My father was one of the founding members of Historic Brighton and during his time as president he came up with the idea of celebrating Gideon Cobb, an early pioneer and brick maker. Gideon Cobb Day was usually celebrated with a lunch at Mario’s and, of course, Cobb Salad was on the menu. My cousin, Ray Tierney is on the board now and he has renewed the celebration.
We gathered yesterday in a tent behind the Buckland House, an early farmstead home on Westfall Road that was preserved through the efforts of Historic Brighton. The supervisor of Brighton was there and many of the club members and Jerry Ludwig, the guy who writes the home improvement column in Saturday’s paper. My family was there as well because Historic Brighton has decided to give an annual “Leo Dodd Historic Preservation Award” award to someone in the community who worked toward those ends. This year’s recipient was Sandra Frankel and Ray asked if I would say something about Leo.
I talked about how my father was into photography, painting, engineering, history, genealogy and family and how these interests all overlapped. He painted portraits of these early Brighton residents when no photos existed and he reconstructed the brick making kilns and factories in a CAD drawing program. He was able to bring history to life. And he shared his enthusiasm. This made Brighton a better town.
Peggi and I provided technical support with the websites, newsletters, presentations and his Brighton Brick book production. Historic Brighton made us honorary members and that is nice but what Historic Brighton needs is someone with the desire to dig through the past, willing to attend the meetings, lobby the politicians to preserve the remnants, someone who likes taking pictures and illustrating a story and someone who likes to share what they have found. They need someone as enthusiastic as my father was.
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