“I couldn’t get the building out of my mind…”
About Frances
Ms. Schmidt is the author of Fred: Building of Dreams, 2020. This multi-period historical fiction novel is about a 115 year old apartment building and his tenants who lived in the West Side industrial neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, from 1900 – 2018.
Frances is also author of Getting Hired Handbook 2012 and Getting Hired in any Job Market. Currently she is the Volunteer Coordinator of Back on Track Volunteers, offering free self-empowerment workshops to the Western New York community.
Frances holds an M.S. degree from The State University College of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo State College) and B.S. and A.A. degrees from Empire State College in Buffalo, New York. She served as Director of the D’Youville College Career Services Center in Buffalo, New York for 18 years.
Fred Speaks
Meeting My Puerto Rican Tenants
In the 1950’s, two internal migrant families, the Torres’ and the Rivera’s, moved into my building. Hannah and Alice, my Chocolate Ladies (who worked in nearby Fowlers Chocolate Factory) immediately went to the Buffalo Public Library and began to research Puerto Rican culture and traditions. Thankfully, the ladies would read aloud to each other, so …
Granny Mattie’s African American Treasures
In the early 90’s, eighty-five-year-old Granny Mattie Brown, the mother of 15 children and 31 grandchildren moved into one of my apartments with her youngest son Douglass and his wife. Please use your imagination to visualize a small cozy living room, with a small two-tiered table in the center. On the top of the table …
Continue reading “Granny Mattie’s African American Treasures”
Hungarian Freedom Fighters Move In
Two Hungarian brothers, twenty-eight year old Zoltan and twenty-nine year old Lazlo Popp, moved into my building in 1965. It was eight years after they immigrated to Buffalo, NY from Kabesca, a city in The Communist Hungary, a year after the Hungarian Revolution ended. As protesters and fighters in their home country, to fleeing as …
Contact
FRED SPEAKS.
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