December 1, 2000

HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER OF Colleen Honan.

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EDITORIAL INK DROPS — CELEBRATE THE SEASON CLOSE TO HOME: Just as every family has its traditions, the Newtown community has accumulated a sleighful of holiday customs over the years. The town is so eager to get started each year that Thanksgiving’s wishbones are barely broken before we start filling sacks with sand for the big luminaria display in the center of town. This is the first weekend in December, which means that it’s time to light the town tree in the Ram Pasture and dress up Main Street for the Annual Holiday Festival. It’s also time to remember that this season isn’t all about commerce.

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About 18 months ago, Gloria Lovecchio saw a large golden religious figure roll by on Boggs Hill Road and realized that something was changing in the neighborhood. “One day, I saw a statue of a Buddha on a flatbed truck. That’s when I got my first clue,” said Ms Lovecchio, who noted that the truck hauling the smiling figure in the lotus position pulled into … Boggs Hill Road. In the spring of 1999, the Cambodian Buddhist Society of Connecticut purchased that nine-acre Boggs Hill Road property from the Daly family for $470,000. The site formerly was a horse farm.

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A collection of long-since-forgotten photos of the Edmond Town Hall construction will be on display at Edmond Town Hall this weekend as part of the town’s holiday festival. The pictures were taken back in the late 1920s and show the town’s most famous building in mid-construction. “It had to be 1929 or 1930 because they opened town hall in the summer of 1930, I believe,” said Town Hall Board of Managers Chairman Edgar Beers. Town hall staff members discovered the pictures earlier this year in the back of a desk drawer. … “As far as we know, the last time they saw the light of day was in March of 1959 when they were printed.” … The pictures depict construction of the first floor of the building in and around where the offices of the town clerk and first selectman are now located.

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The masonry materials to be used on the proposed 5/6 school were picked out and voted on by the Newtown Board of Education Tuesday night. The special board meeting at the district office brought together members of the Newtown Building and Site Commission as well as representatives from Strategic Building Solutions, the project manager, and Jeter, Cook & Jepson, the architectural firm, to decide what materials are best suited for the school.

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Marie Sturdevant and Sylvia Poulin are once again co-chairs of the annual Salvation Army bell ringing fundraiser in Newtown. The local unit of the Salvation Army will begin the bell ringing Friday, December 8. It will continue for the next two weekends in front of the Grand Union and Super Stop & Shop (Fridays, December 8 and 15, from 5 to 8 pm, and Saturdays, December 9 and 16, from 10 am to 4 pm). Money raised at this annual event is used solely for Newtown residents who need temporary assistance and also to maintain the food pantry kept by the Salvation Army in Newtown. … Organizers are still seeking volunteers to take part in one-hour shifts in front of the kettle.

November 28, 1975

EDITORIAL INK DROPS — LET’S SLOW DOWN: By the time The Bee reaches most of its readers, Thanksgiving 1975 will be a day in the past and while some of us will be enjoying a long weekend, others will be right back at work. The retail merchants will start enforcing the Christmas sales pitch and from now until the end of the year the roads will be filled with holiday visitors and shoppers. As can be expected, with more cars on the roads, more accidents will take place and each season travelers pit their skills against the gruesome statistics predicted by the highway commissions — and many lose.

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On November 8 Mr and Mrs Fred Scholz of the Taunton district celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary at a dinner party at Arnold’s Sanford Barn in Hamden. The party was given by the Scholz’s son and two daughters and their families. … For a wedding present the couple was given a gift of travel, and the first legs of a planned journey will take Mr and Mrs Scholz to Charlotte, N.C., then to Evansville, Indiana, and then on to Florida.

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First Selectman Frank DeLucia received last Friday, November 21, the approval of the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials to reimburse the Town of Newtown $14,000 for a study of the much-discussed Pootatuck River Valley aquifer. The Board of Selectmen accepted the funding at a special meeting that night, three days after tabling the Conservation Commission’s bid for town financing for the study. The $14,000 will be matched by a federal grant, and the study will take from March to September, 1976.

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About 20 Newtown Civil Defense members and about as many guests attended the CD Open House in the Alexandria Room of Town Hall Friday, November 21. The CD team, led by Captain Sidney Pitcher, showed photographs, slides and movies illustrating Civil Defense techniques, training and equipment.

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Newly elected officers of the Hanover 4-H Goat Club and Friends of the Earth Group are Mike Briglio, Newtown, president; Eddie Kimball, Newtown, vice president; Michelle Ferrara, Brookfield, secretary; Ed Dvorsky, treasurer, and Billy Seman, recreation advisor, both of Newtown. The club members … had a very active summer. They went to a few goat farms, on field trips and participated in the 4-H Fair where they won three blue ribbons and one red. They had a Halloween celebration at Twin Ponds Farm and had a great time.

November 24, 1950

EDITORIAL INK DROPS — SOMETHING NEW HAS BEEN ADDED: Work in preparing the type for this issue of The Bee was done in the composing room of the new addition to The Bee office. Linotypes, make-up tables and many other pieces of equipment were moved over the week-end, so that they would be ready for operation on Monday morning. There are numerous finishing touches yet to be completed, but the new addition is already proving its value in the increased space and ease of operation which it affords to the members of the staff. And so this Thanksgiving issue of 1950 marks a real milestone for The Bee itself. We are grateful for the opportunity of rendering the particular services which a weekly newspaper can so uniquely provide to the people within its territory. We shall continue to fulfill to the best of our ability our function of usefulness throughout the towns of Western Connecticut. And we are thankful, indeed, that the new addition to our building is now at our disposal, so that we can more easily do a better job.

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More than 1200 guests, townspeople, farm owners and visitors from nearby communities attended the formal opening last Friday night of the new building which houses Lovell’s Farm Equipment, Inc., at the corner of South Main Street and Bethel Road. The opening was held along with the company’s annual family party given each year with the cooperation of the International Harvester Company. Preceding the evening entertainment, interested visitors had streamed through the new building all day, inspecting the premises and offering congratulations on the enterprise exhibited in providing the new structure.

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On Friday, November 17, Mr and Mrs Rudolph Berkemann of Hanover Road observed their 25th wedding anniversary with a family dinner at the Sallie Chase Restaurant on the Dodgingtown-Bethel Road. The honored couple received many gifts and flowers at this time. On Saturday friends and neighbors from Newtown and other communities visited the Berkemanns at their home to extend greetings and best wishes.

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Ralph K. Bowen, son of Mr and Mrs W.A. Bowen, Hawley Manor, has been pledged to Phi Kappa Sigma social fraternity at the University of Denver, it was announced last week. Bowen, a graduate of Wooster School of Danbury, is a freshman student at the Colorado School.

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Raymond Eaton of Glen Road, Sandy Hook, was a week-end guest last week of his sister, Mrs Natalie Card, of Providence, R.I.

November 27, 1925

Miss Mary Elizabeth Hawley of this town has recently presented the Trustees of Newtown Village Cemetery Association with the keys to the Hawley Memorial Receiving Tomb and Gateways which have just been completed. The structures together with extensive landscape improvements, roadways and engineering work involved an expenditure exceeding $100,000. At the request of Miss Hawley, the presentation was made without ceremony and there will be no dedicatory exercises.

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William Perry of Zoar has been laid up for a few days with a grip cold.

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Miss Lucy Carr of Bethel was the guest over Saturday and Sunday of her grandmother, Mrs Arthur Beard.

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Lyman Hayden of Bethel has moved into the Keating house in the Glen.

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The store of H.G. Warner will be open, Wednesday evening, and Thanksgiving morning until 11 o’clock.

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Francis Carmody of Brooklyn, N.Y., was a week end guest of his mother, Mrs M.F. Carmody, of Sandy Hook.

November 30, 1900

TOWN TOPICS: THE EXODUS OF THE RUBBER BUSINESS: Little by little the great rubber trust is vacating the town. As the machinery is shipped to the company’s Passaic factories, the workmen, such as are desirable, are invited to go with the business. And thus the pay-roll is gradually being reduced. Only a small per cent of the 50 or 60 men who have left the place up to the time, continue in the employ of the trust. … The upper factory, in which the reclaiming process was carried on, has been closed several weeks. The work of packing, moving, and closing up at the main factory may not be completed for weeks to come.

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St Rose’s fair opened on Wednesday night with a good attendance. It will be continued on Thursday night (Thanksgiving night) when the $20 gold piece will be awarded to some fortunate person.

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A sample of the new steel mail boxes recommended for use along the routes of the rural carriers has been exhibited at the post office by Postmaster G.F. Duncombe. The box is made of steel and is about 18 inches wide, a foot deep at the back, with a slanting cover, with leaves it about six inches deep in front. On the cover of the box is painted the name of owner and on the front is painted in black “U.S. Mail.”

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At the district school in Huntingtown the record of attendance for the past three months has been as follows: September, 94 per cent; October, 89 per cent; November, 91 per cent. Average for the three months, 91 per cent. Number of pupils enrolled, 32.

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The buildings on the Carlos Booth farm, now owned and occupied by a Mr Russell, have been treated to a fresh coat of paint put on by Peso Brothers of Huntingtown.

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Probably the finest flock of turkeys in town this season were raised by E.M. Peck of Huntingtown. They numbered about 75 and were very large handsome birds. Most of them were slaughtered and taken to the Bridgeport markets, Monday.

Do you have photographs of people or places in town from a bygone era? The Way We Were is the perfect landing spot so that your photographs can be enjoyed by readers of The Newtown Bee. Images can be emailed as attachments to shannon@thebee.com, subject line: Way We Were photo. When submitting photographs, please identify as many people as possible, the location, and the approximate date. If you live locally and would like to loan a photo/photos, please give us a call (203-426-3141) to let us know when you will be visiting.