AROUND THE COUNTY – I never had the opportunity to interview longtime Rexford resident Maj. Gen. Laddie L. Stahl, commander of the 98th Division of the U.S. Army Reserves.

If I had, my first question would have been; "What was it about Dennis Madden that made you choose him as your aide-de-camp?"

While I don't want to put words into the general's mouth, I think I can take a good guess at what his response would have been.

Stahl, who died in 2015 at the age of 93, probably would have said something about Madden's already impressive service resume, having served in similar roles for two other generals in the regular Army. He also might have said something about Madden's likability quotient. There's immediately something very welcoming about him, and you can't help but quickly come to the conclusion that this is the kind of guy who isn't afraid to take on a project and then get it done.

Back in the 1970s, Schenectady County was looking for that type of person and Madden, not yet 30 at the time, answered the call. As America began planning a celebration to mark the country's founding, Stahl decided to have Madden act as his agent on the Schenectady County Bicentennial Commission.

"Late in 1974, Schenectady County was putting together a group of people, a bunch of old people who were all well known and well respected, and knew how to get something done," said Madden, who in the following decade went on to become executive director at Proctors and mayor of the village of Scotia. "They asked the general to serve, and from time to time he asked me, this young guy, to go in his place."

It wasn't long before Madden became an integral part of the commission.

"I was asked, or maybe I volunteered, to go to a bicentennial meeting in Albany to meet with the state commission and pitch Schenectady as a place for the Bicentennial Barge to stop," remembered Madden, now 76. "The barge was quite a big project. It made something like 50 stops on the canal, up to Whitehall and out all the way to Buffalo in '76. We got a visit at Collins Park [in Scotia] and that led to the docks being built and the idea to put on a carnival."

Once he got the ball rolling, Madden kind of picked it up and ran with it. But first, a little more background on the man. A member of the 1964 graduating class at Scotia-Glenville, he earned his four-year degree from Syracuse University in business administration before heading off to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and a five-year stint with the U.S. Army.

"When I got out of the Army I decided to serve in the Reserves so my wife, Liz, and I could eat," remembered Madden. "The 98th is pretty much most of New York state, and the recruiter asked me what I did at Fort Dix. I told him I was the aide-de-camp to the commanding general, and he said, 'Oh, we can use that.'"

Madden, who rose to the rank of captain in the Reserves, also went to work at the First National Bank in Scotia around that same time. However, the thing he will be remembered for, more than his time as head of Proctors or as mayor of Scotia, will be his role in the creation of Freedom Park, dramatically improving the overall experience of visiting Collins Park.

"It was originally just a place for the barge to dock, and the performance space evolved from that," said Madden. "We already had Collins Park, a great place for a carnival, and I went out and gave about 300 pitches to different community groups to get Freedom Park going, and it ended up being a volunteer project without any tax dollars being spent. Well, the General did let us use about six trucks from the Army Corp of Reserves, so if you count the money they paid for gas, you could say there were some tax dollars spent. But it was mostly built by the community doing it as volunteers."

It was indeed a community effort with hundreds of volunteers and some key contributions from members of the business community, even the General Electric Company. Spearheading it all was Madden. While the Bicentennial Barge was in Scotia for three days, the festival lasted seven days, with entertainment offered for 10 hours each day.

"Some of the residents of Schonowee Avenue weren't that happy with all the crowds," said Madden, "but it was a wonderful week. We had nearly non-stop entertainment on the stage that week, and I know it was a very good week for Jumpin' Jacks."

At times, Madden remembered getting nervous about whether or not Freedom Park would be ready by late June of 1976. It meant that Madden, and groups from the Lions, the Rotary and other clubs spent a lot of weekends making sure the work was done. Al Hart remembers heading over to Jumpin' Jacks for an ice cream cone that spring and seeing Madden at work on more than one occasion.

"I remember going down to Jumpin' Jacks and I would see Dennis over there working on something, all by himself with nobody else around," said Hart, a good friend of Madden's and another member of the Scotia-Glenville graduating class of 1964. "Everything about Freedom Park goes right back to him."

Hart, who is the son of former Schenectady County Historian and newspaperman Larry Hart, performed in a barbershop quartet with Madden when they were in junior-high school.

"He is a very caring person," said Hart. "I remember, when I had an appendectomy in eighth grade and missed a couple weeks of school, he came down to my house every night with my homework so I didn't get behind. That was typical of Dennis. That's the kind of thing he was always doing."

Madden's efforts toward the bicentennial celebration helped him earn the distinction of being named the youngest winner of the Schenectady Patroon Award. That was in 1977, and a year earlier, after all the celebrating from the bicentennial was over, July 18, 1976 was designated as Dennis Madden Day. All this was before he helped keep Proctors afloat and became mayor of Scotia.

Larry Feldman, who was was involved in both the creation of Freedom Park and the fight to keep Proctors from being demolished in the 1980s, says Madden's efforts can't be overstated.

"The communities of Scotia and Schenectady have benefited from Dennis Madden's vision, leadership and hard work," said Feldman. "Dennis pulled Proctor's Theater through a dark period, keeping the wrecking ball at bay. He enhanced the banks of Scotia's Mohawk River into a free public-entertainment complex, and he led Scotia's Village Board of Trustees as a common sense, get-the-job-done mayor."

And like Hart, Feldman suggests that Madden's capacity for hard work is surpassed only by his ability to build long and lasting friendships.

"More than any of those other attributes, Dennis is a tireless team player, whether he's out front, on the sidelines or behind the scenes," said Feldman. "I'm happy to call him a very good friend."

When the village of Scotia celebrates the American Tercentenary (300 years) in 2076, Dennis Madden won't be there, but for anyone with even a marginal interest in history, his presence will loom large. And just three years down the road, as America prepares for its semiquincentennial (250) of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, Madden is hopeful Freedom Park will remember the time capsule that he had placed on the banks of the Mohawk River nearly a half-century ago. It's only a few hundred feet north of the Dennis Madden Stage at Freedom Park, up where Schonowee Avenue ends and the road takes a sharp left and becomes Washington Avenue. Madden has already checked with current Freedom Park President Cathy Gatta and Scotia Mayor David Buccifero to make sure they know where it is.

"That part of the park was a mess, and we did a lot to clean it up, putting up shrubbery and historical kiosks," remembered Madden. "We put the time capsule in at the northern end of the park, but we lost our marker about 15 or 20 years ago, and now when you go there, there's nothing marking it as significant. You can see the concrete in the ground and the time capsule is under it. There are major ice flows and other changes to that area, so we have to make sure we know exactly where it is so they can open it in 2076."

Gatta, the mayor and the village board have ensured Madden they will make sure the location is preserved for further generations.

"I've been gone a long time, but there are other people who have followed me, made improvements and done a great job," said Madden, "I met with the village board last October and they agreed to watch over the project. Cathy does a magnificent job and the new mayor was wonderful and said, 'Yeah, we can do something.'"

Madden, who splits his time between Boise, Idaho ("where the grandkids are") and his house on Galway Lake, feels comfortable leaving all the current work to his successors. These days his top priority is himself as he continues to wage what is now a 20-year fight with cancer. He and Liz, a native of Germany and a foreign exchange student at Scotia-Glenville High School when she met Madden, will leave their Galway home in October and return to Idaho.

"I use to run at least a marathon a year, but then I had a heart issue so I stopped doing that," said Madden. "Now, I walk."

While Madden enjoyed his brief time as a politician, he says he had no real inclination to run and was convinced to do so by the Scotia Republicans. He left that realm after winning one mayoral election and never ran again, returning to focus on his first love, the theater.

"When I was in high school, four of us wrote a play and we ended doing it for our senior play at Scotia," remembered Madden. "I played a dead body on stage. That was the extent of my theater experience."

At least on the stage.

He stayed with the producing and administrative part of the theater world for another 20 years, even though his time at Proctors did not end on a high note. He resigned in July of 1988 after a "Million Dollar Marathon" he put on to act as a fundraiser actually increased Proctors' debt.

After leaving Proctors, Madden landed a job as theater director at the Community Auditorium in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and also had similar posts with major venues in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (The Kirby Center), Salem, Oregon (The Elsinore Theatre) and Roanoke Island off the North Carolina coast (The Lost Colony).

His professional resume came to an end while he was fighting cancer in 2009, working as the director of presenting with the Clemens Center in Elmira. Other than his health issues, he's enjoyed every minute of his life, and recalls his time at Proctors fondly, even his ill-fated "Million Dollar Marathon."

"It was a great event, it went very well, but it ended up costing us money," he says. "It was a good idea. I feel like I could talk someone into it even now."

COLLECTING BLACK HISTORY

The Schenectady African American Historical Records Project is a collaborative community history program under the direction of the Schenectady County Historical Society.

"We hope to engage the community in telling their own stories and preserving the materials that illustrate and complement local Black history and heritage," said Marietta Carr, librarian/archivist at the historical society's Grems-Doolittle Library. "This summer, we have a team of youth ambassadors working with the project committee to conduct interviews with members of the community and digitize historical documents."

The AAHRP will have a series of "community scanning days" at the Karen B. Johnson Library in downtown Schenectady on Aug. 4 and 11. The public is invited to bring down their own photos, documents and other flat items that speak to African American heritage in the area. The program is open to all Schenectady County residents.

Also, those same youth ambassadors, who are affiliated with the Sankofa Youth Collective, will conduct and record interviews with members of the public on Aug. 8 and 9 at the COCOA House at 859 Stanley St. in Schenectady.

For more information, visit www.schenectadyhistorical.org/aahpr.

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