with people in a unique team environment,” Alex said. “I learned a lot about myself, how to work collaboratively with my peers, how to support the camp administrator, and how important it was to be a role model for the students.”

 My talks with other staff indicated that, along with reading help, the campers also learned about health and nutrition and received much needed supplies. “Each camper got a new pair of sneakers and sweatshirts,” Mike Godici noted. “It meant so much to them.”

When most of us think of camp we imagine it taking place in July and August, but as Mike pointed out, “SuSIE wasn’t a six-week program for Dad. He’d spend the entire spring getting kids to sign up by going door to door in Fulton. He’d come home with stories of houses with dirt floors and no toilets. Dad was excited for those kids to attend camp.”

Counselor Tonigail Warner Schurr spoke for many SuSIE staff when she said “Mr. Godici was an excellent camp director. He was kind and fair and had everyone's best interest in mind, especially the children. Camp always seemed to run smoothly with very few major issues. If there were problems, Mr. Godici handled them with his usual quiet reserve. The children had an opportunity that, in most cases, they otherwise may not ever have had. Great fun, great education and the experience of a lifetime. What more could you ask for?”

Among the paperwork I reviewed about Camp SuSIE was a report to the state on the program’s outcomes. It mentioned this goal: “When you strike a spark in a child, you give them a reason to hope.” Thanks to Buck Godici and his staff, hundreds of Fulton youth had the opportunity to spend a few weeks away from home, returning to our city with some of that hope.

Camp SuSIE campers and staff proudly wear their T-shirts

The Icemen Cometh

A few months ago, I replaced my refrigerator. It had more than fulfilled its duty, having given my family over 25 years of service. Other than coming up with the money, switching the older model for a new one was about as easy to do as reaching into the fridge for last night’s leftovers. I never really thought about what a luxury it is to have a refrigerator in my home until I learned about the workers who used to deliver ice in our city.

My opportunity to meet the descendants of those “ice men” came as a result of our library’s Memoir Project. For the last five years, the project’s goal has been to find people willing to share local history in the form of a memoir, which we publish as a keepsake book. The Project’s team selects a theme, and in 2014 we chose Fulton businesses.

Shortly after deciding to focus on Fulton commerce we got word from two people who had similar memories to share. Virginia Messerschmidt offered to write about her father, Joseph Growe, who once owned a delivery business known as Growe Brother’s Ice. Shortly after we heard from Virginia, three members of the Cavalier family—Fred Cavalier Jr., Mary DeLong and Pat Hine—came forward, willing to share their story of Fred Cavalier, who had a business known as Gardner’s Ice. Here’s how Virginia began her father’s story:

“Joseph Growe was an ice delivery man in the Fulton area from 1932 to 1948. At the time of his business, homes had no refrigerators and relied on delivery men to fill their iceboxes with 25- to 50-pound ice blocks that keep their perishables cold. My father had a 1934 Ford panel van with two doors in the rear that swung out to facilitate removing the ice for door-to-door delivery. In 1937, he formed a partnership with his brother Earl. It was known as Growe Brothers Dependable Ice and the brothers remained partners until Earl died.”

Virginia researched old newspapers to learn more about the Growe Brothers’ business. One advertisement showed Growe Brothers located near the current Towpath Towers building; another listed it a short distance from there, at 78 South Second Street. Further documents indicate its home at 158, 159 or 162 South Second Street. Virginia’s cousin, Clara Atkinson, remembers the ice house being in an alleyway next to Quirk Theatre. Virginia had an idea why there were so many Growe Brothers addresses: “My brother, Ed Growe, thinks he remembers the ice house being set on skids so it could be moved.”

Shortly after World War II ended, Virginia’s father got out of the ice business. At the time, metal was becoming more available to make refrigerators, so many people retired their iceboxes. Virginia’s uncle, Mert Gardner, took over the ice business in the same address, but with a new name: Gardner’s Ice. Mert’s family continued Fulton’s ice delivery story.

Mary DeLong: “My father had two trucks: a smaller truck, which he used for making his deliveries, and one for picking up ice at the ice house in Oswego, where the Foundry is today. That was a red pickup truck with a tarp over the back, and sometimes Dad would let us ride with him to pick up more ice. That ice house was huge and it was colder than cold in there. It had a chute that we used to slide down, and in the summertime we thought it was the greatest thing to go there.

“Dad would pick up 100-pound blocks of ice, which had a groove down the middle both ways so they could divide the blocks up into 25-pound pieces. He would fill the back of the pickup truck and put the tarp over it. The ice house also sold small ice cubes. They were too big for a glass, but you could hold one right in your hand. We’d always take one and suck on it while he was loading up the truck.”

Pat Hines: “His delivery truck had high sides so he could fill the whole thing and just peddle all day long. He used ice tongs to take the ice off the back of the truck, however much someone wanted.”

Mary: “On Monday morning Dad would take off and start his first route, going from house to house to ask if they needed 25 or 50 pounds. He had different routes, going to certain sections of the city on certain days.  He might have to go on some routes a couple of times a week.”

Virginia explained how customers could put in an order a delivery: “People would put a sign in their window for how much ice they wanted.”

Once orders were placed, ice men filled them, as Mary described: “I remember Dad chopping the ice, which he could do in a matter of a few minutes. Then he’d use his tongs to put the ice on his shoulder and carry it in.”

Virginia mentioned a friend, Anne Bodwich, who once lived on the Growe Brothers’ ice delivery route. “She remembers my father carrying ice on his shoulder up the steps to her second floor apartment. When my Uncle Mert owned the business, his son, Bob Gardner, said he remembered that his mother, Vivien, could find her husband by following the trail of melted ice on the street.”

My thanks to Virginia and the Gardner family for giving us a trail of ice-delivery memories we can follow back to our city’s history.

Fred Cavalier and his wife in front of the truck he used for years making ice deliveries to residents of Fulton.

A Lifetime of Teaching

Every so often, we hear about a teacher who has achieved a career milestone. Someone devotes 25 years to the education of children; another puts in 30 years teaching the same subject or grade level. These are certainly noteworthy accomplishments and recently I learned about one Fulton teacher who has reached a particularly impressive milestone. As this school year comes to an end, Renae (Cealie) Vehrs completes her 40th year as an educator.

I have known Renae since we were classmates at G. Ray Bodley High School. After graduating in 1973—hard to believe that was 45 years ago!—Renae earned her teaching degree at SUNY Oswego. Shortly after that, she began her 40 years as an Adult Education instructor. Today, Renae’s program is known as TASC, Test Assessing Secondary Completion, but most of us still call it the GED program. When it began in Fulton in 1978, Renae was its first teacher. Here’s how she remembers GED’s startup in our city:

“We first held the program at the old Fourth Street School building, and for a long time I was the only teacher. Then, in 1984, when I was expecting my first child, the district hired someone to take over. When I returned, they kept her on as a second teacher, and it was the two of us for a long time. After she moved away, the district approved hiring an aide, and we chose a student who had graduated from our GED program to fill that position.”

Eventually, Fourth Street School closed and Renae’s program was moved to the old Fulton Junior High, which today is the school district’s administration building. Over time, the school district brought on a second teacher, and then, in 1994, a third. As the program expanded, Renae and her co-teachers were serving more and more students.

“Because we are federally funded, there has never been any cost for our GED classes,” Renae explained, “and the process for adult learners to get help has not changed much over the years. We can take students as young as 16 and most people begin by stopping in or making a phone call to us. We register them and then they come in for diagnostic placement testing, which gives us a reading level and math level so we know where to begin. It also gives us a little bit of an outline on their specific math and reading skills.

“Almost every student I’ve worked with has told me how hard it was to make the initial appointment. For some, it has been many years since they were in school and it might be a bit embarrassing. Others aren’t sure what to expect if they do start. Will it be just like high school? How much time will they have to put in? Will they be able to keep up? But, once they enroll and register I tell them, ‘The hard part is over. Everyone is in the same boat here. This is an Adult Education Program and you will be treated like an adult.’

 “People always want to know how long it is going to take for them to pass the GED test. This is hard to determine. It depends on their level when they start, their effort, and the amount of time they can put into it. It could take a week or it could take years. There is never any assigned homework, but a student can take work home if he or she chooses. The more time and effort people put into it, the sooner they can take the test and be able to pass.”

For many years, Renae and the other GED staff have sponsored an annual Adult Literacy Recognition luncheon. Not only are people who have received their diplomas honored, but those currently in the process are also recognized. “It shows those who are still working that it is possible to complete the program,” Renae explained. “We also always honor one student with a special award. This is not necessarily someone who has received his or her diploma, but someone who has done exceptional work or, perhaps, has overcome some obstacle.”

I was curious how many students have been through Fulton’s GED program and Renae had the numbers for me. “As of 2018, we have graduated nearly 2,100 students, which averages out to about 52 per year since the year we started. This total is equivalent to about eight G. Ray Bodley High School graduating classes. In 1998, a record 114 of our students graduated in one year.  My youngest student who earned a diploma was 16. My oldest student was 73. She didn’t do it for employment or for college admission. She just wanted to achieve this for her own satisfaction. Occasionally, people call and tell us how much they have appreciated our help. They let us know what they are doing with their lives now. And, in recent years, we’ve been getting the children and grandchildren of people I had when I first started.”

Local service organizations sometimes recognize a teacher’s contributions to Fulton’s education system, and in 2011, our city’s Noon Rotary Club awarded Renae with their Pride in Workmanship Award. “The award was quite an honor,” Renae said, “but I do like people to know that this job has been a great fit for me. Because it was only part-time at the beginning when I had small children, it was perfect. It has stayed a great fit because it has always been about helping people achieve their goals.  That is certainly the best part of the job.”

Here in Fulton we are fortunate that our residents, young and old, have an opportunity to better themselves, as well as a staff of caring teachers to guide them. Congratulations to Renae Vehrs for her long career of giving to others so they can pursue a better life.   

Fulton teacher Renae (Cealie) Vehrs recently reached a milestone in her career.