Newtown

Call It Home, Sweet Home

 

By Nancy K. Crevier

It is the town where grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins live just down the road. It is the town where that very first home is purchased. It is where the baby is born, where school and community shape young lives. It is the town where young families bond over baseball and practice politics. It is the town from which the fledglings take flight, and the town to which they circle back when it is time to feather their nests. It is the town youth flees and old age settles into with a comfortable sigh. It is the town that leaves a lasting imprint on the heart, that hometown feeling that cannot be escaped. For many, Newtown is that “hometown.”

It would not be surprising that someone who comes from a family long-established in Newtown, or someone born and raised here, would consider this to be his or her hometown. But a chord in the heart struck by Newtown continues to resonate with people who have not lived in town for many years, or whose time here was brief.

The Newtown Bee mails out 626 copies of the paper each week to people living out of state, including several that go to service people overseas. The weekly news travels to states that include Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, and Tennessee. Thousands more from around the country and the world keep tabs on local news and events online on NewtownBee.com. What happens here remains an important connection for those who have moved away, even if they know that they will never again walk down Main Street or fly a kite in Ram Pasture.

“I came from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Newtown in 1968 and finished middle [school] and graduated from high school there,” responded Gregory Wencek to a Newtown Bee Facebook inquiry. “I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Dodgingtown Fire Company and the Ambulance Corps. Although I live in Danbury, Newtown remains home, because that is where I learned to become an adult. The people of Newtown helped form me into the person I am today. I owe my love of community and country [to Newtown],” he said.

Where Memories Are Made

Mark Richardson grew up in Dodgingtown in the 1950s and 1960s, a descendant of the Andrews and Rasmussen families in town. Memories are what makes Newtown “hometown” to him. “I lived in or nearby Newtown until 2004 when I moved to Virginia,” said Mr Richardson in an email to The Bee. “I loved listening to my mom and grandparents tell and retell stories of growing up [in Newtown]. Gramp taught in the one-room schoolhouse in the Palestine District and ran a general store on an unpaved Route 302, near Flat Swamp Road, before he turned to carpentry,” he recalled. “Up until I got my driver’s license my world was limited to distances covered on bicycle. Rare treats were the movies at the town hall or duck pin bowling in the basement of Town Hall — two lanes, set your own pins,” Mr Richardson said.

The Dodgingtown Store was a combination hardware, grocery, and hunting/fishing store during his growing-up years, said Mr Richardson. “The owner was Bob Benjamin, a one-armed guy who had a three-pronged hook in place of the missing hand. He was a great guy who let me help feed the mink he raised in the back of the store,” he said.

Despite his fears that progress is swiftly erasing those farms, places, and familiar faces that make up fond memories, Mr Richardson said, “The love I have for Newtown is the love of a simpler and more innocent time, and those memories are rekindled every time I show up for visit with Mom and friends. Absolutely, Newtown is still considered my hometown.”

Another child of Newtown who has returned, is Krista Rekos. “My husband and I both grew up here and knew we wanted to come back to Newtown when we got married. We both went away to college; I went to Fairfield University and then lived in NYC for five years, and Rich went to LaSalle University in Philadelphia and lived there for a few years after college. We dated long-distance and got married in 2004. We bought our first house here the month before we got married. We knew there was no other place we wanted to raise a family than Newtown. We both have such great childhood memories of this town, and want our children to create their own Newtown memories. Whenever we see friends from high school, many tell us they wished they lived in Newtown again, too,” said Ms Rekos.

Former Newtown Bee associate editor Kaaren Valenta and her husband, Jerry, are Florida residents now, but, “When we come up north for the summer, it’s certainly like coming home,” said Ms Valenta in a recent email. “Jerry and I grew up in Michigan and lived in Cherry Hill, N.J., for 15 years before moving to Sandy Hook in 1984. We feel like Newtown is our hometown. We forged wonderful friendships there and my job at The Bee really made me feel like I was part of the community. Jerry loves keeping the Edmond Town Hall clock system running even though we spend most of the year in Florida now.” With their children still living in Connecticut, it is twice as easy for the Valentas to still consider Newtown their hometown.

 Kate Raynor Hoerauf lives in Salem, Ore., but “Newtown is home,” she said. “I would come back [to Newtown] in a heartbeat if the situation arose. My grandparents lived on Mount Nebo, then we moved into the house when I was 4. We only lived there ten years until my family moved in 1980, but it was my whole childhood memory. I drive by St Rose and see my parents coming out of the church on their wedding day…I drive by Middle Gate and remember the dresses Mrs Lacava had in the kindergarten dress-up bin…I drive by the old Grand Union and remember Mom running in for me when I had a tooth pulled. It’s sad and beautiful all at once.” Ms Hoerauf and her family return each year to spend time with her grandmother in Southbury.

“Of course, we also come to Newtown quite frequently and cruise the town, often stopping at the General Store near the flagpole to buy ‘Newtownesque’ goodies for the house and great books on Newtown,” she said. “When I drive into Newtown I feel that I am home…no matter what expansions, or difficulties there are within, it is still home. Home is definitely where your heart is,” said Ms Hoerauf.

A Friendly Town

In 1999, Phill and Alison Truckle moved from Newtown to Waitsfield, Vt., where they now own and operate The Tucker Hill Inn. But despite having grown up in England, and owning a business and raising their family for the past six years in Vermont, it is Newtown, the couple said, that remains their hometown. “We both think of Newtown as our hometown,” said Ms Truckle. “Why? Because from the day we moved there, everyone accepted us for who we were. You may have to live elsewhere in New England to appreciate what this means. My best memories of Newtown are how friendly everyone is. Dodgingtown Garage knew me, Starbucks of course, and even the staff in the Big Y. When we first moved to the states in 1985 we lived in the Boston area, which we loved, but it took two years for anyone to believe we would stay and therefore talk to us. New Englanders in general are awfully wary of anyone who is not at least third generation.... but not so in Newtown,” she said.

 “I came to Connecticut in 1998 for a job at Oxford Health Plans [now UnitedHealthcare],” responded Kristin Tetreault to Bee inquiries about what makes a town a hometown. “The HQ was in Trumbull, so I needed to find a town that was near that, was close to where two of my three stepchildren live in Bethel, had a good school system, etc. I grew up in Texas, but I feel so at home here in Newtown, where I’ve lived since 2001. Part of it is loving the Northeast, but most of it is due to the fact that I got married here at Trinity Episcopal Church, and gave birth to both of my boys in the neighboring town of Danbury. My oldest stepson lives with us and attends NHS. My younger boys go to Head O’ Meadow,” Ms Tetreault said. Equally important to making Newtown their hometown, she added, is that she and her husband have spent the last five years working on “our dream-home-in-the-making.”

Nancy Steiner is actually a 40-year Shelton resident, but every summer, Newtown becomes her hometown. “I volunteer at the C.H. Booth Library Book Sale and have done so for many years. Before I retired, I was an avid visitor to the book sale. I promised myself that after I retired I would volunteer, because I think this book sale is the best in the state,” Ms Steiner said. True to her word, she has a wonderful time now volunteering at the annual summer sale. “I enjoy being part of a successful event,” she said. “My family doesn’t see much of me for these two weeks, except my teenage grandson, Adam, a book lover who has volunteered with me for the past three summers,” said Ms Steiner.

But perhaps it is the little things that make Newtown homier than anywhere else. “Where else,” asks Sue Capozziello Marcinek, “is there a flagpole in the middle of the road? I love driving down Main Street every day and seeing that flag wave.”