Date: Fri 17-Apr-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

history-Flat-Swamp-school

Full Text:

A Real Estate Deal Stirs Memories Of Wartime Newtown

(with cut)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

It came as a surprise to Peg Rasmussen of Wellfleet, Mass., when her son, Bart, and his wife, Sandra, said they were looking at houses for sale in Newtown.

"Newtown as in Danbury, Stepney Depot, and Long Hill, Connecticut?" she asked.

These were familiar places to Mrs Rasmussen in the 1930s and '40s -- particularly the years of World War II -- when she was growing up in Fairfield County.

Then known as Peg Geyh, she lived on Mt Pleasant Road in Newtown at a time when the area was very rural.

"Our only neighbors were Mr Diamond and Mr Nichols," she said in a letter sent by e-mail to The Bee recently. "Our house stood alone on the opposite side of the highway. We had a large grape arbor, a pond full of frogs and a huge Victory Garden.

"I remember 11-cent movies and dancing classes at [Edmond] Town Hall. For transportation, we rode bikes down the long hill into Newtown. In winter we walked, and picked up scrap iron (such as bits of tire chains) for the war effort.

"Halfway down the hill there was a spotting tower where my mother was a volunteer who watched the skies for enemy planes. Her training began by checking the models we assembled from boxes of Pep cereal! My Dad did defense work at General Electric and had a gasoline ration with sufficient gas to take him to (work in) Bridgeport.

"After fourth grade with Miss Mulvaney (at Hawley School), my class was bused to Flat Swamp School for fifth grade with Miss Brennan. This was my most memorable and exciting school experience. Flat Swamp was an old, abandoned one-room school with two outhouses. A jug of drinking water was delivered once a week. We ate our lunches at our desks and had recess in the tiny schoolyard.

"The stronger boys hauled in the wood for the woodstove and took out the trash to an incinerator."

The Great Fire

"One windy December day as we were practicing our Christmas carols, we watched as the incinerator blew over and fire spread into the adjoining property filled with blue spruce trees," Mrs Rasmussen said. "Miss Brennan told us to repeat all the songs while she and one of the boys tried to put out the fire -- without water! The fire spread over an acre or more before the fire department arrived. And the fifth grade students stayed dutifully in our seats, bolted to our desks, singing as the fire raged."

In a telephone interview with Mrs Rasmussen this week, she recalled more about her years in Newtown and how the town has changed since then.

"Flat Swamp School was painted bright yellow, and there were no trees or bushes around it," she said. "The last time I saw it, I looked inside and it looked to have been badly burned. It also looked different because the road passes so close to it now. I guess the road has been widened -- most have since then."

Although she spent only two years -- 1943 and 1944 -- in Newtown, these years are indelibly etched into her memory.

"They were very exciting years," she explained. "The war made everything very real to all of us. We were into recycling and everything else for the war effort."

Mrs Rasmussen recalled ice skating on the pond in front of her house and visiting the Van Billiards who lived on Taunton Lake, perhaps the only family living there year-round at that time, she said.

The names of her classmates also come back -- Mary Starr Smith, Tommy Glover, the Qubicks, Leeds. "There were 20 to 25 in my class because you couldn't get extra teachers during the war and there weren't enough classrooms either."

During her year at Hawley School, she recalled that the only working bathrooms were in the basement.

"I don't remember why," she said. "Perhaps they couldn't get materials to make repairs in the other bathrooms. But twice a day we'd all be herded downstairs to go. There were real privations during the war years."

Mrs Rasmussen recalled that on Friday afternoons the children were bused to the churches of their choice for religious education classes.

"I went to the Congregational Church," she said. "There wasn't much heat those days because everyone was conserving fuel for the war. I remember how cold the church was."

Today In Newtown

Mrs Rasmussen said she was surprised to learn where her son and daughter-in-law wound up living in Newtown.

"To my great wonderment, at the foot of the hill where my son and his wife have taken up residence, that old school is still standing, although another fire seems to have taken its toll."

The schoolhouse, across from George's Pizza in Dodgingtown, was closed again after the Hawley School addition was built in 1948 to alleviate overcrowding.

According to Town Historian Dan Cruson, Flat Swamp, Hopewell, Palestine, and Lands End were among the one-room schools used again during those years. Later the Flat Swamp School was used as a small factory during the years that the board game Scrabble was manufactured in Newtown.

Although the Newtown Historical Society has old photos of many of the schoolhouses, it has none of Flat Swamp and almost no other historic photos of the Dodgingtown area except for some of roadwork being done on what is now Route 302.

"If anyone has some, I'd like to make copies," Mr Cruson said.

Mrs Rasmussen said her family moved to Westchester, N.Y., after living in Newtown. After her marriage to Carl Rasmussen (who is not related to the Rasmussen family that has long roots in Newtown), they lived in Wilton before moving to Cape Cod. But when their son bought a house on Scudder Road in the fall of 1996, she came back.

"The town has changed tremendously," she said. "But I was pleased to see that much of the character of the town has been preserved.

"Do any readers recall the great fire of '43 when we were ten years old?"