Week of February 21

February 20, 1875 – 150 YEARS AGO

Rockland County Journal

AROUND HOME

  ☞  A “scrimmage” occurred in one of our manufactories this week. Control your tempers, gentlemen, and “let us have peace.”

  ☞  Our ladies say that as water is so scarce now, and continues to grow scarcer every day, we shall soon have nothing to drink but tea.

  ☞  The Etna Sewing Machine Works, at Pearl River, have a contract to turn out four hundred printing presses a year for twelve years.

  ☞  There was but one conversion in the colored [sic] M.E. Church of this village during the series of protracted meetings held there this winter.

  ☞  And now there are about one hundred young men in Nyack with glittering eyes and compressed lips who would “like to know who sent that Valentine.”

  ☞  A friend of ours says the sweetest words to him are, “Come to dinner.’’ Well, who hasn’t a tender chord in their stomach that is touched by those words?

February 21, 1925 – 100 YEARS AGO

Rockland County Times

SHOOTS DAUGHTER’S BETRAYER — Suffern Village Thrown in Furor of Excitement When Father of Ruined Girl Destroys Her Betrayer — Vigorous Defense Being Waged — Result of Man’s Depravity

    The village of Suffern was thrown into an uproar about nine o’clock Wednesday morning by the shooting of Tom Cheche, 40 years of age, by Cerry Palmerazzo, a well-known Italian resident of the Suffern vicinity.

       The shooting of Cheche came as a terrible climax and the wre[a]cking of vengeance by the infuriated father on the seducer of his daughter, Helen, 20 years of age.

       Immediately following the terrible tragedy, Palmerazzo, having poured four bullets from a five chambered 45 caliber revolver into the body of Cheche, whom he met on Lafayette Avenue, was arrested by Chief Lunney and subsequently arraigned before Judge Wennstrom, who held him for the Grand Jury on a charge of murder in the first degree.

       Back of the shooting and the incidents that led to the terrible wre[a]cking of vengeance on the part of an outraged father who sought to avenge the honor of his daughter is a story of sordid immorality if not devilish ingenuity to accomplish the ruin of the girl and then, too, be the victim of the father’s wrath, who himself was the father of a family of nine children.

       As early as the Spring of last year, Cheche, who was a frequent visitor and intimate associate of the girl’s family, began to show marked attention to her, so much so that it became noticeable, and he was warned to desist in his attentions.

       He then, with devilish ingenuity, apparently “framed’’ a plot to ruin the girl and get her absolutely in his power to do with as he chose and for a time succeeded.

       The story as the Times gets it that is partially corroborated and which undoubtedly will be the basis for his, Palmerazzo’s, defense as to the motive that caused him to commit the frenzied act is that Cheche with the connivance of a friend of shady reputation said to be from Paterson arranged a mock marriage, with the girl going through a form of ceremony. Whether or not this mock marriage was caused by the fear that he, Cheche, might be held accountable for the girl’s seduction or there was danger that she was in a delicate condition has not yet developed, but the fact is that following the alleged marriage between her and Cheche’s friend, she was promptly abandoned and left a derelict by her new husband.

       Cheche then abandoned his family and went to live with the girl in Brooklyn, where they resided as man and wife, his wife being left in Suffern with a family of 7 children, who took her grievance to District Attorney Lexow and an indictment returned against Cheche for abandonment by the Grand Jury, following which it appears that in order to escape the consequence that would come if he remained in the State of New York, he took the girl to New London, Conn., where they lived in the same relationship and attempted to induce her to become a “woman of the street.”

       The girl, 20 years of age and attractive, refused and returned to the home of her parents some six weeks or more ago.

       Subsequent to her return, Cheche, it was understood to have been not only indicted on the abandonment charge but also faced a charge under the Mann white slave act, having lived with the girl in Paterson, Brooklyn and New London, three different states, and having tried to use her or immoral purpose, returned to Suffern to face the abandonment charge, giving bond of $10,000.

       The girl either forcibly or voluntarily disappeared for a day or so following the return of Cheche. She claims to have been compelled to go away with him, remaining, however, but a few days.

       When she returned to her father’s house and told the story of her ruin and attempt of Cheche to “put her on the streets’’ and highways and live the life of a “harlot’’ that he might reap the profits of her crimson calling, this evidently set the father insane with fury and caused him to wre[a]ck vengeance in such a reckless, terrible manner.

       That there is great interest and much sympathy shown for the unfortunate father was illustrated in the prompt activity of Palamerazzo’s friends, who, led by Joseph Martin and other men, promptly engaged former District Attorney Gagan and Frank Comesky, who hurried to Suffern Wednesday afternoon in an effort to seek an interview with their client.

       This, District Attorney Lexow refused and the lawyers at once went before Judge Tompkins, secured a writ of habeas corpus that was made returnable before Judge Seeger, who was holding court in Goshen, Judge Tompkins having to go to Brooklyn, Thursday afternoon.

       In the hearing before Judge Seeger, notwithstanding that District Attorney Lexow was flanked by the Judge’s order committing Palmerazzo to New City to await the action of the Grand Jury without bail, Judge Seeger promptly issued an order directing the Sheriff to permit the Messrs. Comesky and Gagan to hold consultation with their client and possibly frame up the preliminary stages of the defense.

       Undoubtedly these clever lawyers will offer justification and excuse for the terrible, maddened act of the frenzied father, the unwritten law, the avenging of a daughter’s destroyed honor and virtue.

February 21, 1975 – 50 YEARS AGO

The Journal News

BABY GIRL MAKES SURPRISE ARRIVAL IN DOCTOR’S OFFICE

 [Image: Rosaleen Orfini and new daughter. Journal News Staff photograph by Al Witt.]

       Orangetown police officer Donald Orfini and his wife, Rosaleen, walked into their doctors’ office early Thursday afternoon to check minor labor pains Mrs. Orfini was having.

       Minutes later, they left the office with a new baby daughter.

       The Orfinis, who live at 41 Moore Ave., Pearl River, became parents about five minutes after they entered the offices of obstetricians Jesse Ellman, Richard Rosenberg, and Irwin Scher, on North Main Street, Spring Valley.

       Ellman and Rosenberg immediately began to deliver the baby. They were assisted by Orfini, and nurse-secretary Estelle Macy.

       “It’s the first baby born in the office in the 10 years I have been here,” said Mrs. Macy, “and it’s a healthy 7-pound, 8-ounce girl. She and the mother were brought by Spring Valley police and the ambulance corps to Good Samaritan Hospital, but both are doing fine.”

       Mrs. Macy admitted, however, that after her first assist in delivering a baby she could use “a nice stiff drink of something.”

This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan for the Historical Society of Rockland County. © 2025 by The Historical Society of Rockland County. #FBF Flashback Friday may be reprinted only with written permission from the HSRC. To learn about the HSRC’s mission, upcoming events or programs, visit www.RocklandHistory.org or call (845) 634-9629.