June Hannah—–

A Native Looks Back At Life In Newtown

And Concludes, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’

By Jan Howard

Edmond Town Hall movies, camping out in a friend’s backyard, stocking shelves at the local general store, and class reunions are some of June (Meyers) Hanna’s memories of growing up in Newtown.

As a child, Mrs Hanna lived on Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook with her parents, Grace and Earl Meyers, and siblings Judith and Earl, Jr.

 While she acknowledges there is a lot of traffic in Newtown now, she feels it is quieter than when Church Hill Road was the main route to Danbury and Southbury. “When there was a snowstorm, I’d run upstairs, lie on the bed, and watch the trucks and cars getting stuck on the hill,” she said. “We only had that route to Danbury. Our house was close to the road so we were very conscious of that.”

Mrs Hanna attended Hawley School up to sixth grade and what is now Newtown Middle School for grades seven through 12. Following graduation in 1959, she studied nursing at Bridgeport Hospital.

“My grandsons have the same school bus driver as my sons had, George Oberstadt,” she said. “George rode the school bus with me.”

Her father co-owned the Knapp & Meyers General Store on Main Street for 15 years and solely owned it as Meyers General Store until he retired. Mrs Hanna remembers helping out there, stocking shelves. When she was 15, she also bussed tables at Yankee Drover, where she earned enough money to pay for her nursing school entrance. “I brought home $100 a week. I didn’t even make that later in nursing.”

While in her senior year at Newtown High, she was selected Miss Newtown, and later that year, was named third runner up in the Miss Connecticut contest at The Bushnell in Hartford. “I sang ‘La Traviatta,’” she said.

She also played violin and was the first seat in the WestConn Symphony during high school.

Her father had been affiliated with the general store for 40 years when he retired in 1980.

“It was one of the saddest moments,” she said. “It was the end of an era. I think it broke my dad’s heart that none of us went into the business, but it was a dying business.”

One of her best memories of her father and the store concerns chocolate kisses. “As I left the general store days, Dad would give me candy kisses. He wouldn’t really kiss me, but he would say, ‘Here’s a kiss from me to you, kid.’” Before he died, he gave her a beautifully wrapped gift box, in which was a plastic packet containing a necklace with a silver kiss, with a card reading, “A kiss that lasts forever.”

She carries on her father’s tradition of candy kisses, often leaving them in neighbors’ mailboxes. A former neighbor who moved away once wrote Mrs Hanna that she missed receiving her candy kisses.

“I had a wonderful childhood,” Mrs Hanna said. Because her father was at the store and her mother never learned how to drive, however, she did a lot of walking to Sandy Hook Center. “I was always sent on errands.”

As a teenager, Mrs Hanna was very involved in youth fellowship at Newtown Congregational Church. “Rev Cullens would take us camping and skiing. We also went to Washington, DC.” She was a cheerleader in high school and a member of Girl Scouts and 4-H.

For entertainment, she and her friends would go to dances or to the movies at Edmond Town Hall.

“I think our parents paid off the ticket taker to check on us kids to see if anyone was holding hands,” she said, laughing. “I was not allowed to date, but I think it’s good when parents have restrictions.

“I had lots of very good friends. I ate breakfast with Linda Mortensen before school at The Central Luncheonette,” she said. “In seventh and eighth grade sometimes I would go to Virginia Wheeler’s house for breakfast.

“I would camp out with a neighbor, Judy Olson [now Wheeler] in a tent in her backyard, and my Dad would bring us a container of ice cream.”

One of her favorite activities today involves keeping in touch with about 50 shut-ins or relatives in nursing homes. “It is so easy to forget older people,” she said. “I try to be involved with my neighbors, such as watching for kids getting off the bus. That’s part of being in a neighborhood.”

One of her favorite pastimes is keeping in close contact with high school classmates and planning reunions. Mrs Hanna said she had been out of school for ten years when a former teacher, Kay Dolan, called to ask if the class had ever had a reunion, as there had been inquiries.

“We met for lunch, and she gave me some guidelines,” Mrs Hanna said. “Our first reunion was at The Hawley Manor. We had a good time. Then we had one at 15, 20 and 25 years, all at restaurants. Then there was nothing from 25 to 37 years. It was hard to get back into, but I started to get calls and letters. In 1996 I called two classmates about how they felt about having a class reunion at my home. We’d do a potluck. They said to go for it.”

She did, opening her home to her classmates for the first, but not last, time. The reunion in 1997 was such a big success that the class voted to have its 40th reunion in 1999 at her home. About 40 classmates attended out of a class of 68, with some coming from as far away as California. What’s her secret? “I call each and every one of them,” she said.

 “We hired a bus to see all the new sights in Newtown. We brought wine and cheese and went up on Castle Hill to see the sunset. We stopped at The Pleasance,” she said.

At that reunion, her classmates presented her with a plaque that reads, “Hanna Manor – Best Party Spot.” The next reunion is scheduled for 2001 after Labor Day because, she said, five years was too long to wait.

She and her husband, Jack, met under rather unusual circumstances. One day, when she and a girlfriend were out riding in her car, she ran out of gas on Church Hill Road. When she started across the street to the gas station, she was almost hit by a vehicle driven by Jack, who shouted something at her about being in the road and went on his way.

The following week, she noted, she was very conscientious about getting gas. “I was with my girlfriend at the gas station when a car came up next to me, and it was Jack. He said ‘Been running out in front of any other cars lately?’ He asked me if I wanted to go out, but I didn’t answer.”

After several “chance” meetings, when he again would ask her out, it appeared he finally gave up because the next time she saw him, he didn’t say anything to her, which prompted her to tell him she was free the next Friday. “I gave him my phone number, and he did call.”

 In 1961, following a blizzard, they were married.

“All the roads were closed the day we were to be married. The minister, Paul Cullens, called and said he was sorry, but we’d probably have to cancel the wedding,” she said. “I had to make sure everything could be done the next day. We had a four-party telephone line, and there was always someone on it. I had to call them to ask them not to use the phone so I could call everyone.”

They built their first home on land Mr Hanna had purchased on Toddy Hill Road when he was 22. “We cut all the lumber ourselves, and totally built the house,” Mrs Hanna said.

“We had no mortgage. That was the best part. My husband gave me the confidence that we could do it.” They lived there for 35 years.

June and Jack Hanna have lived in their current home on Mountain Manor Road since 1995. Mr Hanna purchased the land a few years ago, and it has become a family compound. Their son, Jeff, and his wife, Lesley, were the first to build there. They asked Mr and Mrs Hanna if they would consider moving next door to them.

“We had to think about it,” Mrs Hanna said. “We were very content on Toddy Hill Road.” However, they agreed to move, and now their son Jack and his wife, April, are building their home in back of them. Because of that family closeness, Mrs Hanna gets to see her five grandchildren almost every day, something she greatly enjoys.

That closeness extends to business as well. They have a family business, Jack Hanna & Sons, which has been in operation for 35 years owning and managing apartment complexes in the area. Both of their sons decided to join them in the company.

Showing a visitor around her home, an attractive mix of cherished family items and modern furnishings, Mrs Hanna summed it all up, noting with a smile, “We have a wonderful life.”