Richard S. MacAlpine

Rich MacAlpine, a retired high school history teacher, has been the editor of Yates Past, the bimonthly publication of the Yates County History Center in Penn Yan, New York since 2008. He has researched and written over 130 articles on the history of that region of the Finger Lakes. Sixty-two of the best of them appear in the two companion books - Yates County Chronicles and Stories From Yates Past. In 2015 he co-authored Steamboats On Keuka Lake with Charles R. Mitchell.

The book on Admiral Frank Schofield (1869-1942) is Rich's most significant work to date, combining local, national, and military history. Over the course of eleven years he has read nearly 12,000 Schofield family letters, traveled thousands of miles for research, interviewed family members related to the Admiral and his wife, and sorted through old newspapers, family photos and journals in order to put this story together. Frank Schofield, oldest son of a cash-strapped tenant farmer, rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the entire American fleet in 1931-1932. Schofield's naval career is central to the book, but woven around it are the stories of his loving and supportive family. Rich and his wife live in Yates County, New York, the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region and the home county of Admiral Schofield.