The Emma Morris Milk Fund was formed to provide free milk and cookies to Saranac Lake children at William Morris Park. It was originally run by the Shamus Club after the Saranac Lake Day Nursery closed. It continued through at least 1977, when it disappears from the Enterprise; an effort to re-establish it is mentioned in a 1989 story on refurbishing the park.
Adirondack Record-Elizabethtown Post, April 2, 1942
It is reported that Mrs. E. Boyce of Park Avenue left in her will ten thousand dollars for the milk fund for the poor children of this village.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 4, 1959
For Children at Playground:
Emma Morris Milk Fund Takes Over the Duties of Shamus Club
By BEN RESSLER
The Emma Morris Milk Fund today officially takes over the duties of the disbanded Shamus Club and it is inaugurating the first drive for funds under the new banner name.
For sixteen years money has been raised for the William Morris Memorial playground to provide milk and cookies, twice a day, to all the children at the playground. Last year the newly built Baldwin Park playground was opened and the service was extended to the children there.
Equipment was bought and replaced as needed. Last year new equipment was presented to the Baldwin Park.
With the aid of the Saranac Lake Parents-Teachers Association and the Village Board of Saranac Lake our playgrounds are the best in the North Country.
Our playgrounds have proven to be a splendid summer visitor attraction. Parents are encouraged to leave their children at the playgrounds and spend many carefree hours in our village either shopping or to enjoy many of the fine things we have to offer them.
Merchants in our village have come to realize the value of having supervised play centers for our vacationists who come here with children.
Children of large cities enjoy the chance of mingling with our children. They enjoy the unhurried play that our youngsters are accustomed to. The visitors book at the playgrounds are full of the good times that, have been had by all.
The Emma Morris Milk Fund is planning many events for the coming summer season. Many of the events that have proven popular in the past will be used again, new ones will be added.
The officers of the Emma Morris Milk Fund are: Benton C. Ressler, President; T. Jefferson Newbold, vice president; Alton B. Anderson, secretary and Irving Altman, treasurer.
Your continued generous support for this work will help the fund not only to maintain the standards of yesteryears but to increase it's usefulness not only to. our children but to ail that come here for rest and recreation.
Your donations sent to Irving Altman, Treasurer of the Emma Morris Milk Fund, 16 Broadway, will bring happy summer days to hundreds of children every day.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 25, 1963
Emma Morris Drive Seeks Goal of $2,500
Irving Altman, treasurer of the Emma Morris Milk Fund drive, said today that although the collection of $800 put the drive over the top for the first two-week period, there is a long way to go to reach the goal of $2500.
The money collected to date will provide milk and cookies for the children at Emma Morris and Baldwin Park playgrounds for several weeks, the full $2500 will be needed to buy milk and cookies for the entire summer. If everyone who received a letter of solicitation will contribute, the drive will go over the top, Mr. Altman said.
Latest contributors to the fund are Roy A. Floyd Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Trudeau Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3357, F. Ferris Hewitt, A.A. Bedkian, Mr. and Mrs. A. K. McClay, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Wheeler, Mr. and Mrs. Selwyn Wood, Mr. and Mrs. W. O. F. Hall, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Buckley, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Swasey [sic: Barnet].
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 16, 1975
Milk fund seeks help
SARANAC LAKE – Irving Altman, chairman of the Emma Morris Free Milk Fund, has sent out the yearly appeals letter.
The playgrounds at William Morris Part and at Baldwin Park are due to open on Sat. June 21. This is the 33rd year that the milk fund has provided milk and cookies twice daily for the children.
Besides supplying milk, the milk fund also adds playground equipment and improves the physical facilities in the playgrounds. "It is the hope of the directors to install additional playground equipment again this year," Altman writes.
The Emma Morris Free Milk Fund again hopes for the financial support that will allow it to continue benefiting the children.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 30, 1977
Free lunches now served in Saranac Lake parks
SARANAC LAKE
Balanced lunches, courtesy of the federal government, are being served daily in the village parks to Saranac Lake youngsters up to the age of 19.
The lunch program is the project of Wayne Glass, a Paul Smith's College hotel management student. In his studies of nutrition, Glass learned that the government would fund summer lunch programs in places that met certain requirements.
Research showed that Saranac Lake fell well within those requirements which have to do with the income level of residents.
Glass attended the village board meeting Monday and reported that the first lunch had been served that day to 117 children.
Each lunch consisted of a meat and cheese sandwich with a choice of spreads, vegetable relishes, a.banana, and milk.
Village manager Gerald Oxford has stipulated that Glass cooperate with the Emma Morris Milk Fund which serves milk and cookies in the play parks which is where Glass also serves lunch. Oxford reported to the board that Glass has been doing this and has turned $200 collected at a tag day over to the milk fund.
Oxford also asked that children over 12 years old be served separately.
Glass said the program will be reimbursed 92 cents for each lunch served of which six cents per person Is for administrative costs.
After the reports were made, Trustee John Pickreign congratulated Glass and his committee for the board on Initiating the program.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, August 17, 1977
Roast to feature games
SARANAC LAKE - The annual hot dog roast sponsored by the William and Emma Morris Milk and Summer Food Program will be at 12 30 p.m. Friday in the William Morris Park on Bloomingdale Avenue here. New this year are a puppet show and games for prizes. The puppet show will begin at 10:10 a.m.
Relay races begin at 1:30 p.m., and three-legged races, wheelbarrow races and potato sack races will follow, with prizes awarded at 4:15 p.m. Admission Is free to all children and their parents who live In the Saranac Lake School District. Children interested in participating in the games should sign up in one of the parks William Morris Park, Baldwin Park, Latour Pork, or Bloomingdale Park before Friday.
Rain date will be Monday.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 8, 1989
Mayor enthuses over park
SARANAC LAKE — Speaking enthusiastically on current restoration it the William Morris park as a children's playground, Mayor William Madden Jr., told members, of the Village Improvement Society that "we are gradually getting a number of things which had withered away back into the village."
Madden spoke on "The State of the Village" at the group's 79th annual membership meeting held the first week in June at the Saranac Lake Free Library. The VIS, working on a plan drawn by Olmstead Brothers landscape architects for the improvement of Saranac Lake in 1908, is primarily responsible for the creation of the village park system.
William Morris Park, located at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Depot Street, is situated on the site of the old Saranac Lake Day Nursery. Created as a children's play park in Morris's memory by his family it had been badly vandalized in recent years and is now undergoing restoration through the volunteer efforts of young parents in cooperation with village officials.
Since the drive to raise $20,000 for play equipment has already reached $16,000 Madden said, the village has ordered the full play environment it expects it to be operational early this summer. "We are now trying to get the milk fund reinstated and hope to have that going by, next summer when we will be celebrating William Morris Park's 50th anniversary," Madden said…
