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A day that gave kids lots of smiles By JosePh D’AlessAnDRo jdalessandro@liherald.com
Courtesy Alex Costello
The Cradle of Aviation, in Uniondale, hosted over 1,700 students and dental care providers for this year’s Give Kids A Smile Day on Feb. 7, making it the largest dental care event in the county’s history. The Nassau County Dental Society, a nonprofit representing over 1,400 local dentists, has celebrated GKAS Day for 22 years. The program offers dental care to children from underserved communities free of charge. It attracted over 300
This year’s Give Kids A Smile Day brought over 1,700 students to the Cradle of Aviation Museum, setting a new record for turnout.
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‘Standing Where They Stood’ details Northern slavery By Rei Wolfsohn Correspondent
Justinne Lake-Jedzinak, of the Raynham Hall Museum, shared the history of Samuel Townsend’s family, and local enslaved people, with a gathering at the Uniondale Library on Feb. 6. “Slavery has been in New York since it was New Amsterdam,” Lake-Jedzinak said. “That land was all cleared by slave labor.” Townsend and his wife, Sarah, raised 10 children in their home during the 18th century. Later, his grandson almost tripled its size, and renamed it
Raynham Hall. Today it is the museum where Lake-Jedzinak is the director of education. The facility is part of the Northern Slavery Collective, which works to make the realities of Northern slavery known to the public, “focusing on narratives that don’t get told or shared that often,” Lake-Jedzinak said. Townsend was an avid slave owner, and his son Robert was a staunch abolitionist. While they were living together in the house during the American Revolution, the abolitionist British officer John G. Simcoe was quartering with his troops under their roof.
An enslaved person named Elizabeth, or Liss, was living there as well. “Many of them have biblical names, or names of their enslavers,” Lake-Jedzinak said. Elizabeth grew up with Robert Townsend, and they stayed in touch after she escaped in May of 1779. In order for her to do so, historians believe, Simcoe hid Elizabeth in a secret compartment in his wagon. There is some circumstantial evidence: Simcoe had purchased hinges and a lock at the blacksmith’s shop a couple days earlier. The thinking in the historical community is that a secret compartment was
the only logical use for the hardware. The Townsends didn’t chase Elizabeth, despite her skills and value, which often would have been the case. There is some speculation at Raynham Hall on why they did not. “Why would they have let her go so easily — unless she were a spy?” Lake-Jedzinak
said. By law, Elizabeth “robbed” her own body from Townsend. “Because they were treated as p r o p e r t y, ” L a k e - J e d z i n a k added, “their sale and horrific loss of life are much better documented.” Enslaved people in the North lived a different life than those in the South. Lake-Jedzinak ConTinueD on pAGe 3