Selected from the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal and lightly annotated by Wendy Taylor of Kent Memorial Library.
April 1
The first annual banquet of the Suffield Fish and Game Association was held in Academy hall . . . The dinner was served by the Ladies’ Wide Awake club of West Suffield and something over a hundred were served with one of their baked ham and fruit salad suppers. …During the dinner Gatchell’s orchestra of Springfield played several selections, and between the courses popular songs were sung by the diners… The last speaker was C. O. Kienbusch [a tobacco dealer] of New York . . . who showed some fine pictures of a salmon fishing trip on the Tobique River in New Brunswick.
The concert and dance given by the Ladies’ Benevolent Society for the benefit of Sacred Heart church in the Town hall . . . was very successful, both socially and financially . . . Entertainment [included] . . . fancy toe dancing by Miss Anna Lyons [of Windsor Locks.]
Mrs. Martin Riley has sold to Samuel J. Orr the property near the railroad station.
April 8
Farmers are getting busy with the spring work. Many of the tobacco growers have sowed their tobacco beds, and most of those who have not put in the seeds have the beds ready. Some of the farmers have planted potatoes and are getting gardens ready for the seeds.
The annual meeting of the Crooked Lane Hall Association was held in Mapleton hall . . . officers were elected and plans laid for the 35th annual Suffield May breakfast.
April 15
“The Isle of Chance,” an operetta, will be given in Mapleton hall . . . by the pupils of the Warehouse Point grammar school.
The two-story frame dwelling, the woodshed attached and also an adjoining one-acre tobacco shed, with their contents, known as the Michael O’Malley place on Stone street, owned by Charles Hoffman, were totally destroyed by fire Monday night about 8 o’clock. The loss is about $4,500 . . . The fire was discovered by Mrs. Hoffman’s oldest daughter, Victoria, who is about eleven years old, and when first seen was burning around the chimney on the second floor. Mrs. Hoffman and her four children were alone in the house and barely had time to get out before the building was a mass of flames. The Suffield fire department, with the chemical truck and fifteen firemen, answered the alarm.
April 22
It will surely express the true feelings of all who have known Lucia Mather Wilson from her girlhood, and have been witnesses of her cheerfulness and fortitude in a long and trying illness, to say that in an unusual degree her life revealed the finest qualities of Christian character. [She now is] mourned by many whose love she ever gained and ever kept. A Friend.
The annual preparatory school games held at New York University…ushered in the outdoor interscholastic track season and incidentally provided the closest contested track meet ever held at Ohio field in New York. The Suffield School athletes managed to nose out the Poly prep contingent from Brooklyn by the scant margin of one-half a point, making a total of 22 to 21½ for its nearest rival.
The seventh and eighth grades of the Center school, with their teacher Miss Nicholson, spent Wednesday in Hartford, attending the spelling and speaking contest at the state Capitol.
April 29
A New York City taxicab overturned on Mapleton… and the driver, B. Myers of East 51st street, New York, received several cuts while the car was but slightly damaged.