Turning Back The Pages

100 years ago — January 1921

There is very good sleighing at the present time and the youngsters are having great times trying out their new Christmas sleds and skis.

SALISBURY — Mrs. Stanley Sherwood had the misfortune recently  to drive a crochet hook into her right hand and the services of Dr. Bissell were necessary to remove it.

LIME ROCK — John Lowe Jr. had his tonsils removed on Wednesday in the Pittsfield Hospital.

LAKEVILLE — The new Reo Chemical truck recently purchased for the Lakeville Hose Co. is expected to arrive here today from Utica. A description of the new apparatus will be given later.

The great amount of rainfall and lack of freezing has had the effect of making very bad road conditions. Even the newly constructed state road has suffered from weather conditions, Smith Hill being especially bad.

50 years ago — January 1971

A wedding in which the pledge was taken in German rather than English so preoccupied the Rev. F. Newton Howden of Lime Rock that he failed to read the fine type on the back of the wedding license. Only after he had married Karl Heinz Glawischnig of Austria, and Miss Bertha E. Hechenbleikner of Cornwall, a teacher at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, did the rector of Trinity Church read the printing on the back of their license, which had been issued in Sharon. What he read, he reported later, was “Any minister who shall marry this couple in any other than the town of Sharon shall be fined not more than $500 and sentenced to not more than a year in jail.”

Startled, he looked for the bride and groom, but they had left for the reception in Torrington. “Fortunately,” said the Rev. Mr. Howden, “we’d been invited to the reception.”

There he again saw the happy couple and found that, from Torrington, they planned to go to their new home in Sharon, where the license had been issued. He followed them there, and when they were at home he again called them before him. “I now pronounce you man and wife — in the town of Sharon,” he said. He chuckled, “That should make it perfectly legal.”

TACONIC — Allen and Leonard Pierson, brothers, lost their lives early Wednesday morning, when the house in Taconic rented by Allen Pierson was consumed by fire despite the efforts of three fire departments.

CANAAN — With the appointment of Trooper Stanley P. Szcesiul to a new post in Hartford last month, a search began for a suitable replacement as resident state trooper for Salisbury. A replacement has been found, in the person of Trooper Robert Smithwick, who began his duties here on Jan. 1. Trooper Smithwick has served with the Canaan Barracks since August of 1963.

An open house celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth A. Hart of West Main Street, Canaan, was held Dec. 20 at the home of their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth A. Merz of Cornwall Bridge.

25 years ago — January 1996

Iman, the daughter of Natalie and Theodore Golden of Wingdale, N.Y., was the first baby born at Sharon Hospital in 1996. She was born Tuesday, Jan. 2, at 4:33 a.m.

Burton Brook still flows toward Main Street in Lakeville, but Wednesday found it buried beneath a fresh blanket of snow. The winter’s latest storm dropped more than a half foot of snow over the entire region, extending Region 1 students’ Christmas vacation by one more day.

The Lakeville Journal landed in the national late night talk show spotlight Tuesday when actress Jane Curtin, a Sharon resident, read from the local newspaper on The Tonight Show with host Jay Leno. The actress read from staff reporter Charlotte Reid’s “Have You Noticed?” column in the Dec. 21 edition of The Journal.

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