From the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal, selected and lightly annotated by Lester Smith, Historian of the Town and the Suffield Historical Society.
December 8
F. H. Reid has finished moving his store to the new quarters in the Barnett block. He has added a new soda fountain and other improvements.
Charles L. Spencer and family have closed their house here [now 34 South Main Street] and moved to their winter home on Farmington avenue, Hartford.
December 15
A fall of several inches of snow last Friday and a high wind Saturday made trouble for the trolleys and drifted in some of the roads in town.
Mr. and Mrs. Benoni Thompson will entertain the North Street Euchre Club at their home this (Friday) evening.
December 29
The C. E. [Christian Endeavor] Society of the Second Baptist church followed its usual custom Christmas eve in taking baskets of fruit and flowers to the sick and infirm about town.
E. N. Stratton of North street has sold his farm, consisting of about one hundred acres, to George M. Hendee. This farm adjoins the land purchased recently by Mr. Hendee of Fred Clark, making a total of about two hundred acres.
The product of the “Hilltop” poultry yards has reached the thousand mark, the product Thursday being 1,006 eggs.
Many tobacco growers are skeptical about raising tobacco next season as the help question is so serious and fertilizers so expensive. . . . All feel that much depends on the outcome of the present European conditions.
January 5
The annual meeting of the Society for the Detection of Thieves and Robbers will be held in Union Hall next Monday afternoon for the election of officers and other necessary business.
This (Friday) afternoon at 2 o’clock [at the West Suffield Congregational Church] Miss Parsons, a trained nurse from a Boston hospital, will meet the ladies of the town who have been interested in Red Cross work and have been working for the relief of the war sufferers.
The Southern New England Telephone Company is putting a new line into Ratley street in order to give better service to the increased number of patrons.
January 12
Mrs. James Eggleston of Main street has recently received word from France that her cousin, Capt. M. A. Bell, has been wounded in action at the Battle of Arras, where the gunfire was the heaviest in the history of the world. . . .
The following paragraph is quoted from Captain Bell’s letter:
“You cannot tell what pleasure and satisfaction it gave the people of this country (England) when you American people decided to join us in this terrible struggle and we have no doubt of the result. The Huns are more cruel and blood-thirsty than the unspeakable Turks.”
January 19
The farmers and icemen about town have been busy this week harvesting the ice crop. Ice on some of the ponds has reached a thickness of fourteen inches and the ice is as clear as crystal.
January 26
The assessors have completed their work . . . The total grand list this year is $5,416,193, an increase of $142,610.
The Suffield School is enjoying one of the most prosperous years for a long time. At present there are about ninety boarding students and every room is taken.
George Martinez, who conducts a store in Suffield, has started a new [grocery] route in this town and comes Mondays and Thursdays, starting this week.