The year 1919 was a year like no other.
Pancho Villa was on a rampage, drawing two units of the U.S. 7th Cavalry to drive him deeper into Mexico. Civil war raged in Russia between the Whites and the Reds, and here in the United States, more than 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were rounded up and jailed in 23 cities as part of the infamous Palmer Raids.
Congress ratified the 18th Amendment instituting Prohibition nationwide. It was the last year that American women remained disenfranchised at the ballot box before finally winning the right to vote in 1920.
British airships made the first transatlantic flights by dirigible in 1919. In major-league baseball, the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, and the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.
In Syracuse, Democrat Alfred Hovey was mayor and a sharp tinkerer named Joseph E. Burns invented the serrated knife.
On July 5, that year, Ken Hurst was born in Liverpool.
Reception Saturday at Post 188
One of Liverpool’s longtime community leaders, Ken Hurst celebrates his 100th birthday this weekend with a reception from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 6, at his beloved American Legion Post 188 on Cypress Street.
Ken has spent his century busily serving his fellow men and women, first as a meat cutter at the old Red &White store on First Street, then as a stateside soldier during World War 2, and later as a storekeeper on Second Street.
He became commander of Post 188 in 1957, was named Legionnaire of the Year in 1971, and co-chaired the annual Christmas in the Park event at Johnson Park in 1975. He was long active in Civil Defense and served 22 years as coordinator of Onondaga County’s Veterans’ Service Agency. In 1990, the local Chamber of Commerce named him the Citizen of the Year.
L’pool Willow Museum
As if that’s not enough, in 1991 Ken donated his family’s willow-weaving shop to the village and helped move it from its location in the backyard of the family home in the 800 block of Oswego Street to its present site, next to the Gleason mansion at 314 Second St. Yes, Ken wanted to share his experience with Liverpool’s glorious willow-weaving industry that thrived here from the mid-19th century until the late 1920s. That cottage industry sustained hundreds of families in Liverpool during that time, and as a child Ken worked in that little shed with his parents and siblings as they wove laundry baskets, hand baskets and willow furniture.
It’s now known as the Liverpool Willow Museum.
If you feel like chewing the fat about the good ol’ days, you can visit with Ken Hurst from 2 to 4 p.m. most Sundays this summer at Willow Museum, operated by the Historical Association of Greater Liverpool. The museum — which showcases tools, work benches, a vintage wood stove and plenty of woven baskets — is open Saturdays and Sundays through Aug. 26, and Ken and his daughter, Susan Blanding, greet visitors there on Sunday afternoons.
His superannuated state hasn’t dimmed Ken’s memory or his gift of gab. He enjoys discussing his family’s willow-weaving work, and he also fondly recalls old-time village characters such as mailman Pete “Jug o’ Rum” Prouty, the Jewish shoemaker Meyer Meyers, music teacher Bob Woods and boatmaker Adam Wagner.
Hope times two
Hope Café and Tea House, which blends Peruvian, Italian and American food with a global menu of coffees, teas, smoothies and other beverages, is opening a second shop down city.
The restaurant will be located at 357-59 S. Warren St. at the site of the former Vintage Love store at the corner of South Warren and East Jefferson streets. Owner Matthew Cullipher said the downtown café will open in late August or early September.
