Turner's Public Spirit, July 7, 1923
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Stiles, of Athol, were Sunday guests of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Stiles [their son]. Mrs. Harry Stiles and daughter, Mrs. Benjamin Prescott, returned home with them and while away will also visit Mr. Stiles’ daughter at Bellows Falls, Vt.
Mrs. Alma Richardson is reported on the sick list.
Miss Jennie Chandler, of Allston, was the weekend guest of Mrs. Katherine Allen.
The Parkerville Canning club has united with the Center club. They met Monday afternoon with Miss Ruth Tuttle, who will direct the work this year. The meeting was in the nature of a get-acquainted affair, after which Miss Tuttle served a lunch to the children. There are thirteen members in the club.
Mrs. Alice Wells and Miss Ruth Tuttle have returned from an auto trip to Vermont, the former having taken her children to Bakersfield, where they will spend the summer with their grandparents. The trip, which was by way of the Green Mountains, with the return trip by way of the White Mountains, proved very enjoyable.
Miss Mary Sullivan, [aged 51,] who has been in poor health for some time, passed away at her home on the Tadmuck road last Saturday. Besides her parents [Thomas O. and Hannah E. (Hay) Sullivan] she is survived by two sisters, the Misses Margaret and Belle Sullivan, and four brothers, Eugene, James, William and Frank. The funeral was held from St. John’s church, North Chelmsford, Monday morning, where the funeral mass was celebrated by Rev. Fr. Linnehan. The bearers were the four brothers of the deceased and interment was in St. Patrick’s cemetery, Lowell. There were a number of beautiful floral tributes. A delegation from the Westford Daughters of Veterans attended the services.
The following splendid program was presented by the children of the Congregational church last Sunday morning at their annual children’s day service: Chorus, school; dialogue, Barbara Christensen, Lillian O’Brien and Rita Edwards; recitation, Ruth Hanscom; dialogue, Olive Hanscom, Phyllis Wright, Mary Wilson and Elizabeth Bosworth; recitation, Ada Cutting; dialogue, Billy Prescott, Kenneth Smith, Gordon Whitney, Roger Bosworth; dialogue, Cyril Blaney, Ethel Mann, Richard Strong; solo, Marion Day; recitation, Inez Blaney; exercise, Mrs. Felch’s class; dialogue, Elizabeth Nesmith and Marjory Wilson; “Rose song,” school; recitation, Harold Wright; dialogue, Carl Foster, Earl Stoddard, Charles Mann, Howard Wright; solo, Herbert Ingalls; recitation, Merle Foster; exercise, Mrs. Whitney’s class; recitation, Walter Belleville; solo, Charles Levoy; recitation, Alice Heywood, Edmund Belleville, Elmer Bridgeford, Helen Gallagher; duet, Charlotte Wilson and Helen Gallagher; chorus by school.
Frank C. Wright, who had a very serious attack of heart trouble the latter part of last week, is at last reports resting comfortably and showing improvement.
Master Claude Wright is slowly improving from his recent very serious accident.
Mr. and Mrs. Bert Walker, of Marblehead, were in town over the Fourth, guests of Mr. Walker’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Walker.
Rev. and Mrs. David Wallace were in town on the Fourth; also, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Burland and child, and Mrs. G. Sullivan and child.
The night before the Fourth provided more quiet than in some of the past years. The usual pranks were played, but no damage was done to property.
Many from here attended the celebration at Forge Village.
About Town. Paul Symmes is acting as haymaker for J. Arthur O’Brien on the Stony Brook road. Mr. O’Brien reports him as one of the best of helpers.
The Old Oaken Bucket farm had a most delightful visit from Messrs. Handley and Teele, of West Acton, Sunday afternoon. They are two of the largest apple raisers in the Nashoba Fruit association. We had a splendid chin-chatting time. So close was the contest in fast questioning and answers that it was decided as a draw and adjourned as such to meet in West Acton, time and referee to be decided on later. But say, to lay all joking aside, isn’t he an apt, fluent talker when well wound up? He was quite a match for the Old Oaken Bucket tongue [i.e., Sam Taylor, author of the “About Town” section].
I was sorry not to be able to attend the meeting of the Board of Trade last week, but I approve of all that was done and agree to pay up and sign up to the Village Improvement association. This association can do all the work of the Board of Trade and thus avoid the dangers of over organization, for which the present day is overloaded. Now that we have started in under a new name let us be alive enough to deserve the name and not be so dead that we don’t know that we ever lived. To keep alive we must do something and if necessary assign something for every member to do individually besides something to do collectively. If we had the funds I would suggest that as a sendoff we get together on the common and jingle up our enthusiasm by a band concert by the Abbot Worsted Company band. I enthusiastically love to hear them play and I presume that they love to hear me hear.
The Old Oaken Bucket farm had new potatoes for dinner last Saturday. These potatoes were planted on April 31 [sic], so that we had new potatoes in sixty-two days from planting, which is in violation of the usual normal speed limit.
Miss Bessie A. Dame, of Lowell and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, of Methuen, were visitors at the Old Oaken Bucket farm last Sunday afternoon; also, the F. A. Snow family, of West Chelmsford. [Mrs. Snow was Esther Perry Taylor, Sam Taylor’s daughter.]
John A. Taylor, from North Dakota, arrived at the Old Oaken Bucket farm on his midnight automobile last week Friday night and Saturday morning, traveling 2000 miles. He reports the wheat crop in North Dakota looks favorable for a large crop.
Unless present plans smash onto head-on collision we are planning to go to Harvard next Tuesday, so get your teachers lined up, F. S. Savage.
There will be a special town meeting on Monday evening in the town hall. The following are the condensed articles: To appropriate money for highway purposes and unpaid snow bills; to hear report of committee on heating of town hall; to choose a committee to investigate and report relative to the town acquiring land for reforestization [sic]; to regrade the common at Westford Center and lay out walks across the same; to establish two additional hydrants on Union [now E. Prescott] street. All of the above are affirmative and should be affirmatively and unanimously passed.
A freight train of seventy-five cars and two engines went over the Stony Brook railroad last Sunday morning bound for Ayer. This train reached from Brookside to the Willard Fletcher bridge [over Stony Brook on Stony Brook Rd.], being the longest train that I ever saw pass over the road for seventy-seven years.
Many thanks, Mr. About Town writer (or perhaps it is Mrs., Miss About the Town) for your allusion to the explanation about the price of potatoes by the modern law of “We can and so we will.” Did you notice how quick the price dropped after the exposure by the Westford correspondent? Doesn’t it beat the heavens how quick they took to safety first under cover of lower prices? Well, now that they are on the down grade, here is another potato fact to keep the would-be potato millionaires on the run. Early last autumn Aroostook farmers sold their early potatoes for ninety cents a barrel and they sold in New York city for ten dollars a barrel. Thus does the producer and consumer get robbed to make millionaires. Then there was sugar during the world war that went up to twenty-five cents per pound and no world shortage of sugar; pushed up by the modern business of “we can and so we will.” When an investigation was started down came sugar, selling by natural law of supply and demand. Much cheaper for producer and consumer to bunch up all such millionaire attempts at a high-priced charity hotel; it would be less disgraceful than their robbery methods of business.
Clarke & Wilkins, of Tyngsboro, are doing the haying on the Morning Glory farm with an auto truck.
Some sweet corn at the Old Oaken Bucket farm measures four feet and eight inches tall and began to show the tassel June 30, which was planted May first. For corroborative evidence I refer you to Mr. Handley, of West Acton. He measured it with the eye of his mind, aided by his shoulder and elbow, and called it close to four feet. Since then it has been measured by a sworn in measurer and everything promises first in peas, first in potatoes and first in sweet corn.
Compared with other apples the McIntosh is dropping in unusual excess. Occasionally a Baldwin apple has dropped off; occasionally a McIntosh is left on the tree. This is a fair way of estimating their dropping capacity. Add to this their tender susceptibility to the scale, the scab and the scum of discoloration of rust and blight, is it any wonder that institute lecturers advised “On the McIntosh go slow; go slow in enlarging with them too fast.”
As an illustration to the amount of strawberries raised in town this year Perley E. Wright trucked 100 crates to the Lowell market one day last week.
Graniteville. The Abbot Worsted team was defeated in a weird game at Gardner last Saturday by the score of 13 to 6. The Abbots certainly had an off day and it is hoped they got all the bad baseball out of their system on this occasion. This Saturday the Woonsocket (R.I.) team will play a league game with the Abbots at Graniteville. On Sunday the Abbots will play in Woonsocket.
The Graniteville Juniors defeated the Forge Village Juniors in a twilight game [paper torn, line missing] Degagne and Stepinski did the battery work for Graniteville, while Sullivan, Minot and Benoit were on the firing line for Forge Village. A return game will be played at Forge Village later.
Mr. and Mrs. William F. Buckingham and little daughter, of Southbridge, spent the holidays here.
All members of the Epworth league are invited to attend the swimming party that will be held at Long pond, Littleton, Saturday evening. Bring along your marshmallows to toast on the beach. All members are requested to meet at the Graniteville Methodist church on Saturday evening at 6:30 sharp.
Mr. and Mrs. Frank P. Hawkes, of Melrose, have been spending a few days here at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. O. Hawkes.
Shirley
News Items. Mr. and Mrs. John C. Babb have gone to Forge Village for a visit, owing to the ill health of their daughter, Mrs. E. S. Baker.
Ayer
District Court. On Thursday morning John Kress of Westford was before the court for drunkenness in that town. He was found guilty and fined $16.
Real Estate Transfers. The following real estate transfers have been recorded from this vicinity recently: …
Westford—Claude L. Allen to John Racette, land on Graniteville road; Adeline Brisson et al. to Arthur W. Brisson et al., land on Graniteville road; Resimon Degagne to Amedee Cantin et ux., land on Sought for road. …
Townsend
West. Miss Persis Ormsby, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ormsby, was graduated from Westford academy last week and was elected to the Pro Mereto society of secondary school, and she also was the recipient of the honor medal for highest rank in American history.