Local Jeweler Finds Historic Gem on Main Street

Louise Hoffman Broach | Wayuga Editor
Tuesday, June 30 2009

  
Ann Skowron                                          Some of the Maccabee items Skowron has collected

WOLCOTT – When Ann Skowron bought a Main Street building in 2000, she never dreamed she would uncover a little-known piece of the village’s history.
Skowron, who owns AKS Jewelers, learned her new building down the street at 12033 Main was once home to a chapter of Knights of the Maccabees and Ladies of the Maccabees of the World, fraternal organizations best described as a cross between a Masonic temple and an insurance company.
Founded in 1878 in London, Ontario, the Maccabees were a fraternal order with mutual assessment fraternal benefits.  They modelled themselves after the Maccabees, a Jewish tribe of the second century B C, which revolted against Antiochus IV of Syria in the name of freedom of religion.
According to research, the aspects of Maccabees’s feats that appealed to the founders of the modern Maccabees were steadfastness and persistence; wisdom in the use of power; and the fact the biblical Juda Maccabee seems to have been the first recorded military leader to order his soldiers to reserve a part of their spoils for the widows and orphans of their fallen colleagues.
“From a title search on the property, we found out the Maccabees might technically own the second floor,” Skowron said, referring to what had become the Royal Maccabees Life Insurance Company in the latter part of the 20th century. “I’m nosey; I wanted to know what a Maccabee was.”
Skowron cleared up the title issue, but an avid history buff, the more she learned about the Maccabees, the more intrigued she became, and the more dedicated she was to eventually restoring the building’s dilapidated second floor to look like the original meeting hall.
She started in 2003, after renovating the downstairs, and six years later, doing much of the work herself with help from friends and some local professionals, she’s nearly done upstairs. Down to the lighting and ceiling fans (which she had specially designed), she’s tried to give the space the same feel it had when the Maccabees met there. She marvels that the large rooms were never cut up into apartments
Skowron anticipates offering the rooms, which includes a kitchen and bar area, for private use and public events. The first of which is likely to be the Finger Lakes Wine and Jazz Fest Aug. 1, although the space will be available for use before that. She said there has been interest expressed in using it for an art show and dances.
“It’s a nice place to hold a party, and the acoustics are wonderful,” she said, also noting there’s plenty of parking in the municipal lot behind the building.
She’s dedicated a large niche between the two main rooms for a showcase of memorabilia that she’s collected regarding the Maccabees during the past nine years. She’s found items bearing the K.O.T. M. logo, from insurance paperwork to pins, and even a sword, everywhere from Ebay to antique and thrift stores.
“They were a very militaristic organization,” Skowron said, showing off one of her favorite pieces, a pin of a woman bearing a sword, fiercely protecting her two children. The Maccabees, at least many of the women’s groups, called hives, were also fairly progressive, working in the women’s suffrage movement.
Unfortunately, it’s been tough finding anything specific to the Wolcott “tent,” as the mens’ groups were called, or “hive.” She was able to learn the Wolcott Maccabees disbanded in 1929, although the organization thrived nationally as a fraternity well into the 1980s. It eventually gave itself over entirely to the insurance business.
There was passing mention of the Wolcott group in some of copies of the national quarterly magazine, The Maccabees Bee Hive, which Skowron has collected. And, there’s some evidence, in historical documents on Wayne County GenWeb, that the Maccabees were also active in Lyons and Newark, in the late 1800s, but Skowron hasn’t been able to find any memorabilia local to Wayne County. She does have some items from Pittsford and Buffalo.
Since there are no records, Skowron can’t identify area residents whose grandparents or great-grandparents may have belonged to the group in Wolcott. She’s hoping that people who learn about what she’s done with the building might have something related to the Wolcott Maccabees and items she can add to the display.
“I don’t think anybody ever knew this was up here,” she said.

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