From the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal, selected and lightly annotated by Lester Smith, Historian of the Town and the Suffield Historical Society.
May 4
The village committee has transferred the lot [on Bridge Street] on which the hose house stood to Herbert C. Holdridge, from [whom] it was bought when the hose house was built. The hose house has been removed to its new location [behind the Town Hall] and the foundations are now being put in.
The thirty-first annual May Breakfast given by the Mapleton Hall Association was held in Mapleton hall Tuesday . . . The specialties were lamprey eels and shad and most every patron ordered these two items on the bill of fare. . . . The breakfast was served from 10 a. m. to 7 p. m. and there were good crowds late in the afternoon when there seemed to be a promise of the weather clearing.
The Polish people of the town gave a dance in Academy hall Wednesday evening.
May 11
Town Clerk L. G. Allen has appointed the following as a local food supply committee for this town in accordance with the request of the state food supply commission. [Eleven prominent men were named.]
May 18
The continued cold weather has kept the furnace fires burning and consequently the coal supply has grown so much shorter. . . . Spencer Bros. say that there is no cause for alarm as they expect to take care of their customers before the cold weather comes if it is possible to get coal anywhere.
A strawberry supper was given by the ladies of the Second Baptist church Tuesday evening. About $50 was realized.
[At the First Baptist Church] Next Sunday, owing to [Rev. Kenneth C. MacArthur] being out of town, a service will be held at 3:30 o’clock and will be conducted by six business men from New Britain. The topic will be “It Pays to be a Christian.”
The board of directors of the [Zion’s Hill] Cemetery Association met Monday and painted the fence at the cemetery.
Lightning struck the house of W. B. Covington during a storm last week and came down the kitchen chimney, tearing off plaster and ripping up the floor, but did not set the house afire or injure anyone.
The fuel ran short at the [West Suffield] Center school this week and the rooms were so cold that it was necessary to close at the end of the half session on Wednesday.
May 25
About three hundred of the tobacco growers of the town met in the Town hall last Saturday evening to see what action would be taken toward forming an association of growers similar to those recently formed in neighboring towns. . . . A majority of those present seemed in favor of an association . . . but the value of the organization will depend on whether the members stick together or not.
The Polish people celebrated the 124th anniversary of the foundation of the constitution of Poland at the Town hall Sunday evening, May 20.
County Agent Otis H. Moore has announced that a number of high school boys, 18 and 19 years old, have registered as willing to work on farms this summer. Most of them are available at once.
Tobacco setting will begin in earnest Monday, and already a few of the growers have begun the work of transplanting. The plants of this section [West Suffield] are of fine growth in spite of the unfavorable season, and the farmers are hoping that there will be warm weather from now on.