Turning Back the Pages - June 19, 2025

125 years ago — June 1900

S.W. Raymond of the Connecticut Bible Society conducted a service in the school house at Mt. Riga last Sunday afternoon.

SALISBURY — An automobile passed through this village on Monday evening.

SHARON — Mrs. Rogers of Amenia is sewing for Mrs. R.P. Knight.

We have the wireless telegraphy, the horseless carriage, the chainless safety smokeless powder, and now if we had gossipless country towns, a good many people might have some dreamless sleep.

Our local wheelmen are cautioned against riding on the sidewalks. It is counted a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine. The practice is especially dangerous after dark. It is also well for wheelmen to remember the law against going without a lighted lantern after dark.

During the heavy thunder shower of Monday evening lightning struckahay stack near John Garrity’s and burned it. A bolt also struck the ground back of A. Martin’s, tore up a telephone pole and plowed quite a furrow in the ground.

100 years ago — June 1925

The new schedule on the C.N.E. went into effect last Sunday. The 11 o’clock morning train and 1 o’clock afternoon steam trains are removed and a gas bus now operates in their place. The gas bus is a dinky affair and carries passengers and mails, but the mails are only through mails in locked pouches, as the bus has no room for a mail clerk. Thus we lose local mails. The only time we can send a letter to way stations east is on the early morning steam train, and we can only receive way mail from the east on the evening steam train. It is indeed a “beautiful” service and about fit for darkest Africa, or the Arctic regions. No passenger trains at all are operated on Sunday.

About 20 young friends of Master George Sherwood helped him to celebrate his fifth birthday on Wednesday.

Mrs. Annie Scribner has been suffering from an infected right hand the past three weeks, but is much improved.

LIME ROCK — Mr. John Lowe is selling fine strawberries from his own garden.

Mrs. Rose Mitchell who has been in New York for the past few months has returned to Lakeville, and is employed at The Gateway. In the recent robbery of the railway station Mrs. Mitchell’s trunk was one of those which was forced open. Mrs. Mitchell says that she thus lost two hundred dollars which she had placed in the trunk when it was shipped from New York.

The rebuilding of Interlaken Inn is nearing completion and it is thought the building will soon be ready for business.

Owing to the fact that the express service on the midday trains has been discontinued, O’Loughlin Bros. have decided to run an auto parcel delivery service daily between Millerton and Hartford. Any one desiring service of this nature can have their errand attended to by calling 174-2 and will be assured prompt and courteous treatment.

A small fire at Edward McCue’s ice house called out the hose company last Friday. The fire siren failed to work and then when it did finally start it failed to stop. A broken push button seemed to be the cause of the trouble. The fire was extinguished before the services of the firemen became necessary.

A.S. Martin has added a new Selden Pathfinder auto truck to his equipment. John Phillips is driving the new machine, and is so proud of it he will not even let a fly light upon it.

A severe rain and wind storm struck town on Monday evening with a fall of hail stones. The wind broke branches from the trees in some sections. The amount of dead branches on the ground after the storm emphasized the fact that many of our beautiful trees are in need of pruning and other care.

50 years ago — June 1975

Six-year-old Michael Dunn, a kindergartener at North Canaan Elementary School, drowned Tuesday in Salmon Kill in Lime Rock. Two-year-old Melissa Bearns, daughter of Stuyvesant and Wendy Bearns of White Hollow Road, also fell into the stream and is in critical condition at Sharon Hospital but is showing slight improvement, according to a hospital spokesman late Wednesday. Michael was the son of Bernard and Debra Dunn of Housatonic Road in Canaan. The mothers of both children, as well as other adults, were working in and around the Bearns home at the time of the accident, but reportedly none was aware that the children had gone outside and to the streambank.

Memories of railroad wheel manufacture in Lime Rock around the turn of the century are still a vital part of the life of Willard Palmer of Perry Street, Lakeville. He even has some of the old wheel patterns. Mr. Palmer, a lively man whose sprightly manner belies his 80 and more years, has lived in Northwest Connecticut most of his life and springs from a family that was involved with the major industries that flourished here. “My father’s people were connected with the foundries,” he said, “while mother’s were all railroaders.” Some of the family also worked in the quarries. Mr. Palmer confesses to an early desire to become a railroader, but eventually gave up that dream to work in wood. He said that his family discouraged him from working with the railroads, holding that “it was no kind of life.” And then, “the woodwork just seemed to come handy,” he noted.

“It is a total joy to live in an age in which you can fly,” Nancy Tier of Sharon told members of the Salisbury Rotary Club Tuesday in recalling her 48 years as an active pilot. “I think flying today is the safest means of transportation,” she declared, noting that this feeling is reaffirmed “when I sit there and relax and look down at all those people in cars going zip, zip.” Mrs. Tier related how she had wanted to fly ever since she was 9 and started taking lessons at Hoover Field in Washington, D.C. the fall after Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic. She obtained her license in 1928 after a total of 16 hours and 45 minutes in a plane with 10 hours of solo.

SHARON — Merydith McMillan has won another award from Cricket, the national children’s magazine. This is the second time she has been honored for her work as an artist. Mery has just completed first grade at the Town Hill School.

The Grand Union this week announced it would discontinue use of trading stamps as part of a major new marketing strategy in 82 stores of its Empire Division in upstate New York and sections of Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

25 years ago — June 2000

CANAAN — Geer Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary, but no one is looking back. A carnival-like picnic on the lawn of the facility last Saturday was within view of a piece of history that is in the process of becoming a memory and making way for two new facilities. Folks also got a sneak peek at plans to renovate the existing center. Demolition began Friday on the old Geer Hospital, last used eight years ago. Two adjacent Geer-owned houses are also slated to be removed, all to make way for “The Village at Geer Woods.” Two assisted-living facilities — Geer Village and Geer Woods — will be built on a revamped 69-acre Geer campus that includes a relocated main driveway and expanded parking.

FALLS VILLAGE — For the second year in a row, the Lee H. Kellogg School has earned first place in Gov. John Rowland’s Summer Reading Challenge. Students at the school read a total of 3,553 books, or an average of 30.9 books per student, and 100 percent of students participated. School librarian Judy Gafney said much of the credit for the school’s outstanding placement was due to D.M. Hunt librarian Erica Joncyk, who encourages the students with prizes and parties and keeps count of how many books are read.