Charboneau, Otter Lake, NY

Before WWII: Uncle Fred’s first uniform (1935-1939)

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Sepia Saturday 685. Sixth in a new series about letters written by my dad’s brother Frederic Mason Charboneau while in the US Army during WWII.

The last post explored the school days of my paternal uncle Frederic Mason Charboneau — who was six years older than my dad (Norman James Charboneau).

In 1935, Uncle Fred, 17, graduated from Forestport High School near his Otter Lake, N.Y., hometown after a successful school career in which he learned some business skills.

My uncle Frederic Mason Charboneau (c. 1939). Uncle Fred, 21, poses in his waiter uniform outside the Otter Lake Hotel. The Adirondack vacation spot was owned and operated by his parents (my grandparents) W. Ray and Mary (Owen) Charboneau from 1929-1947. Scan by Molly Charboneau

An unhappy waiter?

Where would Uncle Fred apply his education? Apparently at the Otter Lake Hotel, which was owned and operated by his parents (and my grandparents) W. Ray and Mary (Owen) Charboneau from 1929-1947.

That’s where he ended up wearing his first uniform, shown above. He almost appears to be standing at attention in the spiffy white jacket with dark piping and black slacks of a hotel waiter.

Yet in this photo, Uncle Fred has the same serious expression as in his 1932 school photo. Which made me wonder: Had he been pressed into working as a waiter by the needs of the family business? Was he unhappy with the assignment? Maybe so, since he brought significant office skills to his work at the hotel.

Uncle Fred’s business school training

Uncle Fred’s 1952 obituary says, “He was graduated from Forestport High School in 1935 and from the Excelsior School of Business in Utica in 1936.”1Rome, N.Y., Daily Sentinal, 13 Dec. 1952, Frederick Charbonneau (sic) obituary, p. 8

So in addition to learning bookkeeping and shorthand in high school, Fred went on to learn typing and other business skills after graduation — which would have made him invaluable in the hotel trade.

Of course, this information sent me looking for the school — and happily, in a 1935 business directory of Utica, N.Y., I found the above display ad for the Excelsior School of Business.2Utica, New York, 1935, U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line], Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 9 Aug. 2023), p. 350.

Fred’s oldest brother Owen Charboneau and his wife Aline (Des Jardins) Charboneau lived in Whitesboro, near Utica, at the time — so maybe he stayed with them while attending the school.

Since the ad gave the school’s address, I wondered whether the building where it was located still exists and was pleased to find a recent photograph, shown below. Although it no longer houses a school, the impressive brick edifice remains.

2022: The building at 1008 Cornelia St., Utica, N.Y., where the Excelsior School for Business was located in 1935. Source: Google maps

To me, the massive structure is a monument to a time when office skills were in high demand in the widespread manufacturing industries that were once the economic engine of upstate New York. What better alma mater for Uncle Fred in the years before WWII?

Up next: Uncle Fred registers for the WWII draft. Please stop back! Meanwhile, please visit the other intrepid bloggers over at Sepia Saturday.

© 2023 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.

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14 thoughts on “Before WWII: Uncle Fred’s first uniform (1935-1939)”

  1. I love how you do more sleuthing as you come across information! Love that you’re adding photos of what you’ve uncovered to bring it more to life! 🙂

    1. Thanks, Diane. This has been a fun research-as-I-go series so far. There will be more of that when I begin quoting from Uncle Fred’s letters. Stay tuned!

  2. It’s so satisfying when we find a current photo of a home or building that we know our ancestor spent time in. It always helps bring a story to life. He looks pretty spiffy in his uniform!

    1. I agree! I am always thrilled to find a family-related building still standing — and to imagine what it may have been like in its hey day.

  3. A great research tale, bringing your uncle Fred to life, and yes he looks very smart in his waiter’s uniform, but so serious. In my grammar school in the late 1950s -60s there was no option for any kind of business studies , but it served my daughter well in the 1980s. I did try learning shorthand on my own, but soon gave up !

    1. Your comment makes me wonder why US grammar and high schools had business studies options. Perhaps there was a shortage of skilled staff for businesses? I always thought shorthand looked cool — but unless you use it regularly, it might become hard to translate, especially years later.

  4. I took typing and shorthand in high school. The typing skills I learned still serve me well today. But uses for shorthand dwindled out long ago. At one point I thought of learning how to use a key punch machine. Glad I didn’t. Computers took over the business world so quickly it would have been time wasted. And you have to wonder what’s coming next . . . 🙂

    1. Dictation software seems to have eliminated the need for shorthand — even word processing programs have built-in dictation now. The last person I knew who learned it was a secretary at my job who took a course to get a promotion — although I don’t believe she ever used it.

  5. A school of business seems kind of quaint in the 21st century, but a century ago there were many business tasks and machines that required special training. Besides typing, there were key punch machines, printers, filing and cataloging systems, and many other things that are now handled by a computer. A few years ago I rescued an old adding machine, made in circa 1920, that someone had put out on the street. Though it’s powered by an electric motor, it is a heavy complex mechanical machine for basic accounting by adding and subtracting. The numbers are printed on a tape in black or red ink. It’s a marvel but must have needed a lot of skill to operate it and maintain accurate accounts. I has no “auto save”.

    And this week I though of your uncle as I was transcribing my postcard from the young man who was studying shorthand. Back in the day there must have been two or three business schools in every town. Who even teaches shorthand anymore?

    1. I notice the same thing in your blog post — another man learning shorthand! I think the office worker workforce was around 50% male at that time in the US, according to some stats I found online — so men with secretarial skills weren’t unusual then.

  6. Being made to stand still for a photo in his uniform certainly wasn’t making him happy at all! I do hope in his off hours from being such a skilled office person he had a chance to enjoy life. That’s neat that you found where the school was located.

    1. Yes, I was pleased that the building was still standing at that address — especially when so many have been torn down in urban areas.

  7. He doesn’t look happy in his uniform. Perhaps it was the summer between high school and business school. Maybe he was happy when not getting his photo taken. We can hope!

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