Well, it wasn’t as warm or sunny as we’ve experienced some years, and not as dry as most. But the few showers that we had yesterday afternoon didn’t deter hundreds of kids and their adults from strolling the Village of Webster’s streets during this year’s Trick-or-Treat Trail.
More than two dozen businesses participated this year, as well as the Webster Museum and Webster Volunteer Fire Department, which always uses the day to host its annual open house. The costume contest, modified this year to become a Covid-friendly walk-through event, ran so smoothly that I dare say it might become the norm for future years.
It’s always great to see how much fun the kids have, and how proud they are of their costumes. But I especially like seeing how many adults dress up as well, often as part of a family theme. It’s one of my favorite days of the year.
Many thanks to all the parents who let me stop them in their tracks so I could take photos. There’s more than 150 in my Facebook gallery, so there’s a good chance you’ll see yourself and your kids, or at least someone you know.
I’ve posted a few photos here, but click hereto see the gallery.
Looks like the weather’s going to be a little bit iffy on Saturday, but nothing is going to stop this year’s Webster Village Trick-or-Treat Trail. ‘Cause we need this to help life return to normal.
As always, the day will begin with a costume contest, but this year it will look a little different. Instead of everyone crowding into the Village Meeting Room for photos and judging, participants are being asked to do a meeting room walk-through. Here’s what I mean:
From 11 a.m. to noon, contestants will enter the meeting room via the parking lot side of the building (behind the fire house), fill out an entry form, be given an entry number, have their photo taken, and exit through the South Ave. side of the building. After all the photos have been reviewed, winners will be notified on Monday Nov. 1. (And I’ll post the winners here as well.)
The Trick-or-Treat Trail proper begins at noon and goes until 2:30 p.m. Grab your kids, get everyone into costumes (including you, too, Mom and Dad), then stroll through the village, visiting friendly merchants who will be handing out candy. This is a great chance to check out some of the newer businesses in town, or even some older businesses you’ve never been in before.
And make sure you stop by the Webster Volunteer Fire Dept., because they’ll be holding their annual open house, complete with demonstrations, free fire hats, and candy of course. And turn the corner on Lapham Park to take the short walk to the Webster Museum. The volunteers there always have something special planned.
Keep an eye out for me and my camera; I’ll be wandering the streets, too, taking photos of as many kids and families in costume as I can. Then I’ll post a really big photo gallery on Monday.
Halloween is just a few days away, which means that Christmas is just around the corner. The Webster Museum is getting ready.
The Museum recently announced that their Festival of Trees will return this year in person. Last year’s virtual, photographic festival was okay, but it just wasn’t the same as being able to stroll through the museum and see all of the creatively decorated contestants up close and personal.
Here are the details:
Families, individuals, Scout troops, classrooms, clubs, organizations, ALL are invited to decorate a miniature Christmas tree using a family-friendly theme.
The trees are provided by the museum.
Decorating takes place after Thanksgiving and voting begins during White Christmas in the Village on Dec. 4.
Trees will be registered to callers starting at noon on November 1. Please call Kathy at 313-3709 and leave a message with your name and phone number so your call can be returned. Call early as number of trees is limited. Please be prepared to supply: caller’s name, email and phone number; decorator’s name, email and phone number; any special needs (location, lights, etc.) You’ll receive a follow-up email about dates/times to decorate.
The Webster Central School District has announced that Interim Superintendent of Schools Brian Neenan has accepted the position as Webster CSD’s new superintendent of schools. The board of education will officially approve the appointment at its Tuesday, Nov. 2 meeting.
Neenan served as interim superintendent of schools since April 30, 2021. Prior to that appointment, Neenan worked in a dual role as WCSD’s deputy superintendent (2015-2021) and assistant superintendent for instruction (2013-2021). He began his career in Webster as principal of Willink Middle School (2009-2013). Before coming to Webster, he served as an assistant principal at Victor CSD’s junior high school for four years.
The Webster Recreation Center is hosting a Halloween-themed fitness event this Saturday morning, and everyone is invited regardless of fitness level or Rec Center membership.
The HIGH Fitness class will run from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., and participants are encouraged to wear costumes (although they’re not required). There will be drawings for prizes at the end of the class.
HIGH Fitness is a modern-day choreographed aerobics class that combines cardio peaks, toning tracks, and popular music. Athletic shoes are required and all fitness levels are welcome. The Webster Recreation Center is the only facility in Wester New York that currently offers HIGH Fitness.
No registration is required and Rec Center members and non-members are all welcome. The Webster Recreation Center is located at 1350 Chiyoda Dr., off of Phillips Rd.
Webster Museum’s Exhibit Committee has curated an exhibit called “Living off the Land.” Artifacts from the museum’s extensive collections, many of them donated by Webster residents, are on display both in the museum’s display case at the Webster Library and at the Webster Museum. The exhibit tells the story of folks who settled here and the items they brought, made or invented in order to make a life for themselves and their families.
The Webster Museum, 18 Lapham Park in the village, is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 pm.
And as long as we’re talking about the library, I just got word about three great adult programs coming up soon.
Thursday Nov. 4, 7 to 8 p.m. — Discovering Your Roots: an introduction to genealogy and planning a geneaology vacation.
Wednesday Nov. 10, noon: Medicare 101, an introduction and update to the federally administered health insurance program
Wednesday Nov. 10, 7 to 8 p.m. — Dream Cakes Cookie Decorating: learn some decorating tips and tricks and amaze your friends and family
Pre-registration is required and there is a $10 charge for the cookie decorating class. Click on the images below for more information.
Finally, a few newsy notes from our neighbor to the south.
Annual Arts and Craft Fair at Penfield Community Center
The Daytime Education at Recreation (DEAR) program at Penfield Recreation will be hosting its second annual Arts and Craft Fair on Saturday Nov. 6 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Penfield Community Center, 1985 Baird Rd.
This event will showcase 53 vendors from around Monroe County selling their hand-crafted wares. Admission is free and is open to the public. Masks are required for this indoor event. Refreshments will be available.
This event is a fundraiser to support the DEAR program at Penfield Recreation, which provides free life-long learning opportunities to seniors in our community.
For more information call Penfield Recreation at (585) 340-8655, option 0.
Penfield Ecumenical Food Shelf needs turkeys
Once again this year, the Penfield Ecumenical Food Shelf will be collecting frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
Food Shelf staff are especially requesting turkeys from 8 to 14 lbs., which are the best sizes for their families in need.
Drop off for Thanksgiving will be Saturday morning Nov. 20 between 7:30 and 8:30am at the Food Shelf, 1618 Jackson Rd. Drop off for Christmas will be Saturday Dec. 18 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., also at the Food Shelf. If other arrangements are needed for dropoff, email penfieldfoodshelf@gmail.com.
Turkeys will soon be on sale at local grocery stores, so this would be a great time to pick up an extra one and help those in our community who have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. The Food Shelf’s family numbers have increased quite a bit this year, as you can imagine; they’re planning on providing 225 families with dinner for each holiday.
I had another mini-mystery on my hands a few days ago. But unlike the mystery I tackled back in September — the origin of the James Carnevale Bike Trail signs — this quest was joined and solved within just a few hours.
It concerns an historical marker placed in front of a stately home at 757 Holt Rd. which recognizes the home as the birthplace of Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, a prominent doctor and author.
Last Sunday I got an email from B. Benson about that sign, who wrote,
During the weeks of summer, every time I passed the Dr. Holt house on Holt Rd., I thought about repainting the faded words and colors of the historical marker located on the property. It is an important piece of the medical history and of Webster. Dr Holt was an important player in the discovery of milk-related illnesses and other diseases in children.
Driving past again this week, I saw an older man in gray trousers, white shirt, paintbrush in hand doing what needed to be done: repainting the sign, dark blue background, and yellow lettering. It looked awesome when it was finished. I would like to thank him for preserving and educating others on Dr. Holt since it now can be clearly read.
I suspected my contacts at the Webster Museum might know something about it, so I forwarded the email to Kathy Taddeo, a museum volunteer and someone on whom I’ve come to rely for all things Museum. She, in turn, beat the bushes by forwarding the email to all of her Museum contacts, volunteer and otherwise.
Just three hours later, Kathy got an email from Town Councilman Barry Deane, who wrote:
I have been dealing with this effort for months. A gentleman inquired as to if he could rehab this sign. It was weeks of communications with Monroe County, some research, and acquiring a permit to do the work. We stayed diligent and finally were able to get the permit and the coloring.
After a few more emails, I tracked down that gentleman, and we met for a very nice conversation at — appropriately — the Webster Museum.
He is Webster resident Charlie Fallon, who explained how the project came to pass.
I’m staying with a friend (nearby). We do a lot of walking. When we walk in that direction I would think, “this sign is in tremendous disrepair compared to the other county signs.” So I did some research on Emmett Holt and he seemed like a pretty interesting guy.
His next step was to get in touch with the town, and Councilman Deane became his contact on the project. Deane consulted with Webster Town Historian Lynn Barton to nail down what the exact colors should be, and secured the proper permissions from the county. Then, once he gave the green light, Charlie said, “I could just go ahead and do the work.”
For about three weeks, Charlie worked a little bit almost every day on the project. Most of that time was spent on prep work, he said. The sign needed a lot of sanding to get rid of years of rust and grime. As he worked, several people stopped to admire his progress and thank him for his efforts.
When you talk to Charlie, though, you get the sense that to him, it was no big deal. It was just something that needed to be done, like his work with Foodlink and other worthy causes.
“I’m not the most ‘volunteerist’ guy,” he claimed, “but I like to do stuff. I like to be useful.”
“It was just a pleasant project to do.”
The Democrat and Chronicle published an article about Dr. Holt several years ago. If you’d like to read more about him and the difference he made in saving childen’s lives, click here.
Very few of my blogs have gotten as many comments as the one I posted a few weeks ago about James W. Carnevale. I told the story of my quest to find out who he was and why Webster named a bike route after him.
For those of you unfamiliar with that blog, my search was prompted by a sign at the Webster Museum, seen here. The Museum Ladies didn’t know who he was, so I started doing some research. Eventually — with help from many others — I found out a lot about Mr. Carnevale. Plus, we figured out where the bike route is and have a pretty good theory as to why it was named after him.
It was a really long blog, guiding my readers through the whole story of how we tracked down information, bit by bit. I wasn’t sure many people would be interested enough to read all the way to the end, but clearly many did, because I got a lot of delightful comments.
A few people recalled the bike route from when they were young. Bru B., for example, wrote
In 1968 when I was twelve, I remembered a news report (? channel 8 way back Bob Mills era) that this was one of the first bike trails as an organized function using the side roadway in New York State. It was the first time I noticed part of the road on the side just for bikes.
Back then it was special. It was more noticeable on Klem Rd because we went from Greece through Sea Breeze (after eating a Vic & Irv’s) to go to the cider mills on Five Mile Line Rd. so we used Bay to Klem to Five Mile. I remember those signs well. Some are still around as you have seen.
Cindy F. also reported that she “rode all the routes as a teenager,” and still sees the signs around town.
Others are still making local connections. Deputy Village Clerk Jo O’Neill noted that the village’s chief wastewater plant officer, John Carnevale, might be related (turns out he isn’t, though). Charlene wrote that she never knew James W., but worked with his wife Nancy at the Webster Public Library and went to school with their son Matt.
This adventure may not be over. As more people find the original blog, I might get even more comments, and more connections might be made. I’d love to hear from anyone who might know something about Mr. Carnevale, so we can continue to find more about his life and his bike route.
The Village of Webster’s latest turn on the local television news stations leads today’s mailbag.
Spectrum News recently got wind that the Webster Museum has just reopened, and reporter Wendy Mills visited several days ago to find out more. She met with Museum president Tom Pellett, from whom she got a thorough tour of the facility and a great interview.
The piece aired earlier this week on Spectrum, but has also been posted to the website, You can click here to see it.
And since we’re talking about the Webster Museum, now’s a great time to remind everyone that the museum’s annual Barn Sale is taking place this weekend, Friday and Saturday Sept. 17 and 18, at 394 Phillips Rd.
This really cool sale features vintage farm goods and furniture, toys, books, holiday goods, household goods, jewelry, glassware and more. You’re sure to find something to love.
The sale will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, and everything is half price on Saturday — or you can fill a bag for $5. This is the museum’s biggest operating expense fundraiser, so stop on by, find a treasure, and help them out.
A few notes from the Town of Webster:
The Town’s spray parks are now closed for the season. We can hope that summer is not quite over yet, but even if it hits 90 again, the kids can’t cool off at the spray parks until next year.
If you’re tired of putting up with abandoned homes in your area, the Town of Webster has given you some recourse to get them taken care of. If you suspect a home in your neighborhood has been abandoned, you can report it to the Town using a link found at this website. The site will also give you more information on what actually contitutes an abandoned home.
The section of Lake Rd. between Shipbuilder’s Creek and Stoney Creek Run is now open again after completion of a three-month construction project. You can check the status of upcoming construction projects and road closures on the Town of Webster website.
Looking ahead to October, Rochester Challenger Miracle Field will host an Art Exhibit on Oct. 1 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at CDS Life Transitions, 860 Hard Rd. in Webster. This will be a silent auction featuring artwork created by local artists with physical and developmental challenges.
The Pride of Webster, Webster Marching Band will hold its 35th annual Autumn Fanfare on Saturday Oct. 9 from 5 to 9 p.m. This is always a spectacular display of talent from several schools in the Greater Rochester area, and if you haven’t seen one of these shows before, you should attend this year. The theme is “Unbroken,” which should conjure up all sorts of special props and effects. More info to come as the date gets closer.
Also that same evening, the Village of Webster will host its third Family Game Night and Beer Garden on West Main St. More to come about this as well, but if you can’t make it to the Autumn Fanfare, put this on your calendars.
Busy weekend coming up, starting with the HUGE Webster Jazz Festival, which hits the pubs and streets on Friday and Saturday. Check back here tomorrow for more details about that, but here are a few other events coming up this weekend as well which might interest you:
The Webster Museum’s annual Barn Sale takes place this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 394 Phillips Rd.
This really cool sale features vintage farm goods and furniture, toys, books, holiday goods, household goods, jewelry, glassware and more. You’re sure to find something to love.
The sale will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each of the three days, and on Saturday, everything is half price — or you can fill a bag for $5. This is the museum’s biggest operating expense fundraiser, so stop on by, find a treasure, and help them out.
ALSO, the Webster Museum’s outstanding Ward Mann exhibit, highlighting one of Webster’s most famous artists, will be closing soon.
The museum is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30, and the last day you’ll be able to see the exhibit is Saturday Sept. 25.
The Webster Public Library has a very cool poster exhibit of its own right now. It’s called “September 11, 2001: The Day That Changed The World.”
The posters are provided courtesy of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, which explains,
“This educational exhibition recounts the events of September 11, 2001, through the personal stories of those who witnessed and survived the attacks. Told across 14 posters, this exhibition includes archival photographs and images of artifacts from the Museum’s permanent collection.”
The exhibition is on display through during normal library hours. You can also download the exhibition digitally here.to see it online. The library is located at 980 Ridge Rd., at the rear of Webster Plaza.
The library, by the way, is conducting a search for a new director, and they’d like the community’s input. Click here to complete a short, three-question survey to let your voice be heard.
Here’s a reminder about a super-fun event coming up this Saturday at the Rec Center. It’s the first-ever Family Mud Run, obstacle course and fitness trail. The flyer with all the information is above, but basically, we’re talking a non-competitive, untimed, half-mile slog through water and mud, with some challenging obstacles. It’s only $5 per person, and there’ll be giveaways and snacks afterwards.
Can you imagine how delighted your kids will be if you tell them, “Hey guess what? Why don’t we all go down to the rec center, run through some mud puddles, and get super dirty…just for fun?!?!” Bonus points when they find out you’re going to do it with them.
Click here to see a little teaser video giving you an idea of what the Rec has planned.
You’ll want to register ahead of time, and choose a time slot between 10 a.m and noon. Register for program #301202 on the Parks and Rec website.
Finally, here’s a useful tidbit from our friends to the south.
Penfield Rotary and Penfield Recreation will sponsor the annual Community Bike Drop on Saturday, October 2 at Penfield Community Center, 1985 Baird Rd. from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Keep those old or unwanted bikes out of our landfills by donating them to a good cause. All bicycles collected will be donated to R Community Bikes, Inc. for repair and redistribution to needy children and adults in the Rochester area. All types of bikes are needed, including children’s tricycles, toddler plastic bikes and bike parts. Receipts will be available.
R Community Bikes, Inc. is a grassroots 501c3 organization that collects and repairs used bicycles for distribution, free of charge, to Rochester’s most needy children and adults. Its mission is to meet the basic transportation needs of those in the community who depend on bikes to get to work and training sessions, as well as for recreation.
If you think you know the Webster Museum, read on, because you haven’t seen the new and IMPROVED Webster Museum.
This Saturday Aug. 21, the museum is opening its doors to the public again after a long hiatus thanks to the pandemic. And boy, is it looking spiffy, both inside and out.
The first things that will greet visitors on Saturday are two gorgeous gardens that flank the front door. Volunteers worked for weeks weeding the overgrown and unsightly gardens, prepping the beds, then choosing and planting a beautiful variety of shrubs, annuals and perennials in anticipation of this week’s grand opening.
The spiffiness continues inside, where display cases have been refurbished, walls have been painted, and exhibit spaces have been re-imagined. Many of the tried-and-true exhibits, especially those representing Webster’s basket-making and apple industries, have remained pretty much the same. But several other exhibits have been updated or changed out, and new ones are being planned highlighting Webster’s bakeries, dairies and gas stations.
Webster Museum president Tom Pellett reports there have also been other, less evident changes. “The museum is also “revamping our attack … to be more educational,” he said.
“We (older folks) are getting to be the only people who actually went into the old stores in the exhibits,” he explained. “There are a lot of people who arrived late, like in the 70s, that have no idea what some of the older areas were like here.” Plans include adding audio-visual components to help support that mission.
The museum kicked off its grand re-opening with a special members-only event last Sunday introducing the current exhibit, honoring the life and works of Webster artist Ward Mann. In a half-hour presentation, Ward’s son Craig — who flew up from North Carolina — and former art teacher Dick Kane detailed Mann’s early life, career as a Xerox engineer, and how he ultimately discovered his true passion: art.
Mann was a talented, versatile and well-known artist who lived and worked and painted in Webster from 1961-2005 and also had a studio in the artist colony at Rocky Neck, Massachusettes.
A team of 20 volunteers worked for months conducting research, coordinating with the Mann family, gathering the materials and compiling the exhibit. The result is an impressive presentation which includes 21 original Ward Mann canvases displayed throughout the museum, original sketchbooks, biographical information and a slideshow of many more pieces from Mann’s collection. The pieces on display represent all of Mann’s chosen media: sketches, watercolor, oil and pallet knife.
At the event, Pellett noted that it’s been 17 months since “the door slammed shut” back in March 2020. It was an unfortunate situation, but he added that being closed for so long “allowed us to do some things not normally done because of visitors.” Still, he added, “It’s so good to be back.”
Ironically, when the museum closed those many months ago, staffers were readying a brand new exhibit which would have introduced the community to a famous and highly respected local artist: Ward Mann.
“The public never saw it,” Pellett said. The downtime, however, clearly helped museum staff members build an even more in-depth and meaningful exhibit.
The Webster Museum will welcome the public back on Saturday, Aug. 21 from 2 to 4:30 p.m., then again on Saturday Aug. 28. Regular museum hours will resume in September, when the museum will be open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 p.m. The Ward Mann exhibit will be here for just six weeks, so don’t miss it.
The Webster Museum is located at 18 Lapham Park in the Village of Webster. Admission is free, but donations are always welcome.
Below are two of the paintings in the Ward Mann exhibit, and a slideshow of some of the other museum exhibits and gardens.
These two paintings are on display along with 19 other original works, memorabilia and hundreds of slide-show images of works not on display. Ward himself donated MINUTEMAN to the Webster Museum in 1977. Ward’s sons Craig and Kim donated ROCHESTER JUNCTION at the installation of the exhibit.
The Webster Museum before its garden transformation
In anticipation of its re-grand opening next month, the Webster Museum is getting a facelift, both inside and out.
Inside, display cases are being refurbished, walls are being painted, and exhibit spaces are being re-imagined. Visitors won’t see those improvements for several weeks yet. But the beautiful updates being made OUTSIDE the museum are a different matter.
Thanks to the hard work of museum volunteers and Village staffers, the two gardens that flank the museum’s front door have been totally transformed. Not only have the weeds been yanked and all the old mulch raked out, but unsightly old shrubs, bushes and roots have been removed and replaced with a beautiful collection of new plantings.
The replanting project started innocuously enough when a few volunteers got together to weed the front gardens. Conversation soon turned to how nice it would look if some of the older plantings were removed and new ones put in their place. Things started to get really serious when museum volunteer Diana Strassman did some research and pulled together an entire list of historically accurate plantings which they could consider choosing.
The project got yet another boost when Jude Lancy, the Village Board museum liaison, got wind of the discussions and enlisted the Board’s support.
The first step was to get the existing gardens cleaned out. Superintendent of Public Works Jake Swingly and several of his staff members made quick work of that, doing the heavy lifting (literally — they had to move some antique farm implements out of the way first), and preparing the beds by clearing out the old mulch and plantings.
The Village team (L-R): Brandon Boutillier, Jim Scott, Dan Bortle, Mike Bradshaw, Mike Northrup, Jake Swingly. Not pictured: Jim Clancy
Then, a few days ago, museum volunteers convened at Welch’s Greenhouses to purchase the new plantings.
And here’s another “Why I love Webster” moment: Welch’s DONATED $500 in plantings and labor. Not only that, museum volunteers opened up their own wallets to purchase about $200 more in additional plantings.
Wow.
The same day the volunteers were at Welch’s purchasing their plants, Welch’s owner Bill Vendel and his helper Jake Wilhelm were already at the museum, planting the ones they had donated. By early next week, everything should be in the ground and Swingly and his team will have topped off the job with some new mulch.
Welch’s Greenhouses owner Bill Vendel
Jake Wilhelm
When it’s all done, the new gardens will sport a wide and colorful variety of shrubs, annuals and perennials, including hydrangias, junipers, euonymous, weigela, sedum, and more. It’s going to be a spectacular and beautiful welcome for museum visitors.
Check it out for yourself when the museum reopens to the public on August 21 and 28, 2 to 4:30 p.m. Regular hours will resume on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in September. The Webster Museum is located at 18 Lapham Park in the Village of Webster.
Here’s a gallery of photos from the plant-purchasing expedition to Welch’s:
Just some of the final plantings chosen
Cherie Wood taking a closer look at a possible choice
Welch’s donated $500 in plants and labor to the museum garden project.
Diana Strassman (left) confers on the master planting plan with Kathy Taddeo and Terry Crumb.
Village Trustee Jude Lancy (right) discusses options with Welch’s staff member Brianna Kane.
The Webster Museum is opening again! The Webster Museum is opening again!
After a long hiatus thanks to the pandemic, the Webster Museum will be opening its doors to the public again in August, on Saturday, Aug. 21 and Saturday Aug. 28, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. both days.
Regular museum hours will resume in September, when the museum will be open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 p.m.
The opening exhibit will feature the paintings of artist Ward Mann, who lived, worked and painted in Webster from 1961 until his death in 2005. His family has generously provided many of Ward’s paintings for this exhibit, memorabilia from his studios in Webster and in Rocky Neck, MA and slide shows of many of his other works.
Visit the Webster Museum website to find out more about this exhibit and some fascinating Webster history (I especially enjoy the blog).
The Webster Museum is located at 18 Lapham Park in the village.
I feature the people and places and events that make Webster the wonderful community it is — and throw in some totally-not-Webster-related personal ramblings every once in a while as well.
I love it when readers send me news about the great things happening in their schools or the community, so please email me anytime at missyblog@gmail.com
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