January 7, 2000

HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER OF Tim Holian.

* * * * *

EDITORIAL INK DROPS — THE BUG THAT DIDN’T BITE: All the experts who spoke last year so persuasively about the dormant danger of the so-called Y2K bug lying in wait in our computers found themselves having to defend themselves this week against charges of crying wolf. The power grid didn’t sputter out, ATMs didn’t swallow our cards and digest our life savings, and our schools and offices were doing business as usual Monday morning. The only related problems we faced this week were what to do with all the bottled water, macaroni and cheese, Sterno, and batteries we bought last month. … While the millennium bug did not bite, it did deliver a kick in the pants that has given us a jump on the new century. If you extrapolate The Bee’s experience across every business, industry, and public enterprise in the state and nation, it is easy to see that the billions of dollars spent addressing Y2K issues not only averted a disaster but spawned an unprecedented investment in technological improvements that will yield benefits in productivity and product quality that will influence our lives for many years to come.

* * * * *

An electric-diesel locomotive owned by the Housatonic Railroad, which was hauling fewer than a dozen freight cards carrying lumber, caught fire midday December 30 while traveling from Hawleyville toward the Borough. After realizing the lead locomotive of the two-locomotive train had caught fire, its quick-thinking engineer continued driving the train to an area where firefighters and fire trucks could reach it, stopping the train on tracks alongside the Sonics and Materials manufacturing plant, just north of the former train station on Church Hill Road.

* * * * *

The Legislative Council Wednesday voted to add a proposed project to bring public water lines into Sandy Hook to its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). Being on the CIP does not guarantee the project will be done, but it does make it eligible for state and federal funding. The total project cost is $420,000, of which $250,000 may be paid for through a federal grant. The remaining $170,000 would be the local share, which could be paid for through state Local Capital Improvement (LOCIP) funding and/or Sandy Hook business contributions.

* * * * *

Newtown resident Bruce Goulart was back in town Monday after running an incredible eight marathons in eight days in Ohio. Tired? Not at all. In fact, he says he would have gladly run eight more. He’s a regular Forrest Gump. No blisters, no sore joints. He actually seemed refreshed — as if he had just returned from a trip to the Islands. Sitting in his home earlier this week, the 49-year-old talked about this impressive feat, which just may have been a world record.

* * * * *

Ostensibly, the collection of student-produced newspapers that lined a florid, rectangular section toward the end of middle school’s B-wing hallway this week was a typical class assignment. But flipping through the vivid pages yielded a contrary conclusion: The students of computer teacher Jennifer Tarabulski had produced something quite extraordinary. For her annual project, Mrs Tarabulski had her seventh grade class assemble into small groups and create their publications. But the criteria she set for the project reached across a variety of disciplines, including English, social studies and science.

January 3, 1975

About 300 Newtowners signed the guest book at the opening Saturday, December 28, of the Newtown office of the City National Bank of Connecticut, a full-service unit of the Bridgeport bank. For each signature in the book the bank will make a substantial donation to the Newtown Historical Society, Dunham Smith, banking officer and branch manager, reminded The Bee. … First Selectman Frank DeLucia and Historical Society President Paul S. Smith raised the flag outside the new bank building at the corner of Church Hill and Commerce roads at 9 am opening day and the bank had an open house, with gifts and demonstrations of the “24-Hour Banking Machine” until 3 pm.

* * * * *

Stanley Main, president of Newtown Housing for the Elderly, reports no recent change in the progress of the group’s plans to build a 40 unit elderly housing complex on 20 acres of land to be donated by Fairfield Hills Hospital. As of January 1, said Mr Main, the land transfer proposal had been signed by Commissioner of Mental Health Ernest Shepard and was somewhere between the Attorney General’s, the Bureau of Finance and the Governor’s offices waiting final approval. However, said Mr Main, officials in Governor Meskill’s office had indicated a favorable response to the idea and had tried to get the proposal through before the new Democratic administration came in.

* * * * *

Louise and Bill Lesniewski of Bethel came to a Firemen’s Carnival at Hawley Field nearly 20 years ago and made a decision that had them coming back to Newtown every day for the next nineteen years. Bill was just out of the Marines and the couple had been looking for a place where they could conduct a “little old-fashioned variety store.” They spotted a vacancy in the Cianci Building, new then, at the corner of Church Hill Road and Queen Street, and decided that was the place. Louise says hardly anybody since then has seen her without her blue storekeeper’s smock on. “People meet me outside the store and don’t even recognize me,” she chuckles. She’ll put the smock aside on January 31, when she and Bill close their “Trade Well” store for the last time. Rising costs of running a small business, and the lure of Bill’s basement woodworking shop, brought about the decision to call it a day.

* * * * *

George E. Wilson became new Grand Master of the Hiram Lodge No. 18 AM and FM in Sandy Hook at an installation ceremony on Saturday, December 28, when he received the gavel from old Grand Master Robert Miller.

* * * * *

Charles Chrystal is a new man in a new department at Newtown High School. He is a mathematics, science and English teacher in the resource group which instructs pupils with special learning problems — from mental retardation to perceptual handicaps to emotional difficulties. Several students who had been sent to institutions outside the town, and even out of the state, can now be serviced by the resource team.

December 30, 1949

In the Children’s National Photograph contest conducted before Christmas, Ross Walker, five-year-old son of Mr and Mrs Reginald Walker of the John Appleseed farm, Berkshire, walked away with third national prize and first local prize. The contest was the 15th annual one conducted by the National Association of Department Store Photograph Studios. Judges in the contest were screen stars Jimmy Durante and Margaret O’Brien; Fred Astaire, screen star and dance studio head; Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka; Frank Luther, Decca recording artist, and Maude Tousey Fangel, children’s artist and illustrator. Their choices were difficult and were screened from many thousands of portraits submitted.

* * * * *

Attorney James M. Betts and his brother, Charles Betts of New York City spent the Christmas holidays at the Betts homestead in Sandy Hook. Mrs Clinton Hyatt and Miss Lillian Hyatt, Miss Anna May Betts, and the brothers Charles, James and Ralph Betts, called on Mr and Mrs Alfred J. Anderson and family in Stratford on Monday of this week.

* * * * *

A program of Christmas music by the choir of the Newtown Congregation church broadcast over Station WLAD, Danbury, Monday noon from 12:15 to 12:30 included three sacred numbers, in one of which Mrs Cloria Nash, church choir director, had a solo part. The broadcast recordings had been made on the invitation of Dr Henry Roger at the ROLAB Studios on Walnut Tree Hill.

* * * * *

Mr and Mrs Leon Griswold and the Misses June and Joan Griswold of Wethersfield, Mr and Mrs Kenneth Nolan and Jackie Nolan of Hartford and Mrs Howard Eyre of Woodbury were Christmas Day guests at the home of Mr and Mrs J.B. Nichols of Mt Pleasant.

* * * * *

Mr and Mrs Jacob Nalven and family of Huntingtown district left on Saturday for a stay over the holidays in New York City. They will go from there to Sarasota, Florida, where they will spend the next three months.

* * * * *

A disastrous fire swept the barn and adjoining building on the farm of Benjamin Bernstein in the Huntingtown district at an early hour Wednesday morning, when many head of cattle, feed, farm machinery and an automobile were destroyed. Prompt arrival and hard fighting by the Newtown and Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Companies confined the fire to the buildings where it started, saved two residences and a two-car garage in spite of high winds that more than once fanned hot embers back into flame.

* * * * *

Mr and Mrs Carl E. Rasmussen of Newtown announce the marriage of their daughter, Gloria Billings, to Howard Kenneth Richardson, Jr, son of Mr and Mr Howard K. Richardson, Bristol. The marriage took place June 16th following Mrs Richardson’s graduation from Larson College, New Haven. … The secret was revealed Christmas Eve at a gathering of the immediate families at the bride’s home in Dodgingtown. The couple will reside temporarily with Mr and Mrs Rasmussen.

December 26, 1924

A large audience enjoyed the Christmas entertainment of the church school on Tuesday night, the weather being ideal and the traveling good. The center of attraction was a Christmas cantata entitled “A Joke on Santa Claus,” by Edith Sandford Tillotson and Ira B. Wilson. A prominent citizen, who has had much experience in singing in city choirs, who sat in the audience, said it was a very beautiful and tuneful performance and that all who took part in it deserved the highest commendation.

* * * * *

Paul S. Smith returned home tonight for the Christmas holidays. Mr Smith is working for the General Electric Co, Schenectady, N.Y.

* * * * *

New Year’s day the store of H.G. Warner & Co, will close at 11 am.

* * * * *

The amount of Christmas packages, cards and letters passing through the Newtown post office is much larger this season, than the record of 1923, reports Postmaster H.W. Wheeler to the editor. At the Sandy Hook post office Mrs Nellie Tucker, the postmistress, has the same report to make. The offices have been literally flooded with packages going and coming.

* * * * *

Mrs Eva White, wife of Thomas Perkins, died, Thursday, December 18, aged 69 years. Mrs Perkins had enjoyed fairly good health until a few days before her death when she suffered a stroke of apoplexy, and did not rally from it. … The funeral was held at her late home on Sunday, Rev Mr Ainsworth, officiating. The pallbearers were: Irving Waterhouse, Harold Tomlinson, Birdsey Peck and John H. Jackson. The interment was in the cemetery at Stepney. Mrs Perkins was devoted to her home and family and they have the sympathy of all who know them in their sudden bereavement. She was one of the best neighbors, always willing to help others whenever she could. She was a member of the Baptist church at Stepney, for half a century.

* * * * *

Last Friday evening 23 friends and neighbors gave Mr and Mrs Frank E. Gilbert a complete surprise, the occasion being the 30th anniversary of their marriage. … The couple were presented with a very handsome linen table cloth. After delicious refreshments were served the guests departed wishing Mr and Mrs Gilbert many more years of married life together.

January 5, 1900

John M. Otis of Bridgeport made a flying visit in town, last week, the guest of his parents, Mr and Mrs M.S. Otis.

* * * * *

Clarence and Paul Beardsley passed Sunday and New Year’s day in New York, guests of Miss Mildred Dikeman.

* * * * *

Rev C.W. Francis of Brookfield preached at the Congregational church on Sunday, giving a very helpful discourse from the text, “This one thing I do.” He pointed out the similarity between the Apostle Paul and Moody, characterizing the latter as a 19th century apostle.

* * * * *

Miss Elsie Moore visited in Bridgeport, last week, the guest of her aunt, Mrs J.W. Knowlton.

* * * * *

An encouraging note from our long time friend and subscriber, Benjamin Lewis of Stamford, comes in the shape of a check for the renewal of his subscription to The Bee.

* * * * *

Mr and Mrs J.E. Miner of New York are guests of Mrs Miner’s parents, Capt and Mrs A.W. Peck.

* * * * *

The Hawleyville chapel was well filled, last Friday night, at the annual Christmas exercises, which passed off to the enjoyment of all.

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 Newtown Bee readers. Images can be e-mailed 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.