The Reverend William Henry (Bill) West — former assistant Greens Farms Congregational Church minister, strong youth advocate and, later, Custom Printing & Graphics business owner — died peacefully at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford last week, after a long battle with cancer. He was 76 years old, and lived in Old Saybrook.
The Long Island native graduated from Manhasset High School and Alfred University, then earned a Masters of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological Seminary.
After student ministry in Andover, Massachusetts, West moved to Greens Farms Church here. He served as director of the Youth Adult Council — predecessor of the Youth Commission — in the 1960s and ’70s.
Rev. Bill West
After operating his printing company, he worked with organizations that serve the disenfranchised and needy, including United Way and Literacy Volunteers of America. He also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and Operation Hope of Fairfield and Bridgeport.
West returned to his true passion: working one-on-one with individuals in need. After earning certification as a chaplain from Hartford Seminary, he served as a protestant chaplain at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford and St. Raphael’s in New Haven. He also counseled men suffering from drug and alcohol addiction at the Relapse Prevention Program in New Haven. He retired in 2018.
His family notes West’s “unswerving commitment to others, his smile, his welcoming demeanor, and his compassion. Patients and staff at St Raphael’s and Yale-New Haven repeatedly cited his presence as comforting. He loved his work, even as he was loved by those he served and those with whom he worked.”
West was predeceased by his wife Margaret. He is survived by his daughter Elizabeth; grandsons Theo and Quinten Ewasko of Newtown; brother Robert of Farmington; 2 nieces, a nephew, cousins, and many friends and colleagues.
A service in his memory will be held at the First Congregational Church, Deep River, on September 25 (1 p.m.)
If you don’t know Foti Koskinas: you should. As Westport’s Police Chief, he impacts our all of our lives, in many ways. Public safety, traffic control, railroad parking — the Police Department does it all.
And if you don’t know Foti Koskinas’ back story — or his policing philosophy, and views on social justice — you should.
Which means you should check out the latest “06880” podcast. The other day, I sat with Chief Foti at the Westport Library. Our conversation covered everything from the recent rash of car thefts, to why fixing one traffic light adversely affects another, to his experiences as a teenage immigrant in Westport.
Click here for our fascinating chat. Hail to the Chief!
Rob Earley and his family are recent arrivals in Westport.
But he knows an Unsung Hero when he sees one.
Last week — the day after Hurricane Ida unleashed 7 inches of rain on his new town — he sent along this photo:
Rob writes: “My kids just started at Saugatuck Elementary School. Unfortunately I don’t know this man’s name. I am so grateful that he was out there, up to his knees in water clearing drains at the school.
“The facilities staff probably don’t always get recognition. But I immediately thought of your site, and the town’s Unsung Heroes that you profile.”
Thanks, Rob. You nailed it. So to the Saugatuck staff member — and all the other facilities folks who dealt with drains, leaks, floods, branches, debris, and everything else in Ida’s wake — thank you.
And thanks too for all you do every day, in so many other ways, for all of us!
(If you’ve got a favorite school facilities employee, share his or her story in the “Comments” below. And do you know an Unsung Hero? Email dwoog@optonline.net)
Westport Volunteer Emergency Medical Service‘s first certification course since the pandemic began starts September 21. A decline in membership during COVID makes the call for volunteers more important than ever.
The course is open to any 14 and over. High school students earn EMR certification before age 16; then they become EMT-certified. Prior experience is not needed.
Full tuition reimbursement is available to those who successfully complete the course, and go on to volunteer with WVEMS.
For more information, email training@westportems.org.
After state certification, new EMTS can volunteer on Westport’s ambulances.
A few of Westport’s Volunteer Emergency Medical Service heroes.
When things go wrong in space, who you gonna call?
Dr. Bob Dempsey, for one. The NASA flight director has had plenty of experience, working with Mission Control to solve problems with the International Space Station.
On September 21 (8 p.m.), he’ll join the Westport Astronomical Society for a free virtual lecture on “When Things Go Wrong in Space.
Tashlich is a ceremony performed on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Jews symbolically cast off the sins of the previous year by tossing pebbles or bread crumbs into flowing water.
A group of Y’s Women gathered yesterday at Compo Beach. They threw bad thoughts and actions into Long Island Sound, preparing for the start of a good new season.
Fortunately, the dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 predicted in the 1982 film “Blade Runner” did not come to pass (mostly).
It’s still a great movie. And you can see it again, tomorrow night at 7:30 at the Remarkable Theater. Click here for tickets to the drive-in theater on Imperial Avenue.
Katie Spector has just published her first picture book: “Katie Spector the Art Collector.” It’s about a creative little girl who can’t part with her art. Katie’s story celebrates community, art, and staying true to yourself.
She’s celebrating too, with an outdoor event at Wakeman Town Farm on September 25 (1 to 3 p.m). There will be book readings, art projects and live music. RSVPs required; click here.
And finally … on this date in 1900, the US suffered its deadliest natural disaster.
A hurricane roared ashore at Galveston, Texas. The death toll was estimated at 8,000; 7,000 buildings were destroyed, and 10,000 left homeless, out of total population of fewer than 38,000.
It marked the end of the “Golden Era of Galveston” too, as investors turned their sights on the more sheltered city of Houston.
In 2014, $40 million fell from the sky. It landed on the Westport Weston Family YMCA.
The money came from the estate of Ruth Bedford. A Y trustee emeritus and noted philanthropist — and the granddaughter of Edward T. Bedford, who established the Y in 1923, and daughter of Frederick T. Bedford, who helped found Camp Mahackeno 21 years later — she died at 99, just 2 days before the Y’s 90th annual meeting. It was the last one held in the original Bedford building.
Ruth Bedford’s bequest — a surprise to Y officials — would enable the organization to “lead the community and change lives for the next 100 years,” they said.
A year later, the Y announced the formation of a $5 million Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund. Money came from Ruth Bedford’s gift, and one from past president and longtime trustee Allen Raymond.
The goal was to provide grants in areas like child welfare, substance abuse, community service and military outreach, serving children and young adults in Westport, Weston, Norwalk and Bridgeport.
The first grants were awarded in 2016. Last year, the Bedford Social Responsibility Fund made 25 donations, totaling $280,000.
Recipients included Achievement First Bridgeport Academy, Adam J. Lewis Academy, Carver Foundation, Cardinal Sheehan Center, Horizons, Mercy Learning Center, Neighborhood Studios, Norwalk Community College Foundation, Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities, Silvermine Guild of Artists, and Staples Tuition Grants.
The fund is gearing up for its 2022 grant cycle. Non-profits can apply now — but the deadline is Friday (September 10). Click here for more information.
Libby McKinney Tritschler is Ruth Bedford’s great-niece. She and fellow Y board member Juliane Sunderland co-chair the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund.
Libby McKinney Tritschler (left) and Juliane Sunderland.
“It’s been so eye-opening to make site visits. We’ve learned so much about the need to close the education gap, and give opportunities to children and young adults,” Sunderland says.
“This is all about community,” Tritschler adds. “The Y is a beautiful facility, but this money is another way we can show we’re part of the community — and communities nearby. I’m honored to be able to continue my family’s legacy of giving back.
“Westport got very lucky that my great-grandfather lived here, and opened the Y. His only request was that everyone in town get behind it. Now, thanks to his children and grandchildren, I can help make sure the Y keep on its mission to serve children and young adults.”
(For more information on the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund, click here.)
Ruth Bedford (center) with Lester Giegerich (left) and Dr. Malcolm Beinfield. (Photo courtesy of Westport Y)
Yesterday marked the end of summer lifeguard coverage at Compo Beach. From now on, the chairs belong to kids — at least, until the chairs are stowed in the Soundview parking lot. (Photo/Katherine Bruan)
Master Sergeant Clayton Jensen planned to speak in Westport long before the announcement that American troops would leave Afghanistan.
But his appearance Friday (September 10, 5 p.m., Compo Beach), as part of Catch a Lift’s annual (and inspirational) fundraiser is now especially timely.
During his 15-year military career, Jensen was deployed numerous times to Afghanistan and Iran. He suffered several serious injuries
He holds graduate degrees in international relations and organizational leadership, and is working toward his third master’s in international public policy.
Jensen will talk about his work in the military, what he’s learned about Afghanistan, and how to find hope amid devastation.
Catch-A-Lift is a national organization supporting combat-wounded veterans through physical fitness, nutrition, mental support and community.
It has strong roots in Westport. This weekend — the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — will be special. Over a dozen vets will be hosted here, in our town’s 7th annual gathering of camaraderie and hope.
Click here for tickets to Friday’s ceremony, including a sunset celebration.
The Catch a Lift weekend also includes a community workout (Saturday, September 11, 3 p.m., Westport Police station, Jesup Road; click here to register), and a family bike tour (Sunday, September 12, 9 a.m., beginning and ending in Ridgefield; click here to register).
Speaking of Afghanistan: The Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants is preparing to welcome and resettle up to 150 men, women and children from that war-torn land.
That’s an unexpected addition to the 180 refugees CIRI had already planned to help, from countries across the globe.
Individual Westporters have long supported the non-profit. In addition, Christ & Holy Trinity and the Unitarian Church are part of a larger group of faith-based organizations that help set up apartments when refugees arrive in Bridgeport.
They create fully furnished homes, with beds, linens, bath needs, kitchen items and culturally appropriate food. Children receive school items, toys and diapers.
Some of the refugees have lived in camps for 15 years. Many of the children have never had a home. CIRI provides ongoing services for all families.
CIRI hosts a crucial fundraising gala this Sunday (September 12, 4:30 p.m., 80 Grovers Avenue, Bridgeport). For more information on the cocktails, live auction and more, click here. To learn more about CIRI, and donate, click here.
Yesterday was the last day for lifeguards at Compo Beach. Of course, Westporters will continue to visit their favorite spot.
Reflecting on the end of the “season,” though, Eve Potts realized something was missing this year: trash.
She writes: “As a daily Compo Beach walker, I rarely see traces of garbage. Everyone is very careful to deposit trash in the conveniently placed cans. And the Parks & Rec Department does an incredible job of hauling it away regularly. You rarely see overflowing trash cans.Hooray for the public, and Parks & Rec!”
Wheels2U Westport, the on-demand, group ride, door-to-train shuttle service, is extending its service hours.
Effective today, Wheels2U Westport will operate an hour and half longer each weekday afternoon: 4 to 9:30 p.m.
The 5:45 to 9:45 a.m. morning service is unchanged.
The longer hours should help commuters and others who work late, or want to meet friends for a drink or dinner after work.
The service area covers nearly all of Westport. Residents use the “Wheels2U Westport” app to request a pickup for trains leaving Grand Central as late as 8:07 p.m. Riders are taken from the Saugatuck or Greens Farms station to their front door.
Pickup areas at Saugatuck are on the westbound side of the platform (corner of Franklin Street) or Railroad Place (near the elevator). Pickup at Greens Farms is in the large commuter parking lot just west of New Creek Road.
The fare is $2 when paid with the Wheels2U app. A Metro-North Uniticket rail/bus pass can also be used.
For more information, click here. For more information about the Westport Transit District’s services for the elderly and people with disabilities, click here.
It was a different summer this year at Camp Laurel.
There were no games against other camps. No overnight trips. Even Visiting Day was canceled.
Yet the summer of 2021 was joyful, wonderful, beautiful — everything camp should be.
Campers come from across the country to the Belgrade Lakes region of Maine. They enjoyed athletics, aquatics, arts and adventures. It’s been that way for 72 years — except last summer. That’s when COVID knocked the summer camp industry — along with much of the nation — for a sad, lonely loop.
Camp Laurel’s off-season headquarters are downtown, in Brooks Corner. Jem Sollinger and his wife Debbie are directors and partners.
Jem Sollinger (2nd from left) with Laurel campers and a staff member.
The other day, Jem — a 1988 Staples High School graduate — reflected on this summer, and last. He was still on a high from the success of this year.
It’s a far cry from 2020.
The decision not to open then was “challenging, but the right one,” Jem says.
He never second-guessed himself. The unknowns were too great at the time. Considering the downside versus the upside, it was a fairly easy call.
This year’s decision too was “not tough.”
He and his senior staff had not anticipated that, a year later, the world would still be dealing with COVID. But, he notes, “we had 15 months to educate ourselves, to learn and develop new systems to be safe.”
Those included 2 negative tests for campers before arrival, a negative test on Day 1, and another one 5 days later. All campers were masked, and in pods the first 6 days.
Once the masks came off, campers could hug.
“There was a desire for camp, by families and children. Even more, there was a need for it,” Jem says.
The need was for “kids to be kids. They’d had 15 months of being stagnant, restricted and masked. They needed to be active, interact with each other, be appropriately challenged — to get all the benefits of camp.”
Some of the new systems were easy to implement.
Others, such as dealing with 2 “senior classes” — this year’s oldest campers, and last year’s, who were invited back after missing a year — were harder. “They worked wonderfully together,” Jem says with relief.
There were also twice the amount of new campers this year. It was a challenge to integrate so many new faces into the camp culture — but also a chance to shape that culture positively.
And they’re off! Newcomers quickly acclimated into the Camp Laurel culture — which itself evolved this summer.
COVID also provided an opportunity to “tweak and evolve.” Traditions are great — and every camp has plenty of them — but the ability to pivot is important too.
With Visiting Day out, for example, each camper had a FaceTime session with parents and siblings.
Officials had to devise activities for staff, who usually use days off to “rest, refuel and have fun.” They were restricted this summer to camp.
Staff orientation was also lengthened from 8 to 12 days, to allow for quarantines.
Jem praised the “amazing team effort” of counselors and senior staff. “People had to step up — and they did. These are teachers, coaches, educators and artists — adults who had missed camp too. Laurel is part of their lives.”
But some college-age staff saw their friends leading less restrictive lives elsewhere. There was, Jem notes, “a bit of FOMO” (fear of missing out).
Some counselors expressed a need to prioritize their own mental health. “It’s like parenting, or Simone Biles,” he says. “Sometimes you do need to put yourself first. I understand that. Everyone is coming out of a strange time.”
After a sad summer in 2020, camp provided a welcome respite.
Camp Laurel had no COVID cases the entire summer. Jem attributes that to careful planning — and luck.
Despite — or perhaps because of — being tethered to home for 15 months, the director found there was less “home-missing” this year than usual.
Jem senses that more campers “pushed themselves, tried new things, and extended themselves to others.”
In addition, there was “more appreciation for the beauty of Maine, and just being there.”
He describes “a certain simplicity” to this summer. In the absence of trips and inter-camp competitions, everyone — adults and children alike — felt a “reinforcement of the power of the camp experience.”
Camp has been over for just a month. Already, Jem and his staff are deep in planning for 2022. There were no tours for prospective campers this summer — usually he greets 50 to 75 families — but he did 40 tours as soon as the season ended. He’ll do another 15 soon.
“Lots of questions remain,” he notes. “But next summer will happen. We’re looking forward to another celebratory year, with energy, enthusiasm and joy.”
Last Friday’s Question Box sparked a debate about when Carvel opened.
The definitive answer: August 1954.
And the man who provided that answer — RTM member Harris Falk — also offered proof. Here’s a newspaper advertisement from that month:
Check out the ice cream cone on top of the store. As Dave Lowrie noted in the Comments section, both it and the red and white bucket over KFC (now Sun Reflexology, next to Layla’s Falafel) came down in the 1970s. The Architectural Review Board was trying to make the Post Road look “less commercial.”
Every Home Should Have a Challah — the Westport-based national delivery service — is busy taking Yom Kippur orders. The deadline is midnight Wednesday (September 8). Click here for details.
William Nicholas (Nick) Delgass died peacefully at his West Lafayette, Indiana home last month, attended by his family, after a 9-year battle with cancer. The 1960 Staples High School graduate was 78.
His interest in the world and the way it works led him to science. He graduated from the University of Michigan, then earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford University.
He was more than a scientist. Throughout his life, Nick was well rounded. When he spotted Elizabeth (Betty) Holstein at a mandolin concert in 1966, he convinced her to go out with him after they bonded over a love of English literature. They married a year later, and would have celebrated their 54th anniversary at the end of August.
He and Betty had their first child, Michael, while Nick was completing his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California. He accepted his first faculty position at Yale University, and the growing family moved to Branford, where their second son, Leif, was born. Nick was on the faculty at Yale University for 5 years before accepting a position at Purdue.
he became chair of the chemical engineering department there, and taught until retirement. Nick was globally recognized for his work in integrating new tools and methods into reaction systems. His colleague Fabio Ribeiro said that few researchers impacted the field so broadly. He was a joint author of over 200 scientific papers, 2 books, advisor to many graduate students, and consultant to many companies.
His love for Betty was fierce. Nick often biked from the lab to have lunch with his family, and was a constant presence at his sons’ events. When his grandchildren were born, he made cross-country trips to visit.
Nick served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Catalysis, the flagship journal of the field. he earned various awards, and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).
Teaching was one of his great loves, as evidenced by his many honors, including the Shreve Teaching Award 7 times, and inclusion in the Purdue University Book of Great Teachers.
In addition to his wife Betty, Nick is survived by his sons Leif and Michael (Jessica Spector), and grandchildren Isaac, Aidan, Ariella, and Serafina.
No formal service is planned, but there will be a memorial reception on October 16 at the Whittaker Inn in West Lafayette. Click here to leave condolences.
It’s easy these days to forget the origins of the holiday. We may not remember (or never learned) the importance of unions in our nation’s history. They brought about safety, minimum wages, overtime pay and more.
Winning those rights was not easy. The power of unions has waned over the years — look at the recent Amazon battle in Alabama — even as income inequality has grown. Organizers there no doubt wish they still had a Pete Seeger to champion their cause.
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A year later, the Y 
