Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — August 1922

ORE HILL — Michael Maloney of Jersey City is visiting his cousins, Daniel and Matthew Maloney.

Classified Adv.: FOUND 8 head of young cattle roaming at large last Sunday. Chas. Harrington, Town Hill.

LIME ROCK — Mrs. Ellen Brusie has had her house wired for electric lights.

50 years ago — August 1972

More than 80 large trees were uprooted or snapped off at the Norfolk estate of Richard Childs and neighboring properties late Monday night when a tornado swept off the east side of Canaan Mountain during a severe thunderstorm. Residents along West Side Road reported hearing “a roar like an engine in a tunnel.”

— Edward Heacox of Calkinstown Road in Sharon has been named a corporator of the Litchfield Savings Bank. Mr. Heacox is owner of the Sharon Pharmacy in the Sharon Shopping Center.

­— A farm in North Stonington that has been in the Brown family since 1832 and a farm in Litchfield that has been in the Webster family since 1868 have been designated Century Farms for 1972 by the Connecticut Agricultural Information Council.

25 years ago — August 1997

Department of Transportation Commissioner James Sullivan has agreed a flashing yellow light at the intersection of Route 44 and Lincoln City Road is an appropriate alternative to the proposed construction. The construction project was originally slated to begin next spring and would align Lincoln City Road and Prospect Street and lower the crest of Route 44 four feet. The DOT’s plan met with resistance from residents.

—  When crews of United Parcel Service (UPS), which calls itself “the tightest ship in the shipping business,” went on strike Monday, some businesses relied on the old standby, the post office. Because of its strict regulation of handling packages, the postal service is not always the company of choice when it comes to shipping. But when the lead company bows out, the post office and other companies have to step in.

LAKEVILLE — As the ground thawed this past spring, a planter at the Holley House museum seemed to be sinking. When workers from the museum moved it aside, they discovered an underground room beneath it. Thursday, the state archaeologist Nick Bellantoni, said it measured about four by seven feet, and that it could have been a cellar for the general store which once stood on the site, a cistern or even a storage room used by the underground railroad. The dry stone structure did not yield any artifacts.

Latest News

Bobbie C. Palmer

LAKEVILLE ­— Bobbie C. Palmer, born in Lakeville on Jan. 13, 1948, passed away peacefully on March 4, 2024. He is survived by his loving wife, Marva J. Palmer, son Marc (Sandra) Palmer, daughter Erica (Fleming) Wilson, two grandchildren, Andrew Yost and Ciara Wilson, and two great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his parents Walter and Francis Palmer and four brothers; Henry Palmer, William Palmer, John Palmer and Walter Palmer Jr.

He leaves behind a legacy of love, kindness, and laughter that will be cherished by his family and those closest to him.

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Finding ‘The Right Stuff’ for a documentary

Tom Wolfe

Film still from “Radical Wolfe” courtesy of Kino Lorber

If you’ve ever wondered how retrospective documentaries are made, with their dazzling compilation of still images and rare footage spliced between contemporary interviews, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, offered a behind-the-scenes peek into how “the sausage is made” with a screening of director Richard Dewey’s biographical film “Radical Wolfe” on Saturday, March 2.

Coinciding with the late Tom Wolfe’s birthday, “Radical Wolfe,” now available to view on Netflix, is the first feature-length documentary to explore the life and career of the enigmatic Southern satirist, city-dwelling sartorial icon and pioneer of New Journalism — a subjective, lyrical style of long-form nonfiction that made Wolfe a celebrity in the pages of Esquire and vaulted him to the top of the best-seller lists with his drug-culture chronicle “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and his first novel, “The Bonfire of The Vanities.”

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Art on view this March

“Untitled” by Maureen Dougherty

New Risen

While there are area galleries that have closed for the season, waiting to emerge with programming when the spring truly springs up, there are still plenty of art exhibitions worth seeking out this March.

At Geary Contemporary in Millerton, founded by Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” is a collection of medium- and large-scale acrylic on canvas abstracts that introduce mixtures of wax pastel, sand and colored pencil to create topographical-like changes in texture. Silhouettes of leaves float across seismic vibration lines in the sand while a craterous moon emerges on the horizon, all like a desert planet seen through a glitching kaleidoscope. Hutnick, a resident of Sharon and director of artistic programming at The Wassaic Project in Amenia, New York, will discuss his work at Geary with New York Times art writer Laura van Straaten Saturday, March 9, at 5 p.m.

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