New York’s Own – Page 10 – The Exasperated Historian

46) Private Harold Baumgarten, MD

https://youtu.be/RYID71hYHzg

46) Private Harold Baumgarten, MD

He was a survivor, there's no doubting that

Born: 2 March 1925, New York, United States of America

Died: 25 December 2016, Florida, United States of America

According to his obituary, linked below, Tom Brokaw described him as, "One of the Greatest of the Greatest Generation."

Harold landed on Omaha Beach that fateful D-Day and was wounded five times in thirty-two hours, but he didn't die. Because of that survival, Harold decided to spend his life giving back to those around him. Once he left the service, he became a teacher and then later a medical doctor. Harold also worked for an insurance company as their physician.

Once he retired from the private practice after over forty years at it, Harold then spent six years working at the Veterans Administration.

Harold was interviewed about World War II and D-Day in many countries around the world, for both news stations and documentary programs. He was also a speaker in various countries as well.

Harold's list of awards and accommodations from the military are extensive, and include the Purple Heart, Two Bronze Stars, the Combat Infantry Badge, The Croix de Guerre, and many others.

His personal story of the landings that day was also used in the first twenty minutes of the production of Saving Private Ryan.

Harold was married to the love of his life for sixty-seven years and left behind numerous children and grandchildren.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/jacksonville-fl/harold-baumgarten-7223611

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/174540284/harold-baumgarten

39) Steve Buscemi

39) Steve Buscemi

He's not on this list for his acting skills (Though he's stellar in every role)

Born: 13 December 1957, New York City, New York, United States of America

Actor known for his roles in films like Fargo, The Big Labowski, and Reservoir Dogs, or, depending on your age, the Spy Kids and Hotel Transylvania Franchises. He was also featured in the Season Fourteen Finale of E.R. and his character was instrumental in the death of the character Dr. Gregory Pratt (But I'm not bitter about that or anything *sniff sniff*)

I chose to place Steve on my list because of the heroic actions he took on 9/11. From 1980 to 1984, Steve worked as a firefighter in New York City. When he heard the news about the attacks on the Twin Towers, he didn't hesitate to jump back into his old job. He worked several twelve-hour shifts searching for survivors in the rubble heaps of what was left of the towers.

He has also continued to speak on the FDNY Union's behalf and stay involved in firefighting functions. Steve is also a member of the Board of Advisors for Friends of Firefighters.

In 2019, news broke that Steve's wife Jo Andres, who was a famous filmmaker in her own right, had passed away at the age of 64. They had been married for thirty-one years and have one son together.

Sources:

https://variety.com/2019/film/obituaries-people-news/steve-buscemi-wife-jo-andres-dead-dies-1203106252/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000114/bio

https://www.businessinsider.com/on-911-people-remember-how-steve-buscemi-searched-for-survivors-2017-9

35) Mindy Grossman

35) Mindy Grossman

She isn't scared to do a little paperwork

Born: 8 September 1957, Long Island City, New York, United States of America

Former CEO of HSN Inc.

She is the current CEO of WW (Aka Weight Watchers) since 2017.

Mindy used to work for Nike and used to be CEO of Polo Jeans (then a part of Ralph Lauren) and was high up in several other Ralph Lauren offshoots. Mindy has also worked at Tommy Hilfiger.

Mindy is also the vice chairman of UNICEF USA and a former chairman of the National Retail Federation.

Mindy is married with one child.

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=1520068&privcapId=754046

30) Walter Hunt

He Invented So Much Stuff You'll Run Out of Room Before You List Them All

Born: 29 July 1796, Martinsburg, New York, United States of America

Died: 8 June 1859, Manhattan, New York, United States of America

Walter's inventions were numerous and spread across many areas of life, however he failed to ever turn a profit from any of his inventions.

He created the first working sewing machine--called the lockstitch sewing machine, the safety pin, a forerunner of the Winchester Repeating Rifle, a flax spinner, a knife sharpener, a streetcar bell, a hard coal burning stove, artificial stones, the ice plow, and street sweeping machinery among others.

Walter would earn a degree in masonry before marrying and having four children.

In 1826, he patented his first invention--a better flax spinner to help improve his areas local economy. At first he attempted to raise the capital needed to manufacture his flax spinners, but instead he sold the patent outright. This same thought process would continue throughout his life.

Walter created the streetcar bell after witnessing a carriage run over a little girl in New York City.

He moved his family to New York City and became a real estate investor, using the income from that to support his family and his habit of continuing to invent things as the need arose in front of him, including his knife sharpener which he patented in 1829 (the idea for this one came up after realizing city living made grindstones impractical).

Today his most famous invention is the sewing machine--which he invented in 1833. However, at the time people were afraid to put seamstresses out of business, and his machine was never patented. This would come to haunt him later on, after a successful machine was patented in the 1850's. Though Hunt tried to fight it, the patent office denied the claim to invalidate the new patent because Hunt had failed to attempt to patent his own earlier on. He was given public credit though.

He continued to invent and patent, and some of his patents were even issued to his family after he died.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/walter-hunt

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1422/walter-hunt

20) Tom Sawyer

20) Tom Sawyer

Yes, really that was his name, and no he never convinced the neighborhood kids to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence

Born: 1 January 1832, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America

Died: 1906, San Francisco, California, United States of America

In 1863, Mark Twain visited San Francisco and met the real-life Tom Sawyer while nursing a bad hangover (in Smithsonian's words).

The real Tom was a voluntary firefighter, customs inspector, special policeman, and "Bona Fide Local Hero."

Before arriving in San Francisco, Sawyer had been a firefighter in New York City and for a time also worked as a steamboat engineer (which caught Mark Twain's attention).

In 1853, Sawyer obtained his hero status after repeatedly returning to his burning ship to rescue passengers and crew after being severely burned himself. He was credited with saving ninety people--twenty-six single-handedly.

From 1863 to 1866 Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain met frequently and had a lot of fun, getting drunk and gambling all their money away.

By this point, Tom had also opened a successful saloon, and continued to work for the San Francisco Customs House. He also continued to volunteer as a firefighter, even after a paid firefighting service was instituted in 1866.

Around 1896, when Tom was about sixty-five, he finally retired from firefighting.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer were published in 1876, and yet Twain would say for the rest of his life that the real Tom Sawyer wasn't an inspiration (mhm sure).

In 1898, an old coworker of Mark Twain's interviewed Tom to see how he felt about Twain's attitude towards the inspiration for the character. You can read a part of that interview in the Smithsonian article I will link below.

Notes:

Smithsonian seems pretty certain that Mark Twain and Tom Sawyer met and spent time together, but according to The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco, historians cannot verify they ever met, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Sources:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-adventures-of-the-real-tom-sawyer-35894722/?all

http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/sawyer.html

12) Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

11) Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

She was more than just a Dazzling Daughter

Born: 9 December 1906, Manhattan, New York, United States of America

Died: 1 January 1992, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America

Computer technician and admiral in the US Navy, Grace helped create UNIVAC 1 which was the first commercial electronic computer. She also helped create the naval applications for COBOL or Common Business Oriented Language.

Grace received her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in 1928, and then received her bachelors from Yale in 1934.

In 1943 she joined the Naval Reserve and in 1944 she became a lieutenant and was sent to join the Bureau of Ordnance’s Computation Project located at Harvard. While there she worked on Mark I which was the first large-scale automatic calculator and the precursor to modern computers. She would coin the term "bug" in referencing computer issues after a moth flew into the Mark I’s inner workings. Grace retired from the Navy in 1966 before being recalled to active duty in 1967 to help standardize the navy’s computer languages. She retired again in 1986 at the age of 79—making her the oldest active duty officer in the navy (and she didn’t retire willingly—the Navy made her go).

Grace had attained the rank of Rear Admiral and was often referred to as Amazing Grace. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Grace was also a member of NSDAR (The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution) and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

The US Navy’s official website refers to her as the Mother of Computing, and by the time she passed she had thirty honorary degrees from various universities.

She once said, "If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you've just proven a natural law!"

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Time Magazine's 100 Women of the Year (Grace appears in the 1959 article, "Grace Hopper”)

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Sources:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1784/grace-brewster-hopper

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grace-Hopper

https://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg70/Pages/namesake.aspx

NSDAR's List of "Dazzling Daughters"