LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - FEBRUARY 6, 2022 by Lynne Belluscio The Woodward Library will be opening a mini exhibit this month about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Trish Riggi, at the Library, in conjunction with the LeRoy Historical Society, is preparing a couple of quizzes that kids and adults can try. There is a trivia form that has to be filled out at the library. The patron with the most number of correct answers wins a prize. Visit the Woodward Library web site for more information. Trish and I talked about LeRoy and connections to both Lincoln andWashington, and of course, one thing that came to mind was that LeRoy has streets named after both presidents and they are located in “Presidential Acres.” Then I looked at possible topics for this Pennysaver article, and I’m overwhelmed at how complicated it has been to establish a “President’s” or is it “Presidents’ Day. (The apostrophe will be discussed later. Keep reading!) Here is a chronological list of events that led up to why we celebrate George Washington’s birthday on February 22. 1732 – February 11, George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia. (Yes, you read the date right. He was born on February 11.) In 1732, people were using the Julian calendar which traces its origins to the Roman leader, Julius Caesar. (After George was born, people switched to the Gregorian calendar.) 1752 – March, The European colonies of the Americas adopted the calendar change when their mother countries did. New France and New Spain had adopted the new calendar in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was applied in the British colonies in Canada and the future United States east of the Appalachian Mountains in 1752. (However, Alaska remained on the Julian calendar along with the rest of Russia until 1867, when it was sold to the United States. At noon on Saturday, 7 October 1867 (Julian), the date changed to Friday, 18 October 1867 (Gregorian). Although the Julian calendar was 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar, only 11 days were skipped because Alaska also moved from the European side of the International Date Line to the American side. (Hope you’re taking notes!) And then we need to discuss “leap year.” (This is an important fact to understand why George’s birthday went from February 11 to February 22.) Every four years, we have a leap year, when there is one more day in February, and one more day in the year. Adding an extra day every four years keeps our calendar aligned correctly with the astronomical seasons. (When George was born, they didn’t have leap year. And they certainly didn’t have daylight’s savings.) Adding an extra day every four years keeps our calendar aligned correctly with the astronomical seasons, since it takes 365.25 according to Earth’s orbit around the Sun (approximately 365.25 days) are not the exact same length of time. Without this extra day, our calendar and the seasons would gradually get out of sync. (Anyone know of someone, who’s birthday is February 29? Instead of being 40, they are 10.) How do you know it’s a leap year? All leap years are divisible by 4 - - well almost. The next leap year will be 2024. The last one was 2020. At some point, it was thought that instead of celebrating Washington’s birthday, it would be appropriate to celebrate March 4 – the date of the first inauguration. That never happened. 1879 – Congress decided it was time to designate February 22 a holiday for government offices in Washington, D.C. 1885 – Congress declared February 22 a holiday for all government workers, not just those in Washington DC 1951 – First attempt to create a “President’s Day” when a Commission was formed by Harold Stonebridge Fischer of Compton, California. 1968 - Congress decided Americans needed more three-day weekends. They issued the “Uniform Monday HolidayAct”, which officially moved George Washington's birthday to the third Monday in February. Funny note - - Washington’s birthday will never be celebrated on February 22. The holiday can only ever fall between Feb 15 and Feb 21. No fooling. 1971 – February 21 – President Nixon issued a proclamation declaring the first three-day weekend be renamed Presidents’ Day, and moved it to set aside to honor all presidents, “ - - even myself.” (Not all states celebrate Presidents Day, because they prefer not to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, because of his support of the Civil War.) Punctuation – Both the Chicago Manual of Style and MerriamWebster recommend using an apostrophe after the s. “The apostrophe belongs at the end of the ascriptive noun.” Alas, Congress didn’t check with the Chicago Manual of style or Merriam Webster, so legally, according to Congress, it has to be “President’s Day.” If you live in LeRoy, you know the other part of the George Washington story: What flavor of Jell-O did George Washington like? Cherry of course! His portrait is on the cover of the 1924 recipe book. We all know the story about George never telling a lie, and the cherry tree. The real problem with George and Jell-O, is that Jell-O wasn’t invented until 1897. George died December 14, 1799. Martha Washington did write down some recipes and she did include some recipes for cherries, although I have to be honest, I’m not sure there were any for cherry gelatin. And if there was a recipe for cherry gelatin, she would have had to start from scratch with grated isinglass (sturgeon bladders) or boiled calf’s feet. Hmmm. And of course, we all know that Martha wouldn’t have been sweating by the open hearth. She had others to do that nasty work. A Presidential Exhibit in February at the Library
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