As Westporters try to figure out hot trends for this summer, we should look back too.
Eighty years ago — on June 1, 1936 — Westport’s “Miss Anne Peacock” strutted this look.
The photo caption describes her “suit with red and white halter neck, water proof woven beach bag, red and white practical and comfortable sock-beach shoes, and a natural straw coolie hat.”
The shot was taken at “the fashionable Longshore Club in Westport, Conn.”
(Hat tip: Seth Schachter)
This weekend — as it has since 1907 — the Yankee Doodle Fair entertains thousands of kids of all ages. (Mostly kids.) (And their parents.)
Pam Ehrenburg — Pam Blackburn, as she was known in her Yankee Doodle-going days — has unearthed some fascinating old photos. All were taken by her father, famed magazine photographer George Barkentin.
They show the fair on what appears to be Jesup Green — or perhaps the topography of the sponsoring Westport Woman’s Club was different 60-plus yeas ago. (Pam believes the images were taken in 1952.)
Some of the fashions are different. But in many ways, the Yankee Doodle Fair is timeless too.
This looks like Jesup Green — with National Hall (then Fairfield Furniture) in the background, across the river.
A classic merry-go-round.
This is noted writer Parke Cummings. He may have walked over from his home on the corner of South Compo and Bridge Street. He owned a tennis court — still there — that was open to anyone who wanted to play or learn.
Marjorie Teuscher and her son Phil. Her husband — a doctor — owned real estate downtown, including the building that is now Tavern on Main. Phil — all grown up — still lives in Westport.
Pam Blackburn — who sent these photos from her father, George — is shown here with her sister Perii and their mom, Jessica Patton Barkentin.
Tomorrow afternoon, 483 Staples seniors graduate. For them, the high school’s 129th commencement ceremony is a time to look ahead.
The other day, Mary Schmerker looked back. She thought about her own graduation, in 1958. That was the first one held in the auditorium of the brand new North Avenue campus.
But Mary was thinking much further back. She found a graduation program from 1937. Her mother, Ramona Otis, was in that class — and her grandmother, Mrs. Arthur Otis, was the musical accompanist.
That long-ago event — when President Roosevelt was just beginning his 2nd term, the Golden Gate Bridge opened and the Hindenburg crashed — took place at Bedford Junior High School (now Kings Highway Elementary). Staples (the current Saugatuck El) had no auditorium of its own.
The graduating class of 88 students was divided into 3 groups: college course, general course and commercial course.
There were just 14 teachers. Among them: Staples legends Eli Berton, Gladys Mansir, Rhoda Merritt (later Rhoda Harvey), Walter Stevenson and Roland Wachob.
The graduation ceremony included several awards. The PTA gave one for highest 4-year average in English. The honoree (not listed) received $5.
The printed program was highlighted by a letter from Connecticut governor Wilbur Cross. It was more than a formality.
Governor Cross wrote:
I shall never forget the pleasant year I spent in Westport as the second principal of Staples High School. It was the academic year 1885-86. During that time I was very closely associated with Mr. Horace Staples who was then 85 years old.
Cross was not just the 22-year-old principal. He also taught Latin, Greek, English literature and geometry. One student memorized the entire first book of “Paradise Lost.”
“I still have a warm heart for the Staples High School,” Governor Cross concluded.
Governor Wilbur Cross’ letter in the commencement program — with a photo of Staples High School.
Cross did not preside over a graduation ceremony. That was still a year away. The school had opened a year earlier, so the 1st 4-year graduates did not receive diplomas until 1887.
There were only 6.
So — as Staples prepares for its 129th commencement ceremony — let’s give a shout-out to its 1st-ever class of graduates: Nellie Elwood, Florence Fyfe, Hope Lewis, Bessie Marvin, Lena Morehouse and Josephine West.
Yes, that 1st graduating class was all girls. The boys had left school, to work on Westport’s farms.
A mere 33 years later, those 6 graduates won the right to vote.
Ten years after that, they might have voted for their former principal, in his race for governor of Connecticut.
Posted in Education, Looking back, People, Politics, Staples HS
Tagged Horace Staples, Mary Schmerker, Staples High School graduation, Wilbur Cross
In 2000, Staples High School senior Evan Tschirhart gave the traditional valedictorian address at graduation. It was perhaps the cleverest, most memorable in Staples history – or any other high school, for that matter.
The Harvard-bound student tossed aside every traditional cliché. The standing ovation after his thought-provoking oration was well deserved.
As graduation approaches, it’s worth remembering Evan’s words. There’s another reason for posting it now though: He referenced the year 2030 throughout that 2000 speech. Hard to believe, but we’re already more than halfway there.
Wearing a wig of gray hair and glasses, Evan said:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the Staples Class of 2000, it is an honor to speak to you at this reunion marking the 30th anniversary of our high school graduation. But let’s be honest: As much as it’s an honor, it’s also a reminder of the fact that the year is now 2030, and 3 decades have gone by since we were teenagers. I’m sort of having trouble figuring out why, after enduring my ramblings 30 years ago, you’ve decided to bring me back to the podium. Gluttons for punishment, I guess.
The Staples High School 2000 yearbook.
Gosh, what changes we’ve seen in 30 years! Just think of all the things that exist today that we never would have dreamed of all those years ago: the airtubes that have replaced the escalators and elevators of our youth, the intelligent robotic maids we have at home, even the hovering pod that takes me to and from work each day.
Locally, I know a lot of things have changed as well. Gosh, I remember when Westport wasn’t the ugly, commercial town it is today. Coming here today I couldn’t help but notice that Westport’s entire downtown stretch is but one long, endless Megalomart. What happened to the days when you could bring the whole family to good, small-town stores like Starbucks, the Gap, and Banana Republic? But wow! I guess I’m beginning to sound like a real old-timer!…
In preparation for this reunion, I couldn’t help but think about that graduation day 30 years ago. I’ve been trying to recall what was going through my mind at the time. One always remembers the most important things: the heat in that fieldhouse, the seemingly endless lineup of speeches, even the girl who was hit in the head by a flying graduation cap. I remember, I think, having a genuine sense of sentimentality for the end of what had been a really great high school experience.
Evan Tschirhart and Pam McDade. (Photo/Staples High School 2000 yearbook)
More importantly, though, I know there was an element of zeal, as trite as it may have been, for what the future was to bring. After all, I was 18, heading off to college in the fall, and yes, I was a romantic. Years of meeting people and going places and learning new things stood before me.
It’s funny to think back on some of my aspirations. I know I wanted desperately to become a proficient guitar player — probably so I could serenade girlfriends at beaches. I know I yearned to travel. I’d done New England and some of Europe, but the rest of the world – from Asia to Africa to the Western United States – beckoned me.
One of the books Evan Tschirhart hoped he’d read.
I dreamed of joining the Peace Corps after graduating from college. Already in my senior year of high school I’d studied their “How to Become a Competitive Peace Corps Candidate” checklist. And then there was so much I planned on reading, just for the hell of it — from Shakespeare’s lesser-knowns to the 4th and 5th books of the “Dune” series, from the Dialogues of Plato to the Bible, cover to cover. And I remember being convinced that somewhere along the line I’d find myself a junked car and learn everything there was to know about its insides.
Well, now I’m 48 and all the literature I was to have read, all the places to which I envisioned myself traveling, all the languages I was to have learned, and all the hobbies and community work I imagined myself taking up, well…a lot of that just didn’t happen.
And I guess it’s at a reunion like this that I question with even greater conviction: “What happened along the way?” Hey, look, I smile about it — so don’t think I mean this with a sense of tragedy or even a sense of real sorrow. And I came out all right in the end – as we all did. I just think it’s noteworthy that as time went on, I seemed to lose aspirations a lot more quickly than I gained them.
You know, when I was a child — probably about 5 years old — I used to fall asleep to the same audiocassette every night: The Phantom Tollbooth, narrated by Pat Carroll. I loved listening to that thing — night after night after night. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it’s about a young boy named Milo who never knows what to do with himself. He’s bored with the world around him; he regards “the process of seeking knowledge” as “the greatest waste of time.”
One day Milo finds a strange package has been left in his room. Inside are the materials and directions for assembling a tollbooth. He builds the structure, and in the small electric car he hasn’t played with in years, Milo drives past the tollbooth into a world of fantasy. Milo’s travels — from the Doldrums, a land inhabited by small Lethargarians who make a point of wasting time, to Dictionopolis, a city in which words are bought and sold at an open marketplace — convince Milo that the world isn’t the dull place he thought it was.
In fact, when he finally makes it back to his room, Milo is ecstatic about the possibilities. He thinks, “Why, there is so much to see, and hear and touch…there are books that can take you anywhere, and things to invent and make and build and break, and all the puzzle and excitement of everything one didn’t know — music to play, songs to sing, and worlds to imagine and then someday make real. Everything looked…worth trying.”
Well, a few years ago I found that tape, and because I knew my brother had held on to a cassette player (God only knows why) I gave it to my nephew, who was 5 at the time. We listened to the tape together, and I couldn’t help thinking that Milo’s story is cut off a little too soon.
It’s missing that lost chapter in which the young Milo grows up, and discovers that all these things he’s dreamed of doing — well, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in which to do them. In this last chapter Milo goes off to college. The books he planned to read — well, with all the literature to be read for classroom assignments, they’re quickly put on the back burner.
Milo gets his first job, as a marketing executive, and suddenly realizes he just doesn’t have enough energy at the end of the day to keep up the saxophone; he might as well sell the instrument and take the money. Milo spends more time at the office. Suddenly a year goes by, and he realizes he’s been to but one of his daughter’s dance recitals. Milo isn’t prepared for the fact that the world he finds so very enticing is also so very demanding.
You see, I wasn’t prepared for it either. Or maybe none of us were – if I’m to assume that what’s happened in my life may have happened in yours. Our generation grew up and went to school and got jobs during one of history’s most unique chapters. It was — and continues to be –a fabulously exciting time. The “human progress” of the past 30 years has no historical parallel.
This is the cell phone Evan Tschirhart talked about (and on) in 2000.
But I think it was tough for us. With the world of excitement came a world of such great pressure. To make it in society we needed to specialize — to serve as that one component along the assembly line that keeps running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We’ve needed to compromise to maintain demanding lifestyles. We’ve lived in a culture dominated by cell phones and computers and ubiquitous coffee shops that wait, like little gas stations, to fuel our incessant activities.
Looking back sometimes, I get the sense that the breadth of person I once aspired to be may have ended up as an actual “narrowing” of character. Society put me in a funnel I just couldn’t get out of. I had only so much time, and the majority of it was pre-budgeted by the demands of the things around me. So out the window went many of those “non-vital” things that once so earnestly occupied my mind. It seemed time wasn’t mine to control. In fact, it probably controlled me.
But look, I don’t mean for this to be morose. I look back 30 years with the greatest sense of fondness. I feel I’ve had some accomplishments — and I know from what I’ve read and heard that all of you have achieved beyond wildest dreams. And we all have a lot we will still accomplish, for we’re young — getting old, but still young. I just find it interesting — and it’s probably true for all of us — that with the passage of time we may not have ended up where we anticipated.
What if you could go back, though? I think about it sometimes. What if, somehow, we were all sitting back there in that fieldhouse?
[Evan takes off his gray wig and glasses, and is once again youthful.] It’s June 21st, 2000, and those 30 years we’ve gone through have yet to be lived. Would we be a little more wary of letting dreams escape our grasp? Would we look a little more skeptically at the demands of a “successful” life, and turn more to the basics of a truly satisfying one — one that develops our God-given gifts and shares them with others?
Well, it’s crazy to live the past, isn’t it? But if for some wild reason you go back home and see that the calendar has stuck on the year 2000, just don’t ask questions. Just go out there and seize that breadth of person that you aspire for. Know there’s so much ahead, if you want it to be. Because those 30 years are yours…and they’re yours to be used in the most fantastic of ways.
So what about Evan? Where has his journey taken him, these past 16 years?
After graduating from Harvard University in 2004, he worked as a consultant with Bain & Company, then Dalberg Global Development Advisors.
In 2011 Evan made a career change. Last year, he graduated from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. This year he interned at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. He specializes in internal medicine.
If you didn’t see that coming — well, he probably didn’t either.
And isn’t that the whole point?
Dr. Evan Tschirhart today.
The death yesterday of Muhammad Ali at age 74 brought to mind my most memorable encounter with the legendary heavyweight champ. Not surprisingly for me — but certainly for Ali — it involves soccer.
On October 1, 1977 Pele played his last game. The exhibition match at Giants Stadium — between his current Cosmos team and the famous Brazilian Santos club from the bulk of his career — drew a sellout crowd of 77,000. It was televised worldwide by ABC.
Muhammad Ali and Pele: 2 of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.
I was just out of college, starting my coaching career. My Westport Soccer Association U-12 team was invited to perform on the field, during pre-game ceremonies. (Our thick and strong Westport-Cosmos connections extended all the way to the highest levels.)
It was a wild day, filled with highlights. But one of the most memorable came in the tunnel underneath the stadium, as we waited to jog on the field.
Golf carts rolled by, with every celebrity imaginable. Here was Frank Gifford and (Westport’s) Jim McKay. There was President Carter’s son.
But the only one our players cared about was Muhammad Ali.
Two days earlier, he’d fought Earnie Shavers in a brutal Madison Square Garden bout. Ali’s face was bruised, and he wore big sunglasses. He was clearly not someone to mess with.
That hardly stopped Philip Dalmage. One of 2 African American players on our team, he had the courage and innocence of a 12-year-old to yell out, “Hey, Ali!”
The champ stopped. He was a couple of feet away from our young player. The 2 looked at each other.
Ali’s hands were at his sides. Then, suddenly — so quickly I still cannot believe it happened — those same hands were on Philip’s head, tousling his hair.
“Hey, brother,” Ali said. And then — poof! — he moved on.
We have all heard how quick he was. Ali’s fast hands were one of the secrets to his success.
But “quick” does not describe what I saw. One moment those lightning hands were one place. The next — without me seeing them move — they were somewhere else entirely. It was one of the most subtle — and amazing — things I have ever witnessed.
Muhammad Ali will be remembered for many things. He was as important a man outside the ring as he was in it.
But among everything he accomplished, that moment in the Giants Stadium tunnel will stay with me forever. Nearly 40 years later, I’m still awed by what I saw.
Or — really — never saw.
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant. (Excepting Alice.)
You can get anything you want on eBay too — including glass bottles from long ago.
Alert “06880” reader Seth Schachter saw this for sale the other day:
It’s hard to see. But the milk bottle says: “Twin Silo Farm, Westport, Conn.”
Seth has no idea where that dairy was. I don’t either.
But Jacques Voris, Jack Whittle or some other historically minded “06880” reader probably does.
Seth did not buy it. (The winning bid was $306.)
However, he’s got several other old Westport bottles in his collection. If anyone knows anything about any of these businesses, click “Comments” below. Inquiring minds — and bottle collectors everywhere — want to know.
E.D. Noy Inc., Greens Farms, Conn.:
The Westport Drug Co., Geo. J. Green, Westport, Conn.:
Here’s one many people have heard of. Believe it or not, Embalmers Supply was the largest company of its kind in the country. Founded in 1887 by C.B. Dolge, it moved in 1891 to the riverfront property by Ford Road, near the current headquarters of Bridgewater Associates:
Who knows what that bottle was once filled with?!
I thought I was done posting photos of past Memorial Day parades. Yesterday’s images (click here and here) covered 50 years, and provided tons of memories.
But this one — particularly the back story — is too good to pass up.
Three years ago Gordon Joseloff saw a box of 35mm slides for sale on eBay. They were labeled “1962 parade in Westport.”
The WestportNow founder — and former 1st selectman — calls himself “a sucker for Westport nostalgia.” He bid $9.99, and won. The prize: Nice shots of the Memorial Day parade.
Imagine his amazement when one of the slides was of Joseloff himself. There he was — 17 years old, smack in the center of the frame.
Still in high school, Joseloff was taking pictures for the Westport Town Crier. He worked that summer — and the next — as a reporter/photographer. (And went on to a storied 2-decade career as a journalist in London, Moscow, Tokyo and other world capitals for UPI and CBS News.)
Perhaps the only thing more remarkable than that story of discovering himself in a photo, is the line of veterans (or perhaps active duty National Guardsmen) behind Joseloff. In 1962, they seemed to go on forever.
Posted in Looking back, Media, People, Totally random
Tagged eBay, Gordon Joseloff, Memorial Day parade
America’s living link to World War II veterans is rapidly diminishing. Nearly 500 servicemen and women from that conflict die every day.
Yet when Joe Schachter rises Monday to deliver Westport’s Memorial Day address, he will stand steady. The 90-year-old’s voice will be strong.
Schachter — the grand marshal of this year’s parade — is living proof of the power of an active, full life.
The South Norwalk native graduated from Norwalk High in 1943. There were plenty of empty seats at the ceremony; many classmates had gone off to war.
Joe Schachter
Schachter — who loved the water since childhood, when he fished in a rowboat with his dad and was a Sea Scout — had already enlisted in the Navy. He trained at Trinity College in Hartford (which had been turned into a naval installation), then finished midshipman school at Cornell.
He served — and took enemy fire — on the Wilkes Barre cruiser in Tokyo Bay, and along the Manchurian border.
After the war Schachter returned to Trinity, graduating in December 1947. He spent 30 years in advertising, in Hartford and New York, on accounts like Ford and Eastman Kodak, and moved to Westport to raise a family.
Long Island Sound was always an important part of his life. In the late 1960s Longshore’s E.R. Strait Marina was silted so badly, he and other boaters could get in and out only at mid or high tide.
Schachter helped form the Minuteman Yacht Club. As “the voice of boaters,” they pushed the town to improve the Longshore and Compo marinas. First Selectman John Kemish appointed him to the town’s 1st Boating Advisory Committee too.
The Compo marina — now named for former Board of Finance chair Ned Dimes — includes some of Schachter’s own docks. In the mid-1970s he learned of a new type of construction — using floating concrete, instead of rickety wood — and embarked on a 2nd career.
The Ned Dimes Marina at Compo Beach utilizes Joe Schachter’s concrete docks.
His Norwalk-based Concrete Flotation Systems company introduced floating concrete docks to the Northeast — and as far as Greenland and Bermuda. For 20 years he worked on projects for the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers. He’s most proud of his 400th installation: the one at Compo.
The grand marshal — who has lived in the same house for 50 years, not far from Compo Beach — is well known too for his volunteer efforts with the Saugatuck River Power Squadron. “Safety on the water is important,” he says. “You can’t just buy a boat and go out on the Sound.”
Schachter was also an active member of the Norwalk Seaport Association. He helped start the Oyster Festival, and served as chair of the Maritime Center’s marketing committee.
Off the water, Schachter spent several decades advocating for rail passengers. He helped found the Commuter Action Committee. As a member of the statewide Rail Advisory Task Force, he served 3 governors.
Schachter is honored to be named grand marshal of the Memorial Day parade. He follows in the footsteps of good friends like fellow WWII vets Barry McCabe, Leonard Everett Fisher and Neil Croarkin.
The World War II memorial on Veteran’s Green, across from Westport Town Hall.
A few days ago, he was still writing his speech. “It’s easy to stand up and say a few platitudes,” he noted. “I want to do more than that.”
After Monday’s ceremony, he may join many other Westporters in a Memorial Day tradition: a trip to Compo Beach.
“I’m so pleased to drive by, and see how it serves people,” he says.
Just as Joe Schachter has served his town — and his country — for so many years, in so many ways.
(The Memorial Day parade steps off on Monday [May 30], 9 a.m. at Saugatuck Elementary School. The Veteran’s Green ceremony at which Joe Schachter will speak begins immediately after the parade, approximately 10:30 a.m.)
This morning’s post — with photos from Westport Memorial Day parades past — inspired 2 alert and historically minded “06880” readers to send in their own.
Jack Whittle found this shot on the Gault 150th anniverary website. It shows a 1920s-era parade — minimalist though it was — passing Willowbrook cemetery on North Main Street. Leonard H. Gault drove the fire truck.
Ann Sheffer sent along 2 photos. Here are some Girl Scouts circa 1955 (with her mother, Betty Sheffer, as a troop leader):
This one from 1961 shows the parade on the Post Road (the Mobil gas station is now where Finalmente is, across from the old post office):
Here was the scene in 1966. Fairfield Furniture stores has of course been converted back into its original “National Hall” form.
Mark Potts offers this scene from 1972. Staples band leader Bob Genualdi (tie and jacket) leads his musicians up the Post Road, in front of the bizarrely named S&M Pizza. (Note the group sitting — as kids did back in the day — on top of the adjacent store.)
Remember: the 2016 version steps off at 9 a.m. Monday (May 30). Get your camera ready — don’t forget to charge that cell phone!
Posted in Downtown, Local business, Looking back, Places
Tagged Ann Sheffer, Gault, Jack Whittle, Memorial Day parade, Willowbrook Cemetery
If you’ve ever been to a Memorial Day parade in Westport — and the ceremony that follows on Veterans Green, opposite Town Hall — you know it’s one of our most fun, diverse, community-minded (and small-town) events.
If you’re a newcomer — or an old-timer who always sleeps in — you really need to see it. Stand anywhere along the parade route (from Saugatuck Elementary School on Riverside Avenue, across the Post Road bridge, left on Myrtle), and enjoy the passing parade of cops, firefighters, EMTs, Y’s Men, young soccer and lacrosse and baseball and violin players, fifers and drummers, and random others having all kinds of retro fun.
It seems like it’s been this way forever (except for talking on cell phones while “marching,” and taking selfies). Now we’ve got proof.
Alert “06880” reader and indefatigable historic researcher Mary Gai unearthed a news story from 1921. It describes Westport’s plans for the upcoming Memorial Day parade. The details are a bit different — but any of us magically plopped down 95 years ago would recognize it instantly.
Participants included a color guard and bands; veterans (from the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, riding in cars); the Red Cross, American Legion, VFW, and Boy and Girl Scouts. “As usual,” the story said, “a number of autos and many marchers” were expected to follow behind.
Hotel Square — where the 1921 Memorial Day parade began — was located downtown, where the YMCA later stood. Today, it’s being renovated as Bedford Square.
The parade began at 9 a.m. sharp, at Hotel Square (near the soon-to-be-constructed YMCA, at the corner of Main Street and the Post Road — then called State Street).
The route took marchers over the bridge, then to King Street (Kings Highway North), with a halt by the Catholic cemetery. The parade then headed south to Canal Street and North Main, stopping at Willowbrook Cemetery before doubling back down Main Street to Myrtle Avenue. Everyone ended at Town Hall (now Rothbard Ale + Larder, next to Restoration Hardware), for services on the lawn. The ceremony ended with a gun salute.
Exactly 50 years later — in 1971 — Mark Groth took some Memorial Day photos. He stood on the 2nd floor of Main Street, in the Youth-Adult Council offices, as the parade passed by.
Now another 45 years have passed. How much has changed — and how much hasn’t?
Check out Mark’s shots below. You be the judge. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)
For years, E.O. Nigel Cholmeley-Jones was a fixture in the Memorial Day parade. A lieutenant in World War I, as a child he had been photographed with Walt Whitman.
Staples High School band. West Lake Restaurant was located at the foot of Main Street, by the Post Road. In 1971, Main Street was open to 2-way traffic.
The Y Indian Guides make their way down Main Street. Note spectators watching from 2nd and 3rd-floor windows above the Westport Food Center grocery store.
Local clergymen, including Rev. Ted Hoskins (Saugatuck Congregational Church, beard) and Rabbi Byron T. Rubenstein (Temple Israel, hand on head) march in front of a banner urging peace.
First Selectman John Kemish (tie) is flanked by veterans. (All photos/Mark Groth)
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)