Write a commentI first met Helen Hennessey Chetney when I was a teenage disc jockey for WOSC, and she was the secretary for the station. She, as it turned out, was a great friend of my next door neighbor, Julie Ann Doyle ( Saloga) , and her family had run a pharmacy on West Bridge St. for many years. It was our neighborhood drugstore, just like Gover's was our neighborhood department store.
Helen ran the radio station as if it were her own store, allowing her two bosses, Fred Maxon, Assistant Station Mamager and Jack Burgess, Station Manager, the illusion that they were in charge, when it was really Helen who was running the show. In those days, a frequent visitor to the office to see Helen was Palladium-Times ad salesman Bob Chetney. It was an interesting courtship to observe. They were both well into their thirties at the time , and neither had been married, and as it turns out, they were a great match for each other. They married in 1963? In St. Mary's church, and went on to have three children, first a girl. Who they named Mary Beth, then two boys Robert Jr. and ???? They bought a large house across the street from the Hospital on West Seventh St., and took in college kids as boarders. Two of my best friends, Jim DeGolyer and Steve Epstein lived there during their sophomore year at SUCO in 1965-66, so I was a frequent visitor to the Chetney house back then, and often invited to share a cool refreshment in their large screened in front porch on warm, late spring nights. Their friends Gene and Julie Saloga would often drop by, as would other friends like McGee, Kelly Maniccia and John Holiday.
My first political job was to operate a sound truck for Bob's campaign for County Supervisor for the Third Ward. I remember chanting over and over into the microphone " Vote Row A all the way!" as I drove the truck around the Third ward on election day. I also promoted the re-election of Jim Musico as Alderman. He and Bob were both Republicans. Bob won,so did Jim, and Bob went on to become the first City Supervisor in many years to chair the County Board of Supervisors. He later left the Pall Times after he studied for and obtained a real estate license, and started his own Realty Agency in a building at the corner of West Fifth and Bridge which was home to the former Loescher Funeral parlor. My sister Maureen and her husband Paul lived there as newlyweds before they sold the building to Bob and Helen, and moved to 96 West Seneca St. So my connection with the Chetneys was frequent, friendly, and lots of fun.
Bob and I would team up every St. Patrick's day to do a live radio broadcast from the Ancient Order of Hibernians on Munn St. for over 15 years. We became the kind of _"Bob and Ray", or "Click and Clack" of the local March 17th airwaves. Neither of us would touch a drop of drink before sign off time, which was at around 6:15 pm in March. WSGO was a daytime only radio station at 1440 on the AM dial. We used to kid about sounding like Hong Kong on the short wave had we departed from our abstemious pledge during the program. We certainly made up for it afterward, and I think as the day waned on, and I was upstairs in the broadcast room and Bob was downstairs near the bar, he may have had a pre sign off nip, or three.
Bob could just make you laugh. Our St. Patrick's day broadcast often featured the men of St. Mary's choir, with such luminaries as Billy Joyce, Francis Dehm, and Paul Murray. among many others stepping to the michrophone to belt out an Irish tune Bernadette McBrearty , a nurse from Derry, in Northern Ireland would discuss the Irish troubles with me every year in her soft toned lilting voice, and we also interviewed by phone, annually, such Irish luminaries as Eamonn McGirr from Loudonville, owner of Eamonn's Irish pub, who wrote the hit Irish song, "Up went Nelson in old Dublin".
Bob hosted his own weekly Sunday Irish program on the station that became almost as popular as Nick Sterio's Italian American hour, Bob and Helen also became steadfast stalwarts of the Munn St, AOH club.
In addition to all of his Celtic activity, Bob became the Republican City Chairman, and the Republican County Election Commissioner for many years. He participated vicariously in many hundreds of elections, including Helen's election to his old seat on the County Legislature, after it was vacated by another Third Ward icon, John T. Donovan.
One thing was certain with Bob and Helen, if you went along with them for the ride, you were sure to have smiles aplenty, laughs galore and lots of fun. So, in the spirit of St. Patrick, whose feast day we recently celebrated, "May the road continue to rise to meet you", Bob and Helen, and may your children and grandchildren be blessed with many many golden Irish memories. Bob and Helen, you were quite a pair.
