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THE WAY WE WERE

MAY 31, 1974

A fire late on the night of May 28 completely destroyed the clubhouse at

Newtown Country Club and kept volunteer firemen from Newtown Hook & Ladder

Company No. 1 and the United Fire Company of Botsford at the scene for over

three hours. The call to the fire came in at 11:46 pm, and when firemen

reached the scene the building was totally involved in flames, with fire

breaking through the roof. Upon arrival a ladder pipe using the aerial truck

was set up, which resulted in the fire being suppressed within ten minutes and

under control within 25. By 2:10 am, most of the firemen were able to leave

the area, but a fire watch detail remained until 3:30, and around 9 am the

following morning Hook & Ladder was called back for a wetdown of the building

which still smoldered.

A special town meeting has been called for Wednesday, June 5, at 8 pm, at the

auditorium of Newtown High School, to act on special appropriations totaling

$323,400 for school projects requested by the Board of Education. Newtown

voters and qualified property owners will also be asked to create a

seven-member building committee to work with plans for an 810-pupil elementary

school on the Boyle site on Boggs Hill Road, and to designate the Board of

Education the building committee to oversee installation of portable

classrooms at the elementary schools for the next school year. The first item

on the town meeting agenda will be a special appropriation of $198,400 to

enable the Board of Education to purchase 15 used portable classrooms, to be

installed at the three elementary schools for use by the fifth grade classes,

which will move out of Newtown Middle School when school starts in September.

Boy Scout Troop 370 participated in the 1974 Spring Camporee on the weekend of

May 17-19. The weather was ideal for a change and not the typical "370

Weather" (rain, wind and cold). Attending were Scoutmaster Ed Rees, Assistant

Scoutmaster Gordon Palmer, Senior Patrol Leader Bob Bradley and Assistant

Senior Patrol Leader Mark Rosato. From the patrols were: Bat Patrol, Patrol

Leader Jeff Poulin, and Scout Jim Aragones; Condor, Patrol Leader Glenn

Lawton, Assistant Patrol Leader Bill Thomas, and Scouts Tom Paloian, George

Palmer and John Krotzer; Eagle, Patrol Leader Darrell Palmer, Assistant Patrol

Leader Chuck Rispoli, and Scouts Mark Rees, Jack Aragones, Greg Poulin and

George Lockwood; Falcon, Patrol Leader Phil Blake, and Scouts Pete Gobel and

John Herbert.

The co-chairmen of the Selectmen's Ball, Mr and Mrs Louis Kertesz and Mr and

Mrs Gordon Macmillan, have announced that each of four Newtown artists have

graciously consented to donate a painting for the benefit of the Summer

Festival. The artists are Harrie Wood, Betty Christenson, Andrei Hudiakoff and

Sandra Motyka. The paintings will be sold through a silent auction at the

Selectmen's Ball on June 15.

Winners of the recent "Day of Champions" competition held in conjunction with

the "Olympic Village Sports Camp" were Patrick Kutka, in the 7-8 year-olds

division; Chris Medve in the 9-10-year-old group; Chuck Guck in the

11-12-year-olds; and Kevin Walsh in the 13-14-year-old group. These boys will

all receive a two-week scholarship to the "Olympic Village Sports Camp" which

begins on July 8 with three two-week sessions concluding on August 16.

A seven-year-old Sandy Hook girl has won national recognition for her

filmmaking ability. Jessica Dorman has tied for second place in the primary

division (for six to ten-year-olds) of the Third National Young Filmmakers'

Festival, making her the youngest winner in this year's competition. Jessica's

entry, which was submitted by Connecticut Public Television after capturing

top honors in the primary division of CPTV's Young Filmmakers' Festival in

February, is a two minute abstract film of line drawings and punched holes,

scored to music.

The Newtown Ambulance Association and its Drivers Corps paid tribute to

retiring president of the association, Charles Clarke, and his wife, at a

banquet in The Hitching Post Inn on Thursday evening, May 23. The Clarkes were

presented a lovely mantel clock, which according to the couple will have a

perfect spot in their new home in Heritage Village come September. Also

presented to the Clarkes was a framed proclamation, citing them for their

years of service with the association, which was presented by First Selectman

Frank R. DeLucia. Also present among the guests was Selectman Thomas Goosman,

a member of the Ambulance Drivers Corps.

In the near future, if you are in a post office, the high school, or the

selectman's anteroom at Edmond Town Hall, you may see a huge map of Newtown,

nearly six feet square. It may be a bit hard to read, there are many contour

lines, roads and other marks upon it. But if you look closely, you will

probably be able to find your road and maybe your house, represented by a tiny

dot. If your house isn't there, make a mark on the map where it is supposed to

go, urge members of Ecographics, the group sponsoring the project. A duplicate

of that map is being used to create a three-dimensional topographic map of

Newtown. That model, the same size as the map hanging on the wall, will show

all the hills and valleys, all the rivers and roads, all the homes and

hospitals in Newtown.

JUNE 3, 1949

At a meeting held recently at the home of Mrs Edmund Foster, local chairman,

plans were made for the visit to Newtown of "Fresh Airs" in July. These are

underprivileged children from city tenements, referred to The Herald Tribune

Fresh Air Fund by settlement houses and other welfare agencies in the

metropolitan New York area. Six children are already scheduled for visits here

and committee members hope to have this number considerably increased.

Information concerning the Fresh Airs may be had from Mrs Foster and from

members of her group; Mrs Jerry Acquino, Mrs Milton Hull, Mrs Austin Dinkler,

Mrs Everett Soltmann, Mrs William K. Daniels, Mrs Ralph Knibloe and the Rev

John Mutton.

Work started Tuesday evening on the lot of the Charles Howard Peck Post,

V.F.W., in preparation for the memorial building the Post plans to erect this

summer. The lot is located on Route 25, across from the country club property

and just south of the entrance to Fairfield State Hospital. On Tuesday

evening, a group of a dozen Post members cut and piled the brush and cleared

up the rubbish on the land. A bulldozer will go to work later this week,

excavating for a basement and grading to provide parking area. Ed Pelletier is

chairman of the Post's building committee, which includes George Jackson and

Fred Carmody, as well as William Slocum, commander of the Raymond L. Pease

Post, American Legion.

Another annual Mardi Gras is a thing of the past and members of Newtown

Congregational Church, particularly the large committee which helped in this

year's production, may well be pleased with the result. There were three main

objectives: to back a project in which teachers, children and young people

could work together; to give the town's children a good time; and to raise

$500 as the children's share in the new Church House Building Fund. All these

objectives were attained. The mystery of the King's identity was cleared up on

Friday night when Albert Knapp walked forward and was crowned in a brief

ceremony by the chairman of that committee, Roy Byrne. His voice, disguised by

speaking into an empty metal wastebasket and having it recorded by radio

station WLAD in Danbury, had even his closest associates fooled, including Mrs

Knapp, who had not been let in on the secret. She, like other townspeople,

paid for the privilege of guessing. Mr Knapp himself kept up the illusion by

guessing a number of his friends. Of more than 200 names submitted, 12 were

correct. Skip Gifford guessed correctly early in the week and it was his name

that was pulled from a hat on Friday night so that he won the splendid

portable radio.

In the interest of patriotic hometown celebration of Independence Day, the

Sandy Hook Fife, Drum and Bugle Corps is again backing a Fourth of July parade

of all local organizations and is sponsoring the benefit movie, I Wonder Who's

Kissing Her Now , which will be shown in technicolor at Edmond Town Hall

theatre next Thursday evening. All local organizations that might participate

have been invited to enter the parade this year. There will be float

competitions and the proceeds of the movie will be used to defray parade

expenses. A. Fenn Dickinson will be marshal of the parade and Louis Carbonneau

treasurer. Robert J. Lockwood, who is secretary, will also take charge of the

floats.

Observance of Memorial Day in Newtown was marked by a parade and appropriate

exercises conducted by veterans organizations Monday morning. The exercises

began at Edmond Town Hall at nine o'clock when members of the Charles Howard

Peck Post, Veterans of Foreign Wars and of the Raymond L. Pease Post, American

Legion, together with the Auxiliary units of both organizations, assembled

under the leadership of Commander William Slocum of the V.F.W. Massing of the

colors and color guards of the Posts and Auxiliaries took place in front of

the hall. The parade formed and in the line of march to the Soldiers and

Sailors Monument was WAC Capt Myska Ruditsky of Dodgingtown, who served in the

Pacific area during World War II. At the monument, prayer was offered by Hiram

Morgan, chaplain of the V.F.W. post. Officers of the veterans organizations

and auxiliaries presented floral offerings and placed wreaths at the base of

the memorial. "Taps" were sounded by Ann Shaw, the daughter of Mr and Mrs

Irving Shaw of Sandy Hook.

The Nova Scotia fishing and camping trip undertaken by Dr J. Benton Egee and

Donald Stickles, with John and David Egee and Stephen Smith, ended

successfully Tuesday morning when the trailblazers returned to Newtown.

Operating from cabins deep in the Bear River forests of the Canadian province,

Dr Egee and Mr Stickles made overnight tenting trips further into the

wilderness. The boys saw much wildlife and trap lines, collected bones, a

moose horn and other relics from the woodland, and all the party found an

abundance of trout, some of which they brought back to Newtown.

MAY 30, 1924

Miss Finkle, the visiting nurse, attended the Connecticut Organization of

Public Health meeting at Rockville on Thursday last, held in the Maxwell

Memorial Library at Rockville.

Arrangements have been made by the radio broadcasting station at Storrs, WABL,

with the US Bureau of Crop Estimates through its branch office at Wakefield,

Mass., to broadcast crop reports during the growing season.