Living in Greece Stories

Stories and recollections from the people, places, and publications that document life in the Town of Greece.

These articles offer perspectives on what it was like to live in the Town of Greece in the past. Many are from the archives or newsletters of the Greece Historical Society. If you would be interested in learning more about the Town of Greece’s history, please feel free to contact us at (585) 225-7221.

(These stories are the property of the Greece Historical Society, which retains all right thereto. The contributors to these stories provide them for non-commercial, personal, educational, and/or research use only. Prior written permission from the Greece Historical Society and the individual authors must be obtained for any other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publications, or any reproductions or redistribution of any kind.)

Share Your Stories and Memories

We love to read stories and memories by you or your organization. Submit a local history story or memory of growing up in the Town of Greece by emailing a zip file with your story and photos to greecehistoricalsociety@yahoo.com. Use the subject line: Share My Story of Local History or Memories Of Greece N.Y. plus your story title. Include a brief bio and one photo for publication.

Your story should be no more than 500 words. We can edit for continuity, grammar, and punctuation. Stories may cover one span or multiple spans: 1800-1850, 1900-1950, 1950-2000, and 2000-Present.

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Longtime Agricultural Farmland Transitions

May 1, 2023 |
Back in early Greece history much of the farmland around Long Pond Road north of Maiden Lane was owned by the Britton Family. Opposite this land down at 1048 Long Pond Road stood a stone structure, the first location of the Greece school where the Greece Methodist Church organized in...
Categories: 1800-1850 1850-1900 1900-1950 1950-2000 2000 - Present Guest Stories
Tags: 1924 Maiden Lane Arc of Monroe Arc of Monroe Foundation Bill Murphy Britton Family Britton Farmstead Clarence and Adrienne Preston Earl and Anna Davis Frank and Julia Herman Gene Preston Greece Common School District #9 Greece Methodist Church Herman Farm John and Eva Easton Judge Frank Herman Kenneth Preston Preston Circle Preston Family Farm Rochester Public Market Rochester Telephone Company Town of Greece 2nd Ward Councilman Tracy Crosby Tracy Petrichick Willis N Britton
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The Stories That Find You – Camp Sawyer’s The Well

February 1, 2023 |
Every historian knows that while researching a specific subject, it is not unusual to stumble on a completely unrelated subject that sparks your interest. One day, not that long ago, while looking for an obscure fact for a story I was helping someone with, I stumbled on a 1937 Greece...
Categories: 1900-1950 Corinthian Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1930s 1937 1943 1970 2018 Boy Scout Troop 14 Camp Sawyer Empire Clay Product Gilbert Holtz red sandstone Sawyer Park
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Paddy Hill School

January 23, 2023 |
Every year or so, with shifts in population, there seems to be changes where our children go to school, but change has been going on since children have been attending school. One hundred years ago, most Greece children attended one-room schools in one of more than a dozen individual school...
Categories: 1800-1850 1850-1900 1872 Common School Districts 1900-1950 1950-2000 Greece Central School District Living in Greece Stories Newsletter Archives
Tags: Bernard and Mary O’Neil Bicentennial-SnapShot Common School District Number Five Diocese of Rochester Greece Historical Society Harmon Poray Holy Sepulchre Holy Sepulchre Cemetery Corporation Latta Real Estate Corp. Maureen Whalen Milton Carter Monroe County Mt. Read Blvd. and Latta Road Paddy Hill School Patrick and Margaret Rigney Picturesque Drive Pioneer Families State Supreme court Union Free School District #5 William C. Pomeroy Foundation
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Frears' Garden Center

A Farewell to Frear’s Garden Center

August 21, 2022 |  and 
Frear's Garden Center Frear's Garden Center 1892 to 2022 130 Years of Local Gardening Expertise Gallery of photos at the end of the story The Frear family has been part of the Greece landscape for 130 years, 93 of them over four generations as proprietors of one of the town’s...
Categories: 1850-1900 1900-1950 Corinthian Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1892 Arthur Frear Barnard Crossing Clarence Frear E. Frear & Sons. Ernst Frear German immigrant Greece Maureen Whalen New York Stone Road Vick’s nurseries Warren Frear
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Greece Special Police, the Former Civil Defense Auxiliary Police

July 1, 2022 |
The Special Police Unit of the Greece Police Department was also known as Auxiliary Police. In 1951 the Federal government passed legislation that civil defense would be a vested joint effort between the federal government and states, to protect against communist government attack of the United States with atomic bombs...
Categories: 1950-2000 Guest Stories Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Defense Emergency Act of 1951 Greece Auxiliary Police
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The Dutch Mill – A Community Gathering Place

May 1, 2022 |
The Dutch Mill - April 17, 2022 Every community or neighborhood has a gathering place. Over time many come and go, they may change hands or change their name, but eventually something happens and the old place becomes nothing but a memory to the local old timers. Then there are...
Categories: 1900-1950 Dewey-Stone Area Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1932 1947 1948 1984 2016 2022 Ann Marie and Bob Simmons Barnard Fire Department Bertha Cox Chester and Sharon Ventura Cinema Restaurant Clam bakes Donald Hall Leon Cox Odenbach Peacock Room Old Mill old windmill Thomas Brierly Jr. Thomas Brierly Sr.
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Milton Carter

Milton H. Carter Park

February 1, 2022 |
What’s the story on….Milton H. Carter Park? Carter Park is a 12-acre recreational landscape located on Long Pond Road near The Mall at Greece Ridge. It hosts a playground, baseball fields, basketball, and tennis courts as well as an open pavilion. It is a representation of the long tradition and...
Categories: 1900-1950 Guest Stories Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1931 1960 1968 1970 Edna Carter Gordon A. Howe Greece Police Greece Volunteer Ambulance Milton H. Carter Milton H. Carter Park Ridge Road Fire District The Mall at Greece Ridge World War I World War I Veteran
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How Did the Term HOJACK Come to Be?

February 1, 2022 |
Established to serve the communities along the shore of Lake Ontario, a rail line founded in 1871 was active for nearly 100 years. Over the years the line was operated by several different rail companies and was officially known as the Lake Ontario Shore Railroad, but everyone called it the...
Categories: 1850-1900 Corinthian Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Arch Merrill HoJack Jack Welch Lake Ontario Shore Railroad William Aeberli
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The Ridgeway Air Park

January 1, 2022 |
For years during the 20th century, many communities in our area had their own airports ranging from grassy fields to paved run­ ways with hangers to store airplanes. Hilton had the Hilton Airport on Burritt Road. The Brizee airport in Pittsford was on Marsh Road. In Henrietta, there was the...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: "Power Puff Derby" 1947 1948 1955 1956 Army Air Corps veteran Britton Field Brizee airport Burritt Road Erie Canal Genesee Airfield Greece Aero Club Greenleaf Flying Club Henrietta Hilton Hilton Airport Honeoye Falls Hylan Airport Jim Earl Koda Vista Kuhn Road Latona Tract Lee Roads Leroy Marsh Road Monroe County Pittsford Richard (Dick) Kaiser Ridgeway Air Park Ridgeway Avenue Roy DeVal Salt Lake City Scottsville Road Shoremont The Greece Press Town of Greece Woodward Field World War I World War II WWI WWII
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Greece Demanded Decency- No Topless Bathing!

October 1, 2021 |
"Your Bathing Suit Must be Right Kind in Greece or You'll Visit the Judge" This was a headline in an August 1934 issue of the Greece Press newspaper. Of course, it was about modesty, but you may not have guessed it was directed towards men. It seems in the early...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1930s 1933 1934 1937 Chief Carter City of Rochester Public Safety Commissioner Democrat & Chronicle Greece Town Law Milton Carter Milton H. Carter The Greece Press Walter Cox West Coast
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Briarcliff Club Memories

July 1, 2021 |
Ration coupons, victory gardens, salvage drives, saving cooking fat, "buy bonds today." All familiar words to a home front generation during World War II. Unlike our wars since, World War II affected every single person in this country, and no matter what your occupation or financial status, everyone had to...
Categories: 1900-1950 Dewey-Stone Area Hamlets of Greece Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Barnard Except Home Barnard Exempts Boxart Street Briarcliff Club Briarcliff Rd clam bake Dewey-Stone Strathmore Drive Strathmore Drive Athletic Club Valleywood Club Victory Gardens World War II
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Bible School Association of Greece

March 1, 2021 |
Last year the Greece Historical Society acquired a handwritten book containing the secretarial notes and minutes of the Bible School Association of Greece dated 1905-1921. Kate Huppé, a recent graduate from SUNY Geneseo, offered to write this story about what she discovered reading these minutes. This year marks the one-hundred-year...
Categories: 1900-1950 Guest Stories Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1905 1906 1921 A. E. Truesdale Bible School Association Bible School Association of Greece Democrat & Chronicle Dewey Avenue Reformed Church J.J. Kelly Kate Huppé Mary Moall Michael Oberg Reverend J.J. Kelly Sunday School
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Leaving a Message for the Future

February 1, 2021 |
John J. WalshGreece Press1939 It is quite common here at the Greece Historical Society to receive a phone call or email asking a local history or family-related question, which we are always happy to help with. We also get calls about donating some precious antiques, family heirlooms, or other objects....
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: COVID-19 Democrat & Chronicle Gordon Howe Greece Democratic Party Holy Sepulchre Cemetery John J. Walsh Justice of the Peace Rochester OPA (Office of Price Administration) Control Board St. John the Evangelist Church Supervisor The Greece Press Times-Union Typographical Union No. 15
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Rotobowling Never Quite Caught on in Greece

January 1, 2021 |
In the late 1940s, as bowling was becoming more popular, the residents of Greece had several choices of where to bowl, including Boem's on Edgemere Drive and the Charlotte bowling hall on Stutson Street. Along the Ridge, there was the Lyon's Den, Damm Brothers, and Ridge Bowling, but with no...
Categories: 1900-1950 1950-2000 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1940 1946 1954 1956 1957 1960 AMF Barnard School Boem's Charlotte Cramer's Drug Store Damm Brothers Dewey Ave Donato Fasano Edgemere Drive Ernest Fasano Fasinos Frear Estate Gambling Lyon's Den Maiden Lane Maiden Lanes McCall Michael Fasano New York State Northgate Plaza Orville Whittle Pin Boys Pin Spotter Ridge Bowling Ridge Bowling Hall Rotobowling Sam Mink Schantz Construction Stone Road Stutson St.
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The History of Jazz 90.1 WGMC-FM

November 1, 2020 |
Did you know that one of the nation's last 24/7/365 public jazz radio stations resides in Greece, New York? Jazz 90.1 FM (WGMC-FM) has been an important part of the town's history since 1971, providing jazz and big band music, community events, concerts, public service programming, and instructional opportunities for...
Categories: 1950-2000 Guest Stories Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 24/7/365 2500 watts 47 years Board of Education meetings German Radio Program Greece Athena High School Greece Central School District Greece Town Board meetings Jazz 90.1 FM public jazz radio stations WGMC -FM
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