Three Bronxville artists who created set designs for some of America’s top theaters at the turn of the twentieth century are featured in Volume 4 of The Bronxville Journal, released in Fall 2009. Dale Hanson Walker, great-granddaughter of one of the artists, has shared family mementos as well as memories in her lively story of this seldom explored aspect of theater history. Also in this edition is a biographical essay by Village Historian Eloise Morgan about a Lawrence Park resident who is said to have been the inspiration for the adventure hero Indiana Jones. Lifetime village resident Anne Fredericks reminisces about the election of 1936 when responses may have appeared subdued by today’s standards, but emotions also ran strong among many Bronxville residents. Local politics four decades later is the subject of an article by former Bronxville mayor Marcia Lee, who looks at the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s as well as other social changes of that era that helped reshape the character of village government.
Marilynn Hill featured one of the Hotel Gramatan’s many notable resident guests, Varina Howell Davis, widow of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who left a unique record of her hotel stay that is little known to Bronxvillians today. And, finally, this fourth collection of local historical essays showcases two other approaches to preserving history — the poetry of John Barr, a nationally recognized poet, and visual records from the portfolios of contemporary photographer Judith Watts Wilson and some of her Bronxville predecessors who have captured scenes of the village at different moments throughout a century of Bronxville history.
