For the fourth year running, the Irvington Historical Society honored a select group of the village’s older citizens, offering them an opportunity to recall for posterity their recollections of life in Irvington in decades past.  Their stories were revealed in interviews that were then transcribed, edited and paired with portraits taken by photographer Edna Kornberg, a member of the Society’s board, and displayed at the Martucci Gallery in the village’s public library.

But that’s not all.  Supplied with old family photos and recordings of each of these senior citizens, whom the Society calls its “Legacies,” videographer and board member Nader Sadre created a documentary that adds a third dimension to the portrait of these lives and the village.

That documentary was part of a celebration of this year’s selectees and their predecessors at a luncheon “gala” held at the Ardsley Country Club on November 6^th.  More than 180 guests, including many of the previous Legacies, members of their families and friends, gathered at the club.

In addition to the documentaries, the Society has published a book commemorating the first 23 Legacies and has plans to publish a second volume that includes the 20 selectees from this year and last.

The film “Irvington Legacies | 2022” can be found here.  This complete film, along with previous documentaries and other videos, can also be found on the IHS website.

 The 2022 inductees are: The Reverend Charles Colwell, Toni Ficalora, Joanna Gurley, Annette Leyden, Gina Maher, Christopher Mitchell, William Murphy, Robert Pouch, Patricia Holmes Smith, and Doug Wilson.

The concept of celebrating a community’s senior citizens was borrowed by IHS president Veronica Gedrich from the town of Truro, Massachusetts, where she vacations annually. With the addition of the documentary and the annual celebration, Irvington’s Historical Society has taken the concept a step further.

This story first appeared in The Hudson Independent.   Photos by Edna Kornberg