Digitization Day

JK Green

James K. Green grew up in a house on the site of the Oyster Bay Historical Society’s Angela Koenig Research and Collection Center. The neighborhood was known as the Alley, or Tin Can Alley, and consisted of five houses, three of which were Green family residences. Reed and Chandler families lived in the other two houses.

Mr. Green recalls his early work experience in the 1940s, beginning at eight years old picking beans on the farms on Stillwell Lane in Syosset.

He could bring in fifteen bushels a day, at fifty cents a bushel.At fourteen he received his legal working papers and started nights as a pin boy at Oyster Bay’s Trio Bowling Alley on South Street, earning fifteen cents a line. Weekends he caddied at Pine Hollow Country Club.

Snouders Corner Drug Store in Oyster Bay employed Mr. Green at the business’s soda fountain—his first job out of high school—before he entered the Marine Corps in 1958.

Oyster Bay Bible School 1949

Bombers Club and Walter Smith (inset)

Bombers Club

Langston Francis and Son William

Langston Francis

Walter Smith

Gordon Maddox, Jr.

Gordon Maddox’s uncle John J Maddox was editor, chief contributor, and self-publisher of The Matter, a quarterly magazine whose mission was to “try and strengthen mutual respect and basic friendship toward each other, by using knowledge, education and participation as catalysts.” The first issue featured a profile of the editor’s brother Gordon Sr.

Gordon Maddox, Sr., boxed with the Police Boys Club and later with the company team at Grumman, where he worked for over twenty years.

After retirement he served as caretaker of the Hood A.M.E. Zion Church’s Pine Hollow Cemetery.

Gordon Maddox, Jr. traces his family back to his great-grandparents Lou and Mary Miller. Mary grew up on the Shinnecock reservation in Suffolk County and did domestic work at Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay. She lived to the age of 110 years. Her husband Lou was a veteran of the American Civil War. They are both buried in Cypress Hill Cemetery, one above the other.

The Matter (cover)

The Matter (page 3)

The Matter (page 21)

The Matter (page 22)

The Matter (page 23)

Ashly Carl

Ashly Carl’s father, David Allen Carl, attended Oyster Bay’s John F. Bermingham School, which first opened in November 1962. In that inaugural year, students composed brief essays predicting life in the year 2000 and contributed them to a time capsule. When the school closed in 1982, the capsule was retrieved but remained sealed until its opening, with great fanfare, in January 2001, during a Vernon School Town Meeting.

What I Think it will be like in 2000

I think there won’t be any cars and planes. We will fly around in anti-gravity belts and rocket-suits and little kids will fly them. We will go to other planets and the moon. Everything on earth will be modern. There will be more new kinds of medicines to cure sickness. That’s what I think it will be like. -- David Carl

David Carl and Francine Carl

David Carl and Marsha Carl

David Carl and Percy Carl

David Carl and Brenda Carl

What I think it will be like in 2000

Diploma (David Carl) Oyster Bay High School

Francine Seaman

Francine Seaman’s father, James Gordon Seaman, worked twenty-one years as a porter and custodian for Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in Bethpage, New York. His employer retained a Personal Information Form which collected data on his places of residence, relatives and dependents, educational experiences, and status of employment.

The company’s stated purpose was to allow the Personnel and Welfare departments to monitor an employee’s “family status and responsibilities” and to expedite security clearances. Grumman expected such information to aid the company in placing workers to advantage regarding job satisfaction as it might relate to an employee's skills and interests.

Manila and James Seaman

Francine, Artie, and James Seaman

James and Artie Seaman

James Seaman at Grumman

James Seaman with Artie Seaman and unidentified relative

Lillian Seaman

Lillian Seaman 1975

Manila Seaman holding Arthur Seaman

Manila Seaman holding Child

Three Seaman Sisters (1)

Three Seaman Sisters (2)

Certificate of Death, James Gordon Seaman

James Gordon Seaman, Personal Information Form

James Gordon Seaman, Personal Information Form (verso)

Suburban Rod and Gun Club

Patch, Suburban Rod and Gun Club

Denice Evans-Sheppard

Author and publisher Denice Evans-Sheppard has been at work researching the Carll family’s history by following narratives that her parents and grandparents have handed down to her. She currently lives in the house of Civil War veteran and family ancestor David Carll.

A board member of the Oyster Bay Historical Society and freelance contributor to the Oyster Bay Guardian, she owns Carll Hill Publishing Emporium, an outlet for developing writers to publish their work.

David Carll (m) Mary Louisa Appleford
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Frank Carll (m) Imogen Jackson
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Percy Carll (m) Geneva Lancaster
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Barbara Carll (m) Otha Evans
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Denice Evans

Armenia Carll Mayhew and Sam Mayhew on the Beach

Frank Carll

Herbert Carll

Jesse Carll at Supply Room

Joseph Carll

Joseph Carll in front of the Oyster Bay Pilot

Daisy Carll

Wilbur Carll

Peggy Carll Scrapbook

Kate Carll Potter, Peggy Carll, Joseph Carll

Edna and Jack Carll

Peggy Carll

Joseph Carll

Daisy Carll, Edna Carll, and Peggy Carll

Imogene Jackson Carll, Iris Carll-Williams, Millicent Williams (Stewart)

Percy Carll with First African American Band

Percy Carll in Boxing Stance

Percy Carll

Doretha Custis

Doretha Custis’s family moved to Oyster Bay from Virginia in the early 1930s. Her grandparents, parents and siblings worked in the yards and cars of the Long Island Rail Road.

The Hood A.M.E. Zion Church had a major impact on my childhood. I

remember as a child sitting in your pews, looking up to your balcony and seeing people sitting up there. Oh, the excitement that I felt when I finally made it up those narrow stairs and was able to look down at the people. That excitement still was nothing like how I felt, when I was invited by Reverend Nelson to sit in his pulpit and soon after invited to preach…