100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, Nov. 24, 1918. Two local women, including a Saratoga Hospital nurse, are hospitalized after their car collides with a Hudson Valley Railway trolley this morning, The Saratogian reports.
The nurse, Mary Flynn, is riding in the front seat of a Ford touring car driven by Robert F. Carman, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Winslow Carman, who share the back seat. Shortly after 10 a.m. the Carman car is heading south past the Hudson Valley station on South Broadway. Robert “evidently did not see the express car coming out of the yard,” a writer notes.
Fortunately, both the car and the trolley are “running at a slow rate of speed” when the fender of the trolley hits the front of the Ford. The Ford’s windshield breaks, inflicting a “severe cut” on Flynn’s face while Robert Carman is apparently unhurt. His mother “was badly bruised and suffered from shock,” but her husband apparently escapes noteworthy injury.
Slashing Affair at Mechanicville
A romantic rivalry turns violent this evening in Mechanicville, leaving one man in jail and the other needing a doctor’s care.
Sieto Colombi of 36 Second Street and Celestino DiGrario both claim an unidentified local woman. The men get into a fistfight this afternoon, with DiGrario getting the upper hand – or, more specifically, putting it in Colombi’s eye.
The afternoon bout is only round one for the combatants. Later this evening, Colombi gets the jump on DiGrario and slashes him across the back of his neck with a razor. Colombi is arrested while DiGrario is treated by a neighborhood doctor. While The Saratogian describes his wound as “serious,” DiGrario does not require hospitalization.
Dedicate New Hall at Mt. McGregor
The Metropolitan Insurance Company sanitorium on Mount McGregor celebrates its fifth anniversary and the dedication of a new recreation building today, The Saratogian reports.
Opened in 1913, the sanitorium is a facility for Met Life employees who suffer from tuberculosis. It currently houses 200 patients. The new building includes a 400 seat theater on its second floor. “It is modern in every respect with a splendidly equipped stage,” a reporter writes, “The theater is to be used for motion pictures, lectures and concerts.”
On the first floor, an “occupational room” will host classes in millinery, dressmaking, bookbinding, carpentry and other skills convalescents can use once fully cured.
A highlight of the celebration is the unveiling and dedication of an altarpiece mural for St. Mary’s Chapel by North Carolina based artist Elliott Daingerfield. The artist, sanitorium architect D. Everett Wald and medical director Dr. Horace J. Howk give speeches during the event.