Annual Pewter Ornament To Be Sold At The Parade

The Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC, Inc, has unveiled its 17th annual pewter Christmas ornament, which shows Shelton Hall, the centerpiece of the entrance of the Fairfield Hills Hospital, a campus that was purchased by the town this year. The ornaments will go on sale for $8 each in front of the C.H. Booth Library during the Labor Day Parade.

After the parade, the ornament will be available through the C.H. Booth Library, the Drug Center Pharmacy, Lexington Gardens, Joy’s Hallmark, the Town Clerk’s Office at Edmond Town Hall and at The Newtown Bee. Previous ornaments also will be be for sale at the parade for $10 each and are also available at the Booth Library all year.

Proceeds from the sale will be donated to local charitable and civic organizations.

Crafted by Woodbury Pewterers, Inc, each ornament is boxed and accompanied by a history written by Town Historian Daniel Cruson.

In 1927, the state of Connecticut began the search for a location for a new mental hospital to handle a maximum of 2,500 patients. They found and purchased an ideal spot, more than 600 areas of farmland on top of Mile Hill.

Construction of the first hospital building, Shelton Hall, began with the laying of the cornerstone in June 1931. This administrative building with space for patients opened on June 23, 1933.

Meant to be the centerpiece of the hospital entrance, Shelton Hall had a green and a garden in front. It was soon flanked by Newtown Hall on the south and Woodbury Hall on the north. Although the rest of the hospital buildings would stretch out in a large oval behind Shelton House, these three buildings would welcome the hospital’s visitors.

Walter P. Crabtree, a Hartford architect who specialized in colonial architecture, took as his models for these buildings the structures of Harvard University and of Colonial Williamsburg, which were under restoration at that time. This architecture was supposed to emulate a college campus rather than a medical institution like the other Connecticut mental hospitals, to conform with a new psychiatric theory that dictated a pleasant, noninstitutional environment as important to mental therapy, Mr Cruson said.

In 1995 Shelton Hall closed along with the rest of the campus, but it was reopened briefly in 1997 to house temporarily the Cyrenius H. Booth Library while the library’s Main Street home was renovated and expanded.

The sale of the ornaments is the chief fundraiser of the Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC. All proceeds are donated to area charities or organizations chosen by the club members. Recipients have included Kevin’s Community Center, the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Association, the Regional Hospice, the Newtown Woman’s Club Scholarship, FAITH Food Pantry, Newtown Meals on Wheels, the C.H. Booth Library, Newtown FISH, the fire companies, the Arthritis Foundation, CARE-International Aid, GFWC-CT Memorial Scholarships, GFWC Woman’s Resource Center, Hugh O’Brian (HOBY), Special Olympics, Veterans, Connecticut Cannine Search and Rescue, and the Newtown Tercentennial.

Mary Antey and Lorraine VanderWende are co-chairpersons of the ornament project. The committee that boxed the ornaments last week included Marion Thompson, Ducky Loewenstine, Dorothy LaBelle, Marcia Cavanaugh, Ruth Schultz, Ingrid Meier, Paulette Jurewicz, Nancy Brady, Ann Kirk, Yvonne Kopins, Marilyn Alexander, Jean Swanhill, Ellyn Gehrett, Pat Gauvain, and Betty Warner.

Previous ornaments in the series include the Newtown rooster weathervane, 1988; The Bee weathervane, 1989; the flagpole and the Meeting House, 1990; the General Store, 1991; the former Yankee Drover Inn, 1992; Edmond Town Hall, 1993; the Cyrenius H. Booth Library, 1994; the Ram Pasture, 1995; the Matthew Curtiss House, 1996; Hawley School, 1997; the former Fabric Fire House Company, 1998; the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at the head of Main Street, 1999; the view from Castle Hill, 2000, The Pleasance, 2001; the Curtis Packaging General Store, 2002, and the former John Beach Library, 2003.

Past ornaments are available for purchase at the C.H. Booth Library.