A parade sent wedding party outside
Benefits of ginger ale were touted
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 07-23-05
When did people start taking wedding pictures outdoors as opposed to a photographer’s studio?
Sophie Bodak Gomula of Amsterdam said her wedding pictures were among the first taken outdoors locally because of a big parade.
Sophie’s wedding to the late Stanley Gomula, who became a special investigator for the Amsterdam Police Department, was scheduled for September 15th, 1945 at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church. A Marine private first class who had served in numerous Pacific campaigns, Stanley was just back from the war. And because of America’s victory, city officials decided to hold a mammoth parade in downtown Amsterdam on Sophie and Stanley’s wedding day.
Their photographer, Emil Zillgitt, had his studio downtown at 13-15 East Main Street, which would have been inaccessible during the parade. Zillgitt suggested the Gomulas have their wedding pictures taken outdoors in his backyard on Locust Avenue. The photographer did their first year anniversary pictures in the same location and Sophie recalled that after that, outdoor wedding pictures became more common.
Zillgitt did house calls, said Amsterdam native Peter Betz, “The reason I know that is I have a picture of myself in a sailor suit taken at home by Zillgitt sometime around 1944. I was about two years old and vaguely remember the gent because he was a very humorous man who knew how to get a nervous kid to sit for him.”
Zillgitt’s name came up in a previous column because he took pictures of the Amsterdam Progress Exposition in 1925. He and his wife Eunice lived on Grand Street on Park Hill before moving to Locust Avenue. He died in the 1950s.
DRINK GINGER ALE
Several calls and emails came in response to the story on the Amsterdam Progress Exposition. Elizabeth Russo of Johnstown, who grew up in Hagaman, said she always wondered why her mother told her to drink ginger ale when she was sick.
The Exposition display created by Fitzgerald’s Bottling Works touted the health benefits of ginger ale. “The safest drinks--kills disease germs,” said an advertising poster.
The 1932 Amsterdam city directory stated that Fitzgerald’s ginger ale was for “the discriminate” and that the Fitzgeralds were “the people who made that good ginger ale.”
Fitzgerald’s Bottling Works was founded in 1882 and was located for many years at 465 East Main Street Extension, what is now Chapman Drive in the town of Amsterdam.
Harold Watermann, who lived on Fairview Place on Amsterdam’s Market Hill, worked for Fitzgerald’s until shortly before his death in 1971. “Hap” or “Watty” Watermann was a soda machine expert who traveled as far as Speculator and Cobleskill installing and fixing machines. Watermann’s son Bill said his father would lift soda machines off the back of his truck unassisted in those days.
Bill Watermann, who operates Amsterdam Auto Parts and lives in West Galway, recalled that Gerald Fitzgerald ran the bottling company and lived near the plant. Watermann said Fitzgerald was a generous man who gave to the YMCA. The 1932 city directory listed Gerald Fitzgerald as general manager of the bottling works.
Long affiliated with Pepsi Cola, Fitzgerald’s relocated to Freeman’s Bridge Road in Glenville in the 1960s. Apparently, the firm closed some years after that.
STILL THE SNOWMAN
The column from last winter about the two-story snowman on Amsterdam’s Locust Avenue in front of Firth’s Grocery in 1947 continues to generate interest.
Emil Suda of Amsterdam wondered how the snowman could be so tall: “It would have to be lifted into place on some kind of a stand along the snowman. Certainly it could not have been rolled and lifted by hand that high.”
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