Selected from the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal and lightly annotated by Wendy Taylor, Kent Memorial Library.
February 5
One of the heaviest snow storms of recent years struck this place.
Mrs. Florence W. Rich of this town, is offering two prizes, one each to a boy and a girl, under 15 years of age, who shall write the best essay on “How Young People Can Make the Best Use of the Public Library.”
A resident of Burbank avenue was the first person to have been arrested on complain (sic) of a warrant issued by the personal tax collector. After having remained in the lock-up over night, he thought better of his nonpayment and settled.
An institute under the auspices of the Hartford County Farm Bureau will be conducted… The speaker will be E. H. Manchester of Storrs Agricultural College, whose topic will be “Advantages and disadvantages of growing crops other than tobacco.”
February 12
Howard Beresford drove a sleigh ride party to Suffield [from West Suffield] Tuesday evening to attend the whist and dance in the new school auditorium.
February 19
John C. Nemirow, who gave his address as… Springfield and Philip Oharmus of Chicopee, Mass, were arrested…by Deputy Sheriff George L. Greer after he had stopped Nemirow, who was piloting a Reo speed wagon loaded with alcohol…
Oharmus said that he was 22 years old and took the job of diving the truck because he could find no other employment by which to support his wife and 6-weeks old baby. He said that he had only worked for Nemirow three weeks and that the first week was spent in fixing up the truck, the second week he was high-jacked and his load stolen on the Berlin turnpike at 2.30 in the morning, and this week he was apprehended, so his career as a booze runner was not a marked success.
The Suffield School will stage its first annual winter carnival. The program will consist of outdoor sports.
Harvey Johnson, a young [Black] boy in the employ of Bernard Flanagan, complained to the town officers…that Flanagan knocked him unconscious with a piece of a 2.4 scantling for being ten minutes late to work. Johnson was attended by Dr. Levy, who found it necessary to take several stitches in a bad scalp wound Flanagan was brought before Justice G. Stephen Potwine and was fined $25 and costs and given a suspended jail sentence of fifteen days.
Domenic Alfano has purchased the lot on the corner of Main and Depot streets where the hotel building is being razed. The price reported is $7,500. The lot contains just an acre of land with a small building thereon, which tradition says was at one time the office of the postmaster-general of the United States.
Ash Wednesday was observed as the beginning of the Lenten season in St. Joseph’s and the Sacred Heart church Wednesday. Special services were conducted in the morning and evening and the ashes blessed for the occasion were distributed.
February 26
A new traffic signal has been placed at the corner of Main and Depot streets and the blinker that it replaces has been set up in West Suffield. The new signal is of the acetyline gas type and is on a heavy concrete base with an iron standard. It gives a much better signal in that place than the old one.
The work of razing the hotel property at the corner of Main and Depot streets is about completed and the work will be finished next week. The lot has been purchased by Domenic Alfano.
Matthew Leahey has returned from a trip to Cuba.