Selected from the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal and lightly annotated by Wendy Taylor, Kent Memorial Library.
June 6
Last Friday night parties unknown left a three-months’-old baby in the hall in the apartment house on the corner of Day avenue. The child was clothed in a shirt only. The child was a boy and showed lack of care and nourishment. Selectman Crane was notified and the child was placed in a home here and later was taken by the Connecticut Humane Society.
At the strawberry festival held at the Congregational church…Mr. and Mrs. Albert A. Brown were given a kitchen shower to help replace kitchen utensils lost in their recent fire. Mr. Brown was also surprised…by receiving a substantial sum of money that had been contributed by his many friends in town, as a token of the friendship and esteem in which he is held.
Memorial day was observed as usual with decoration of the soldiers and sailors’ graves… Only one veteran of the Civil war is now living in this vicinity, Albert R. Austin, who is still living at the Austin homestead, at the ripe old age of 86 years.
The transplanting of the tobacco from the seed beds is now well under way with favorable conditions.
June 13
Cecil Connelly, 3-years-old son of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Connelly of Bridge street, had a narrow escape from strangling … when he swallowed a twenty-five-cent piece… The boy was taken to the Granby hospital, where an X-ray photograph was taken and the quarter was discovered lodged in the boy’s throat and pressing on his windpipe. The boy was taken to Hartford where a throat specialist removed the coin and it is now believed that the boy will not suffer any bad effects from his experience.
The iron bridge on Depot street which has been weakened, it is thought, by the heavy trucks which have been hauling trap-rock over it for several weeks has been condemned and signs posted that crossing is at the risk of the user.
June 20
There has been a number of complaints from farmers in the outlying districts of dogs killing chickens. One farmer reported that thirty-five fowls were killed in one day.
June 27
The tobacco growers have about finished the work of transplanting and the rains of the past week has given the plants a good start in the fields. The hot weather has helped along all crops and if it continues they will be ready to harvest at the usual time. There promises to be a big crop of fruit and berries, and as yet the failure of the peach crop has not been advertised.
The work of razing the Episcopal church to make room for the new school building is finished and the last of the debris is being cleaned away.
The work of strengthening the town bridge on Depot street has been under way for the past week, the bridge being closed to travel.
A “lost” young lady created quite a sensation upon arriving in town late one evening last week. Telephones were kept busy and nightcaps were to be seen peeking out cautiously from the windows along the street, while visions of burglars, bobbed-hair-bandits and rum-runners flashed through their heads. Native sleuths from the safety of their dooryards kept careful watch of her moves, but one braver than the rest asked the fair one why all the commotion and found she was but seeking the home of a neighbor. In the brightness of daylight, the ridiculous side of the affair presented itself and now the cause of the excitement sticks close to the home of a neighbor, while many a smile brightens the faces at the mere mention of all the commotion.