RANDOLPH — Thanks to the generous donation of his family, the photojournalism work of the late Jack Berger will soon be on display at the Randolph Historical Society for present and future generations to enjoy.
The 24 albums filled with Berger’s press clippings from 1952 to 2010 will be on permanent display at the historical society for public viewing and educational research.
“We’re calling it ‘The Jack Berger Collection,’ which will be on the spine of each album,” said Sandy Brace, historical society chairman. “We purchased 24 matching, three-inch binders so they will all match and be organized by year from 1952 to 2010. We also purchased two special bookcases to display and store the albums.”
The vast collection of Berger’s newspaper articles and accompanying photos was recently donated by his widow, Noralyn, of East Randolph; his daughters, Diane Hennessy of West Palm Beach, Fla. and Carol Wellman of Louisville, Ky.; and his son, Duane Berger of Doswell, Va.
Brace said the collection is “a treasure” to the historical society. She said the albums will be on display in the research section and accessible to anyone who wants to use them, which will be invaluable.
The collection doesn’t just cover Randolph. Brace said articles Berger wrote for The Salamanca Republican-Press and The Post-Journal were countywide, so they are important to not only Randolph but the entire county.
Berger in the early 1950s was a stringer news photographer for The Buffalo Evening News and the Buffalo Courier-Express, according to his son, Duane. He later provided news photographs for the Cattaraugus Times, The Randolph Register and The Salamanca Republican-Press.
In the late 1980s, his photos and articles were found solely in The Post-Journal and The Randolph Register. He also did photo work for the Cattaraugus County Department of Economic Development, Planning & Tourism, as well as organizations and businesses in Randolph and East Randolph.
Berger passed away in January 2011.
Mrs. Berger, his widow, said saving and chronicling all her husband’s newspaper work was her idea because she wanted to keep everything he did. She started the first two albums in the early 1950s when they lived in Cattaraugus.
According to Mrs. Berger, an album she started around 1965 chronicles mostly articles from The Randolph Register. She said other early articles and pictures came from the Buffalo Courier Express and The Buffalo Evening News. Later albums include her husband’s work with The Post-Journal, in the 1980s, and continue through 2010.
“I enjoyed looking at the articles and I thought maybe somebody else would, too,” she said. “I thought it was important for us to keep his articles and pictures that went along with them.”
Mrs. Berger said whenever her husband had something published in the newspaper, he would bring home several copies and give one to her. Then, she would cut out the article along with its corresponding picture and paste it in the book.
“It was a lot of work, but I wanted to be sure I got them on the right page in the right category and the right year,” she said.
Carol said the scrapbooks have historical value because they contain just about every picture and article her father had published in a newspaper since the 1950s. She said the only picture that’s not in the collection, that she knows of, is the very last picture her father took before he passed away in 2011.
“The picture was of the snow on the end of the clothes pole that resembled the cross. He took it through the living room window; it was beautiful,” she said. “That’s what we marveled at — that he was able to look at something that was everyday and ordinary to all of us, but he could see beauty in it.”
According to Duane, his sister Diane once said their father’s work should hang in a gallery. The family offered to have a show of his photos at the Prendergast Library in Jamestown but he turned it down saying, “My gallery is the newspaper. The day after I take the photo and it’s printed, I’m on to the next one and I’m not looking back.”
“Our thinking was to continue the life of these photos. To us, they are something Dad did that was very important to him and important to us, as well,” Duane said. “It’s a wonderful way to extend Jack Berger’s legacy.”
Duane said they are really grateful that the historical society has a use for the newspaper clippings and the community will have access to them. He said his family is thrilled people will be able to reminisce over the photos; they can see something they recognize and have good memories of events and things that took place. He said a future audience will see them, too, because of the accessibility to them.
“I think donating his work to the historical society and sharing his images with people is something Dad would have wanted,” he said.
The Berger family also gave the historical society a box full of loose photos with subjects ranging from school plays, sports awards, yearbook photos, weddings and vehicle accidents. Brace said many of the people in them have not been identified. The society members are planning to put the photos out sometime in the future where people in the community can go through them. The hope is that someone will recognize the people in the photos and claim them.
The Randolph Historical Society is open most Monday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon. Those who want to visit the research room should call 358-3475 prior to their visit. The historical society will be hosting an open house in June.
(Contact reporter Deb Everts at salpressdeb@gmail.com.)
