LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - JANUARY 6, 2019 by Lynne Belluscio Back in 1997, when the Jell-O Gallery first opened, there was a deal with the com- pany that designed and built the exhibit. The exhibit would travel for three years to help pay for the cost of building the exhibit. At the time, we didn’t even know if the Jell-O exhibit would draw people to LeRoy and whether it would be a per- manent exhibit. The Academic Building where the exhibit is now, didn’t have heat or bath- rooms and only three rooms had been restored for use. But the Jell-O exhibit turned out to be very popular and we want- ed to have it for the summer of 1998, but it was in Las Vegas at the Leid Children’s Museum. So a group of us, decided to take a gambling junket to vis- it our exhibit. While we were there, a few people went over to the Hoover Dam, and Eve- line Aron and I took a helicop- ter into the Grand Canyon for breakfast. So when my son said that he and his family would be spending a few days after Christmas, and would I be in- terested in joining them, I said, “Only if we can all take a heli- copter into the Grand Canyon – my Christmas present to you.” So, the day after Christmas, I headed to Las Vegas. The Leid Children’s Museum is now called the Discovery Center and in 2013 it moved to a much bigger building. Instead of go- ing to the Discovery Center, we went to the Mob Museum – of- ficially the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Don’t think I’d go again, but there was some mention of some of the mob activity in Buffalo and Roch- ester, which brought to mind my father’s Jell-O shot recipe, which he made with gin. He called it “Ginjell-O” after the Rochester mobster who was killed in 1978. But the best part of our trip to Las Vegas last week was the helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon. I couldn’t remember the company that we flew with 20 years ago, but as we came up over the rim, and headed to the landing site, it was all familiar. The helicopter com- pany was Sunset and it’s the oldest company to fly into the canyon. In 1991, they contract- ed with the Hualapai Nation to use a small landing area above the Colorado River. The view is truly breathtaking. In the 1920s, the Jell-O Company issued a series of little booklets that were inside boxes of Jell-O. In 1925, they issued 12 different views of the Jell-O Girl visiting places in America. The Historical Soci- ety owns three of the original oil paintings that were used for the booklets: The Jell-O Girl in Yosemite, The Jell-O Girl in the Missions (California) and the Jell-O Girl in the Grand Canyon. The blurb on the back of the booklet describes her visit to the Grand Canyon: “The Jell-O girl awaited her first view of the Grand Can- yon with the greatest interest and delight. On the train to El Tovar, where they were to stop, she talked constantly with Pol- ly, her pet parrot and faithful companion, of the wonderful sights in store for them. Polly was properly impressed and kept saying “Bless my heart” whenever her little mistress stopped for breath. Arriving at the hotel, our little friend could hardly wait to get out upon the platform overlooking the Can- yon. It was even more wonder- ful than she had thought. From where she stood it was twelve miles across to the other side of the mighty gulch. She stared down at the slender ribbon of the Colorado River, thousands of feet below. The late after- noon sun caught up and bur- nished the myriad colors of the rocks until the Jell-O Girl felt she could imagine herself gaz- ing at a city of fairy palaces. In the early evening she went out again upon the platform and even walked a little way along the edge of the canyon. There was no moon; away from the Canyon stretched miles of quite desert, occasionally a coyote howled, and overhead the Milky Way glowed in the night sky. In the dim light of the stars she could see the points of the ledges rising out of a bottomless pit of black- ness. It was mysterious and wonderful, frightening the little girl somewhat. So she turned back to the hotel and she and Polly spent the rest of the night looking at Indian blankets and baskets. Early in the morning a party started down Bright An- gel Trail for the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Among them was the Jell-O Girl, riding a burro and carrying Polly safely on her arm. Down and down led the trail but the sure footed bur- ros never halted or stumbled. At Halfway House they rested and then went on down to the very edge of the Colorado Riv- er. This River is very swift and strong. In thousands of years, it has worn away the greatest of gulches, the Grand Canyon. It is still deepening its bed. The Jell-O Girl stood at the edge of the powerful River, the looked up. Far overhead reached the rocky spires, with their bright colors in the Arizona sunlight. It was with real regret that the Jell-O Girl took the train the next morning, for, in leaving the Grand Canyon she felt she was saying goodbye to one of the most wonderful places in all America.” And as we flew out of the Canyon, all of us thought the same thing. The Jell-O Girl in the Grand Canyon The Jell-O Girl and her parrot Polly at the Grand Canyon