Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago —
 September 1923

Kennard Suydam has finished a three year course of training at Pratt and Whitney’s, Hartford, and is now home for a month’s vacation.

Adv.: When You Desire Anything in my line such as house-painting, fresh coating, varnishing, glazing, etc. Apply to Peter A. Kisselbrack, Lakeville. Do not hang paper.

Abram Martin, the potato king, recently dug up a hill of what he calls “Double Yield” variety. He found 17 nice large tubers and not a small one among them.

Mrs. Homer Bathrick of Millerton is at her parents’, Mr. and Mrs. Welch’s of Lime Rock. She was in an auto accident last Saturday, dislocating her shoulder.

50 years ago —
September 1973

They’re hauling tons of sunflower seeds into the tri-state area again this week. Community Service Inc. of Lakeville, just one of many firms which sells bird feed here each winter, expects a shipment of 21 ½ tons -- that’s 43,000 pounds -- on Monday. Before the season is out Community Service expects to receive and sell 80 tons or more of food for the birds who winter here. Figure that dozens of other markets, hardware and feed stores handle this kind of product, and you come up with the realization that people in these towns feed the birds hundreds of tons of sunflower seeds and other feed each winter.

Ernie Goderis of Pettee Street is enjoying a reunion with Fred Ahboltin and his wife, Monica, who arrived in Lakeville unexpectedly last week from out west. Mr. Goderis and Mr. Ahboltin had been in the Army together in England during World War II and had not seen each other since 1945.

25 years ago —
September 1998

The staff of Sharon Hospital will not have union representation, at least for now. The majority of the 275 voters in the union election last Thursday said “nay” when they went to the National Labor Relations Board polls, casting an almost two-to-one collective vote against the union -- 147 no, 77 yes -- and in favor of interim president Michael Gallacher having a chance to address the hospital’s issues.

Connecticut’s Department of Transportation is moving forward to install a flashing yellow light at the intersection of Route 44 and Lincoln City Road. The light will actually be installed some time next year, according to Michele London, DOT’s supervising property agent. An easement was needed to place a support wire on the property of Dr. William Geer.

If someone had dropped by the Sharon Town Hall Monday afternoon, he or she might have been led blindly to the first selectman’s office for a surprise. It isn’t often Robert Moeller stands in his doorway with a black rat snake wrapped around his arm. Especially since that particular snake has not been known to travel farther north than Kent, he said. He plans to take the reptile to a record keeper to “authenticate it” to make sure the species is documented as having been found in the town of Sharon. The animal, which was spotted on the driveway in front of the Hotchkiss Library and suspected of having been run over by a car, took to Moeller as if the first selectman was his daddy, looking out at the crowd of spectators with only slight anxiety.

FALLS VILLAGE — Fire alarms wailed throughout town Monday night, but it was not a house that was in trouble. A train on the Housatonic Railroad caught fire, ground to a halt at Warren Turnpike, and burned for about an hour before it was extinguished. No one was hurt. 

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.