Turner's Public Spirit, October 27, 1923
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. An open meeting of the Tadmuck club, to which the public is cordially invited, will be held at the town hall on Friday evening, October 26, at eight o’clock. There will be an illustrated lecture on “Celtic art,” the speaker of the evening being Miss Ellen F. O’Connor. There will also be music during the evening.
There were meetings of both the Legion and Auxiliary at headquarters on Monday evening. Halloween season was observed by a ghost party and other appropriate games, with readings by Miss Blanche Lawrence. An oyster stew supper was served by the ladies of the Auxiliary and the tables and lower hall were prettily decorated for the occasion.
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Gumb left early Tuesday morning for Florida, where they will spend the winter. En route they will visit their son Albert, who resides in Georgia.
Mr. and Mrs. James Kimball have gone to Florida for the winter.
A committee of ladies of the Congregational church met at the home of Mrs. George Walker, chairman, to further perfect the plans for the annual banquet which will be held at the town hall on Monday evening, October 29. Supper will be served at seven o’clock and John P. Wright, of Wollaston, will act as toastmaster. The following ladies comprise the committee: Mrs. George Walker, Mrs. Frederick Meyer, Mrs. George F. White, Mrs. Phonsie Isles, Mrs. Joseph E. Knight, Mrs. Charles Wright and Mrs. Alfred Hartford. Mrs. Clarence Hildreth will have charge of the dining room.
Miss Sarah W. Loker is spending a few days in Newtonville and Stoneham.
- Herbert Fletcher has purchased a new Ford coupé.
Rev. Milton W. Frantz, of Norristown, Pa., occupied the Congregational pulpit last Sunday.
George F. White left on Tuesday night on a business trip to Vermont.
Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Sutherland, Miss Lillian Sutherland and Mr. and Mrs. David Olsson motored to Wilton, N.H., last Sunday, and while there called on Mr. and Mrs. George Perham. Before her marriage Mrs. Perham was Miss Ethel Hadley and taught in the Tewksbury schools at the same time Miss Sutherland did.
Mrs. David L. Greig entertained the Merry Go Round Whist club of West Chelmsford on Tuesday afternoon. There were four tables of players, the first prize being won by Mrs. Frank Lupien, while the consolation prize was awarded to Mrs. Frank Edwards. A dainty repast was served by the hostess and the dining-table was prettily decorated with candies and Halloween favors. During the afternoon the members of the club presented Mrs. Greig with a pair of silver candlesticks with blue candles, which was a great surprise to the hostess.
The third and fourth degrees were conferred at the last meeting of the Grange, Thursday evening of last week. An excellent supper was served in charge of Mrs. Ruth Millis. In spite of the inclemency of the weather the attendance was large.
An accident in which a town car figured took place on the state road not far from Lake Nagog on last Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Gertrude Skidmore, who was returning from Boston, upon being signaled to stop, supposedly by someone in authority, did so, and was struck from the rear by the car directly behind her, damaging her car quite badly and the occupants of her car receiving cuts or being shaken up considerably. With Mrs. Skidmore at the time were her daughter Elaine and Mrs. William R. Carver and daughter Elizabeth and son William. One of the occupants of the rear car was reported as quite badly hurt. The party who did the signalling disappeared during the excitement caused by the accident without making his identity known.
About Town. Wasn’t it just jollying up our feelings to have another line storm last week Thursday, and to think that the sun crossed the equator so soon after crossing it legally September 20?
The burning of the old historic church in Hollis, N.H., recalls to memory how the church, like all others, was built and maintained by a struggling, self-sacrificing minority of the population. Like all the high ideals it is one unceasing effort to hold ourselves to the tasks of righteousness. There is a constant temptation to side-track it for the pleasurable sensations of the lower animal that never lacks for an audience, surviving all financial panics or weather conditions and law enactments or a constitutional death sentence and all its tributaries also survive. We hear much of the “survival of the fittest,” but there is a “survival of the unfittest” that defies annihilation or reformation or constitutional “Thou shall not.”
The next meeting of the Grange will be held on Thursday evening, November 1, and the lecturer has arranged for “dramatic night.” As it has been some time since we have been geared up to practice in this field let us have our laughing muscles trained for action.
The next meeting of Middlesex-North Pomona Grange will be held on next week Friday in Odd Fellows’ hall, Bridge street, Lowell, and the following is the lecturer’s program: Morning session at 10:30; current events by Lois Kittredge; song to be selected by the chaplain; surprise feature, “What heat-producing foods are good for winter diets?” Eva C. Richardson, of Dracut; discussion, “Which is the greater factor in success in life—opportunity or ability?” Rev. J. Harold Dale and Edward F. Dickinson, of Billerica, Gilman H. Kittredge, Dracut, and Rev. William E. Anderson, Westford. Dinner served by Dunstable Grange. Afternoon session at two o’clock, speaker Mrs. John Jacob Rogers; miscellaneous program in charge of the lecturer of Dunstable Grange. Conferring of the fifth degree in the evening at eight o’clock.
Warren Prescott Sweetser died at his home on the Acton road last Sunday after a long illness, aged sixty-three years. He was a native of this town, being one of four children of Nathaniel and Rebecca (Fletcher) Sweetser. He was a successful farmer near the Carlisle station. He was educated in the old Parkerville school and Westford academy. He was a most genial person to meet and well read up for entertaining conversation. He leaves, besides his wife, Jessie Harrup, four children, Howard W., Waldo J., Everett N. and Miss Hazel E. Sweetser; a brother, Judson F., and a sister, Rebecca E. Sweetser. The funeral was held from his home on Tuesday afternoon with a large gathering of relatives, friends and neighbors and an exceptionally large contribution of flowers. Rev. William E. Anderson of the Graniteville Methodist church officiated. The bearers were the three sons, Howard W., Walter [sic, Waldo is meant] J. and Everett N. Sweetser and John L. Butterworth. Interment was in the family lot in Fairview cemetery.
Samuel Hill, democratic candidate, who was recently elected to congress from Washington from a republican district, favors a government guarantee of $1.75 wheat, and the Old Oaken Bucket Samuel is in favor not only of $1.75 wheat but $2.75 potatoes and $3.75 apples and small peanuts on a similar basis.
Teacher No. 1, who has returned from his western trip to his school duties at [the town of] Harvard, has taken up his duties as coach to his kindergarten scholar at the Old Oaken Bucket farm and has sent us as a textbook for the beginner’s class, “Enclaves of single tax” or “Economic rent,” by Fiske Warren, of Harvard. The teacher writes, “I see by the papers that you are interested in the single tax.” Yes, teacher, I am interested, and I spilled a lot of lava in this paper reviewing an address on single tax. I have found out since the escape of lava that I did not know anything that caused me to be so free with the lava overflow. I am planning to be a studious scholar of the principles involved in this book and stand at the head of my class.
I have just received an illustrated postal from Estella (Decatur) Prudhummer [sic, Prud’homme is meant], Sacramento, Cal. I wish to quote for the benefit of those who in ye rough and tumble old days of ye early beginnings left unnoticed and unmentioned the most inspiring part of geography: “The Great Yolo Basin trestle bridges three miles of marsh lands and unites the east and west sides of the Sacramento Valley. The Yolo Basin, a vast marshy district, extends from a point fifteen miles north of Marysville, south for a distance of 120 miles. The basin is flooded annually for a period of from six to eight months and prior to the construction of the trestle in 1916 the capital city was isolated from the market center of California by vehicles only during the summer months, when the lands dried out sufficiently to permit travel by what was known as the ‘Tule Jake road.’ As I look over this trestle spanning a marsh of three miles, I can say of it as a former Stony Brook farmer used to exclaim of certain phases of his dooryard farm life, “Ain’t it a handsome sight; ain’t it a handsome sight??”
A writer in the Rural New Yorker says, “An apple is a living thing. A bruise on its flesh must spread through it sooner or later. Handle it as you would an egg if you expect it to keep or win a prize.” False and needless alarm, every letter and every word. First, an apple is not a living thing in the sense of conscious life as animal life and subject to physical pain; second, a bruise on its flesh will not spread through sooner or later or any other time, including daylight saving time. There are two important overlooked reasons why a windfall apple is more liable to rot than hand-picked apples. First, a windfall apple is very liable to be an inhabited apple, and an inhabited apple is liable not to keep, whether hand-picked or storm-picked. Second, there is always a small proportion of apples that start to rot on the tree and is liable to be a line-storm apple and will not keep whether hand-picked or Lord picked, and every apple that has the element of rot developed in it will develop visible rot.
[paper torn, name missing] psychologist says, “The first human conflict is that of the baby’s desire to holler and his desire to swallow. He finally learns that he cannot do both at once. He will holler first until his milk comes and then stop hollering in order to swallow. Thus it becomes true that one boy with the stomachache can always make more noise than twenty boys eating mince pie.” Gosh, I wish that I had known all this in my infantile days; the other fellow would not have gobbled up all my mince pie while I was trying to holler and swallow, but all I got was the hollering.
I am glad that the Nashoba fruit farmers have added to cooperative packing cooperative selling. This last is more important than the packing. They both fit together like beans in a pod, each are indispensable to success. The men who are at the wheel in steering the packing and selling need no advice from me as a word of caution. I do not expect to find any attempt to hold for an abnormal high price a violation of the Sherman anti-trust law a violation of the law of supply and demand, an attempt to work that detestable principle of too much of modern business, “We can and so we will.” Let us remember that there are many honest, temperate, poor people who are between the upper and nether mercies of the coal robber, rent robber and all the rest of the gang of “We can and so we will.” For one I am willing to turn into their laps some eatable, low-priced apples and no effort of mine shall shut them off from those apples.
Must Cut Bag Limit. Here is something timely and sadly necessary as the “open season” is legally upon us unless we lack for legal rain to prevent annihilating our forests by fire while annihilating wild life by fire from the shotgun. Dr. Harnady, director of the Bronx Zoological Park, says, “The 5,500,000 huntsmen in the United States must cut their bag limits in half or this will be a gameless continent.” Dr. Harnady, as trustee of the permanent wild life protective fund, has just launched a campaign to interest the federal government, state legislatures, civic bodies and sportsmen in an effort to restrict hunters’ kills and to establish shorter open seasons by cutting the volume of slaughtered game in two. He advocates state laws similar to Pennsylvania where thirty-two sanctuaries have been established.
In answer to arguments that certain species of game are inerasable, Dr. Harnady asks, “What has become of the buffalo, passenger pigeon and heath hen, and the woodcock is fast disappearing, and the plight of the quail is so serious that in all of the western states but two and in the majority of northern states quail hunting is legally extinct. It is my fear that man’s capacity and greed for wild life is so great that nothing will avail to save for the next century anything more of it than mere tattered remnants of a once glorious number. This is a warning to all men who hunt in the United States with shotgun or rifle and kill game. If you are going to wipe out your own sport by killing off the game according to law, I want you to do it knowingly and with your eyes open.”
Now then, with Dr. Harnady as expert authority on the possibilities of the annihilation of a wild life by excessive open season killing, it is up to you, Mr. Huntsmen, to take a choice between hunting wild life to annihilation and your sport into annihilation, or wisely conserve for the future. To any who may reply that “there is no danger of annihilation,” let you be reminded that such an argument is thinner than the thinnest drawing of early season, for with thirteen species of birds already exterminated and sixteen more traveling the same road, better get off such thin ice.
Selfish Education. Was sorry that in alluding to education in last week’s issue that it was construed as an attack on its inefficiency. I would, however, that the light of education were not so oft and almost universally turned in so exclusively on self. Less candle light under a bushel and more on a candlestick, for if it is true that no one lives to themselves or dies to themselves so is it equally true that the light of education is a universal light and we are all stick holders, and in proportion to its unselfish diffusion will be the dividends. Reduce it to a selfish, individual affair, with all trace of the spirit of self-sacrificing service for universal benefits left out, and the highest values of education are reduced to a commercial basis like a cart load of pumpkins. Alas, at the present time life is reduced altogether too much to the single track of commercialism and all other tracks are heading towards a receivership. Both the school and the church have catered too much in the direction of a receivership. “Man shall not live by bread alone.” [Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4] Too much of our underlying incentive to life in our modern time is a denial of the above truth and because we are living [sic, leaving?] the word “not” out of the above truth the world is shrouded in a dense fog. Let education lift the fog by the searchlight of its unselfish education.
First Parish Notes. Sunday service at the Unitarian church at four o’clock. Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister; subject, “The sacraments.”
The Y.P.R.U. [Young People’s Religious Union, Unitarian youth organization] met last Saturday evening in the vestry, a chicken supper being served at seven o’clock by Gordon Seavey, Fisher Buckshorn and Philip Prescott, committee. It was voted to hold an invitation dancing party in the town hall on November 16. Leon Hildreth is the chairman of the committee.
Members of the First Parish are invited to a Halloween dancing party in Hardy’s hall, Ayer, Tuesday evening, October 30, under the auspices of the Unitarian Girls’ club.
Graniteville. The Forge Village Juveniles defeated the Graniteville soccer club at Abbot park last Sunday afternoon in an interesting game, 3 to 0. The Forge Village boys showed a much better knowledge of the game than their opponents, having had the advantage of playing longer together, and as a result displayed better team work.
Membership day at the Methodist church on last Sunday was the means of drawing large congregations at both the morning and evening services.
The ban placed on hunting throughout the state, owing to the dry season, caused keen disappointment to many local nimrods. Now that the ban has been lifted by Acting-Governor Fuller the hunters who have been delayed will surely make up for lost time.
Abbot Worsted and Shawsheen put up a great [soccer] game at Forge Village last Saturday in the first round of the national cup soccer series, being deadlocked with three goals each. This game will be replayed at Balmoral field, Shawsheen Village, this Saturday. These two clubs are very evenly matched, having already played two tie games. It looks as though the club that gets the break will land the victory in the next game.
The members of the Brotherhood will hold a banquet in the Methodist church on Thursday evening, November 1. The members have been looking forward with deep interest to this coming event, and as this will be the first affair held in the new supper room it is expected that the banquet will be largely attended.
Charles J. Merrick, Jr., and Miss Flora Smith, of Boston, were recent guests of Dr. and Mrs. Fabyan Packard.
A Halloween party in aid of St. Catherine’s church building fund will be held in Abbot’s hall, Forge Village, this week Friday evening.
An auto accident occurred at Abbot’s Corner [junction of Broadway & N. Main Sts. in Graniteville] about five o’clock Tuesday afternoon, when a Ford touring car and an Essex coach collided. Both machines were badly smashed, but no one was injured.
Rev. Alfred Woods, of Saugus, gave an illustrated lecture on “The wonders of the sea” in the vestry of the Methodist church on Thursday evening. The affair was well attended.
The hunting season is now on, but owing to the heavy rains during the week the local nimrods have not had very good luck.
Ayer
Real Estate Transfers. The following real estate transfers have been recorded from this vicinity:
Westford. Charles F. Gross et al. to Hiram T. Fernald et al. land near Burgess pond; Gedeon Philias Leduc et ux. to Alfred Lacroix et ux., land on River street; Edith E. Sweatt et al. to Abbot Worsted Company of Westford, land on Central street.