* * *

What happens to children who aren’t able to benefit from the normal high school setting but are required by law to be educated and have the right to learn? This fall, 10 to 12 students who cannot function in a regular setting will be housed in a special setting in a portable classroom behind Sandy Hook School. The program will be called COPE, Change Of Pace Education.

* * *

Those eager to play on Treadwell Park’s fields and tennis courts may be allowed in the park following a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen and Parks and Recreation Commission next week. “We’re 99 percent completed,” said Parks and Recreation Director Robert Ceccolini. Before the final approval, however, he said the irrigation system must be tested.

* * *

The Newtown Summer Festival Committee has been urged to find a place other than the Dickenson Memorial Park on Elm Drive to hold the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. First Selectman Jack Rosenthal said he asked John Klopfenstein, co-chairman of the Summer Festival Committee, to try to find another site due to the traffic congestion which occurs each year when the fireworks take place.

* * *

Following outcries from two Newtown ball clubs regarding playing schedules, the Parks and Recreation Commission decided Tuesday night to evaluate its own playing fields. Although the Little League presented its own evaluation of the fields, Parks and Recreation decided to do its own so that it would not have one group saying a field was excellent and another saying it was poor.

* * *

Thirty firemen, two pumpers and the Aerial truck from Newtown Hook and Ladder, according to Chief Walter McCarthy, responded to a kitchen fire at the Blue Colony, Monday, May 9. Chief McCarthy said that cooking being done on the grill caused a grease fire which went through the roof. The ductwork on the roof had to be removed. He assessed the damage at $500–$600.

* * *

Newtown High School sophomore Susan Hull took a dare from her boyfriend and came to school made up as a clown. As to her makeup, she got up at 4:30 am, and with the help of a friend, transformed her face. “I got a lot of looks, but I told everyone it was National Clown Day so they wouldn’t ask questions.”

May 16, 1958

All of Newtown was without electric power Tuesday, when high winds whipped wires of a new high-tension line, in the process of construction, in contact with the present transmission line. The power went off at 3:06 pm and was restored by 3:38 pm.

* * *

The Newtown Ambulance Association, Inc, received its brand new 1956 Cadillac ambulance this Tuesday from the S&S Company which adapts the vehicles to ambulance use. The new ambulance is solid green in color and carries the latest type stretcher and has custom built cabinets. It features power steering and brakes and an automatic transmission.

* * *

Good news on the relocation of Route 6 around Newtown and the date for its construction is contained in a letter which William Dudde, secretary of the Newtown Chamber of Commerce, received this week. The prospect of construction around Snake Hill, Mt Pleasant, Newtown’s Main Street, Church Hill and the railroad underpass actually being started in 1958 is a pleasant one — not only to heavy trucks and through traffic on Route 6 but also to residents who live along this very busy thoroughfare.

* * *

Newtown’s first foreign exchange student has been selected by the American Field Service and will arrive here sometime in August, according to the Newtown Foreign Exchange Student Committee, which is headed by Sylvia Smith. Zarin Patell, a 17-year-old senior at Xavier’s Commercial Institute in Karachi, Pakistan, will live for a year in the home of Mr and Mrs Edward H. White and their daughter, Cynthia, of Mt Pleasant, and attend Newtown High School.

* * *

As the day for the referendum on the junior high school approaches, townspeople find themselves excited over an issue which has become confused in a great many respects. The question of whether to build the school at all has become complicated with alternative choices of including both gymnasium and auditorium, or omitting one or the other, or both. The latest element of confusion involves the effort of the contractor who submitted the low bid to withdraw his bid entirely.

* * *

Newtown may soon find itself the “game center” of the East, and we don’t mean the wildlife variety, but what used to be genteelly known as “parlor games.” First came Scrabble and Torque, from Production and Marketing, Inc of Newtown, and now two new, and it seems to us, immensely interesting and entertaining wit and skill testers have been put on the market by a Newtown summer and weekend resident and her partner. Gambol and Play Around are the games which bear the imprint of Gorfill Productions, a name compounded from those of their inventors and designers Ramon Gordon of Pound Ridge, N.Y. and Mrs Jesse R. Fillman of Walnut Tree Hill and Boston.

 

May 12, 1933

Lillian Hallock Walker of Ridgefield and New York came over to the Newtown Congregational church, last Sunday, as soprano soloist and director of the Junior choir. Her solo in keeping with the Communion service was “Come Unto Him,” from Handel’s “Messiah.” She has a lyric soprano voice and has a large repertoire of church and secular music, including songs, operatic arias and standard oratorios.

* * *

The committee appointed by the Newtown Chamber of Commerce to arrange a program for Memorial day met on Monday night at the residence of W.N. Burroughs. It was decided to have public exercises at the Edmond Town hall on the morning of Memorial day, May 30, at 10:30 o’clock. The following tentative program has been arranged: Unfurling of flag by Boy Scouts; Singing of “Star Spangled Banner”; Invocation by Rev Dr Richmond H. Gesner; Words of welcome by F. Robert Mount; Singing by children; Singing of “America” by school children and audience; Benediction by Rev William J. Collins; “Taps” by Edward M. Conger, Jr.

* * *

The Chamber of Commerce will stage a big smoker and entertainment on Thursday evening, May 18, at Edmond Town hall. Some of the outstanding amateur boxers of the state will be seen in competition. Pinkey Morris, Featherweight champion and winner of the recent Diamond Gloves Championship at New Haven, will meet young Kid Chocolate of Hartford. There will be a special match between two local heavyweights. There will be entertainment and music.

* * *

Carroll Monahan of Bridgeport has reopened the Shell Gas Station in the Blackman Block, near the Newtown Railroad Station. Mr Monahan has a 100 per cent Shell Station and will also carry various grades of oil. Extensive alterations are being made in the lunchroom and within a few days, lunches will be served and a complete stock of cigars, candy and confectioneries will be on sale.

* * *

When Birdsey Parsons, leading citizen of Slaughter Hill Hollow, went out to his barn the other morning he found his donkey had presented him with a baby donkey. The event made great excitement in Sandy Hook and scores of young men from Sandy Hook motored over to Birdsey’s estate to see the young donkey. One enthusiastic visitor paid Birdsey 25 cents for the privilege of taking a peek at the youngster.

 

May 15, 1908

T.E. Platt & Son have just unloaded a car load of Adriance mowing machines at the Newtown Depot, and anyone who is thinking of buying a machine this season will find it to their profit to see them before buying. It is no trouble for them to show you their line of farm machinery at any time.

* * *

Mr and Mrs George A. Northrop and children saw a fine deer in the lot in the rear of their residence. After a few minutes it nimbly leaped over a barbed wire fence and disappeared.

* * *

We have been loaned by M.F. Houlihan a number of old newspapers which have proved most interesting. Among the number are The Daily Herald published at New Haven on May 16, 1840, during the “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,” campaign. In the death notices in this number we find, “In Newtown, Mr John Nottingham, a student in the Academy of that place, from the South. His death was occasioned by a blow received in the palm of his hand from the butt end of a whip, which brought on the lockjaw.”

* * *

The attention of the street inspectors of the borough has been called to the fact that in many portions of the borough, broken sidewalks abound. As the borough is liable for damages in the event of accidents to pedestrians, due to this cause, it is probable that an effort will be made to force property owners to make some improvements. It is said that in a number of cases sidewalks in front of some fine residential property are in a disgraceful condition.

* * *

John Troy of Botsford, son of Martin Troy, went into his father’s cellar, last Monday, to get some vegetables for his mother and was surprised to hear a sissing noise. He got a light and what was his surprise to find a big black snake curled up near the potato bin just ready to jump on to him. He grabbed a stone near at hand and quickly put his snakeship out of business. The snake measured nearly five feet.