Retelling of deadly 1937 fire spurs project to preserve Islip history through voices of older residents

Friends of Connetquot River State Park Preserve received a $4,000 grant for a project to chronicle and preserve the history and firsthand stories of older residents in Islip town.

The Long Island Library Resources Council awarded the grant for the South Shore Memories Project in January, said Janet Soley, president of the Oakdale-based nonprofit, which supports the park through preservation and conservation efforts.

Soley said she was inspired to launch the video project by 92-year-old Lorraine Mays, who, at a November event hosted by the Bohemia Historical Society, recounted her experience of a deadly 1937 brush fire that destroyed parts of where the park is today.

Mays died in early January before she could be interviewed for the project, Soley said. The lifelong Bohemia resident was featured in a Connetquot Public Library video about the hamlet. Mays, who attended the hamlet's original schoolhouse, was awarded an honorary high school diploma in 2017 by the Connetquot Central School District.

"I have a basic love of history and of this area," Soley said. "We take for granted so many things. Something inside of me says this is important and people need to hear this. … Stories need to be told."

Soley plans to produce six videos this year featuring local residents with help from a video crew and local historical societies. Friends of Connetquot plans to hold an open house in May for historical societies, which Soley hopes will generate project ideas.

Ray Lembo, the chairman and curator of the East Islip Historical Society, one of the groups involved in the project, said the recorded collections will bring "the past into the future."

Friends of Connetquot's project will be the latest oral history collection in a long line of firsthand accounts preserved by Islip Town residents, which was begun in the 60s by photographer Ethel Urbahn, "who went up and down the South Shore taking pictures," Soley said. Urbahn died in 2007. Of her 8,000 photos, Lembo estimates the historical society has 4,000.

"I would love to see them get the last remaining old-timers," Lembo said of the memories project. "Get their life stories on video. When you just let them talk … that’s the beauty of the video and audio recordings of the old-timers."

Soley plans to show the completed videos in the park's clubhouse lobby, which has roots stretching back to the 1800s when it was a gentleman’s recreational club for New York’s elite. The 3,473-acre preserve is home to the South Side Sportsmens Club District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Solely said the 10-minute videos will feature interviews with residents 85 years or older who have interesting or compelling stories about life in Islip Town. She asked local residents with fascinating stories to contact Friends of Connetquot.

"I want this to become something we do every year. What doesn’t seem like important history this year could be next year," Soley said. "You have to preserve these things."

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.