PIGEON FANCIER'S FROM THE PAST

 The purpose of this page is to look to the past and present those fanciers who contributed to their pigeon breed and promoted the hobby of pigeons.

You are welcome to present someone you knew  to honor on this page.

The person may not have been known by many fanciers, but may have been your mentor and helped you in the pigeon hobby

Email 1-3-2010

My sister actually Googled my dad’s name and came up with your website—I am Alex Rawson’s youngest son, and actually the one who designed his book.

It was apparently years and years of work, and unfortunately he was really ill by the time I even knew about its existence. He gave me boxes of papers and drawings and asked me to put it together and get it printed. A lot of time, and unfortunately (in my opinion), all his years of breeding and judging was wasted b/c it was not edited properly. The final product did not do his knowledge justice. I am not a pigeon fancier, so all of his writings were Chinese to me.

My dad died in January of 2001. Strangely, through my father in law, I met another fancier (race pigeons) in Brooklyn that knew my father. If anyone needs particular information, this gentleman might be able to give some insight. Please email me and I can try to get his contact info.

Thanks for posting this. It gave me chills!

Adam Rawson

ALEX RAWSON

 

BOOK INTRODUCTION

The author is dead.   He lived in Staten Island, NY. He was born Alex Rosen and changed his name to Rawson years later.
 
I believe the book was written in the late 80's

I remember him showing everyone the rough draft at our regular monthly meetings in the Polish National Hall in Queens, NY.   He wanted the club and individuals to pay for the publishing of the book.  That never materialized and he paid for it himself.

Mike Seiler

II knew Alex Rawson and he was a great pigeon man!! If you look back through APJ's of the 70's on you'll find many articles penned by Alex. He worked endlessly on black white side Tumblers and got pretty close. He passed away in the 90's I believe. He judged Nuns for us a couple of times. I did not know about the book but it does not surprise me.

There is a black Whiteside Tumbler on the cover

 
Stan Ryan
New York State
NPA District 2 Director

 

FRANK GARCIA

VIEW INFORMATION

JIM ZERBO

VIEW INFORMATION

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Bill,
 
Alex Rawson was a breeder of Domestic Flight pigeons for many, many years, he passed away some time ago and I think someone will be able to give you particulars about him.  I met him once at the Pageant of Pigeons, I think, in the 1970's, very nice man, I doubt he had enemies.  He also had short faced pigeons and built up a little stud of birds he called Rawson Short faced Tumblers.  I also have a copy of this book given to me by him years ago.
 
Bill, do you have old copies of the APJ from the seventies and earlier?  If you look through them, you will find quite a few articles by Alex about Domestic Flights and short faced tumblers generally.  He had some very fine barred Domestics, I think he called them his "King Kelly" line, named after one of his favorite barred cockbirds.

I seem to recall that there was no publishing date.

Bill, the problem is that the people who knew him best are now mostly passed on.

The book is interesting but a couple of errors there...some of his Nun drawings show rosettes and as far as I know, Nuns were never standardized with rosettes.  Possible exceptions might be the Nun marked varieties of European tumblers.  And magpie marked Berliners are supposed to have white rumps, not colored.  I think it might be that he was just reflecting personal taste or the prevailing taste of Empire SF Club breeders at the time. 
 
I don't know if you were an Empire member years ago but I recall they required straight set beaks in a lot of their breeds (Ancients, Konigsberg Moorhead's, etc.) which, more recently, have been changed to the proper slightly down set that their European counterparts have.  And they emphasize the zitter, or neck shaking in some of those breeds that at the time, just weren't required by the Empire club breeders.

I do hope you will get more info on Alex from the guys that are left who knew him best.  First time I met him I was little more than a teenager, maybe I was early twenties at the time, it was at the Pageant and he walked up to me, introduced himself, and gave me a big bear hug and called me "bubbela" (sp. ?), that was just the type of guy he was

Diane Jacky

 

Alex Rawson and I started to correspond in the late seventies, while I was writing a column for the old American Pigeon Journal.  I was working with Marked Muffed Tumblers and Alex would write to me about the Black Whiteside Tumblers that he was trying to develop.

So I made a point of going to New York City and visiting with Alex in person.  I wanted to see those Black Whiteside Tumblers.  If I remember correctly, Alex lived on Staten Island and he kept his birds in the basement.  I don't think that he was suppose to have pigeons in his neighborhood, so instead of a loft with a fly pen, the birds would go out into a small fly pen that was attached to one of his basement windows.  It was covered, with something like burlap, I assume so that the neighbors could not see the birds.

Alex would cut up his APJ's and file the articles in three ring binders, with an index.  This way he knew just where to find an article if he wanted to refer back to it.  If you have access to old APJ's you might look up some of Alex's articles.  They were always very interesting.  I hope that someone was able to get his collection of APJ's and they were not just thrown out.    


Bill, I think that this a good idea to remember those in the pigeon hobby who have passed away.  Keep up the good work and let me know if you need help with any other breeders.  I also knew Harold Stengel (I have to check the spelling of his last name.) and I could write a piece on him.

Bob
R. L. Fragoman
Memphis, NY 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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