Newtown’s Population Diverse

In Interests And Talents

By Nancy K. Crevier

The year started out with a smile for one local couple. Christine and Konrad Miller of Sandy Hook were pleased to find that they were the winners of the 2011 Newtown Bee First Baby Contest. Their son, Kenneth Konrad Miller, was born Monday, January 10, at 9:27 pm, at Danbury Hospital.

While his colleagues contended with the icy, snow-covered roads, and cranky customers waiting for their undeliverable mail, after 38 years and three months of service to the United States Postal Service, Joseph S. Tortora walked out the doors of the Newtown Commerce Road Post Office facility for the final time in his career on January 31, retiring from the position of distribution clerk. Mr Tortora began working for the postal service when the Newtown Post Office was located on Queen Street, under the direction of then-postmaster, the late Albert Nichols.

It is always fun to look back on and wonder, “What if…?” Lois Barber, Ruth Schofield, Newtown High School Principal Charles Dumais, Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra, Town Historian Dan Cruson, Donna Randle, C.H. Booth librarian Kim Weber, Ann Marie Mitchell, and Nancy Metzger all shared their tales of that first ever, heart pounding, true love experience, as Valentine’s Day drew nigh.

Donating The Gift Of Life

A Newtown High School teacher’s story stood out in 2011. Math teacher Annette Chionilos took giving to a new level, donating one of her kidneys to a person she hardly knew, and receiving back the unexpected gift of life for herself.

Through Facebook she reconnected with a high school friend, Sean Norton. She was shocked to hear that he was very ill with Goodpasture’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects the lungs and kidneys. Why Ms Chionilos did what she did next remains a mystery, even to her.

“I offered to donate one of my kidneys to him. I knew we would be a match. I had this certainty about my decision,” recalled Ms Chionilos.

So far as Ms Chionilos knew when she woke up in the recovery room following surgery, everything had gone smoothly. What the surgeons had not told her was that a cyst they had noticed on her left kidney during the pre-surgery CAT scan — the kidney that Mr Norton received — had looked suspicious. The surgeons did a “quick, on-the-spot biopsy,” she was later told. The test came back negative, so the surgeons excised the cyst and went forward with the transplant. But further testing showed that the cyst was cancerous. She had had renal cell cancer, without ever knowing it.

When Mr Norton heard the news, his first thought was that he would lose the kidney. The surgeons reassured him that he would keep the kidney, though, following a second surgery to remove the margins of the cyst. His next thoughts were about his friend, and put in perspective, he realized that if they not gone through the transplant procedure, by the time her cancer was found, it would have progressed a great deal. Had Ms Chionilos not followed her instincts and put forth the offer of one of her kidneys to Mr Norton, she may well have ended up in a life and death situation herself.

“If I can put the word out there [about the need for donors], that would be enough. I did not expect anything in return when I offered Sean my kidney. But I got my life given to me. It’s a happy ending,” said Ms Chionilos.

On April 1, after 34 years, Nunnawauk Meadows director Frank R. DeLucia handed over the direction of Nunnawauk Meadows to a new director, Linda Manganaro. Ms Manganaro served nine years on the Commission on Aging, retired from the Bank of America after 27 years, and was a board member for the Nunnawauk Meadows community, where she served as president of the board from 2006 to 2009, and as treasurer from 2009 to 2010.

The Creative Spark

What is the creative spark distinguishing extraordinary from ordinary? Several creative Newtowners shared their methods of tapping into creativity.

Paula Brinkman Hughes makes inspirational art dolls. The key element to creative thinking, she said, is patience.

Sandy Hook songwriter and performer Francine Wheeler of the children’s musical Dream Jam Band goes to the source when seeking new song ideas. “It’s the children who give me the ideas a lot of the time, and their imaginations that bring the music,” said the Sandy Hook resident

“Basically, I make a point of writing every day, for an hour or so,” said poet and teacher Charles Rafferty. It is that element of “doing nothing” that is crucial to the writing process, said Mr Rafferty.

Multimedia artist Joanne Keane said, “Cutting through the clutter of distractions is vital to creating.”

“Long ago I heard creativity explained as small reactive leaps of the imagination,” said painter Virginia Zic. “These small creative leaps are a result of a previous action,” Ms Zic shared with Bee readers.

Churning out cartoons since the mid-1950s for Collier’s and The New Yorker, where he also served as editor from 1973 to 1997, Lee Lorenz continues to develop ideas at the rate of 12 to 15 cartoons per week. “I always have a piece of paper and a pencil handy. If something comes up that sparks an idea, I make a little note. That’s my ‘mulch pile.’ I draw from that for my roughs,” Mr Lorenz said.

Games designer Curt Covert of Smirk & Dagger Games finds a blank page to be daunting. “I percolate the ideas in my head, often while doing other things,” said the games inventor. He added, “Sometimes, a successful idea is not necessarily a best idea, and vice versa.”

Head O’ Meadow second grade teacher Sara Washicko shared her love of finely crafted eggs. Her collection numbers nearly 90, and includes alabaster, wood, stone, paper maché, glass, porcelain, and some genuine chicken, duck, or goose eggs. The artistic eggs come from near and far, and from friends, family, and students and always provoke a cherished memory.

In May, The Stray Kats Theatre Company, a new theater company under the artistic direction of Newtown resident Kate Katcher, offered the final staged reading (Christopher Demos Brown’s Our Lady of Allapatah) of its inaugural season. Stray Kats offered six performances on the stage of The Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall for its 2010-11 season, each combining professional actors with the informality of a staged reading. Earlier this month the company also joined the Newtown Holiday Festival, presenting a staged reading in the main theater of the town hall.

Legally Blonde: the Musical arrived at the Shubert Theater in New Haven, May 13–15, and so did 2010 Newtown High School graduate Hannah Rose DeFlumeri. Hannah had landed the plum part of Vivian Kensington, main character Elle Woods’s uptight, boyfriend-stealing nemesis, in the spring of 2010, after casting agents for the National Tour caught her YouTube video from the Newtown High School performance of Gypsy. Hannah played the part of Mama Rose, the tough show biz mother, in that school play. Plenty of friends and family members made the trek to New Haven that weekend to catch a performance of the former Nighthawk on the Shubert stage.

They Fly Through The Air…

Pouncing from roof top to ground, or spinning head-over-heels as youngsters make their way around any open space, a sport called parkour and free running calls for skills that Newtown boys Julian Lewis, Patrick Matthei, and Christopher Daly were happy to demonstrate for a Bee reporter in May.

“Parkour is a more efficient, artistic way of moving and using your body, and the things around you,” Christopher explained. “Free running is kind of like skateboarding, without the board,” he added.

This year marked R. Scudder Smith’s 50th year at The Bee Publishing Company, which publishes The Newtown Bee and the internationally distributed Antiques and The Arts Weekly (A&A). He had set his eyes on becoming a lawyer, but after three years in the US Marine Corps, marriage, two children, and four years working part-time as a draftsman for Millivac Corporation in Schenectady, N.Y., while attending Union College, Mr Smith returned to Newtown the weekend of July 7, 1961. He came back to his hometown to follow in the footsteps of his father, Paul Smith, editor of The Newtown Bee, and his grandfather, Arthur Smith.

It has been a half-century of changes, some external, others internal, for Newtown’s hometown paper. But even with times and technology transforming the world of the newspaper business, his mission has remained the same: bringing local news to the residents in a fair and straightforward manner.

A previously unmarked grave in Bethel’s Center Cemetery, Plot 187, has a special Confederate headstone erected by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, as of this past summer, thanks to Charles “Mike” Anderson. It reads “John T. Pearce, July 12, 1839–September 10, 1910,” and marks the final resting place of Mr Anderson’s great-great-great-uncle. The gravesite is of interest to Newtowners, because Mr Pearce was the founder and first editor of The Newtown Bee, a fact Mr Anderson stumbled upon during his 22 years of researching his family history. Mr Anderson shared his story with Bee readers, and added a missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle of early Bee life.

At the end of September, Charles Emmett Milbank Fulkerson, a 2004 graduate of Newtown High School with a degree in sociology from Ithaca College, decided to make his idea of traveling through 50 states, in 50 weeks, with 50 bucks, a reality. Hobodyssey, as he calls his journey of walking, talking, and living frugally, has carried him through 13 states as of late November. Follow Emmett at hobodyssey.com.

In late October, Dee Duprey retired after 27 years of service to the United States Postal Service, the last 20 of which were served at the Newtown Post Office on Commerce Road. Starting out as a part-time flexible employee in the Ridgefield Post Office and then at a branch in New Bedford, N.Y., Ms Duprey transferred to Newtown just after the new Commerce Road facility opened, worked the window, and retired from the bulk mail position.

Also in October a young resident — Mackenzie Page — began a new fundraiser she called The Great Pumpkin Challenge. Mackenzie, 13, invited residents to drop off carved pumpkins to her family’s Main Street home in time for Halloween. She also asked that each donation be accompanied by a suggested donation of $4.

The pumpkins — more than 80 by the time she finished receiving them — were illuminated and displayed every night during Halloween week and the donations — more than $3,000 the last time we heard — were divided evenly between the American Cancer Society and the family of Zoe McMorran. Zoe, a family friend of Mackenzie’s, was diagnosed in August with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a very aggressive form of brain cancer. Mackenzie’s Great Pumpkin Challenge raised funds toward Zoe’s medical bills and for cancer research.

Four-Legged Friends

The Bee also looked at some special visitors to area care facilities that ask no questions, make no demands, listen quietly, and offer unconditional friendship. These visitors are therapy pets. Roseann Reggiano and her niece, Theresa Viesto visit with Ms Reggiano’s Besenji hound, Kiro. David Donigian and Bella visit Masonicare at Newtown, as do Becky Dvorin and her 80-pound Lab, Ella, and Micheala Brown and her dog, Duncan. Mary Simpson with Australian shepherd, Travis, and Nina Seturins and her beagle, Brady, go to Bethel Health Care together. Brady is also a regular at Maplewood of Newtown, and visits a school in Danbury. Steve Berks has found that his Rottweiler, Dascha, loves visiting school children, as part of a reading program.

Jane Hellman is the matriarch of Newtown therapy dog owners, though, having spent the last 16 years visiting nursing homes and care facilities with her standard poodles. Like other therapy pet owners, Ms Hellman said it is essential to be aware of a dog’s limits when visiting. “Therapy takes a lot out of dogs. They soak up everything,” she said. What is taken out by therapy pet visits is small, though, agreed all of the pet owners interviewed, in comparison to what is received in return, by both dogs and owners.

“I like to think,” said Ms Hellman, “that my dogs make a little bit of difference in peoples’ lives.”

Adam Gay is an active 10-year-old Reed Intermediate School student. But unlike most 10-year-olds, Adam cannot let his thirst and hunger go unabated without life-threatening consequences. Adam is one of the 15,000 children diagnosed each year in the United States with type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. Due to an autoimmune response, his body does not produce insulin. Every day he must balance his food intake and exercise against his blood sugar levels, to make sure that his insulin level is in balance with his activities. How he does this successfully was the story Adam shared with readers this past year.

The Bee revisited a mother-daughter book club that has met monthly for eight years. When The Bee first met the women, the girls were preteens. This fall, there has been a poignant air to the meetings. The girls — Nicole Lang, Quincy DeYoung, Cassie Fallon, and Katie Burns — who along with their mothers Suzanne Lang, Suzy DeYoung, Valerie Fallon, and Sarah Burns make up the book club — are seniors in high school. Soon they will close the chapter on this part of their lives, but they will always, they said, cherish the hours they have spent together.

Former state representative and director of the Children’s Adventure Center, Mae Schmidle received an official citation for years of service to the school, in December. Senator Andrew Roraback visited the school, and presented Mrs Schmidle with the award, as teachers and students looked on.

Decorating The White House

Newtown was pleased to find that one of her own had a part in dressing up 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., for the holidays. Family and friends of Maria Obolewicz of Sandy Hook know her skill in decorating for the Christmas season. But it was not her love of decorating that drove her this past summer to apply to be one of the volunteers decorating the White House for the holidays, she said, but rather her love of American history. Ms Obolewicz returned from a five-day decorating stint in Washington on November 30, with “a treasure chest of memories.”

December 1 marked Janet Woycik’s 30th anniversary as director of C.H. Booth Library. And after three decades at the helm of what has become a community gathering place, Ms Woycik said that she is just as excited to come to work each day as she was December 1, 1981.

It is people who make up the tapestry of Newtown every year. Who will strengthen the fabric in 2012?