Note to posterity: 'Leave the dance hall standing'

By Vicki Botta
GOSHEN — One of the first things Alan Glustoff noticed after buying the former Zalonski Farm at 1089 Pulaski Highway last year were the notes left at the building closest to the road.
At a time when most dairy farmers are selling their land to developers, Alan and his wife, Barbara, are moving their entire grass-fed raw milk production to Goshen from Lancaster, Pa., along with their 35 to 40 red Holstein cows.
“People began leaving notes asking that we leave the 'dance hall' standing," Glustoff said. "Only one neighbor had wanted the building closest to the road, with the dust-covered interior, torn down."
He was curious. When did people converge on those weathered floorboards? Did they dance polkas? Did they hold grange meetings? Who lived in the other rooms? Who played the dilapidated pianos at either end of the large hall? One end looked like it could have been used as a stage.
He hopes readers will share their memories of the dance hall or perhaps donate artifacts, tools, and farm implements to the museum he plans to create once the building is fully restored.
If walls could only talk, what might they tell.

Depression-era diversion
Flash back to the early 1930s. Anna Zalunski and her husband, Joseph (who had changed the spelling to Zalonski to make it easier for non-Polish people to pronounce), were thinking of ways to make extra money during the Depression. Anna rented rooms in summer to “city people” wanting to escape for country weekends. After all, milking cows and growing potatoes was hard work.
Just after Prohibition, Anna started to envision social gatherings at the farm where people could dine and dance. She'd hire a band, send out flyers, and charge a small fee to cover costs, and maybe a little more.
The dances always took place on Sundays. People came from all five onion-growing districts, which had names like Big Island, New Hampton, and Durlandville, where the farm was. From these districts, Geraldine Sosler recalls, an “Onion Queen” was picked.
At one of these dances, Geraldine's mother, Sarah, met and fell in love with her dad.
“They were only 18 or 19 at the time," Geraldine said.
They married, moved into a two-room bungalow on the farm, and started a family.
Unfortunately, young love wasn’t the only thing that developed at the weekly dinner-dances. Fights frequently broke out. The police were called so often, they asked the Zalunskis to stop holding dances. The dance hall shut down.

A growing family
It was just as well, because Sarah and John were expecting their second child, and the bungalow was getting too small for them. A kitchen and two bedrooms were built into the dance hall for the small family to live in. There was no running water — just an outhouse. Geraldine recalls her mother heating water in a tub for sponge baths.
Geraldine and her older sister walked a mile everyday to their one-room schoolhouse next to Maley’s Grocery Store. Kate Kurowski was the teacher. All eight grades were in the same room together. When they started running school buses after Geraldine's kindergarten year, both sisters began going to school in Goshen.
Things were going well until a fire broke out in the barn, believed to have been caused by the combustion of dry hay. If it wasn't for the neighbors banging on the door in the middle of the night, they might have died. Geraldine woke up wondering why it was as bright as day out.
After the fire destroyed the barn, the family moved into the big house with Anna and Joe. Sarah and John were married for more than 60 years. Sarah died in 2002 and John in 2004. Geraldine lives in Middletown, and her sister has since moved out of state.
Welsh Custom Homes is renovating the farm. They rebuilt the barn and replaced part of the roof on the dance hall, which was left open to the elements for the past 20 years. The floor also needs replacing.
For more information, or to donate artifacts and share any information about the former “dance hall” on Pulaski Highway, call 914-934-1649. Find out more about the creamer on www.5spokecreamery.com.