The Inn at Longshore has closed for renovations. It will reopen later this year.
Work is moving steadily along at the Delamar Hotel. The plan is to open in the spring, on the site of the former Westport Inn.
Until then, there is not one hotel room to be had in our entire town.
A century ago, there were plenty.
The Westport Hotel — at the corner of State Street (Post Road East) and Main Street — was a handsome building. It included a saloon and pool tables.
Decades earlier, Edward T. Bedford was too young to enter.
After becoming wealthy — as a broker of lubricating oils for railroads, helping chemist Robert Chesebrough sell his new product Vaseline, and a director of Standard Oil, among other things — he wanted the boys of Westport to have a place to gather.
Bedford bought the Westport Hotel, and demolished it. In its place, he built a $150,000 Tudor-style YMCA. It had reading and writing rooms, a bowling alley — and of course, pool tables.
For 90 years, the Y stood on the site of the old Westport Hotel. Since then — after the YMCA moved to its Mahackeno property on Wilton Road — the building has been leased to Anthropologie.
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Posted onAugust 17, 2024|Comments Off on McCormick Steps Down As Y CEO
The pandemic affected every organization in town. Among the hardest hit: the Westport Weston Family YMCA.
In the spring of 2021 — when strict rules still governed the pool, workout and class areas, gym, even the Mahackeno Outdoor Center — Anjali Rao McCormick arrived as CEO.
She had quite a resume. A Harvard graduate, with an MBA in marketing from NYU’s Stern School of Business, she’d worked for American Express and Citibank.
Most recently, she had been COO of the 4-branch Summit Area YMCA in New Jersey.
Anjali McCormick (Photo/Dan Woog)
McCormick saw the Y through its recovery from COVID. They’ve now reached the town-mandated limit on memberships. The place hums with activity 7 days a week, from early morning to night. It’s as vital a part of the community as it ever was in its downtown digs.
Yesterday, the Y board announced that McCormick will step down on August 30. CFO Glen Hale will serve as interim CEO.
“It was an honor to play a small role in this amazing organization’s century-long service to the Westport and Weston community,” McCormick says.
She thanked the “brilliant staff … amazing members and generous donors” for their work for the Y, and support of her. She also cited the Y board.
Last year, the Y celebrated its 100th anniversary, with a fall gala.
The Y was founded by Edward T. Bedford. More than 50 years earlier, he’d been a teenager standing outside the Westport Hotel — a wooden building on the corner of State Street (the Post Road) and Main Street — watching men play pool. He could not go inside, “on account of the saloon.”
Edward T. Bedford.
Decades later — now a wealthy man, as a broker of lubricating oils for railroads, an executive who helped chemist Robert Chesebrough sell his new product, Vaseline, and a director of Standard Oil — he spent $150,000 providing a “place for boys and young men to congregate.”
It was the perfect location: the Westport Hotel. It was the same spot, in the heart of town, where half a century before he’d been denied entrance.
The Y left downtown in 2013. Today, the Tudor style building is Anthropologie.
1923 was a momentous year in local history. Two other institutions founded that year are also still flourishing: The Westport Rotary Club, and Westport Garden Club.
The Y Board is creating a search committee for the new CEO. For questions about the position, email info@ceoinformationwestportwestony.org.
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In a town filled with high-profile, high-impact organizations working hard to make the world a better place, Westporters should be aware of AWARE.
Its name is not as well known as some others. But the group — whose acronym stands for Assisting Women through Action, Resources and Education — quietly and efficiently gets stuff done.
And they do it in a unique way.
Each year, AWARE selects a women’s cause — female veterans, say, or breast cancer, literacy, or refugees and immigrants,
Then they partner with a charity working in that area. Through a fundraiser, hands-on activity and educational event, AWARE shines a light on specific women’s issue, all year long.
This year’s partner is Inspirica. The Stamford-based non-profit strives to end homelessness and housing insecurity by helping individuals and families achieve stability through support services, and affordable housing.
To raise funds for an Inspirica playground, AWARE is hosting a “Canvas & Cocktails” party. The event is Thursday, May 16 (6 p.m.) at Clarendon Fine Art, on Main Street.
Nearly 200 people rocked to West End Blend at the Westport Library last night, in the concert portion of the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce’s Supper & Soul event.
Earlier almost 100 enjoyed dinner, at 10 downtown restaurants. And after the show, concert-goers went for drinks there too.
Chamber director Matthew Mandell says, “This translates into a direct infusion of over $6,500 into the local economy.”
“At the onset of Passover, Ashkenazi Jews abstain from eating products containing corn, including those sweetened with corn syrup.
“It didn’t used to be so bad, as products were traditionally sweetened using sugar.
“The person to blame is Edward Bedford — once Westport’s richest man. He was head of the Corn Products Company, and set out to convince companies to switch from sugar to lower-priced corn syrup.
“In the meantime, if you want Coke or Pepsi made with real sugar, stock up on the bottles with the yellow caps. They’re made with sugar, and are kosher for Passover.”
Edward T. Bedford
John Kelley is a wealth of information on famous former Westporters.
Responding to yesterday’s Roundup story on Henry Moses Judah — the Civil War general and Westport resident who last week, 158 years after his death, finally got a headstone, by his tomb at the cemetery on Wilton Road and Kings Highway North — Kelly writes:
“Henry Judah had a more famous brother, Theodore Judah, who surveyed the route taken by the first transcontinental railroad. San Francisco, where I now live, has a Judah Street named in his honor.”
San Francisco: N Judah train on Judah Street at 19th Avenue.
Today is also International Mother Earth Day. This year’s theme is “Planet vs. Plastic.”
Longtime Westporter Aye Aye Thant — whose father U Thant was the third secretary-general of the United Nations — writes:
“The day recognizes the earth and its ecosystems as humanity’s common home and the need to protect her to enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change, and stop the collapse of biodiversity.”
“In 1969 my father talked about the environment as an urgent and shared global challenge, and opened the UN’s first meeting on ‘the human environment.’
“He warned: ‘Never in the 25-year history of the United Nations has there been a problem of more relevance to all nations than the present environmental crisis.’
“On this day may I share my father’s prayer for our Mother Earth, as he rang the Peace Bell at the UN on Spring Equinox Earth Day, March 21, 1971:
“’May there only be peaceful and cheerful earth days to come for our beautiful spaceship earth. as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life.'”
Dorothy Abrams died peacefully in her home in Minnetonka, Minnesota yesterday, 4 days shy of her 97th birthday.
Dorothy lived in Westport from 1963 until 2010, when she moved to Minnesota to be close to her son David and his family.
She taught arithmetic at Kathleen Laycock Country Day School (now Greens Farms Academy), Roton Middle School and Norwalk High School before retiring to an active life of volunteerism and travel.
Dorothy was a member of the Westport Woman’s Club and the Nature Conservancy’s Devil’s Den Ordway Nature Preserve in Weston, and tutored students in the Bridgeport school system. She also served as an election judge in Westport.
Dorothy and her family were longtime members of Temple Israel, where she served for years on the Social Action and Caring Committees. She became an elder of sorts, sharing her institutional memory and guiding younger members as they led the congregation down paths of justice and comfort.
Long Island Sound was her happy place for nearly her entire life.
She is survived by her son David (Audrey), and grandchildren Rachel (Claire Steinhoff) and Sal Abrams. She was predeceased by her brother Eugene Cohn, sister Anne Werner, husband Arthur, and daughters Judith Abrams and Janet (Gene) Karoscik.
Dorothy’s funeral will be at the Temple Israel Cemetery at 225 Richards Avenue in Norwalk at noon on Thursday (April 25) — her birthday. The service will be livestreamed; click here.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Fairfield County Chapter of the Nature Conservancy or a local food shelf.
Dorothy Abrams
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William Shakespeare’s actual April birthdate was not recorded. His birthday is now celebrated on the date of his death: April 23.
Tomorrow marks the 408th anniversary of his passing, at 52 years old. The Bard of Avon packed a lot of writing into that short life. (And with a quill pen, too.)
Alert “06880” reader Fred Cantor passes on this long, but interesting, Shakespearean tale. Read to the end, for the important Westport connection:
“There is a lovely small public garden in Stratford, Connecticut, at the entrance to what once was the site of the Shakespeare Festival, and is now known as Shakespeare Park.
“The garden is called Will’s Garden — but not for the reason you would think.
“It was named for Will Geer, the late actor who was best known for his role as Grandpa Walton.
“Before that fame, he acted at the Shakespeare Festival for a number of years.
“And before that he earned a master’s degree in botany, and became an avid gardener — including creating the herbarium at the entrance to what was then the Shakespeare Festival.
“The garden fell into a state of disrepair over time. Its revitalization was spearheaded by Stratford resident Christine Rodney, who was given the name of Sal Gilbertie as someone who could help.
“Sal — the owner of Gilbertie’s Herbs & Garden Center in Westport — has been among the most generous of donors over the years. He has always told Christine: ‘Take as much as you want.'”
I’m not sure if roses grow in Will’s Garden. But if they do, I’m sure — thanks to Sal Gilbertie — they smell very sweet.
The Bedford family is the gift that keeps on giving.
In 1923, Edward T. Bedford endowed and built the YMCA downtown.
In 1944 his son, Frederick T. Bedford, provided the funding to buy Camp Mahackeno, on Wilton Road.
Camp Mahackeno, shortly after the name was changed from Camp Bedford.
In 2015 — 92 years after the Y opened, and soon after it moved to the Mahackeno campus — the organization received $40 million from the estate of Ruth T. Bedford: Edward’s granddaughter, and Frederick’s daughter. She died the previous year, at 99.
She gave similar amounts to Norwalk Hospital (where she volunteered for decades), and Foxcroft, the private girls’ school she had attended in Virginia.
Ruth — a trustee emeritus of what is now known as the Westport Weston Family Y — wanted the Y to change lives for the next 100 years.
In 2015, the YMCA board of trustees established the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund. Earnings from the endowment support organizations that provide direct or supplemental educational opportunities. As a result the Fund supports a wide range of programs.
Ruth Bedford, with longtime YMCA supporters Lester Giegerich and Dr. Malcolm Beinfield.
Last week, the Y honored the 2023 grant recipients of the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund. 31 organizations local non-profits received over $315,000
At the ceremony, Westport Y CEO Anjali McCormick said, “Ruth had no patience for ostentatious displays of wealth and shunned attention for her philanthropic contributions. She is the embodiment of the Y’s social responsibility pillar standing firmly by the idea that you don’t need more money than you need to live on, and that you have a responsibility to give back.
“Ruth’s legacy is enduring. Though she had no children, she continues to touch the lives of hundreds and thousands of children and youth each year, through and because of your organizations. The breadth and depth of creativity and innovation in your programming is inspiring. We love that you are forward thinking, we love that you are solution oriented, we love that you are preparing future generations and the world to be a better place.”
Recipients include:
A Better Chance of Westport
Achievement First Bridgeport Academy
Adam J Lewis Academy
Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders
The Carver
CT Institute: Refugees & Immigrants
Family & Children’s Agency
First Serve Bridgeport
Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestra
Hall Neighborhood House
Horizons: CT State Norwalk, Greens Farms Academy, Notre Dame Catholic High School
Middle school students in Greens Farms Academy’s Horizons program.
Housatonic Community College Foundation
Kids Empowered by Your Support
The Klein Memorial Auditorium Foundation
Mercy Learning Center of Bridgeport
Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County
New Beginnings Family Academy
Norwalk Community College Foundation
Norwalk Housing Authority
Norwalk Symphony Orchestra
Person to Person
Project Morry
Shepherds Mentors
Silvermine Arts Center, Art Partners Program
Smart Kids with LD
Staples Tuition Grants
University of Bridgeport, STEM on Wheels
Suzuki Music School
Wakeman Memorial Association
Edward T. and Frederick T. Bedford would be very proud.
In 1864, Edward T. Bedford was 15 years old. He stood outside the Westport Hotel — a wooden building on the corner of State Street (the Post Road) and Main Street — watching men play pool. He could not go inside, “on account of the saloon.”
Edward T. Bedford.
Decades later, Bedford was a wealthy man. He had become a broker of lubricating oils for railroads, and helped chemist Robert Chesebrough sell his new product, Vaseline. He was a director of Standard Oil, and associated with many other very successful companies.
He still lived in Greens Farms, where he was born. Recalling his years outside the Westport Hotel — and knowing the town needed “some place for boys and young men to congregate” — he announced in 1919 plans for a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).
He had a perfect place, too: The Westport Hotel. It was the same spot, in the heart of town, where half a century earlier he’d been denied entrance.
Bedford spent $150,000 on the Tudor-style building. It would be a place to exercise one’s body, and mind. It included reading and writing rooms, bowling alleys, a gymnasium — and of course, pool tables. (Bedford also financed a new firehouse next door on Church Lane, designed in the same Tudor style.)
The Westport YMCA.
The Westporter-Herald called the YMCA dedication on September 5, 1923 “second to none in the history of the town. Not since the day of the official opening of Westport’s new bridge over the Saugatuck River has there been anywhere near as great a gathering as notables, both local and out of town.”
The Bedford building lobby.
Connecticut Governor Charles E. Templeton was there. He pointed to Bedford, noting that while he did not have “the opportunities the young men of today … he didn’t smoke or wile his hours away; he didn’t stay up until midnight, not at all, but instead went to bed early and then was fresh for the tasks of the day to follow.”
Much has happened in the 100 years since. Several years after it opened, Bedford donated a pool. During World War II, boys walked the short distance from Staples High School on Riverside Avenue (now Saugatuck Elementary School) to learn how to jump off flaming ships into the sea.
An early YMCA youth basketball team.
In 1944, Y leaders searching for space for a day camp for boys found 30 acres of woods and fields along the Saugatuck River, near the new Merritt Parkway’s Exit 41.
Frederick T. Bedford — Edward’s son — said that his Bedford Fund would pay half the purchase price, if the town raised the other half. Within a few weeks Y leaders had collected $10,000. The Bedford Fund matched it.
Camp Bedford opened. At Frederick Bedford’s request in 1946, the name was changed to Mahackeno.
In 1953, Westport artist Stevan Dohanos used Camp Mahackeno for this Saturday Evening Post cover.
As Westport grew in the post-war years, so did the YMCA. The downtown building became an unofficial teen center, hosting everything from the Downshifters hot rod club to Mrs. Comer’s ballroom dance classes. (Y membership was eventually open to girls, too — as well as families, and senior citizens.)
In the 1970s and ’80s the Y added a new pool. Lucie Bedford Cunningham Warren and Ruth Bedford — granddaughters of the founder — provided $200,000 through the Bedford Fund to acquire the fire station, and convert it into a 2-story fitness center. (The brass pole stayed.)
There were squash courts, and other games upstairs. (Paul Newman was an avid badminton player.)
But the downtown quarters grew cramped. Y directors looked for new space, in places like the Baron’s South property. A protracted battle — legal, political, even involving the character of downtown and the Y’s responsibility to it — eventually ended.
The YMCA built a 54,000-square foot full-service facility — “The Bedford Family Center” — on a portion of its Mahackeno property. It opened in 2014, thanks in part to financial support from Lucie McKinney and Briggs Cunningham III — Edward T. Bedford’s great-grandchildren.
The Bedford Family Center, 2014.
Helping guide the construction process as members of the Y’s governing boards were 2 of Lucie’s children, John McKinney and Libby McKinney Tritschler. They’re the 5th generation Bedford’s involved with the organization.
Since then, the Y has added a gymnastics center, and more fitness rooms. They’ve upgraded nearby Camp Mahackeno. And they were stunned to receive a $40 million endowment from the estate of Ruth Bedford.
The Westport Weston Family YMCA — today’s official name — used a portion of the bequest to establish the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund, to continue developing youth, promoting healthy living and fostering social responsibility.
All of which is a long way of saying: Happy 100th anniversary, Westport Y!
Officials have planned a year of celebrations. Highlights include:
Share Your Stories: Members and the community are invited to share Y stories, memories and photos. They’ll be featured on the anniversary web page.
“100 Faces of My Y”: a project for youth to create self-portraits in the medium of their choice, for display in and around the facilities.
Healthy Kids Day (April 29): a free initiative celebrated at Ys across the country. with fun activities, healthy snack demos, food trucks, sports lessons, games, art, and free t-shirts for the first 200 children.
The 7th Annual Golf Tournament (May 22, Aspetuck Valley Country Club, Weston): A fundraiser for the Y’s financial assistance program.
100-Year Anniversary Gala (“Sneaker Ball,” October 6, Mahackeno Outdoor Center): Donations and sponsors will fund financial assistance to under-resourced families and those in need. In 2022, $746,000 was awarded to over 400 families.
The Westport Weston Family YMCA is no longer limited to young Christian men.
The world has changed since Edward T. Bedford stood outside a hotel — and then bought it, to build both a building and a legacy.
If the next 100 years are anything like the last, our Y will continue to grow, evolve — and impact countless lives.
A relic from the Y’s downtown days. (Photo/Lynn Untermeyer Miller)
It’s midterm time at Staples High School — so how about a pop quiz for everyone?
The subject is “Westport schools.” The answers are below. No cheating though — and no Googling!
How many students were in Staples’ first graduating class? And what was special about them?
Edward T. Bedford provided the funds for Bedford Elementary School and Bedford Junior High. But he also helped build another Westport school. Which was it?
If you went looking for the old Burr Farms Elementary School, what would you find there today?
True or false: The Doors, Eric Clapton, Rascals and Rolling Stones all performed at Staples.
Name 2 predecessors of Greens Farms Academy.
If a sneaker brand was associated with Bedford Middle School, what would it be?
A longtime principal of the original Saugatuck Elementary School on Bridge Street shares the same last name as the founder of one of Westport’s first private academies. What is that name?
The 2nd principal of Staples High School has a parkway in Connecticut named for him. Who was he?
Two Staples High School athletic teams practiced in the basement of the old school, on Riverside Avenue. Which teams were they?
Many decades ago, the Westport Board of Education rejected a proposal to add Spanish to the foreign language curriculum. Why?
Edward T. Bedford is the benefactor of not 1, not 2, but 3 Westport schools.
Before I give the answers, here’s the reason for today’s quiz:
On Sunday, January 29 (3 p.m.), the Westport Historical Society hosts a reception for its new exhibit.
“Westport School Days: 1703-Present” offers a wide and fascinating look at the evolution of education here in town. From the first formal class (on “Green’s Farms Common”), through the growth of private academies and public schools, to today’s nationally renowned system, there’s a lot to learn.
Maps, photos and memorabilia — report cards! a bench from the original Adams Academy! — make for intriguing viewing.
Whether you went to school here or not — and whether you were an A student or spent all your time in the principal’s office — this is one exhibit not to be absent for.
And now, your test results:
There were 6 students in Staples’ first graduating class. All were girls.
Edward T. Bedford helped build both Bedford Elementary School and Bedford Junior High — and also Greens Farms El.
Burr Farms Elementary School is now the site of large homes, on Burr School Road. The athletic fields are still there, however.
False. All of those acts actually did appear at Staples — except the Stones.
A sneaker brand associated with Bedford Middle School would be Nike. The school is built on the former site of Nike missile silos.
Both the boys and girls rifle teams practiced in the basement of Staples High School, when it was on Riverside Avenue. There was a shooting range down there.
Dorothy Adams was the longtime principal of Saugatuck Elementary School. Ebenezer Adams founded Adams Academy. Both buildings remain. Saugatuck is now elderly housing on Bridge Street; Adams Academy is a historic site on North Morningside Drive.
The Wilbur Cross Parkway is named for Staples High’s 2nd principal. He went on to become a distinguished professor at Yale University — and the governor of Connecticut.
The Board of Education rejected a proposal to add Spanish to the foreign language curriculum because they believed it would have little value for Westport students.
(For more information on the Westport Historical Society exhibit, click here.)
The original Staples High School on Riverside Avenue …
The Bedfords — for a century one of Westport’s foremost families — have been in the news a lot this year.
Ruth Bedford — who died at 99 in June of 2014 — left $40 million to the Westport Family YMCA, Norwalk Hospital, and Foxcroft School in Virginia. That’s $40 million each.
And the Bedford estate — at 66 Beachside Avenue — is now slated for demolition. So is the family’s 2-story house at 225 Green’s Farms Road, opposite the Nyala Farms office complex.
Alert “06880” reader Neil Brickley has long been interested in the Bedfords. Growing up in Westport, he often heard of their wealth and generosity.
Neil is an engineer. He loves examining aerial photos of old Westport to figure out what went where — before, say, I-95 came through. Comments on “06880” about the Bedfords’ land-holdings piqued his interest.
He was particularly intrigued by this 1934 aerial shot, showing a horse track smack in the middle of Green’s Farms.
To get oriented: Green’s Farms Elementary School is in the upper right corner. At the upper left, Hillspoint Road runs into the Post Road (McDonald’s would be there today.) Center Street and Prospect Road meet Greens Farms Road at the bottom of the photo.
Neil found that the track encompasses over 10 acres.
However, he was thrown off by a photo in Woody Klein’s history of Westport. A caption of Edward T. Bedford — Ruth’s grandfather, and a director of Standard Oil, the founder of the Westport Y and namesake of Bedford Middle School — is shown riding his horse, Diplomat, over a track “on the spacious grounds of his home on Beachside Avenue.”
Edward T. Bedford
Neil saw no signs of the track on the aerial photos of Beachside. It’s hard to envision now — with I-95 in the way — but Bedford’s property extended northward, from Beachside Avenue to Nyala Farm and on into the West Parish area.
In fact, there’s a Bedford Drive off West Parish that could have been the south entrance to the track.
The track was called “Winfromere” — believed to be a reference to the term “win from here.” Today, Wynfromere Lane is just north of Bedford Drive.
Neil then found “taking maps” for the Sherwood Island Connector. To build it, they took the property that included the Wynfromere horse track. The owner was indeed Frederick T. Bedford.
Neil was surprised to see enormous on/off cloverleaf entrances and exits proposed from Greens Farms Road — called “Shore Road” on the taking maps — to the connector. Bedford owned a large swath of land from the railroad tracks up to Hillandale Road. Neil surmises it went only that far because he had previously given the portion at the Post Road for the state police barracks (now Walgreens).
Neil noted the enormous amount of property owned by the Bedfords on Beachside Avenue too, as well as in the Morningside-Clapboard Hill area.
Now, about that story that E.T. Bedford also had a landing strip on his Beachside estate…
A capital campaign for a new Westport Weston YMCA fell short of its goal earlier this decade. So the Mahackeno facility — called the Bedford Family Center — was broken into 2 phases.
Phase I opened last fall, with an airy fitness center, gleaming new pool, well-lit exercise rooms, nice new gym and a much-needed child’s play space. The site was purchased decades ago — with the generous help of Frederick T. Bedford, Ruth’s father.
The new YMCA — known as the Bedford Family Center — at Mahackeno.
But the new Y lacks other amenities, like childcare, gymnastics and racquetball. And the locker rooms are badly cramped. Y officials promised they’d be added some vague time later, during Phase II.
Phase II suddenly seems a lot closer to reality.
The Y announced today that it has received $40 million from the estate of Ruth Bedford. The last surviving granddaughter of Edward T. Bedford — a director of Standard Oil and founder of the Westport Y, among many other philanthropic projects — died last June, at 99.
Yet this is not Ruth Bedford’s only astonishing gift. She also left $40 million to Norwalk Hospital. She loved that institution too — and volunteered there, logging almost 17,000 hours in the gift shop, over 5 decades. (A previous gift from E.T. Bedford, decades ago, enabled the hospital to double its patient capacity.)
But wait! There’s more! Another $40 million bequest — believed to be the largest ever to an all-girls’ school — went to Foxcroft, a tiny private girls school in Virginia that was Bedford’s alma mater.
The Y’s plans for the fallen-from-the-sky money are not yet set.
Officials say they will use it for “current and future capital development needs” — perhaps including new locker rooms? — and “to endow programs for wellness and youth in a way that honors the tradition of the Bedford family legacy.”
For nearly a century, that legacy has enriched Westport. It continues to do so, even after death.
The Kemper-Gunn House has moved. The old YMCA Bedford building begins renovations soon, becoming an anchor of the new Bedford Square.
But Westporters can’t stop looking back.
Alert “06880” reader Jonathan Rohner sent this fascinating postcard showing the Y and the Westport Bank and Trust building (today it’s Patagonia):
I love the cars — all looking the same — parked or driving haphazardly on the trolley-tracked Post Road.
I love the elm trees framing the Bedford building, and how peaceful downtown looked.
Equally alert “06880” reader Scott Smith contributed this photo, from a decade or so later:
I love the hand-colored blue sky. The bike leaning casually against the tree on the left.
And check out the front-in parking job of those cars in front of the Y. That would never fly today.
I was especially intrigued by another image Scott sent. This one shows the Westport Hotel. The area was called Hotel Square. Westport Bank and Trust had not yet been built:
The hotel had a pool room. Youngsters were not permitted inside. Edward T. Bedford vowed to give them a place. In 1923, he built the YMCA.
In 2014, the hand-wringing goes, no one has any privacy. Between social media, computer cookies and people’s voracious appetite to tell (and hear) all, everyone knows what everyone else is up to. Ah, for the good ol’ days.
Presumably, those days were not 1935.
Back then, people really knew each other’s business. And that business — who applied for a marriage license or mortgage, who visited whose home or went where, who inherited money (and how much) — has been preserved for nearly a century.
An old-fashioned technology — newspaper — has given us an up-close-and-very personal look into the Westport of 8 decades ago. The population was just over 6,000 — it’s 4 times larger today — but the Westporter-Herald published twice a week.
Page 1 on Friday, November 8, 1935. Don’t worry if you can’t read all 37 stories; I’ve picked out my favorites below.
Every Tuesday and Friday, on enormous pages and in very small type, it described the (relatively) big stories of the day. Two days before Friday, November 8 for example, the Town Plan commission discussed widening Church Lane, “now a very narrow and dangerous thoroughfare for traffic in both directions.”
They also “approved the location for the new high school,” though no further mention was made of that momentous decision. (It turned out to be the location of the current Saugatuck Elementary School on Riverside Avenue. The “modern” school complemented a nearby 1884 building, which stood for another 32 years.)
But it’s the smaller stories — there were an amazing 37 of them on Page 1 alone — that truly tell the tale of a supposedly sleepy small town in which a lot went on.
John Gault — secretary of L.H. Gault and Son, former 2nd selectman and Board of Finance member — died at home. The death of his wife several years earlier “rested heavily on the deceased and friends say it was a blow from which he never recovered.”
Another death — that of Broadway actor Moffat Johnston — was honored with a funeral at Christ Episcopal Church. Among the attendees: Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
A close-up of the top half of Page 1.
Rev. H. H. Mower, pastor of the Westport M.E. Church, escaped serious injury Wednesday afternoon in “an unusual automobile accident.” Turning onto Elm Street from Main Street, he struck the embankment on property owned by Miss Jennie Thorpe, crashed through a wooden fence and “dropped down ten feet to land on the top of a roadster owned by Joseph Picard, employed at the A.P.”
Westporters drove at least as poorly then as they do know. Police reported 125 arrests in October, mostly for automobile violations. There were 26 arrests for speeding, 31 for passing red lights, and 29 for violating “the town parking ordinance.”
(Perhaps one of those parking violations came at the corner of the Boston Post Road and Cedar Street, where Anthony Ralph Migliarese had just applied for a liquor permit. That tavern stood for many years. Today it’s our parking-impaired Starbucks.)
A judge upheld a $3,000 award given to Viola I. Plant of Richmondville Avenue. Her husband, the late James G. Plant, was a “gateman and watchman” at Longshore who drowned when “an automobile he was operating for one of the club members went over the wall into the yacht basin.”
Armistice Day was going to be observed “quite extensively” on Monday. Most offices would be closed, but stores would be open for “business as usual.” There would be “no work on relief projects.”
Speaking of relief efforts: The Relief Office was moving to new quarters. You’d think that would be bigger news.
Readers learned too that Captain and Mrs. Increase A. Parsell had “closed their home in Greens Farms and have left for DeLand, Florida where they will spend the winter at their home, in the sunny south.”
Miss Betty Meszaros was operated on at Norwalk Hospital for appendicitis, by Dr. H.S. Phillips.
Mrs. Julia Kish, Turkey Hill road, broke several ribs “in a fall down the cellar stairs yesterday morning.” She was now resting comfortably at Bridgeport hospital.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Fable were guests of Mrs. Fable’s father in Willington, Connecticut the day before. Mrs. George R. Miller and Mrs. R.D. Murphy spent Tuesday in New York city as the guest of Mrs. Cara Maisch. Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Lexen spent the night before in New York city, where they attended the automobile show at Grand Central Palace and took in Hollywood Restaurant review.
More news from Page 1, on November 8, 1935.
That’s just a small part of Page 1. The other 13 pages are filled with other news — social, sports, and everything else you’d want to know about everyone else in town.
Including the fact that Mrs. Mary Ann Dingee Bedford — widow of the late Edward T. Bedford — left an estate totaling $580,779. Her 4 children (all named) inherited $102,359 each.
At that time, the Westporter-Herald cost 5 cents. Ads touted steaks for 39 cents a pound, fur coats for $44, and a new Chevrolet (with “shockproof steering”) for $495.
Mrs. Bedford had some serious money. And — along with Rev. Mower’s accident, Betty Meszaros’ appendix, and everything else that had happened during the previous 3 days — every person in Westport knew all about it.
(Hat tip to Sarah Hickson, for providing copies of the 1935 Westporter-Herald. Workers renovating her house found them, stuffed as insulation between walls.)
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“It was an honor to play a small role in this amazing organization’s century-long service to the Westport and Weston community,” McCormick says.
The Westport Weston Family YMCA — today’s official name — used a portion of the bequest to establish the Bedford Family Social Responsibility Fund, to continue developing youth, promoting healthy living and fostering social responsibility.
