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Dr. Melvil Dewey, noted educator and librarian, died Dec. 26 at Lake Placid Club, Florida. Immediate cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage.

On Dec. 10, Dr. Dewey had celebrated his 80th birthday in good health.

Born in Adams Center, New York, in 1851, he graduated from Amherst in 1874 and with a master’s degree in 1877. He later received his LL.D. from Syracuse and Alfred. His first wife, Annie R. Godfrey of Milford, Massachusetts, whom he married on Oct. 19, 1878, was his helpmate through many active years and was, with him, co-founder of the Lake Placid Club in the Adirondacks, which they opened in 1895. Mrs. Dewey died in 1922.

In 1924, Dr. Dewey married Emily McKay Beal, who survives him and who was with him at the time of his death, having been co-founder with him at the Lake Placid Club in Florida, established in 1927.

While a student at Amherst and acting librarian there, Dr. Dewey devised the Dewey Decimal Classification for libraries, which is now used in 95% of the public libraries and in 20 nations.

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Raccoon Santa gone

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A pet raccoon owned by attorney James J. Byard Jr., of Oneonta, trained herself to act the part of Santa Claus, but, alas, Christmas 1931 will arrive without the finished performance being staged in the Byard home. So, Mr. Byard informs the Conservation Department, in writing that he will no longer require a permit to keep the pet, as she has vanished into the wilds.

Mr. Byard says his raccoon was partial to climbing down chimneys. Unable to enter the garage through the door, she would scramble up a tree, drop to the chimney top and descend to the warm interior. Not only did she practice this trick on the Byard garage but on that of a neighbor, as if in training for Christmas eve.

The raccoon’s method of attracting attention was to rattle the silverware in the kitchen sink. She would also wash all her food in the sink, after learning to turn on the tap.

When maturity arrived and the mating season was well underway, the young lady ventured into the wilderness, probably never to return.

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Planes on lake

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Three airplanes on Mirror Lake were the center of interest on Tuesday, the ever-curious crowd gathering about them so thickly that it was with some difficulty that a way could be cleared for a takeoff.

D. P. Church of Canton was here with a trim little monocoupe which lined up beside a Travelair piloted by Gus Schwartz. This plane was from the Curtiss-Wright field at Valley Stream. Mr. Schwartz returned to New York on Tuesday evening with a passenger who has been spending several days in Lake Placid.

With these planes was one stationed here throughout the year, piloted by Fred C. McLane.

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LPN archives

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Explore the Lake Placid News archives for yourself on the NYS Historic Newspapers website: https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org.

Issues span from 1914 to 2008.

Browse the newspaper issues by date or conduct a search.