Image: Benjamin D. Esham

Image: Benjamin D. Esham

Though a familiar figure was missing from this year’s annual Geneseo Summer Festival, organizers, vendors, and attendees all found a way to honor the recently fallen Emmeline, the beloved bear statue that used to sit atop Geneseo’s Main Street fountain.

“So far the festival is going really well,” Nikki Winchester, a SUNY Geneseo student attending the festival, commented to the Livingston County News on the Saturday of the festival earlier this month. “There is a lot of enthusiasm and volunteers down here today. This year we have found many ways to make the festival about bears.”

Emmeline the bear has been a landmark figure for Geneseo residents and visitors for more than 120 years. The fountain statue was constructed in the 1880s as a memorial to the mother of Herbert and William Austin Wadsworth, but in April of this year, a tractor-trailer collided with the fountain, knocking Emmeline from her perch and badly damaging the entire structure.

Though the statue is currently undergoing restoration efforts and can be viewed on display at the Livingston County Museum, residents are still mourning the incident.

“People are devastated,” said Kurt Cylke, an Association for the Preservation of Geneseo board member, immediately following the April 7 crash. “I’ve seen people crying, in tears, beside themselves with what has happened here.”

Investigators looking into the crash said that the driver of the truck was not distracted or speeding, although recent research suggests that one in five truck and bus accidents are a result of driver fatigue. Rather, the driver simply had trouble navigating a bend in the road with unfortunate consequences.

“This is a tragedy, but a tragedy in a community that rallies,” Cylke said.

That much was obvious from the Summer Festival’s turnout. A cardboard cutout of Emmeline was available for pictures, and, despite morning rainstorms, attendance at the festival’s opening parade was up from previous years.

“We’re glad to be out walking around,” said Mary Hinsman, who drove with her husband all the way from Plattsburgh for the festival. “This whole area is absolutely gorgeous.”