Newspaper history — ‘Eddie loved people’
Thanksgiving turkey leftovers could seem mundane after a couple of days, Adirondack Daily Enterprise columnist Eddie Vogt wrote on Nov. 26, 1952.
“Between the roast turkey and the cold turkey and the turkey hash and the turkey croquettes and, finally the turkey soup, I realize that I have quire a task before me.”
But he didn’t gripe.
“For I was not always rich!!” he wrote, with a hint of whimsy. “Like everybody else in show business, there were days when I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from.”
He recalled a November years earlier when he and touring vaudeville partner Frank Hurst were stranded in Pittsburgh.
They landed a one-day Thanksgiving Day gig at Toronto, Ohio, about 47 miles from Pittsburgh.
“And we pooled our resources and had for our noonday meal the cheapest dish in the cheapest restaurant in town,” he wrote. “It happened to be beef stew, and right then and there I made a vow never to complain about any food — if I was lucky enough to be eating.”
Vogt, a former long-time vaudeville, stage and film actor, also felt lucky to be healthy.
“Fifteen years ago today a young man from the city arrived in Saranac Lake to spend three months. I’ve been here ever since,” he wrote in his Feb. 16, 1952 column.
Vogt came to Saranac Lake in 1937 for tuberculosis treatment at Will Rogers Memorial Hospital.
He liked the community and, after recovering, decided to stay, working at the hospital’s laboratory and X-ray departments.
He wrote the “Our Town” column, daily for many years, and then weekly, for the Daily Enterprise.
He edited and was a columnist for Saranac Study and Craft Guild News, and hosted a weekly Sunday afternoon music show on WNBZ radio in Saranac Lake.
He directed the annual Saranac Lake Rotary Club show, and directed community theater productions.
He stayed in Saranac Lake despite the harsh winters.
“From all reports, when a couple starts housekeeping up here, one of the first pieces of furniture they buy is a thermometer,” he wrote on Jan. 26, 1952.
Eddie, as he was best known, had a remarkable wit.
“Thought for today: Worry is just a form of daydreaming, only instead of being the hero, you are the goat,” he wrote on Oct. 9, 1952.
“Thought for today: You never see any pictures of angels with whiskers because men usually get into heaven by a close shave,” he wrote on Feb. 27, 1952.
When Vogt died in December 1960 at age 71, the Daily Enterprise eulogized him as “the beloved Eddie,” known for his companionship with Clarabelle, “a dog of undetermined ancestry” who Vogt frequently mentioned in his column.
“Eddie loved people, and people loved Eddie. He left his mark; people still love him.”
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