Date: Fri 09-Aug-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Labor-Day-Parade-Marshal-Crick

Full Text:

Cricks Honored as Parade Marshals

w/photo

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

When Joan and Jim Crick believed their three grown children might all wind up

living in the South, they briefly thought about relocating there, too. After

all, the weather would be warmer and they could golf year-around.

"But we realized we just couldn't do it," Joan said. "We belong here, in

Newtown, in the Borough. Our roots are here."

The Cricks' lives are inextricably woven into the fabric of Newtown. For their

many contributions to the community, they have been tapped by the Newtown

Summer Festival Committee to serve as parade marshals for the Labor Day

Parade.

"We were really surprised to be asked," Joan said. "We feel it is such an

honor."

Joan, who has served as warden of the borough since 1988, is a 10th generation

Glover, a direct descendant of John Glover, who was one of the founders of

Newtown. She and her brother Lee Glover spent their early years on Main Street

in the two-family house next to what is now Town Hall South.

"We called it The Street and we were the street kids," Joan recalled. "We

spent our days roller skating on the sidewalks, sledding down the street in

winter - there wasn't much traffic then - and even selling apples.

"We really grew up in the library with (librarian) Sarah Mitchell - she

practically raised us because we spent so much time there."

Glover Avenue was named for Joan's grandfather, who owned the large house at

the corner of Glover and Queen Street. Joan was nine when her grandfather died

and her family moved into the house. "It was a dirt road then - usually with a

washboard surface - and much of the land between it and and Church Hill Road

was a swamp. Eventually - this was before the regulations about wetlands - the

swamp was all filled in and houses were built."

Jim's parents came to Newtown from the Bridgeport/Stratford area when he was

only three months old and moved into a home near what is now Sand Hill Plaza.

"Jim rode the bus to school. I was jealous of the kids that got to ride the

bus because I always lived too close and had to walk," Joan said.

Going to Hawley School

In those years, elementary grades were on the first floor of Hawley School and

the high school was upstairs. Jim was a few years ahead of Joan in school and

a good friend of her brother.

"Lee and I went into the Army together during the Korean War," Jim said. "Lee

was drafted in 1951 so I decided to enlist. I was working at the post office.

I'd started there part-time, working for (postmaster) Al Nichols when I was

still in high school."

Except for his years in the military, Jim Crick spent his life at the post

office, eventually retiring with 41 years, 11 months and one day of service.

In the early years he worked at Edmond Town Hall where the post office was

located in what is now the first selectman's office suite. Jim moved with the

post office to Queen Street in the early 1960s and retired on December 31,

1989, before the post office moved to Commerce Road.

"Because of his job, Jim knows so many people that no matter where we go on

vacation, we always seem to see someone that he knows," Joan said.

After Joan graduated from Hawley High School, she went to the University of

Bridgeport and graduated with a two-year medical secretary degree. "At that

time, you even had to learn how to draw blood from patients," she said. "But

when I graduated, there weren't any jobs available except for receptionists or

nurses, so I took a position as secretary to the chief engineer at the Barden

Corp."

She and Jim were married in 1956 and rented an apartment in a house owned by

their former first grade teacher, Jane Lynch, and her husband, Marty, on

Riverside Road in Sandy Hook. Joan had to leave her job when she became

pregnant with their daughter, Maureen. Within the next four years the Cricks

had two more children, Jim and Michael. They also bought an acre of land in

the Taunton area with the intention of building a house there.

"But that's when this house (at 7 Glover Avenue) became available and we

jumped on it," Joan said.

Michael was just three weeks old when the Cricks moved into the house where

they still live today. "We were the young people on the street then," Joan

recalled. "Now we are the `oldies' and have young families living on either

side of us."

Years of Service

While Joan was home with young children she started doing part-time work,

typing for Sgt Jim Costello, who was then the resident state trooper. She

became the clerk to the Borough Zoning Commission and eventually worked a few

afternoons a week for First Selectman Charlie Terrill. In August 1964 John

McCarthy asked her to work part-time for him at American Wire. She stayed for

a "wonderful" 30 years.

Despite her small stature, she was avid basketball player in high school. So

years later she helped organize the girls' recreational basketball league,

serving as a director and coach from 1970 to 1981, and also as a director and

coach of the girls recreational softball league from 1975 to 1980.

Joan was appointed to the Board of Burgesses in 1980 to fill a vacancy and the

following year she was made treasurer. She was appointed warden when Jim Gies

resigned in 1988, then was elected the following year and reelected every two

years since then.

Jim became an alternate to the Borough Zoning Board of Appeals in 1974, then

became a member and has served the board for 22 years, as its chairman for the

past five years. He has been a trustee of Newtown Savings Bank for about 10

years, and is treasurer and sexton of the Newtown Village Cemetery

Association, charged with overseeing maintenance of the Ram Pature.

"The Ram Pasture is one of my keen interests," Jim said. "Years ago it used to

go to hay and only was mowed at the end of the summer. Now we try to keep it

mowed and looking good at all times."

Years ago he also began collecting old postcards which show scenes of Newtown

and now has more than 200, nearly all of them different, although he says he

now probably nearly every view that was printed.

Jim is vice president of Newtown Country Club Realty Corp, which owns the

Newtown Country Club property. Joan is the club's treasurer and is treasurer,

and a past president, of the Ladies Golf Association. Both are avid golfers,

regularly playing three days a week.

When the Newtown Health District was formed as a partnership between the

borough and the town three years ago, Joan was the borough's representative in

the process and has served on the three-person health board ever since.

Today the Cricks are busier than ever, particularly now that they are

grandparents. Michael and his wife, Lisa, live in the Bunker Hill section of

Waterbury with their five sons: Matthew, 8, Will, 7, Ben, 3, and the twins,

Mitchell and Adam, 3. Jim and his wife, Lesly, are in Hilton Head, N.C., with

Emily Jane, almost two; they're expecting another child in December.

Maureen moved to Hilton Head, too, but missed Newtown so much that she is in

the process of moving back.

"She's too much of a Yankee - like us," Joan said. "We've decided to stay

right here on Glover Avenue."