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J. Ruben Garcia Family Memorial Collection

 Collection
Identifier: MSS 2023.0001

Scope and Contents

Collection comprises the collected papers and manuscript materials of J. Ruben Garcia and his immediate family. These papers relate to his and his wife Corrine's first professional career as dance performance artists and their subsequent relocation to Catskill where he became a teacher in several local school districts. Other papers relate to his community involvement and organizational work on the board of the Greene County Council... on the Arts and the Greene County Historical Society, two non-profits which he served as an officer on the boards. Also of note within the collection is early correspondence with notable figures in the arts community during his time as a dancer, as well as selections of film footage. This footage includes a short film produced by Garcia titled "Rehearsal for Broadway" as well as a collection of super-8 footage shot by students at Coxsackie-Athens CSD for a school project under his guidance. See more

Dates

  • 1911 - 2015

Biographical / Historical

The J. Ruben Garcia Family Memorial Collection was given to the Greene County Historical Society by Francesca Garcia Pratten in 2021. Ruben Garcia (1911-1994) lived in Greene County after a prestigious career in show business. He and his wife Corinne formed the dance duo Tito and Corinne Valdez, dancing in Europe and major cities across the United States. In 1952 he returned to his beloved home, the Newkirk Homestead in Leeds (which... he had purchased in 1941), with his daughter and parents to start a new life out of show business. He completed college for teaching and became an educator teaching English and Social Studies in both the Greenville and Coxsackie-Athens Central School districts. His experiences in theater, film, and the arts made him a natural director for student drama productions in local schools and in community theaters. He was a founder of the Greene County Council of the Arts, now called CREATE, President of the Greene County Historical Society, and President of the Catskill Garden Club. He was known for his gardening skills and in retirement started a gardening business, the Homestead Plantery. A comprehensive biography of his life was prepared by his daugher Francesca and published in 2015, offering a candid and detailed examination of Garcia's life, family, and work based on Ruben's extensive archive of personal papers. See more

Extent

2.5 Cubic Feet (Two cubic foot bankers boxes, one legal size document box, three photographic binder boxes, and one oversize flat file.) : Handwritten and typewritten correspondence, photographs, A/V materials and digitized film, news clippings, personal manuscripts, and legal documents. ; Various

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