Turning Back the Pages
100 years ago — March 1923
Miss Mary Menary is ill with pneumonia at White Hart Inn and a trained nurse is in attendance.
Miss Belle Adams, who has been ill for some time with the grippe and an abcess in one ear, is again on duty at Roberts’ store.
The Journal is issued late this week owing to a bad break in the press which unfortunately could not be repaired in time to print this issue of the paper. However, thanks to the kindness and courtesy of Brother Loope of the Millerton Telegram, who permitted us to use his press, we are able to furnish our readers with their usual copy of the Journal even though somewhat late.
Another brisk snow storm struck town on Tuesday night and reminded us that winter had still some backbone left. A high wind accompanied the snow and piled it up in drifts, rendering many of the roads in bad traveling condition, and demoralizing the railway service to considerable extent.
Not exactly good weather for blue birds and robins, but there’s hopes.
50 years ago — March 1973
Sixteen-year-old Timothy Rogers of Lakeville escaped serious injury last Saturday after one of the most spectacular car crashes in the area in years. Police say young Rogers’ car was northbound on Route 41 when it ran off the left side of the road and struck five fence posts. It came back into the southbound lane, then went off again on the same side, this time taking down 20 more fence posts. The careening vehicle then went down an embankment, over a water culvert, struck the stream bank, and in the words of police, “became airborne for 120 feet before making contact with a large tree five feet above the ground.” Though not seriously hurt, he was taken to Sharon Hospital for treatment of facial cuts and bruises. Police charged him with speeding.
For at least 70 years and perhaps longer the Falls Village Town Clerk has been an employee of one of the local banks and has transacted town business during banking hours. While the system seems to have worked in the past, times are a-changing, and starting next week the Town Clerk will start to hold office hours at the town hall. Town Clerk Lucille Marston told the selectmen a month ago that the Falls Village branch of the Torrington Savings Bank had requested that the town not maintain an office in the bank.
Funeral services were held Monday for Orange S. Seger, 65, of Seger Mountain, who died March 2 at Sharon Hospital after a short illness. Born in Kent on March 20, 1907, he was a son of the late Frank and Mabel (Sterry) Seger. He spent his entire life in Kent. To his friends and others who knew him, he was known as Lem, short for Lemon.
Joanne Erickson of Salisbury has been named to the 1973 Girls’ Junior Eastern Cross Country Team. This team, consisting of six girls and an alternate, will represent the East at the Junior National Championships in McCall, Idaho, March 11-17.
25 years ago — March 1998
Plans to renovate the former Geer Memorial Hospital into an assisted living facility for the elderly have been scrapped, as will be the building itself. Geer’s board of directors announced this week that despite the award of a grant that would have allowed them to turn the stately old building into apartments, a revised estimate of the cost of renovating has shown it to be far more expensive than the combined cost of tearing it down and rebuilding.
One hundred fifty years after the Nation Iron Bank opened its doors in the middle of Falls Village, it is closing up shop and moving to Salisbury. As thanks to the town for hosting it for a century and a half, the bank has offered to donate its building for use as town offices.
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
