Turner's Public Spirit, August 26, 1922
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Graniteville. The annual picnic of the Methodist church Sunday school will be held at Whalom Park this Saturday. Motor trucks will leave the church grounds here at nine o’clock in the morning.
Mrs. Minnie Gray, of Wilton, N.H., has been a recent visitor here.
The regular meeting of Court Westford, M.C.O.F., was held on Thursday evening with a good attendance.
Baseball Notes. The Abbot Worsted team visited Fitchburg on last Saturday and defeated “Tom” Sellers’ fast semi-pro team, shutting them out, 2 to 0. Al Davidson, the Abbot’s star twirler, was on the mound and was in fine form, holding Fitchburg to three scattering hits. He was finely supported behind the bat by Sullivan. “Rube” Richards and Murphy did the battery work for Fitchburg. A large number of local fans accompanied the Abbot team to Fitchburg.
On last Tuesday evening the Abbots met the Wakefield K. of C. team in a twilight game here and defeated them by the score of 9 to 4. Comerford and Sullivan did the battery work for the Abbots, while Strecker, Hall and Casey were on the firing line for Wakefield. The Abbots batted Strecker hard, Dempsey and Shanahan leading the attack with home runs, while Loftus poled out a three-bagger.
The first game of the series between the Abbot Worsted team and the Haverhill Professionals was played in Graniteville on Thursday evening, and the Abbots will visit Haverhill on this Saturday.
The Abbot team is playing great ball this season, having lost only four games out of twenty-three played.
Many of the local baseball fans will accompany the Abbot team to Haverhill this Saturday.
Center. Mrs. L. G. Weston, Mrs. B. C. Coffin and Master P. A. Coffin, of Newburyport, have been recent guests of Mrs. H. E. Whiting.
Many of the children who are to enter school in September have been vaccinated during the summer, thus giving the arm or leg a chance to get in such a condition that it will not be easily injured, which so often happens from being jostled about at school.
Julian A. Cameron has been appointed fuel administrator for Westford.
Miss Mabel Prescott will be in charge of the regular evening service at the Congregational church on Sunday.
Mrs. A. Shafter and Mrs. Lena Freed, of Lowell, and Mrs. Dorothy Carley Seamen and Miss Mary Carley, of Wilmington, Dela., have been recent guests of Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Knight.
Westford Grange has accepted an invitation to neighbor with Acton Grange on September 12. The regular meeting was held on last week Thursday evening with a small attendance. The lecturer’s hour was in charge of the Graces, who had a pleasing program, consisting of music and readings. All applications for membership should be in at the next meeting.
Mrs. Williams, of Tyngsboro, is the guest of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Whitney, Boston road.
Miss Lillian Sutherland entertained Miss Lillian Miller, of Tewksbury, over the weekend, and Bertram Sutherland had Perley Cross, of Lynn, as his weekend guest, and while in town they attended the dance given by the Republican league.
Mrs. Harry Stiles is spending a few days in Bradford.
The assessors have given out the following report: Valuation $3,212,679, with a tax rate of $35 per thousand.
Mrs. Eva Pyne Courchaine, who is at the Lowell General hospital, having had an operation performed on last Saturday, is at present reports much improved and her many friends wish her a speedy recovery.
Mrs. James Pyne, who met with a painful accident to her hand, which necessitated the taking of ten stitches, is getting along nicely, the stitches having been removed, but the injured member still requires dressing.
Mrs. Alice Lambert is resting as comfortably as can be expected.
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Gumb, their granddaughter, Edna Clement, and friends from Lowell started the latter part of the week on an auto trip to Maine. They will attend camp meeting in Auburn and will then go to North Whitefield, taking Miss Edna, who has been spending the summer with her grandparents, to her home. The return trip will be made by the shore line, and en route stops will be made at Poland Springs and all the principal beaches.
The welfare committee of the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the American Legion proved themselves ideal hostesses to the fourteen disabled soldiers from the Groton hospital who were spending the day at Camp Edwards, which is a part of Camp Devens, last Wednesday. The boys greatly appreciated the dinner which was served to them. It is customary for a different organization to take charge each day at the camp, and the Westford women are to be congratulated on their splendid menu. Mrs. Clarence Hildreth, of the welfare committee, was ably assisted by Dr. Edna Packard and Mrs. Charles L. Hildreth.
A dastardly and despicable act was attempted on Tuesday evening when some person entered the garage in the yard of Robert Prescott evidently with the intention of burning his new Studebaker touring car, which was purchased on August 10. A wad of paper was found stuffed in the gasoline tank with matches nearby. Through the timely intervention of Mrs. Prescott the culprit was foiled in his attempt, for upon noticing a light and thinking it to be Mr. Prescott, she approached the window and spoke, thus frightening them away. The car was also found to have been scratched, evidently with a stone. The police are working on the case, and at present there are strong suspicions, and an arrest will probably be made before a great while.
Splendid Charitable Work. The philanthropic work which was carried on by Mrs. Quincy Shaw, of Boston, for many years, has been taken over by the Boston Mission and Church Extension society, who have purchased the Long-Sought-for lodge and the Hiram Dane place in the north part of the town. A. H. Reimer is the superintendent in charge and during the month of August eight-one children have been cared for ranging in ages from six to fourteen years. These children who are of four different nationalities came from the very poorest homes of Boston and Cambridge. The leader of boys is William Duvall of Newton, a student at the Boston university school of theology, assisted by Ernest Harley. The girls are under the leadership of Miss L. E. Loucks of Cleveland, Ohio, and Miss Angeline Aliberti, of Portland, Me. Other able workers are Rev. and Mrs. Giambarresi. Mrs. Giambarresi is leader in the girls’ house and also has charge of all pageants and plays.
The mornings are devoted to bible stories, hand work and various kinds of manual training, while the afternoons are devoted to swimming and guided play. There is also much patriotic teaching. All teaching is done in story form.
On Wednesday, August 30, an exhibition day will be observed, beginning at two o’clock in the afternoon, to which the public is invited, and a special invitation is extended to the citizens of Westford.
The camp, through its superintendent, Mr. Reimer, wishes to express its appreciation for the kindly interest and helpful acts of the people of Westford and vicinity during this their first year of occupancy of the “Lodge.”
About Town. Walter and Evelyn Benjamin have been spending this week at the home of their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Eben Prescott, while their mother, Mrs. Bertha Prescott Benjamin, lecturer of the Reading Grange, was in attendance at the lecturers’ conference in Burlington, Vt.
Services were held on the porch of Mr. Stevens’ place on Nabnassett pond last Sunday. Mr. Kemp, who has a cottage there, had charge and spoke splendidly.
It is a pleasure to have Dr. and Mrs. [Edward Carlton] Atwood among us from Florida. Their daughter is in the Adirondacks, but will arrive here later. It is thirty-six years since Dr. and Mrs. Atwood took up their residence in Florida. They have been north every year but three.
In our account of the death of Mrs. Lulu M. Parkhurst last week, an error crept in. She was reported as the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus Blodgett, long remembered residents of North Westford. It should have been granddaughter of these two, and daughter of Lewis C. Dane, of Windham, N.H., a former resident of the Long-Sought-for pond district.
The Y.M.C.A. camp has closed at Nabnassett for the season. Some of the boys are taking an auto trip to Niagara.
Mr. and Mrs. Harry K. Benjamin, of Reading, spent the weekend with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eben Prescott.
After a long and inspiring vacation Middlesex-North Pomona Grange will open the first session of the season for intellectual social and fraternal betterment in Odd Fellows’ hall, Bridge street, Lowell, next week Friday. We do not as yet know about the program, but it is always good.
Apples are doing better in [the] Boston market now, for we learn of one man in a closeby town who was compelled to declare a dividend of $1.60 besides his apples for getting them marketed. Who said there weren’t going to be any apples? Everybody denies they said so. All hands go on the waiting list. What is wanted is a law compelling people to pay more for apples.
Mr. and Mrs. John A. Taylor, of Grand Forks, N.D., write that they have motored to a pine wood on one of the nearby lakes in Minnesota, where they are going to spend this month in a cottage with some friends. Mr. Taylor writes: “The harvesting season is now well under way. It is inspiring to see so many acres of wheat all in the shock waiting to be threshed. There is really a big crop and the prices are good. I hear much grumbling about the shortage of freight cars for hauling. If Brother [Warren G.] Harding could only wander out into the harvest field he would soon learn just how the railroad and coal strikes ought to be settled. It is estimated that North Dakota will have at least 200,000,000 bushels of wheat, to say nothing of the other grains. Everybody wants to ship at once.”
Westford Grange held its monthly meeting last week Thursday evening. Owing to so many social engagements going in conflicting directions the attendance at the Grange was made smaller. An invitation has been received from Acton Grange to neighbor with them on Tuesday evening, September 12, and it has been accepted.
Mrs. Julia A. Chamberlain Fletcher, who lives with her niece in Billerica, celebrated her ninety-second birthday on Tuesday. She retains her interest in Westford and enjoys the Wardsman.
George Harrison, of San Diego, Cal., writes that on account of ill health he will not be able to take the trip east and see the old town of Westford which he loves. The Wardsman gives him the news.
Mrs. Fabyan Packard took Mrs. Charles L. Hildreth and Mrs. Clarence Hildreth to Camp Devens in her car to assist in the entertaining of some soldiers on Wednesday.
Miss Luanna Decatur, of New Rochelle, N.Y., made a trip home to the Decatur homestead in her Overland sedan. She left Saturday, stopping in Springfield with relatives for the night and reached here on Sunday night.
Mr. and Mrs. Borel (Inez Lybeck), who were recently married in New York, after spending some time in the Adirondacks, have returned to the Lybeck place on the Lowell road, where they will stay until Mr. Lybeck returns to his school duties in Farmingdale.
Rev. Ashley D. Leavitt, of the Harvard church, Brookline, had the honor of supplying the pulpit of the United Free Church, Glasgow, Scotland, during July.
The town teams have been gravelling the Pigeon hill section of the Stony Brook road. Although we rarely travel that section of the road we have been aware that it needed repairing.
Y.M.C.A. Minstrels. We quote the following for the benefit of the uplift of Lake Nabnassett and its natural environments as a power to promote mutual up-building.
“With an appreciative audience of nearly 500 people from Lowell, North Chelmsford, West Chelmsford, Brookside and Westford, the Camp Nabnassett Minstrels of 1922 held forth at their camp on the shores of Lake Nabnassett on Monday evening. Songs and banter, funny costumes and a general feeling of good fellowship made the annual performance one of the best that has ever been held. Let it be said that the Camp Nabnassett minstrel show, made up of the Y.M.C.A. summer camp boys, has a reputation to live up to and no effort is spared to make each of the annual shows better than the one before. Monday night’s performance came close to reaching the pinnacle. There was an excellent group of end men and when not entertaining the audience with well chosen songs, kept all in laughter by well aimed jokes. The chorus was an exceptional one, comprising about eighty young boys who were well trained as entertainers. Then there were the end men. There was not a person present who would not admit that the effect of these costumes was nothing short of terrific.”
Long live forever Camp Nabnassett as an inspiring healthy and humorous assault to the neglected and unbalanced social life and a refreshing offset to present-day unrest and threatening labor cloudbursts.
Wedding. The wedding of Helen Louise Suhm, daughter of Mrs. Katie Suhm, of Wichita Kansas, and Herbert H. Walkden, son of James A. Walkden, of this town, took place on August 8 at the home of the bride’s mother, 1727 Victor Place, Wichita. Only the immediate relatives and a few friends were present. After the ceremony a wedding breakfast was served. The bride and groom are enjoying an auto trip to the Rockies, taking in Colorado Springs, Denver, Estes Park and other points of interest.
The bride is a young woman of attractive personality and a great favorite. She has resided in Wichita since childhood and is a graduate of the high school and of the business college.
The groom is a graduate of Westford academy and of the Massachusetts Agricultural college. He was a member of the Kappa Gamma Phi Fraternity there. He is a world war veteran. For some time he has been connected with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and has been stationed at the Bureau of Entomology Laboratory at Wichita, Kansas.
The bride and groom were the recipients of many wedding gifts. They will be at home after September first at 1727 Victor Place, Wichita. The best wishes of Westford friends are extended to Mr. and Mrs. Walkden.
Grange Lecturers’ Conference. The lecturers of Granges in New England and Northern New York are having a wonderful trip to Burlington, Vt., for a conference this week. On Monday a group left Westford to attend this conference, going in a seven-passenger touring car driven by Miss Ruth Sargent’s uncle, Mr. Colby, of New Hampshire. In the auto were Miss Ruth Sargent, lecturer of Westford Grange, her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Sargent, Mrs. Harry W. Benjamin (Bertha Prescott), lecturer of Reading Grange, and her sister, Miss Lucinda Prescott. They left here on Monday morning, expecting to meet in North Adams all the other lecturers. Tuesday they were to leave by the way of Mohawk Trail for Burlington. Wednesday supper was expected to be served on the boat on Lake Champlain. Headquarters will be at the University of Vermont. Thursday and Friday were the conference days. Friday night was to be spent at the New Hampshire State college in Amherst and the Westford group expect to be back home on Sunday evening. Several hundred lecturers planned to be present. All the autos carrying them bore pennants, “Grange Lecturers’ Conference.”
Ayer
News. The following real estate transfers have been recorded recently from this vicinity: … Westford and Littleton—George H. Lorman to M. Dodge; Thomas H. Stewart to George H. Lorman. Westford—Claude L. Allen to Henry L. Longdon, land on Long road.