Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — December 1922

J.G. Kimmerle has entered the hospital in Pittsfield for treatment for troublesome tonsils.

Stanley Sherwood and Roy VanDeusen have entered the employ of the Salisbury Iron Corporation at Lime Rock.

The lake still remains open. It is a tradition that the lake and the Hudson river close up at the same time.

The traveling has been very icy the past week, the sidewalks being especially so. Lakeville is about the only real village that we know of where no attempt to clear the walks generally is made. What’s the use of having a good sidewalk if you must walk in the road anyway.

50 years ago — December 1972

Mark Van Doren’s friends and neighbors gathered at the First Church of Christ in Cornwall Wednesday afternoon to pay their final respects to the beloved poet, author and teacher who died suddenly Sunday night. Prior to the memorial service Mr. Van Doren had been buried in an 11 a.m. private family ceremony at the Cornwall Hollow Cemetery near the old farmhouse which he and his wife Dorothy had acquired nearly 50 years ago. 

Lakeville Precision Molding Inc., Salisbury’s largest employer, has been sold to the Norton Co., a multi-national industrial manufacturer with headquarters in Worcester, Mass. Operations in Lakeville will continue with the same management.

The former Grove kindergarten building was moved early this week to the property of the John D. Mulville Construction Co. on Indian Cave Road. The building, which had been on its site just off Under Mountain Road since 1950, had most recently been used as a teen drop-in center. Mr. Mulville plans to renovate the structure and perhaps use it as a carpenter shop.

Salisbury voters will meet tomorrow night to decide whether to accept the layout and the deed for a new street named Chatfield Hill Drive, and whether to approve a new draft ordinance for licensing food-dispensing establishments.

The volunteer program to collect glass for recycling has ended in Salisbury. This Saturday, the third Saturday of the month and therefore normally the collection day, there will be no trucks, no barrels and no be-goggled glass smashers at the town garage. As reported recently in The Lakeville Journal, the small group of faithful volunteers, headed by Mary Brock, has found the job too much to handle alone. 

Births, deaths, property sales, elections and a multitude of town meetings, deciding matters great and small in the life of Falls Village, have filled the 27 years that Ada Moore has been town clerk for the community. Mrs. Moore will relinquish her post as the recorder of public events on the first day of January, officially ending her long term of service. 

David Goddard II was endorsed Monday night by the Falls Village Board of Fire Commissioners to replace William Dickinson as Fire Marshal for the town.

Pfizer Inc. has been selected as one of the nation’s five best-managed companies for 1972 by the editors of Dun’s Review business magazine. Pfizer operates a plant in Canaan.

25 years ago — December 1997

The redesign plan announced this week will save Sharon Hospital $5 million over the next two years. The plan will also cause the loss of 31 jobs over the same period. Five of those layoffs will be made by Jan. 19, followed by one in February and six in March. 

Sarah Vallera, a veteran of newspaper and print production, has recently joined the staff of The Lakeville Journal. She is filling the vacancy left by Marie Wells, who worked at the paper for nine years, most recently as the production manager. Ms. Wells recently accepted a job as office manager at Elyse Harney Real Estate in Salisbury.

Two young girls learned that honesty does pay. On a recent stop at the Kent branch of the New Milford Bank & Trust Co. with their aunt Caitlin Bournival, 9-year-old Julia Holly and her 7-year-old sister Madeleine found $100 in the automated teller machine. Eager to return the money, they quickly gave it over to a bank employee. A few days later they were informed that the person who lost the money was so pleased he gave half of it to them.

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible. For more archives, go to www.scovillelibrary.org.