Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago –
September 1924

Mrs. Martha Surdam is quite ill from the effects of ptomaine poisoning at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Guy Drumm.

LIME ROCK – Mr. and Mrs. Frank Brown are entertaining their niece from the south.

Connecticut automobile owners are spending more money this year for gasoline than for their daily bread. A gallon of “gas” is being bought nearly as often as a pound of meat, and the gasoline consumption is increasing rapidly.

Last Thursday 9720 young lake trout were placed in the lake. These trout came from the Salisbury Rearing Station.

The heavy rains of the early part of the week were of great value to springs, water supplies, late crops and pasturage, but were pretty hard on hilly dirt roads. The Lime Rock road especially suffered, deep gullies being cut by the water particularly on the long hill past the Honour farm. However, the road men have been restoring the road to its usual condition.

The daylight saving time will go out of operation the last of the present month and the trouble of figuring out two sets of time will end. As the matter stands at present no one in the state of Connecticut will be sorry.

Ralph Bertoni who expects to open a restaurant and home made bakery in H.T. Miller’s store building, has rented living rooms in the rear of E.L. Peabody’s telephone building.

The Misses Josephine and Evangeline Cullen expect to move their business of Electric Lamp shades and novelties to New Britain, where they expect to considerably expand the present scheme of the business. Their many friends here will wish them the fullest measure of success in their new field.

Messrs. Gerald Bauman and William Matheson started yesterday on a motor trip across the continent. The lads are going to finance themselves and try and see as much of the country as possible and have a good time doing it. They have purchased a second hand car in which to make the trip and say they “will arrive when they get there.”

Xavier Chattleton, the last Civil War veteran in Norfolk, died at the home of his daughter on Sunday, August 31st. He was 84 years of age.

50 years ago –
September 1974

The season’s first frost was recorded last Thursday, Sept. 5, in Norfolk, with temperatures as low as 29 degrees.

Peter Reilly, the 19-year-old Falls Village youth convicted of first-degree manslaughter for the death of his mother, Barbara Gibbons, will be represented by a new attorney in appealing the conviction in the State Supreme Court. T.F. Gilroy Daly, a Fairfield attorney, will represent Reilly in his appeal, according to Reilly Defense Committee members. Members of the committee have explained that attorney Daly was retained as Reilly’s lawyer largely through the efforts of playwright Arthur Miller of Roxbury and other prominent authors and entertainers, who have banded together with the Reilly Committee to raise funds for Reilly.

Salisbury is on the right track in planning a transfer station for solid waste but will have to seek an intermediate landfill for compacted waste until a resource recovery plant is ready, First Selectman Charlotte Reid said Tuesday night. She reached her conclusions, she told the selectmen, on the basis of a 1½-day meeting in Hartford sponsored by the National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors for all communities in New England that have garbage disposal problems.

Several children from the Connecticut-New York corner have spent this week being filmed for segments for a new children’s television series, “Big Blue Marble,” which will have its premiere this weekend. The “marble” of the title is Earth, as described and photographed by astronaut Frank Borman from moon orbit. Local youngsters being filmed in Lakeville this week are Geoffrey Charde and Richard Turnure of Lakeville, Ellen and Sara Curtis of Amenia and Tara Prindle of Sharon. The 26-week series theme will be activities and attitudes of children around the world, from an American girl on a ranch, to a boy training to be a jockey in Ireland or a boy operating a water-taxi in Hong Kong.

The Canaan Fire Company is now the owner of the former Getty Oil property at the intersection of routes 44 and 7. The firemen took possession of the building this Monday. The firemen purchased the building for use as a new firehouse. Getty sold the property for $60,000, $20,000 of which was given to the firemen by the town.

25 years ago –
September 1999

The Sharon Lions Club honored Sharon resident Kenneth L. Bartram for his dedication to the community in a ceremony at the Interlaken Inn Sept. 1. Mr. Bartram was awarded the first-ever Sharon Lions Club Volunteer Citizenship Award. Mr. Bartram has cared for the Town Green for 35 years, was a member of the Sharon Volunteer Fire Department for 30 years and was a member of the Board of Selectmen for 25 years. He was also a gardener at the Jameson estate, worked at Meyers, was a custodian at Housatonic Valley Regional High School and worked at Sharon Hospital.

SHARON – Seventy years ago, 14-year-old Jean Lundeen joined the Taghhannuck Grange. Two weeks ago, Mrs. Lundeen was given an award for that 70 years of membership – something few grange members ever receive.

Hats off to state Rep. Andrew Roraback (R-64) of Goshen. He holds the distinction of being the only one of the 151 members of the House of Representatives to have completed the last five legislative sessions without missing a roll call vote. This brings his consecutive voting streak to 2,369 votes, with his first vote cast on Feb. 1, 1995, and his most recent on June 14, 1999. “I love my job, so it’s no chore for me to make every effort to be there,” said Mr. Roraback. “I’m blessed to represent a constituency with a work ethic second to none. The people here work very hard, so it’s not unreasonable for me to do my job.” In addition, Rep. Phil Prelli (R-63) of Winsted was among those who had 100 percent voting records for 1999 roll calls.

Housatonic Valley Regional High School will celebrate its 60th anniversary this weekend with a clam back, a silent auction and dancing at Lakeville’s Interlaken Inn. HVRHS was the first regional high school in Connecticut, and in fact in all of New England. Until the Georgian-inspired brick building opened its doors to students Sept. 24, 1939, each town had to host its own teens in academic facilities that were smaller and more meagerly funded.

The employees of the Canaan National Bank recently presented a check for $119 to the “Arnold’s Hope Fund,” named for Arnold Agar Jr. The fund was the recipient of this month’s “dress down for charity day,” which takes place on the last Friday of every month. Employees wear casual attire to work in exchange for a donation made to the charity, and the bank matches the amount donated by its employees, doubling the funds raised. Arnold Agar is an Ashley Falls teenager battling AML leukemia. The medical bills are mounting and a bone marrow transplant will soon be necessary. His parents are Arnold and Diana Agar, owners of Arnold’s Garage in Canaan and active members of the North Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

A Falls Village gardener has reaped the rewards of her dedication to helping others benefit from nature’s bounty. Jacqueline Heriteau was elected a Fellow of the Garden Writers Association of America at the group’s 51st annual symposium in Toronto from Aug. 19 to 22. Ms. Heriteau received the honor in recognition of work as national director of the association’s Plant a Row for the hungry campaign. The program, founded in 1995, encourages home gardeners, schools, churches and community organizations to grow extra food in their gardens for donation to soup kitchens and food banks. Only 51 members of the association have been elected fellows since the association was formed in 1948.

After losing pediatrician Dr. Robert Moes in June, Sharon Pediatrics has added a new doctor to its practice, Dr. Virginia Gray-Clarke. Dr. Moes, who was in Sharon for about three years, left to practice in the Boston area. Dr. Gray-Clarke started with the practice Sept. 1, and is now seeing Dr. Moes’ patients, as well as taking patients of her own.

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