Turning Back the Pages
100 years ago — February 1922
SALISBURY — Kennard C. Suydam has been training for some time to enter the foot race with Yale and Harvard, in the State Armory at Hartford on February 28. Kennard, who ran for the Pratt and Whitney athletic team on Sept. 10, was one of the prize winners. The events will be 75 yds., quarter mile and half mile.
R.C. Miller of Lakeville reports having seen three robins the past week, which makes us wonder if the backbone of winter has been dented.
Lakeville has some excellent side walks but no one would have guessed it the past winter.
John Grogan, who is employed at St. Mary’s Rectory, has been exhibiting a prize egg which was laid last week by a White Leghorn pullet hatched last August 1st. The egg measures 8 inches around the ends and 6 1/2 inches around the sides.
50 years ago — February 1972
Birgir Torrissen of Salisbury has been named to the National Ski Hall of Fame, a distinction conferred on only 135 persons. A member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic Team, Mr. Torrissen holds many trophies from a skiing career which spans more than 40 years. His work with young people in Salisbury is largely responsible for the tremendous popularity of Nordic and cross-country skiing in this area.
The Farnam Apartments, one of Lakeville’s oldest and most historic buildings, is taking on a new look. New siding is transforming it from dark gray to antique gold.
Answering critics who questioned the efficiency of the town crew in removing the snow from Saturday’s storm from Canaan’s roads, First Selectman Leo Segalla this week invited anyone interested to ride on the trucks as they clear away the snow. This, he contends, would give people an insight into the problem after such a storm. Mr. Segalla reports that there is no problem with either equipment or manpower in the snow removal program and that the work is proceeding as rapidly as possible.
Ralph Nader this week described a “citizens’ lobby” founded by his own Connecticut Citizen Action Group as the “most powerful statewide citizen force for change in the United States.”
25 years ago -- February 1997
Thirty-three-year-old Bicron Electronics in Canaan last week won fresh recognition that it is positioning itself to compete effectively in a global market, according to company president Peter Kent. The company earned certification through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that it meets the “ISO 9001” standard for quality assurance in design, development and production.
Few people know that the first president of the United States and commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces during the Revolutionary War spent a week in Litchfield County -- from Sept. 18 to Sept. 25, 1780. His trip is described in a book written in 1930 by Erick K. Rossiter entitled “Washington’s Journey Through Litchfield County.” Washington made the trip from his headquarters in Tappan, N.Y., on the west bank of the Hudson to Hartford to meet with General Lafayette and the Count De Rochambeau about military matters.
LAKEVILLE -- Kate Schapira, a senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, knows that a person can’t make a living writing poetry. But earning $3,000 cash for six of her poems from the National Foundation for the Advancement of Arts gave her a good start in that direction. The cash award came from the Miami-based foundation as a result of her participation in ARTS Week ‘97, a program of the NFAA held from Jan. 7 through 12 in Miami.
CANAAN -- A proposal to implement optional all-day kindergarten at North Canaan Elementary School was met with a mixed reaction from school board members and Principal Tom Gaisford last Thursday night.
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
