By Dan Hust
MONTICELLO — Monticello’s only female mayor to date, Anne Kaplan, passed away on Tuesday, said Trustee Carmen Rue, who held a moment of silence for the former resident.
Kaplan, best-known as the owner of the famous Kaplan’s Delicatessen on Broadway, was 92 and had served as mayor in the mid-70s.
“She and her husband Moe probably had the most successful restaurant in its era,” Sullivan County Commissioner of Jurors (and Monticello native) George Cooke recalled. “Anne really ran the business ... very similar to the Jewish delis down in New York City.”
“Like most people in Monticello, I have vivid memories of the hot dogs, knishes and Dr. Brown’s Cream Sodas from the sidewalk window of the deli,” added County Historian John Conway. “The place was so busy and there was so often a long line on the sidewalk waiting to get in that Schwartz’s Deli opened up literally just a couple of doors east on Broadway specifically to capture the overflow and the people who were tired of standing on line!”
Her nephew, Marvin Rappaport of Forestburgh, remembered the deli fondly – and his aunt even more so.
“I worked with her in politics,” he said. “She had a real sense of the community.”
Indeed she did, added former Congressman Matt McHugh, for whom Rappaport worked.
“I cannot think of Monticello and Sullivan County without fondly remembering Anne Kaplan,” McHugh related. “She was a warm and beautiful person, known and loved by her family and many friends and admirers. ... She was a good friend and for me was representative of the warmth and genuine quality of the people of Sullivan County. She will be long remembered and sorely missed by us all.”