Since the late 1800s, Newtown residents have depended on The Newtown Bee, and by extension, the Smith family, for the “best in local news and advertising.” And for nearly a century and a half, thousands and thousands of residents and readers have picked up their weekly Newtown Bee from newsstands or from their mailboxes.

Similarly, for more than 100 years, volunteers for the Newtown VNA have gone above and beyond the call to help keep generations of Newtown residents healthy, cared for, and even well-clothed thanks to the prolific bounty of fashions and accessories available at deeply discounted prices in its local Thrift Shop.

On Sunday, May 19, all local residents and anyone who loves their local newspaper and VNA are invited to say thanks and celebrate over refreshments as VNA volunteers and Bee Publisher R. Scudder Smith are honored as 2019 Newtown Treasures.

The free community event will be held in the Great Room at Newtown Congregational Church, 14 West Street, from 1 to 3 pm. Previous honorees have included the late Julia Wasserman and Mae Schmidle, along with Jean St Jean and Jim Juliano, Joe Borst and Dr John Reed, and Dr Thomas Draper and Dr Robert Grossman.

The event is cosponsored by the Town of Newtown, Newtown VNA, and the Newtown Health District. The event is open to all and will include light food and desserts, refreshments, and a speaking program featuring numerous invited guests and officials who are expected to share stories and memories of their experiences with the nursing agency and Mr Smith.

The event, in part, is the culmination of a year’s worth of activities surrounding the VNA’s 100th Anniversary.

First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, who is expected to attend, said that the event will be bittersweet without perhaps the NVNA’s most beloved promoter and supporter, Mae Schmidle, who recently passed away.

“But we know that she will be there in spirit,” Mr Rosenthal said.

On August 1 of 1919, a front page notice in The Newtown Bee called for all citizens to mobilize and codify the formation of a “visiting nurse” program in the Town Charter to assure Newtown was the first community in the state to create such a program. The community responded in kind and en masse, and within a week, the paper reported that “a Visiting Nurse Association was formally inaugurated; a constitution and by-laws were adopted.”

Another main function of the NVNA early-on was school nursing, where the nurse would encounter and define any health concerns as she reviewed all public school students and coordinate whatever care they might need in the home.

Hiring A Nurse

By October 1948, demand for Newtown VNA services grew so great that the association decided to add a part-time nurse to its rolls. In September of 1950, Ms Adelaide Barrett became the community’s new full-time visiting nurse.

The year 1969 saw the need for the Thrift Shop to relocate from the Atchison Building at Main and West Street, and a space at Edmond Town Hall was made ready for the move. 1969 also marked the year the Newtown VNA would welcome one of its longest-tenured and arguably most influential supporters, Mae Schmidle.

That same year, the state and federal guidelines changed so that all Visiting Nurse Associations would be required to have a director with a master’s degree. As a small agency, the VNA could not afford to meet the requirements to provide its public health services, so under the guidance of the group’s president, Mary Holian, the VNA Board of Directors made the decision to become affiliated with the Danbury VNA and purchased its nursing services through them.

The NVNA established an innovative Well Child Conference in March 1971. Also during the 1970s, the VNA provided funds to include a VNA Memorial Health Center in the multipurpose building that was being constructed for a daycare and senior center (known today as the Children’s Adventure Center and Newtown Senior Center, located at 14 Riverside Road).

Throughout the following decades and up to today, the VNA and its countless members, volunteers, and medical partners continued to diligently serve the community by providing a wide range of programs that sought to improve and sustain the health of the town’s residents.

Read more about the first 50 years of the Newtown VNA by clicking here

Read about the last 50 years and all the Newtown VNA has been doing by clicking here

Speaking Of Scudder

Speaking about Mr Smith, the first selectman said now more than ever, Newtown is fortunate to be among a dwindling number of communities that still has a dedicated local newspaper, never mind one that has been owned and operated by a single local family for well over a century.

“The Newtown Bee and its longtime leadership of Scudder Smith is something we should appreciate and recognize,” Mr Rosenthal said. “He has not only ensured countless subscribers and readers have access to local news every week, but he and his family have provided substantial underwriting and donations to community groups and charities.

The first selectman said Mr Smith and his family are unique in that they have donated and beautifully maintained The Pleasance, a park at 1 Main Street, “for all to enjoy for decades.”

“I’m certain this town would not be the same if it wasn’t for the generosity and service of Scudder Smith,” Mr Rosenthal said.

Mr Smith will join the even smaller ranks of those recently honored during these annual events, in that he was born in Newtown and admits that he never thought of leaving. After he was born, Mr Smith came home to a residence on Main Street, and he has lived in or near the center of Newtown except for his years serving in the US Marine Corps, which he volunteered for after an uninspiring year of college.

One of the centers of attention for Mr Smith, his pals, and many local residents in the 1940s, was the Atchison Block, which now houses Dere Street restaurant.

“It had the VNA Thrift Shop, the A&P, the Flagpole Fountain, Pitzschler’s barber shop, and George Stewart’s insurance agency,” Mr Smith recalled. “Upstairs was Meekler’s Cleaners.”

Mr Smith cannot remember a time as a youngster when he was not involved with The Newtown Bee by family association, and he often found himself somewhere around the office. But his involvement became more limited when he headed off to prep school, and five years later, to his freshman year at Amherst College.

But as young men do, Mr Smith and a boyhood friend sought something different, “so I talked to dad and told him I wanted to join the service.”

When asked about the appeal of joining the Marines over any other branch, Mr Smith was quick to respond, “Because they’re the best.”

One day, Mr Smith picked up a fellow Marine hitch hiking out of Jacksonville and learned that the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing or “Air Wing” could offer diverse opportunities, so he applied, and before long, he was training to be a navigator on a Douglas R5D and R4D transport plane. On the first flight Mr Smith navigated on his own, he plotted a course so deftly that the flight arrived at its destination an hour early.

Becoming A Bee

Upon his return to Newtown, Mr Smith said he was “sort of pushed into” working at The Newtown Bee, where he was the newspaper’s only photographer.

As he took over from his father, Paul, who ran The Newtown Bee for more than 50 years, the operation was running smoothly, so there was no need to institute a lot of changes. And now that he was back in his home town, Mr Smith never had a desire to live anywhere else.

One of the major decisions Mr Smith did make was spinning the Antiques and The Arts Weekly off as a separate publication after it grew to be an unwieldy section in the local Newtown Bee.

While Mr Smith is a renowned antiques collector, he said it was the people who taught him everything he knows that fired his passion to collect, and to make the A&A a preeminent publication for the industry, where he often featured his many mentors in cover features.

As publisher of the local paper, Mr Smith found it challenging to take a stand during the years when he was producing editorial columns on the front page every week.

He still remembers one particular editorial of the many he wrote incorporating his sly sense of humor that did not go over well at all.

“The worst beating I took was when I was a member of Hook & Ladder, and two girls wanted to join the fire company,” Mr Smith recalled. “So I wrote an editorial and titled it ‘Up The Ladder In A Mini Skirt.’ And I said a few things like it might be nice to have them around to clean up the dishes after we had a party, and put in there that they would probably refuse to climb up the ladder first. That editorial got me in so much trouble, but for some reason it got picked up by a newspaper in Japan.

“I meant for it to be fun,” he said. “But none of the ladies who went after me for writing it found it funny.”

To hear more anecdotes about and from Mr Smith, plan on attending the May 19 event. For information, contact Health District Director Donna Culbert at 203-270-4291.