The Westford Wardsman, May 10, 1919
Center. Mrs. H. M. Bartlett received word the first of the week of the serious accident which had happened to her son, Leslie M. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, who lives in Claremont, N.H., with his wife and family, while out with his motorcycle on Monday, was found unconscious by his overturned machine. He was removed to the hospital and at last reports was gaining consciousness, although much bruised and shaken up. It is thought that he was overtaken with a dizzy spell to which he is sometimes subject.
The union memorial services of the churches in town will be held this year with the Congregational church, and those in charge are busy with program, music and other arrangements.
The Cadman peach orchards at the Old Homestead farm have been a beautiful sight this week, being in full bloom.
The social for May at the Congregational church is scheduled for Friday, May 23. Mrs. A. H. Sutherland, chairman.
The sewing class, under the auspices of the Tadmuck club, is making a good start and there is much interest in the class. Miss Tomer, of the Middlesex County Farm Bureau, is the teacher, and her pleasant and capable personality is a large factor in the enterprise. The class of twelve, which is the quota and some spectators, met at Library hall for the first meeting on Tuesday. Miss Tomer gave a practical and helpful talk on the fundamentals of becoming dressing and got the class well started for its all-day session next Tuesday.
The home guards held their regular meeting and drill on Tuesday evening. Major Tuttle of Concord paid a visit. He was in civilian dress and told the gathering that the prize battalion drill which was planned later in the month has been cancelled. These and other indications give cause for thinking that the more strenuous activities of this company may soon be over.
George H. Cadman, who has recently returned from a trip to England, finds the war’s effects very real in his native country. Two brothers have given their lives and in all Mr. Cadman counts seventeen in his family connection the toll of the great war.
The Burland family have been in town, packing their goods for removal from town.
There will be an all-day Ladies’ Aid meeting with Mrs. L. W. Wheeler on Thursday of next week.
The fatal automobile accident which happened to Burton Cole on Sunday evening on the Groton road seems very real to this community. Mr. Cole, as a younger man, worked in town and married for his wife Miss Marion O. Hartford, of this village. The victim of the accident was returning to Lowell in a Hudson automobile which in turning quickly to avoid another machine ran into a tree. Mr. Cole was taken to the Lowell Corporation hospital, badly maimed and unconscious, where he died the following day. Mr. Cole was forty-five years old and for the past twenty years had been an efficient engineer for the Boston and Maine railroad. The funeral was held on Thursday from his home in Lowell.
A large number of Grangers from Westford attended the Littleton Grange on Wednesday evening and enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Barrow.
At the Congregational church on Sunday morning Rev. O. L. Brownsey’s morning subject will be “Religion and national life,” and in the evening “The open road.” Remember the evening service is at 7:30. Sunday school and men’s class follow the morning service.
Mr. and Mrs. John P. Wright and daughters drove in to Westford from Cambridge on Tuesday evening when Mr. Wright attended the home guard drill.
The Edward M. Abbot hose company held a tryout and drill on Wednesday evening followed by the annual business meeting at the fire house afterwards. The officers and committees were re-elected.
Sergt. Walter A. Logan, who has been overseas with the 26th Division for eighteen months, is about to be discharged. He has seen hard service on the western front and has been wounded several times, as well as gassed. Private Edward Perkins, who served a year with the Canadian forces, is also at home, as well as Private Justin B. Jenkins of the Y.D. [26th Yankee Division], and a former member of Battery F, Lowell, after eighteen months service in France and active service in five sectors.
The workers for the fifth or victory loan have been hard at work. This drive is under the direction of Charles H. Robinson, chairman, and other members of the local state guard company. They have made a house-to-house canvass and the result for the first two weeks was $93,400. The town’s quota is $165,000. At a meeting on Wednesday evening the members reported and amounts tabulated to the amount of $162,950, with 305 names. The drive closes this Saturday and it is hoped everyone who possibly can will be represented, regarding it as a patriotic privilege and duty, and in addition, a good and safe investment to loan to the government at a good rate of interest. Westford has made a fine record and gone over the top with the four preceding drives and it is hoped that the last one will be no exception.
The annual memorial services for the civil war and world war veterans will be held under the direction of Wesley O. Hawkes, commander of the Westford veterans, and the sons and daughters of veterans of the town, May 30. It is expected that Hon. Frank P. Bennett, Jr., of Saugus, will be the speaker of the day.
About Town. The May day breakfast and luncheon in the vestry of the village church at West Chelmsford under the management of Mrs. Fletcher was a financial success. It received patronage from Lowell, Chelmsford, Westford and other smaller cities. The treasury of the church felt the effects of seventy-five dollars. Socially, it afforded a variety of friendships much needed in this age of high pressure hurry.
We shall have to revise our hasty conclusion in regard to damage to fruit by the recent ice cold wave. Years haven’t witnessed so full and handsome a peach blossom; plums are not so handsome or so numerous, but they are there; the apple blossoms are close to a full promise in the Stony Brook valley, where our prior calculations were miscalculated. The steady, strong breeze of the recent cold storage weather was what prevented a knock-out by the frost.
The Prairie farm has limed an acre of land and sown white clover, which has a record of growing eight feet when the clover is sufficiently supplied with plant food.
By invitation, members of Westford Grange gave the laughable farce “Getting ready for church” at the regular meeting of West Chelmsford Grange on Thursday evening. The following took part: Mr. and Mrs. Myers, Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Taylor, Ruth Sargent, Elinor Colburn. Aside from the farce, which was laughably true to life, Miss Lillian Sutherland rendered a solo; Clarence Burne, violin selection; Mrs. W. R. Taylor and Miss Rena Luke, readings, and a piano solo by Miss Elsie Burne.
Brookside is being brightened up by George C. Moore with new paint on all the mill cottages.
The entertainment at the last meeting of the Grange was in charge of Mrs. F. C. Wright. Aside from songs and readings by local talent, which was quite attractive, Miss Lee, of Lowell, spoke on “School gardens,” and held the close attention of her audience. She was followed by Prof. Trask, of the Farm Bureau, who illustrated many phases of farm life by motion pictures.
W. R. Taylor, on Twin Brook farm, is passing around the despised Ben Davis apple. It is noted for its keeping qualities and holding its original flavor, which some think is not worth holding, yet some of our best fruit men, including such experts as G. E. Laboutly, recently of the Read-Drew farm, are advocating setting them out.
Mrs. Fanny (Anderson) Pickup died at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Anderson, on the Lowell road, Brookside, last Saturday evening, aged 26 years, 3 months, 24 days. She was well known and socially popular with the young people of Brookside and West Chelmsford, and in some respects it seems like the first break in the circle of year of strong friendship. Her departure was not unexpected; several years of failing health had sounded the warning. Besides her husband, Raymond Pickup, she leaves three children, Russell, Leon and June; her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson; four sister, Bertha, Mary, Flora and Cecelia, and five brothers, Oliver, Carl, Gustave, Roland and Harold. The funeral was from the home of her parents on Tuesday afternoon, with burial in Fairview cemetery.
Forge Village. Rev. Lester Wallace preached his first sermon at St. Andrew’s mission last Sunday. He will make his home in the vicarage.
Several acres of land have been turned over to the employees of the Abbot Worsted Co., to be used for gardens. In addition to the use of the land it was also prepared for the seed, and the only expense will be the cost of the seed. The same firm has also prepared the large piece of land in the rear of St. Andrew’s mission and the children of Cameron school are planting it under the supervision of the principal, Mrs. Nelson O’Clair.
Mrs. Annie Hamlin, of Westford, returned from the Lowell General hospital this week and is at the home of her mother, Mrs. Eliza Oldham.
The Frost school team played the Cameron school nine on Monday afternoon at the Cameron school field. The visitors won by the score of 8 to 3. The batteries were Perkins and Shay for the Frost school; Goucher, Canton and Smith for the local nine.
Mrs. George Sanborn and little daughter are visiting in Amherst, N.H.
Private Walter E. Clough, who recently returned from overseas, spent the weekend with his mother in New Hampshire. His wife accompanied him.
The pupils of Westford academy, under the auspices of the baseball team, are to give a whist party and dance in the town hall on May 16.
Lieut. Daniel Sullivan, of the Aviation Corps, is on a brief furlough at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Sullivan.
Mrs. Gerald Daley and little son, of Adams, are visiting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Daley.
Mrs. John W. Shaddick and daughter Anna spent the weekend with friends in Boston.
Miss Mary B. Raynes, supervisor of music, is attending the musical convention in New Hampshire this week.
Misses Ethel Kimball, Mary Raynes and Grace Litchfield are among the first to open up their cottage on Lake Mattawanakee [Forge Pond]; Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Fisher and family and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Fisher of Lowell are also at their camps.
The funeral of Mrs. Ellen Flynn, who died at her home on Wednesday evening, April 26, was held at her home, followed by a funeral mass at St. Catherine’s church, Rev. C. P. Heaney officiating. The choir sang the Gregorian chant, Mrs. Mary E. Hanley presiding at the organ. The burial took place in St. Catherine’s cemetery. The bearers were the four nephews of the deceased, John and Edward Quinn, Russel Furbush and Owen McNiff.
Ayer
Camp News. Realizing the great need of entertainment of all kinds for the men who have been enduring the terrible strain of modern war the Knights of Columbus continue to present all-star entertainments of various kinds in all the huts in Camp Devens; Secretary John Duane is in charge of this work.
Military and civil police authorities have combined to protect soldiers returning from overseas from the operations of gamblers, sneak thieves and commercial cheats. Soldiers in the 14th Engineers handled a civilian roughly upon discovery that he was using loaded dice in a crap game. The civilian had two negro soldiers as accomplices and they too were accorded harsh treatment.
Corp. John A. Knowles, Co K, 101st Infantry, of Hull, was robbed of a watch which he was bringing home to give to the widow of a comrade who fell in battle. He left his barracks bag in the company orderly room while he remained in camp to assist Capt. J. T. Duane to compile the final report of the company.
The baggage of five officers in the officers’ quarters of the 101st Infantry was rifled and articles of clothing, shoes and toilet articles taken by sneak thieves. None of Col. Logan’s property, which was in a room in the same building in care of his orderly, was touched. Officers and soldiers of the 101st and 102nd Infantry Regiments presented articles they did not wish to carry home to the soldiers who cleaned up the billets.
Three overseas officers who returned from Boston in an automobile at 1:30 Sunday morning came to grief from choosing the Hotel Devens to entertain their women companions. Officers Pirone and Hibbard, consulting the hotel register some hours later, decided to see who the three Bostonians were whose names appeared as E. B Carter, P. Harris and H. P. Williams. The three young women were placed under arrest and gave their names as May Davis, Mary Shannon and Kate Allen, of Lowell. The officers claimed to be members of the [42nd] Rainbow Division and attached to the 150th Machine Gun Battalion, now in camp, giving their names as Capt. Ernest D. Coombs, Capt. Fred T. Finn and 1st Lieut. P. J. Kuffin. The cases against the girls came up for trial Monday morning in the district court and were continued until Saturday morning.
Bernadetta and Blanche Joyal, recovered from the effects of the accident which caused the death of their mother and the serious injury of their father, left the officers’ ward at the base hospital, Monday, for the home of their grandfather, Leon Joyal, in Somersworth, N.H. With their father, James Joyal, still a patient in the hospital, the little girls were without anyone to care for them after the motorcycle accident, and they were allowed to remain in the hospital. Officers and friends in the hospital made up a purse of $100 to take care of immediate needs and visitors from Brookline provided dresses for the little girls. The doctors believe they will avoid amputating Joyal’s leg, which was severely lacerated in the collision with the automobile.
New York hospitals sent 200 patients to the base hospital on Sunday night, New England soldiers who arrived at Hoboken.
Three trains brought the 120th Regiment of Field Artillery, 57th Field Artillery Brigade Headquarters and 324th Field Bakery Company to camp from Boston on Sunday. These are units of the 32nd Division, numbering 58 officers and 1477 soldiers in the Artillery Regiment, 8 officers and 67 men in the Brigade Detachment, 2 officers and 83 men in the Field Bakery.
Plans for enlarging the sanitary process to include other necessary functions and thus speed up demobilization at the camp are under consideration. It is suggested that the period of quarantine will be eliminated and that preparation of soldiers for discharge will begin immediately upon arrival at camp. This may permit the return of soldiers to civilian status within forty-eight hours and the transfer of men living outside New England as rapidly as transportation may be provided. Substitution of hot air for steam in disinfecting clothing has been recommended. Other changes contemplate making the final physical examinations of the soldiers while they are going through the plant. This plan will place half a dozen surgeons on duty, each one a specialist on heart, eyes, feet and so on. Collections of data for discharge papers would be undertaken simultaneously.
Pepperell
Special Aid Society. Entertainment was provided on Thursday of last week at the Homestead for more of the convalescent soldiers from the hospital at Camp Devens. There were a committee of five ladies appointed for the day, three of whom were present to have charge of the dinner, Mrs. J. P. Hayes, Mrs. William Dorsheimer and Mrs. Frank Farley. The soldiers were conveyed here by the kindness of Charles H. Jewett and A. F. Parker, whose manner toward the men was very considerate and thoughtful, adding to the comfort of the trip.
A pleasing feature of the afternoon was the visit of twelve little girls from the Main street school, headed by Esther Martin, bringing twelve May baskets which they had made and filled with homemade candy, and came to present to the soldiers. They also sang some of their school songs, and it was very apparent the little act appealed to all of the company some of the men gathered there being far away still from their own children. Other entertainment was given by songs by Miss Walker, and selections by Miss Mary Butler.
The customary visit was made to the patients in the wards at the hospital at Camp Devens on Saturday by Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. John Martin and friend, Mrs. Taylor, Miss Marnell, Miss Irene Salter, Miss Dora LaBean, Mrs. James Dunn and sister, Mrs. Mallory, of Maine. There were enough oranges and custards for wards five and six. These wards were visited by those who went to entertain. Miss Dunton, from town, was accompanist, and the other musicians were Miss Mizzo, soloist; Miss Davis, violinist, and Miss Dawson, pianist, from the Nashua School of Music.