Including Driving Miss Hawley—

Sisters Share Many Memories Of Small Town Life In Newtown

By Jan Howard

The Ram Pasture, the 1934 blizzard, a home on South Main Street, Mary Elizabeth Hawley, Hawley School, and their family — all these, and many more smaller details of Newtown’s history fill the memories of two sisters who have lived in Newtown all their lives.

Katherine “Kate” (Carmody) Kearns and Margaret Priscilla “Sally” Carmody were born in Sandy Hook in a house on Church Hill Road. They later lived with their sister, Alice, three brothers, Fred, Jack, and Barton, and parents, John and Winifred (Osborne) Carmody, in a vintage house in front of the Ram Pasture.

The family resided there for 30 years, from 1926 to 1956, and for about seven of those years, their father was employed by Miss Hawley as her chauffeur. Prior to his stint as chauffeur, Mr Carmody drove a jitney bus from Newtown to Bridgeport, charging 50 cents a person.

There were only 2,000 to 3,000 people in Newtown then, Ms Carmody said. “There were more people in the state hospital.”

In addition to their memories, Ms Kearns and Ms Carmody have material remembrances of their family, such as a bill to Sandy Hook School District from their great-grandfather, John Thomas Carmody, who came to America from County Clare in Ireland in the 1840s. The bill for $88 lists his services to the school for supplying coal and charcoal, housecleaning, and water carrying.

Ms Kearns has also researched her mother’s side of the family back to the immigrant, Richard Osborne who came to America in 1635 and received a grant of land for service in the Pequot War.

Ms Kearns and her husband, Mike, will celebrate their 55th anniversary in June. Their wedding was the first to take place by Hawley Pond, she said.

The couple lives on Osborne Hill on what was once the Kearns dairy farm. They have eight children, 19 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

In 1941 Ms Kearns graduated from Bridgeport Hospital’s School of Nursing, where she worked for a brief time before becoming a private duty nurse. Ms Carmody received an associate degree at Danbury Teachers College [now Western Connecticut State University] and became a legal secretary.

The Carmody family moved into the Ram Pasture house in October 1926.

“It was 150 years old then,” Ms Kearns said. Miss Hawley, who owned the house, had remodeled it, replacing a large central fireplace with a staircase. The windows in the barn were taken from the original Trinity Church, she noted.

There was no pond at Ram Pasture until Mary Hawley had it dredged in 1927, Ms Kearns said. She said the first couple of years they would swim in the pond. She noted, however, “There was a lot of muck. Our feet would sink in the mud.”

After the first couple of years, creatures began to inhabit the pond, Ms Carmody said, such as “leeches, muskrats, and snakes. It was good for creatures, but not for people,” though it continued to be an excellent place to ice skate.

Ms Kearns remembers the three beds of iris and the willow trees that Miss Hawley had planted near the pond. “They’re all gone now,” she noted.

Ms Kearns and Ms Carmody’s four siblings are deceased, but are remembered with affection and humor. Their brother Jack worked at Hamilton Standard in East Hartford on a project for NASA. “He received a commendation for working on a space suit for one of the moon landings,” Ms Kearns said.

Their sister, Alice, was a schoolteacher at Taunton School from 1928–30. When she was about 15, she played the piano for silent movies that were shown in a small building across from St Rose Church.

“I remember going to a movie there that had a train that seemed to be coming right out at the audience,” Ms Kearns said. “I remember screaming because I was so scared.”

Jack was valedictorian of his class in 1934, Ms Carmody said. “He was my inspiration. I said I would be valedictorian of my class, too, and I was.”

Ms Kearns said that when Ms Carmody graduated, she was listed as “teacher’s pet.” When she graduated, her title was a little different, she said, having been named “teacher’s pest.”

She remembered once being put out in the hall at Hawley School for whispering in class. “I was crying, not because I was being punished, but because I was afraid my brother Fred would see me and tell our parents.”

Coming to her rescue was Mr Job, the principal, who found her crying. After finding out why she was crying, “He took me into class, sat me down, and told the teacher to let me stay,” she said.

Ms Kearns attended Sandy Hook school briefly and then Hawley for 12 years. Ms Carmody spent 11 years at the school because she skipped a grade.

“You had to live a mile or more away to ride a school bus,” Ms Kearns said. “We either walked or Dad would drive us.”

During the 1934 blizzard school was closed for two weeks, they said, because the roads had to be shoveled. “The teacher let us wear our ski pants in school,” Ms Carmody said.

“We usually couldn’t go to class in pants. We would have to change and put on skirts,” Ms Kearns added.

Shopping for food and other goods was very different then, they said. “The mall came to us,” Ms Kearns said.

“Everything was delivered to the door,” Ms Carmody said, such as meat, fruit and vegetables, milk, bread, and baking supplies. The A&P was on Main Street, and their father would often pick up food items there.

Shoe repair and laundry was also available door-to-door, they remember, and the laundry could be brought back either dry or wet in preparation for ironing.

They remembered attending parish suppers at St Rose and helping their mother serve while men would carve the meat. When World War II started, the parish suppers ended, Ms Kearns said.

“Miss Hawley was always very nice to me,” Ms Kearns said. Miss Hawley had two Pierce Arrow automobiles, one for everyday travel and the other for Sunday. “I would sit with her in the back seat when we would go to Bridgeport, and hear her talk to my father through the speaker,” she said. It was one of the few times she said she heard her father called John, noting he was either Daddy or Babe.

“Daddy once went to Canada with Miss Hawley to visit St Joseph’s Shrine in Montreal,” she said. There he met Brother Andre, who has since been beatified by the Catholic Church.

Ms Kearns remembers the beautiful rose garden Miss Hawley had outside her home on Main Street. She also remembers the statue of a large black dog on the side lawn.

Among Miss Hawley’s many gifts to Newtown, Ms Kearns remembers that she gave funds to provide a free bed at Bridgeport Hospital for Newtown residents. “I don’t know if it’s still in effect, but there were some people who used it.”

When Miss Hawley died, her father began driving for Arthur Treat Nettleton of Newtown Savings Bank. Ms Kearns said she often went with her father when he would drive Mr Nettleton on bank business.

They said that after Miss Hawley died their father purchased from her estate an oak china closet and two bookcases that they still have today.

During the depression, people who were down and out would often stop at the Carmody home, Ms Kearns said.

“Mother would make them big sandwiches, sometimes bologna or ham, and give them cake and tea,” Ms Carmody said. “They seemed to know our house was a good place to stop.”

“They never came in the house,” Ms Kearns said, “Mother said she often thought there was a mark on a tree or something to tell them to stop there for good food.”