The native of East Greenbush, New York and graduate of Albany State Teachers College arrived in Utica in 1911 to become principal of the new 1,200-pupil Brandegee School on the city’s east side. Within a few years he had so impressed officials of the Savings Bank of Utica with his suggestions about the school savings plan, that he was offered the job of assistant to the bank’s president. Thus began a career that would have him rise through the ranks to the presidency himself in 1932. He continued in that capacity until his retirement in 1957, having successfully led the institution through the turbulent times of the Depression and World War II. Throughout the years there was hardly an important community undertaking with which Van Denbergh was not associated. He chaired a local campaign to aid victims of the 1923 Japanese earthquake, was treasurer of the state cancer drive, a director of the Utica Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau, and a guiding force for the improvement of local hospital services. One of the first trustees of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, he was that group’s treasurer and became its chairman, holding the post at the time of his death in 1974 at the age of 90.

He formed the Utica Americanization Council to aid immigrants in becoming citizens. It included language courses at Brandegee School. Following World War II, he chaired Utica’s emergency housing advisory committee that fought to provide veterans with suitable housing in the area.
He served as The Community Foundation’s president until 1968, when he was made chairman of the board. Upon his retirement from the board in 1971, he was elected an honorary director.

Roy C. Van Denbergh President

When J. David Hogue took over as publisher and president of Utica’s two newspapers, the Daily Press and Observer-Dispatch, in 1937, he pledged to give his readers “accurate, informative, interesting and wholesome” newspapers that would be “welcomed by men, women and children alike.” For 21 years he did just that. The DePauw University graduate brought with him the belief that his newspapers could and should provide publicity and encouragement for area successes, in both the economic and cultural arenas. That conviction proved to be invaluable to the community as a whole as it rebounded during the “loom to boom” era and specifically to The Community Foundation in its formative years.  Both papers carried front-page stories on the Utica Foundation’s incorporation in December 1952, explaining in detail its purposes and structure, and continued to provide positive coverage in the years that followed.

Recounting his success in turning the Utica newspapers into one of the most progressive and efficient units in the Gannett Group, following Hogue’s death in 1958 an editor wrote in the Daily Press, “David Hogue was not an ordinary person. There was nothing ordinary about him. His vital job of leading the Utica newspapers through good times and bad over 20 years would have been more than enough for most people. But Mr. Hogue’s energy was amazing.”

He applied that energy in being more than a respected publisher. He was a true believer in the potential of the Greater Utica Area. The community and The Community Foundation were the better for it.

Any roster of the leading citizens who worked in a multitude of ways to improve the quality of life in Greater Utica throughout the first half of the 20th century would include prominent attorney Warnick Kernan.

A native with a rich family heritage in the area, Kernan graduated from Georgetown University and Cornell Law School. For a time he served as commissioner of public schools in Utica.

His successful legal career encompassed serving as president of both the Oneida County and New York State bar associations. He was a member of the State Mortgage Advisory Committee and the State Law Revision Commission, chairing the latter. Active in the Democratic Party, he was named chairman of its state convention in Albany in 1928.

He was president of the Utica Library Board, president of The Community Chest, a director of the American Legion and served on the Utica Branch of the Foreign Policy Association. He was an organizer of a major labor union fund drive during the Depression and during World War II served as president of the United War Chest of Greater Utica.

His stature in the community was indicated by the major events at which he was a key figure. In 1923, he was one of the speakers at the ceremony dedicating the statue of Vice President James S. Sherman on Utica’s Parkway. Nine years later he was the toastmaster at Utica’s official centennial celebration.

Kernan, who was known respectfully as the dean of lawyers in Oneida County, lent his considerable experience and expertise to the Foundation as one of its original incorporators and as a member of its board until 1972.

Serving as one of The Community Foundation’s original incorporators was only one of many monumental roles William Murray played in the area’s industrial, social and cultural sectors during his lifetime. The native of Dunkirk, New York and graduate of Cornell University was vice president and treasurer of Utica Radiator Corporation (later Utica Boilers) when it was founded in 1928. He went on to become the firm’s president and chairman of the board.

His business acumen called him to service on the boards of various other corporations as well as numerous health, educational and financial institutions. In addition to The Foundation, community organizations of which he was a director included the YMCA, YWCA, Cosmopolitan Center, Red Cross, United Way, Senior Day Center, Oneida County Historical Society, Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau.

An avid supporter of the arts, Murray served as president of Munson-Williams- Proctor Arts Institute for over 20 years and became the honorary chairman of its board. He had also served as president of the Central New York Community Arts Council. He was the catalyst for the movement to preserve and restore the Stanley Theatre, initially writing a personal check to save it from the wrecker’s ball.

So significant were his lifetime accomplishments and contributions to the community that he was awarded honorary degrees by Hamilton College, Colgate University and Utica College.
     He remained on the Foundation’s board until his death in 1977.

While Alexander Pirnie was widely recognized as a dedicated and influential United States Congressman who represented Central New York from 1958 through 1972, he was an equally important figure with The Community Foundation for an even longer period.  

Pirnie was a native of Pulaski, New York and a graduate of Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He began practicing law in Utica in 1926 and quickly became active in community service. In 1933 he was honored by the Utica Observer-Dispatch as its most “useful citizen of the year” for his extensive work on behalf of the unemployed. He led the Community Chest drives in 1935 and 1936, and in 1955 served as president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Complementing his professional and community service work was a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Army, which began in 1924 when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Infantry of the Officers Reserve Corps. He served in Europe during World War II, earning the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit, and retired as a colonel in the Army Reserve in 1963.  While in Congress he was a member of the powerful House Armed Services Committee and successfully led efforts to keep open Griffiss Air Force Base, which local leaders had worked diligently to bring to the area two decades earlier.

A superb orator, Pirnie frequently put his speaking skills to work on behalf of the Foundation. He served the longest of any of the original incorporators, remaining on the board for 30 years until his death in 1982. His leadership, judgment and acute sense of the needs of the community were considered key in shaping and guiding the organization throughout those years.

It can be said that Henry T. Dorrance got it all started. 

An early believer in the community trust concept, it was under his direction as president that the Community Chest and Planning Council undertook the exploration of establishing such a mechanism locally. 

A native of Camden, New York, Dorrance graduated from Cornell University and Harvard Law School. During World War II he served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the Air Force, attaining the rank of full colonel and earning the Legion Award of Merit for outstanding service. Following the War he resumed his successful legal career, along with a fare-aching involvement in community service causes. Besides the Community Chest and Planning Council, he served as president of the Chamber of Commerce and of the Boys Club.

But it was his intense belief in the viability of The Community Foundation to be the solution for meeting long-term community needs that took center stage.  That conviction and the enthusiasm that flowed from it led him to become known as the Foundation’s “sparkplug” during its formative years. He remained a director and the secretary of the board until his death in 1961. 

In 1959, he was responsible for the creation of the George E. Upson Fund, the Foundation’s first fund from an individual unaffiliated with the organization. 

His innumerable contributions to The Community Foundation were summed up in an annual report dedicated to him: 

“He was impressive in stature, pre-eminent in character and blessed with a superb mind and gift of wit. Cordial in manner and wise in counsel, he demanded much of those with whom he worked, but always returned more than he received.”

“Betty” Balch was a positive force in the community well before answering the call to become one of the incorporators of the Utica Foundation. The Rome native and graduate of Sweet Briar College in Virginia had distinguished herself as a leader with numerous causes and organizations, including having served as president of the Junior League and as a board member of the Visiting Nurse Association, Senior Day Center and Community Chest. Also active at First Presbyterian Church and with the Players Theater, she was honored as Outstanding Alumna of Sweet Briar College in 1978. She was also known as an outstanding needle-woman and taught crewel jewelry for many years.

Married to Richard Balch, president of the Horrocks-Ibbotson Company and a leading figure in state and national Democratic Party circles, she continued to serve on the Utica Foundation’s board until 1968. As an original incorporator and the only female member of the group, she was a forerunner in the truest sense of the word. She helped shape the organization and paved the way for the profound roles women would play in its development, impact and ongoing progress.

The Foundation’s original organizing committee included eminent Utica attorney Henry F. Coupe. Upon his passing in June 1952, just a few months before the incorporation papers were formally filed, Henry’s place on the incorporating board was taken by his nephew, J. Leo Coupe. A successful lawyer in his own right, J. Leo would remain a valuable member of the Foundation’s board for the next two decades.

A graduate of Hamilton College and Harvard Law School, Coupe was as dedicated to community service as he was to the practice of law. He was the founder and an active leader of the local chapter of the Legal Aid Society, which helped make legal services in civil cases available to everyone, regardless of their financial status. His other contributions ranged from chairing the Oneida County Mental Health Board and being the New York Governor’s delegate to the 1961 White House Conference on the Aging, to serving on countless local boards, including United Way, St. Elizabeth Hospital, Catholic Charities and the Red Cross. Groups he served as president included the Hamilton. College Alumni Association and the Oneida County Bar Association. He was also actively involved in the Republican Party.

Coupe was regarded as a man of great ability and great dignity, who cared deeply about the clients and community he served. He considered The Foundation to be one of the area’s greatest assets and his long tenure on the board made him one of the few who helped lead it from modest beginnings to a position of substantial endowment and grantmaking capability.

While all of the other original incorporators engaged in social service work as an avocation, for Faber Stevenson, it was his vocation.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1903, Stevenson graduated from Westminster College and, after earning a Master’s from Columbia University, went immediately to work in the community chest field. He served with several such organizations on the east and west coasts before coming to Central New York in 1946 as director of the Utica Community Chest. He would remain in the post until his retirement in 1967.

In 1949, he oversaw creation of the new Community Chest and Planning Council and shortly thereafter provided professional staff support to the committee that explored establishing The Community Foundation. As a veteran practitioner in the field, he brought a unique understanding of both short-term and long-term community needs, and the different methods for addressing them. After the Foundation was formed, he was instrumental in producing its early informational literature.  The nature of his work led to an awareness of, and contact with, virtually every service program in the community. He was instrumental in the formation of such agencies as the Mohawk Valley Workshop, Meals On Wheels and the Central Homemaker Service, and took a special interest in projects like the 1951 study that led to the merger of St. Luke’s and Memorial hospitals.

In 1955 he provided leadership to the Community Chest and Planning Council at another key juncture in its history, formation of the United Fund, which combined the community chest appeal with the Red Cross and other independent agencies. Stevenson served on The Community Foundation’s board until 1970, bringing the enthusiasm for which he was well known and wisdom only he could contribute.

When John Train passed away on June 12, 1958, the Utica Daily Press, in an editorial salute to him, said, “No city ever has enough of such personalities and Mr. Train’s death leaves a vacancy on Utica’s honor roll which will be hard to fill.”

The Community Foundation was among those feeling the void.

Train was a natural fit for The Foundation’s start-up board. He had arrived in Utica in 1914 to take charge of the fledgling Utica Mutual Compensation Insurance Corporation, forerunner of the Utica National Insurance Group, and proceeded to guide it into becoming one of the most successful operations of its type in the country. Along the way he became a leader in a host of programs for the betterment of his industry and community.

Always forward thinking, he chaired the Governor’s Committee to Employ the
Physically Handicapped and his voice and counsel were heard and heeded by community leaders, lawmakers and other public officials on major issues ranging from revising the City of Utica’s charter, to structuring its municipal water authority. A native of Batavia, New York, Train was a graduate of Syracuse University and its law school, and practiced law briefly in Syracuse before joining the New York State Insurance Department in 1905. His rapid rise there led to the call to Utica Mutual.

Despite all of his achievements, Train was most remembered as a quiet and unassuming man of uncompromising integrity, with a gentle sense of humor and an extraordinary commitment to those causes in which be believed. The Community Foundation was one of them.