Roslyn Baldassare

Roslyn (Komack) Baldassare was born October 11, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Max and Frances (Greenstein) Komack. She had a younger brother, James J., born around 1926. Her father, Max, was a wholesale drygoods/ textile broker for more than forty years. In 1930 the family was living on Popham Avenue in the Bronx. Roslyn attended New York University, where it is possible that she met her fellow student and future husband...Ernest William Baldassare.

Ernest was born September 2, 1921, in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Adolf and Catherine (Lisi) Baldassare. He likely graduated from NYU, later claiming "four years of college" on his WWII Army enlistment records. In September of 1942 he was living in Passaic, New Jersey, when he enlisted as a private, "for the duration of the war." At that time he was "single, without dependents", was 5'9" and weighed 131 pounds.

Roslyn and Ernest were married in New York City on October 28, 1943.

After the war the couple made their home at 156 W. 105th Street, then 240 Central Park South in New York City. In September of 1954, Roslyn and Ernest traveled to Bermuda, flying on the once-prominant "Pan American World Airways, Inc."

In 1974 Roslyn was the president of the "People's Environmental Program, Inc.", a now-defunct non-profit organization which provided recycling services to New York City. During a time when New York City was looking to out-source its solid waste to other states, she had the following letter published in the News Journal of Mansfield Ohio:

For the past four years, our group has operated one of the most active (and most honored) Recycling Centers in New York. Hundreds of citizens carry their recyclables to our center every week. Therfore, we feel qualified to discuss, with some authority, the views of ecologically concerned New Yorkers.

It has come to our attention that New York City is soliciting bids for the removal of its many tons of daily garbage for use as landfill outside the city limits, and even out of the state. (Ohio has been mentioned prominently as one of the states bidding for New York's trash, and we wonder how the citizens of fair Ohio feel about the desecration of their environment.)

We feel that this is a short-sighted approach to our city's solid waste disposal problem, and a disgraceful misuse of our city's dwindling natural resources.

Much of New York's daily solid waste consists of valuable, recyclable raw materials- paper, glass, aluminum, lead, steel- which can be economically recovered and recycled at considerable profit to the City. It can be used as a fuel supplement. St. Louis is already doing this, and a number of other cities are now, or will soon be, starting similar operations.

Therefore we, as deeply concerned citizens, have urged Mayor Abraham Beame to take affirmative action now, to direct our City's attention toward recycling, rather than removal- to the the recovery of energy and natural resources, rather than mere "dumping."

Our "garbage" is a gold mine in disguise, and we consider it the duty of our elected administrators to exercise imagination and scientific savvy in handling our solid waste problems. These problems can be turned into profits. The solutions are there: you have but to look and learn and care.

(Roslyn was ahead of her time in viewing "garbage" as a renewable and somewhat profitable resource.)

Ernest Baldessare died in December of 1985, and Roslyn K. Baldessare died August 18, 1992. Both times memorial services were held at Riverside Memorial Chapel at 76th St. and Amsterdam. Roslyn was buried on Hart Island.

Sources: U.S. Social Security Death Index; U.S. Social Security Applicatons and Claims Index, 1936-2007; U.S. WWII Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946; U.S. School Yearbooks, 1880-2012; 1930 U.S. Federal Census; U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Vol. 2; U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989; NY, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957; Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, and Death Announcements, 1851-2003; News Journal of Mansfield, Ohio, 7/26/1974.