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THE WAY WE WERE

SEPTEMBER 6, 1974

The Board of Selectmen filed five of the six proposals of the Charter Revision

Commission with Town Clerk Mae Schmidle Wednesday, September 4, and expressed

the hope that they will not rest in peace in her office until the November

election. The board met in executive session preceding the regular Tuesday

night meeting to act on the proposed charter changes, which must be submitted

to the Secretary of the State in Hartford by September 20. First Selectman

Frank DeLucia urged voters to become familiar with the charter changes, which

will signal Newtown's initiation into representative government and substitute

a professional financial director for the present Town Treasurer and Board of

Finance.

The skies were gray and threatening on Monday, but this didn't stop the many

participants in Newtown's fine annual Labor Day Parade from stepping fancy

through the center of town for the enjoyment of the hundreds of people who

turned out. Honorary Parade Marshal Richard Hibbard and wife, and parade

co-chairmen Bob McCulloch and Judy Furlotte, were in the two lead cars,

followed by each of Newtown's volunteer fire departments leading a division,

local dignitaries and politicians from all over the state. The parade was

planned by the Newtown Summer Festival committee. From the reviewing stand set

up on Queen Street, the parade officials judged each of the passing entries as

announcer Edward Sullivan informed viewers of the identities of all concerned.

Carla Polcyn, 15-year-old Newtown High School sophomore, became Miss Teenage

Newtown in a presentation by the Newtown Exchange Club Thursday, August 29 in

Edmond Town Hall. Eleven contestants from an original field of 15 appeared in

a competition in which talent, personality, appearance, poise and scholastic

achievement were major considerations.

On September 4 schools opened in Newtown with nary a hitch. Reports from all

of the schools were that everything went very smoothly without any mishaps as

4,454 students were ticked off the attendance lists throughout the system.

Broken down, the attendance records showed 656 students at Hawley, 717 at

Sandy Hook, 641 at Middle Gate, 1,100 at the Middle School, and 1,340 at the

high school. The count is merely an attendance one, and the official school

enrollment figures will not be in before October 1. Although the elementary

schools found their core facilities turned into classrooms because the

portable classrooms are unfinished, the principals of those schools reported

that all went surprisingly well.

For the second time in less than a week torrential rains pelted the area, and

once again Newtown's highway department was out on the roads attempting to

stem problems caused by washouts on the town's dirt roads. Last Thursday the

men and machines were in the Pootatuck Park area, as well as at a few other

roads after the rain on Wednesday night. A large portion of Pootatuck, a

private development, was immobilized after parts of eight roads flowed away

with the water. On Tuesday night heavy rain came again. Highway Superintendent

Edward Napier reports that his department received two calls on Tuesday, one

at 11:30 to remove a tree from a road, and again at 2:30 am from a family in

Pootatuck Park that couldn't get to their home. Mr Napier says he finally was

able to bring them over the road in his station wagon. Wednesday morning the

highway department crews were out gray and early, with a grader, front end

loader and several trucks to repair the damage in the Park.

The League of Women Voters has planned a series of information and fund

raising activities to begin during League of Women Voters Week September 14

through 20. The League will kick off with a luncheon on September 14 at the

Hawley Manor Inn at noon. The speaker will be Ann Spencer Menousek who will

speak on Resolution Number 1, the proposed state constitutional amendment

prohibiting discrimination on account of sex. The resolution is on the

November ballot. Mrs Menousek is editor of the Brookfield Journal and a member

of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. She is the chairman of the

committee for the resolution.

Real estate developer William Laws of Kale Davis Road came before the

Conservation Commission on Wednesday, September 4, to ask how the Wetlands and

Watercourses Regulations applied to him. Mr Laws was the first potential

applicant to come before the commission since the regulations went into effect

on August 27. He confessed that he came expecting argument and had armed

himself with a $25 check in case the Conservation Commission required him to

submit a regulated activities license application.

According to a count made by Frances Stevens, Newtown High secretary, who was

taking in the Labor Day parade in the vicinity of the grandstand on Queen

Street, 38 balloons managed to escape from the little hands which were

clutching them.

SEPTEMBER 9, 1949

The Edmond Town Hall was the scene on Wednesday night of two of the largest

party caucuses ever held in Newtown. Some 450 Republicans gathered in the

gymnasium, with an attendance of about 200 at the Democratic caucus held in

the Alexandria Room. A number of contests developed in each caucus, requiring

ballots which consumed a great deal of time, especially in the Republican

caucus with such a large vote involved. In the Republican caucus, over which

W.W. Holcombe, town chairman, presided, a contest developed for the office of

Assessor for the full four-year term. Thomas Ramsdell, endorsed by the

Republican Town Committee, was defeated by John A. Carlson by a vote of 270 to

165. The second contest occurred in the candidates for First Selectman, with

Walter Glover, endorsed by the Republican Town Committee, winning over Robert

D. Fairchild by a vote of 292 to 166. The third contest came in the nomination

for Town Clerk, Miss May E. Sullivan, Democrat and present incumbent, winning

the nomination over Mrs Myrtle Way Smith, 246-186.

Last Friday evening's special town meeting, held in the Alexandria Room of the

Edmond Town Hall, drew an attendance of fewer than 50 taxpayers and voters.

Judge Paul V. Cavanaugh was named chairman, following which a motion was made

by William Hunter that a part of the warning for the meeting be used as a

resolution for adoption, to authorize and empower the Newtown Ambulance

Association, Inc, to construct and equip an addition to the Newtown firehouse

for the purpose of housing and maintaining the ambulance, said addition to be

constructed without cost, to the Town of Newtown.

Starting this Saturday, September 10, Newtown residents will be given a week's

viewing of the various types and kinds of aircraft now in use by the US Air

Force. "Operation Lookout" is the name which has been given to a seven-day

exercise which will run from Saturday, September 10, until noon on Friday the

16th. Planes will be sent over during designated periods on these days to test

the efficiency of radar, backed up by ground observer stations, in detecting

modern high speed planes and tracing their directions.

Newtown residents will be privileged to see much of the printed work produced

by their fellow citizens when on Saturday the Cyrenius H. Booth Library begins

an exhibit featuring the books written by local authors. Not only the finished

product but galley proofs and other adjuncts of the writing craft will be on

display, the exhibit to continue for an indefinite time.

Officers of Raymond L. Pease Post American Legion and its Auxiliary unit were

seated at an impressive joint installation ceremony in the Sandy Hook Hotel

Tuesday night at 8 o'clock. Post officers are: George L. May, commander;

Oswald Peck, senior vice commander; David Dayton, junior vice commander;

Frederick Harris, adjutant; Hubert Roswell, chaplain; William Honan, Jr.,

finance officer; Richard Lane, historian; Charles Lockwood, sergeant-at-arms.

The officers of the Auxiliary are: Mrs Florence May, president; Mrs Lauvisa

Lane, vice president; Mrs Frederick Harris, secretary; Mrs Esther Liskin,

treasurer; Mrs Belle Lockwood, chaplain; Mrs Joseph Tani, sergeant-at-arms;

Mrs Thomas Mularcik, historian.

Mrs William Crawford White, president of the alumnae Association of Wellesley

College, held a tea at her summer home in Head O' Meadow District on Thursday,

September 1, for Wellesley women in the Newtown area. Those present from

Newtown were: Mrs N.M. Wagner, Mrs H.N. Kirby, Mrs David L. Oleson, Mrs

Raymond Hall, Miss Katherine Kirby, Mrs Richard McCallister, Mrs Russell F.

Strawburger, Miss Mabel Wright and Mrs Jerome P. Jackson.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1924

A young tornado paid a visit to Newtown on Tuesday afternoon about 4 pm, the

fury of the storm seeming to center over the Borough. Trees were blown down in

the yards of the Misses Dikeman and Mrs S.C. Glover, in front of the residence

of M.D. Beers at Sandy Hook, and large limbs twisted off trees in front of the

Beers-Sanford residence and in other places.

Mrs John Hubbell is having a two-car garage erected in the rear of her new

residence recently completed.

The Class of 1922 of Hawley High School held a class reunion, Friday, August

29. Early in the evening a roast was held at Taunton Lake, after which the

members of the class were conveyed by an unusual fliver to Danbury, where they

witnessed America at the Empress Theater. Those present were: Helen Egan, May

Platt, Esther Coger, Edna Stowe, Laura Ruffles, Charles McLaughlin, Joseph

McCarthy, and Frank Hopkins.