By Maggie Gordon
GUILDERLAND — Alice Begley has been a Guilderland resident for 51 years and the town historian for almost 10. She took the job because it "just melted in" with her passion for history, and reading and writing about it.

In her decade as town historian, Begley has written two books, and columns for The Enterprise. She has taught schoolchildren and spearheaded major projects like the restoration of historical markers and of the Schoolcraft mansion.

When asked what made her want to be a historian, Begley told The Enterprise, "I grew into it. I’m a historian and a patriot."
Begley grew up in North Albany. "The area was called Limerick, because the only people that lived there were Irish-Catholic Democrats," she said.

She lived in Limerick until she married her husband, Jim, a little after the beginning of World War II. Her late husband was in the Navy, and she followed him to the West Coast. When Mr. Begley had to leave on his Mine sweeper, Mrs. Begley returned to North Albany to live with her mother and father.

A few months later, she gave birth to her daughter. Begley’s husband got word of his first child through a chain of messages.
"His father," Begley said, "went to the American Red Cross and told them his son was in the Pacific and he had a new baby daughter. The Red Cross contacted the Red Cross in San Francisco — probably by phone — then the Red Cross is San Francisco ‘Morse coded’ it to the nearest ship in the Pacific.
"The ships kept rewriting the nearest ships that ‘Lt. Begley had a new baby daughter and her name is Alice. Mother and daughter are doing fine,’ until they got to the ship he was on," Begley said.

The baby was 10 months old when Mr. Begley returned to Albany.
"Shortly after he returned, we moved to Guilderland and built a house, which a lot of other service men and their wives were doing... All of us at the same time were just looking for a green spot," she said. "I still live there today."

Interpreting, informing, and interacting

She dove into a large project as soon as she began the jobas Guilderland’s town historian; she repaired and documented all the historic markers in the town. There were 34 markers in all, though two were missing. The task took about a year-and-a-half to complete, Begley said, even with the help of the town’s highway department.
"The markers had to be taken down, cleaned, sanded, and repainted," she said. "Some of them were in really bad shape. They were dented and that kind of thing."

After she had restored the markers, Begley wrote a book about them, which ran in segments as columns in The Enterprise. The book, entitled Town of Guilderland: Historic Markers, features an illustration of each marker as well as a page detailing the marker’s background. "It’s a great resource for teachers," she said. "For the history of the town."

That is not the only book Begley has written as the town historian. She co-authored Images of America: Guilderland New York with Mary Ellen Johnson. This book, one of a series published by Arcadia Publishing, provides a history of the town of Guilderland through photographs and their descriptions.
"The books and all of the things you do as a historian are important in some way," Begley said.
She maintains that books and historical markers are not the only ways to learn about a town’s history. "A cemetery is really a book on the history of the town. You’ll see many names of town supervisors — it’s really a history."

While cemeteries are an important part of town history, Begley maintains that they are not the center of her job.
"Everybody thinks my job is to find Grandma or Uncle Willie in the cemetery. The job of an historian is to interpret, to inform, to write public pieces and interact with schools," Begley said. "Most people think public historians are genealogists, but New York State mandates that they are not."
Begley would know. She was one of the first public historians in New York to be certified as a "Registered Historian." (See related column)

One of the most rewarding parts of her job, Begley said, is working with kids, and getting them interested and excited about history. She works mostly with fourth- and seventh-graders who are studying their local history.

Begley remembers one time when she worked with a class on a project involving one-room schoolhouses. The class was so enthusiastic about what they had learned, they decided to pretend that they were in a one-room schoolhouse for a day, bringing their lunch in sacks, and eating soup together in the classroom.

"Real gem"

Begley’s favorite project, above all, is "bringing the Schoolcraft House back to its original grandeur.
"Every town needs a few symbols to remind them of what was," Begley said. "It’s going to be a real gem."
When restoration work is finished, the Gothic-revival mansion will be used as a cultural center for the town. "It will be a symbol of what had been," she said. "And it will be wonderful for new generations."
The house, which is located on Western Avenue, was built in the 1840’s by John L. Schoolcraft, who later became a Congressman, and one of the original presidents for the bank now known as Key Bank. It is built in a Gothic-revival style, with asymmetrical peaks and roof lines. The siding is "faux brownstone," according to Begley.

The mansion stands out from surrounding buildings now, just as it did when it was originally built. The house, with its 1,000 acres, was across the Great Western Turnpike from the Guilderland Glass House, a glass factory from which Begley thinks most of Schoolcraft’s windows came. Schoolcraft’s neighbors were mostly workers at the glass factory, with much less ornate homes.
"The house has loads of history," Begley said, while showing off brick and plaster walls.

The town purchased the house in 1994, with the help of the Guilderland Historical Society, and Begley. She has stuck by the project since then. Before the purchase, the lot was set to become a parking lot for the Hamilton Union Presbyterian Church.
While recently walking through the mansion, Begley delivered facts off the top of her head. "There are five fireplaces...Yes, these are the original floor boards here...This is the original staircase...There were four apartments in here a few years ago...This is where the office will be — hopefully the office of the historian."

A tour through the house with Alice Begley revealed not only a one-of-a-kind building, but her own deep passion for her job. As she moved through the house, she explained different uses that rooms had had over the years, and her plans for them in the future, including the future tea room in brick-floored basement. Typically, in the mid-19th century, kitchens were located in basements.

Upstairs, in one of the former apartments, a dome-shaped skylight lends an aura of grandeur.
"Someone told me I might as well get rid of it," she said, looking up at the gray sky as rain pelted the glass. "I think it’s beautiful."

Making it happen

Begley spends a lot of her time at the mansion, especially during this phase, while Ed Zyniecki, a town employee, helps reconstruct the house, removing flooring, chipping at walls, and replacing the siding.

When she is not at the Schoolcraft mansion, Begley spends time raising money for the job. A brick walk leads up to the home, with bricks bearing the names of people and businesses who have donated money toward the project.
"We charged $75 for individuals and $150 for businesses," she said.

At Town Hall, where she spends every Tuesday, Begley works on grant applications for the property, getting estimates for the heating and plumbing, and securing some of the 19 paintings that Schoolcraft brought home with him from a trip to Europe 150 years ago.
"I found two pieces in a museum in Ohio," she said. "Another is in the Philadelphia Art Gallery."

She has already secured one portrait for the mansion, which was donated by Key Bank, four years ago. The portrait of John Schoolcraft hung in the executive offices at the bank, along with two of the other three original presidents. The painting now hangs in the supervisor’s office in Town Hall, but Begley hopes to move it to the front room of the mansion when it is up and running as the Schoolcraft Cultural Center.

Begley hopes to have the house ready for a reception Christmas Eve, when she will open the doors to the people who have donated time, services, and money toward the reconstruction. She hopes that, by that time, she will also have received enough donations to put up an historical marker in front of the building.

While there are plans for opening parts of the house for a reception, the house will still not be ready to be officially opened for a while — she is shooting for two more years.

Full-time job

While the Schoolcraft house takes a lot of her time as historian, Begley still tracks down people’s relatives in cemeteries, writes pieces about her town, and answers a heavy load of phone calls each day.

Her office has a desk, stacked with enough projects to keep her busy; and two filing cabinets loaded with old issues of The Enterprise and papers recording everything she has worked on in the past decade.
That is her Tuesday life. Mondays, she works in Altamont, where she serves as the village historian. "There are a lot of facets of being a historian and I try to cover all of them," she said. "I created a mayors’ wall in Altamont, with photos of mayors since the village was incorporated in 1890."

That project took her over a year, with the help of volunteers from the village.
While Mondays and Tuesdays are the only days she goes to an office, Begley said that being an historian is a full-time job. "It takes all my time," she said. "All week, every week, every day there is something connected with being the town historian."