1933

January

Sunday, January 1, 1933

• DERBY – The first fire in the Valley in the New Year guts a room at 29 Hawthorne Avenue 10 minutes after midnight.

January 2

• DERBY – Mayor William Riordan is sworn into his third term at noon, along with other city officials.
• SHELTON – Daniel Shelton is sworn in as Shelton’s new mayor.

January 3

• ANSONIA – Tremont Street between South Cliff Street and Main Street is closed, as Ansonia Mutual Aid begins constructing a stone retaining wall to support the gravel bank on the south side. 

January 4

• Temperatures rise to 50 degrees today.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Water Company has issued over 500 permits to cut firewood in its forests so far this winter.
• SHELTON – The International Silver Company releases the devastating news that it is shutting down Factory B, the former Derby Silver Company on Bridge Street, by the end of the week. Over 100 will be laid off.
• SHELTON – Over 450 unemployed men go to Relief Committee office in the Steinman building on Howe Avenue seeking relief or work.

January 5

• All flags are at half mast upon receiving news of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge.
• SEYMOUR – Mrs. A. Augusta Smith Swan, the widow of William Swan, who was president of the James Swan Company, dies less than two months after her husband.

Friday, January 6

• Today is Orthodox Christmas. Ansonia’s Orthodox churches are packed, and special trolleys are sent to Ansonia to bring the sizable Orthodox population there to the masses.
• ANSONIA – The will of the late Mrs. Annie Julia Seeley Eno is probated. Her Franklin Street home is to be set up as a home for elderly women. Also $2,000 (over $25,000 today) has been willed to set up a shelter for homeless cats. An additional $1,000 is willed to Immanuel Episcopal Church.

January 7

• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid has taken over the vacant store next to the Shelton Trust Company, and is fitting it out to be a reading and recreation room for the unemployed. Unemployment is now over 650. Relief Headquarters has recently issued 281 food cards.

January 9

• SHELTON – The Mitchell Dairy Company of Bridgeport has offered the City skim milk for 1 cent per quart, to be delivered in 40 quart cans.

January 10

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 128 men a total of 2,147 hours the past week, and paid them $804.
• DERBY – A Shelton man steals a Packard at gunpoint from a New Haven garage, and speeds off. He wrecks the car near Otter Rock on River Road, in the early morning hours, and injures himself. He tries to get a get a ride from a passing motorist. The motorist refuses, and instead drives to the police station. Derby police respond to the scene, arrest him, and turn him over to New Haven Police.
• DERBY & SHELTON – A Special Meeting of the Board of Trade is held at Hotel Clark regarding the sudden closing of International Silver Company, Factory B, on Bridge Street in Shelton. It is feared that the unemployment situation in the two cities is so acute many will soon lose their homes in the two cities. Many civic, church, industrial, and banking leaders attend the meeting. There are many protests, and a petition is signed asking the International Silver Company (which is headquartered in Meriden) to reconsider the closing by taking into account the “great suffering” it will cause in Derby and Shelton.
• OXFORD – A prevalence of mumps in town is blamed on parents who send children to school when other members of their family are infected.
• SHELTON – Bruce N. Griffing, of 231 Coram Avenue, dies at Griffin Hospital. He was president of Griffin Button Company and Griffin Hospital is named after his brother. He is buried at Riverside Cemetery. Read his obituary here.

January 11

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund will appropriate $200 a week for “work relief” (workfare), as well as a flat $500 for clothing for city’s poor. The Committee hears an appeal that 500 pairs of shoes are urgently needed immediately. The Osborndale Farm is providing the District Nurses Association 40-80 quarts of free skim milk per day.

January 12

• ANSONIA – A general meeting of Valley Jewish residents is held at B’Nai Jacob synagogue on Factory Street, to establish a Jewish Community Center at that location. Over 100 enroll.
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Committee hands out a record 668 articles of clothing at its Elizabeth Street quarters today.
• DERBY – The First Congregational Church holds their 257th Annual Meeting.

Saturday, January 14

• ANSONIA – Filling in of a portion of the Ansonia Canal will start in February. The City will have to find other outlets for its surface water that flows into that section during rainstorms.
• DERBY – A 3 car garage is destroyed by fire on Academy Hill, along with 2 cars inside and a third parked alongside.
• SHELTON – The Plastico Company, which recently moved here from New Haven only to be burned out of the Huntington Piano Company building and have all of its machinery destroyed two weeks ago, has taken over the former Harris, Seybold and Potter Factory on Canal Street near Center Street.

January 16

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund begins its winter season today, the workfare program employing 12 at the sandbank at the Durrschmidt property on Housatonic Avenue. They will work today and tomorrow, then another 12 men will take over for another 2 days.

January 17

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 109 men in the past week, and paid them $725.22.
• ANSONIA – The Rotary and Lions clubs will start a collection of used clothing to be distributed to the needy by the Salvation Army.

January 18

• DERBY & SHELTON – The Derby-Shelton YMCA announces unemployed men may use its rooms in the daytime in its Derby headquarters.
• SEYMOUR – Local electrician Frank J. Hummel will receive a Purple Heart for his World War I service.

January 19

• ANSONIA – A 3-day Cooperative Sale involving 44 Ansonia businesses opens.
• DERBY – 2,000 people are now receiving some form of relief. 400 heads of families have applied for workfare. 150 are destitute of any income. The weekly income of the others ranges from $0.44 to $25.
• DERBY – The library and recreation hall on the 4th floor of the Derby Gas & Electric building on Elizabeth Street is badly damaged in a $4,000 fire.

Friday, January 20

• ANSONIA – Over 600 usable garments are collected in the Salvation Army clothing drive. 
• DERBY – Over 1,000 articles of clothing are given out to 93 families by the Derby Relief Fund, setting another agency record. 
• DERBY – The small bronze plaque placed a year ago on a descendant of the Charter Oak Tree, planted on Derby Green has been missing for a week. It was donated by the Derby-Shelton Rotary, and they are upset. 
• SHELTON – The Aldermanic Relief Fund has spent its entire $50,000 for workfare relief for fixing and improving local roads.

January 21

• SHELTON – A 68 year old Cornell Street woman, an Irish immigrant, is found dead in her home of accidental gas poisoning.

January 22

• SEYMOUR – Curtis Saulsbury, famed African-American tenor, makes his fourth appearance at a packed Seymour Methodist Church. 
• SEYMOUR – The fence at Trinity Cemetery is badly damaged by a car, which leaves the scene.

January 24

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 102 men on 6 projects and paid them $690.09 in the past week.
• SHELTON – Frederick S. Sanford, 72, dies at his 17 Perry Avenue home. He conducted the Sanford Drug Store since 1882 near old covered bridge, and moved it to the corner of Howe Avenue and Bridge Street in 1892. His son will continue the business.

January 25

• ANSONIA – Mayor Hart makes an appeal for clothing for the Salvation Army clothing drive. Also, another boxcar load of 2,400 bags of flour is on its way for distribution.
• OXFORD – “The quietness of the town during the day is somewhat disturbed since Contractor D. Arrizoni of Middletown and his employees have started the construction of the new $187,000 federal aid road through Oxford”.
• SEYMOUR – The Seymour 1932 Grand List is $8,865,319. This is about $195,000 less than 1931.

January 26

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Grand List is $23,704,622, down $631,806 from 1931. The list includes 2431 houses, 1395 garages, barns, 2870 lots, 439 business blocks & buildings, 60 shop builders, 2516 cars, 28 horses, and 138 cattle.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid has been named in a $2,000 lawsuit for a young boy allegedly burned by hot water from machinery at the sewer trench job on Colony Street.
• SHELTON – The Derby Gas & Electric Company Relief Fund will supply milk to Lafayette School, thus allowing the funds parents already raised for that purpose to be applied to other needs, such as health and eyeglasses.

Friday, January 27

• ANSONIA – The L.M. Weidenfeld ladies’ silk sportswear factory will locate on the 2nd floor of the Comen block at 360 Main Street, and will employ about 100.
• DERBY – The 11th Annual Meeting of Housatonic Council is held at the Second Congregational Church. In the past year membership increased 21.5% despite a budget cut of 36%. The Council had 18 troops, and 2 packs on January 1, 1932. This had fallen to 14 troops by May 1932. However, there are now 20 troops, 2 packs, and 1 Sea Scout ship.
• SHELTON – The International Silver Company, Factory B, on Bridge Street closes for the last time, laying off all its workers.

January 28

• ANSONIA – Lady MacDonald lodge No. 23, Daughters of Scotia, holds 25th anniversary celebration at the Masonic Temple. 250 members and guests attend.
• ANSONIA – A State Police officer pulls over a car over on North Main Street containing 5 gallons of moonshine in cans, and arrest the driver. The officer then goes to where he observed the car leave on North Main, finds 443 more cans of moonshine, and arrests another.
• SHELTON – The late Bruce Griffing’s will is probated. It includes a Trust Fund for children’s programs in Derby and Shelton. The will also calls for the building of a community building for Shelton.
• SHELTON – A committee from the Derby-Shelton Board of Trade meets with the International Silver Company president in Meriden. The President says the Bridge Street facility operated at a loss for many years. The plant is ideal for manufacturing small, special articles, and the company will hold onto it for the time being in the hope that demand returns.

January 30

• ANSONIA – The State Police pulls over a car and arrests 3 for transporting liquor. Later they and the Ansonia police raid the driver’s High Street home, where they find more alcohol.
• DERBY – Derby City Officials and employees are signing over 10% of their salaries to contribute to the expenses of running the city. 
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund has given out a total of 3,566 articles of clothing to 156 families last week.

January 31

• The General Committee of rehabilitation of Ansonia, Derby, and Shelton industries has to date received $59,844.50 in pledges
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid paid $730.82 to 122 men who worked 1826.5 hours on 6 projects last week. The projects are grading Francis Street and Hodge Avenue installing sewers on Colony Street and at Fountain Hose Co. No. 1, installing a retaining wall on Tremont Street wall, and widening Prospect Street.
• ANSONIA – The Wiedenfield Dress Company opens up at the Comen Building on 360 Main Street with 35 hands. 200 more apply – a total of 100 female hands is  expected to be hired. The firm has 15 similar shops in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
• DERBY – A fire at the Acme Department Store at 181 Main Street burns for an hour, destroys $5-6,000 in stock, and causes $2,000 in damage to the building.
• DERBY – A rumor spreads through Derby that Police Chief Thomas Van Etten had died suddenly. The Chief assures those who call the rumor is not true.
• OXFORD – The Town’s Grand List is $1,640,531. This includes 428 houses, 135 barns or garages, 719 building lots, 18 business and commercial buildings, 173 horses, 1284 cattle, and 414 automobiles.

February

Wednesday, February 1, 1933

• DERBY – The Police Department suggests discontinuing its teletype service to save money. The machine costs $900 a year, and is shared equally with Ansonia and Shelton.
• SHELTON – The Board of Education offers to contribute 10% of its teachers’ salaries to help the City during the Great Depression.

February 2

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund may have to lay off the 50 men it employs next week because there is no work for them to do.

Friday, February 3

• ANSONIA – The Police Commissioners and Mayor Hart are investigating disappearance of 25 gallons of recently seized alcohol from police station. The investigation is getting nowhere, beyond convincing them that there is a “liar in the ranks”.
• DERBY – The City is looking into changing its fiscal year to July 1 through June 30.
• DERBY – Second Ward Alderman James Ralph resigns during a stormy Board of Aldermen meeting, when he was unable to get passed 2 motions to reduce compensation to the street commissioner and his staff.
• SHELTON – The City’s 1932 Grand List is $12,434,161. The list is down $372,017 from last year. The biggest drop is in automobiles, the 1931 list had 3,20, whereas the latest only shows 1,745. Other statistics include: Houses 1703; Barns & garages 1111; Lots 2935; Business buildings 118; 104 mills; 173 horses; 1012 cattle.

February 4

• DERBY – A 5 ton coal truck crashes into a house on New Haven Avenue.
• OXFORD – People are upset in Oxford over the loss of fine old oak, maple, and elm trees to make way for the new state road (Route 67).

February 5

• SHELTON – A 12 year old Golec Avenue boy is injured when his sled collides with a car on Division Avenue.

February 6

• DERBY – The Automobile Dealers’ Association has its annual meeting at the Hotel Clark, where they decide for the first time in years not to hold the organization’s annual automobile show at the Ansonia Armory.

February 7

• ANSONIA – Mutual Aid of Ansonia paid 102 men a total of $640.10 this week.
• SHELTON – School teachers will be asked to sign over 18% of their salaries to help the city pay its bills.

February 8

• ANSONIA – Hundreds attend the opening of a “Prosperity Sale” at the Boston Store. The sale’s main aim is a quick turnover of merchandise, to provide work for the manufacturers. Many bargains can be found.
• SEYMOUR – The Beecher mill, which is on Beecher Street one of the town’s oldest landmarks, has been torn down. It was originally used to manufacture augurs and bits by Frank H. Beecher. The mill was later purchased by the James Swan Company, but has been idle for years. The lumber being sold locally, where it is turning up in many new sheds and other outbuildings.

February 9

• ANSONIA – The Purple Heart Association hands out its first chapter outside of the Valley. Chapter 2 will be in Los Angeles, CA. Other charters are pending.
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund no longer has any work to do, so its workers are idle.
• SHELTON – The Charities Commissioner is “swamped” by requests for used clothing, particularly men’s trousers and bathrobes, and puts out an appeal for used garments.

Friday, February 10

• ANSONIA, DERBY, & SHELTON – The annual District Nurse’s Association meeting is held at Derby Public Library. The Association made 583 social service visits. The acute service breakdown was: Ansonia 873, Derby 686, Shelton 435. Also, a total of 231 people made 453 visits to the 36 dental clinics staged in the 3 cities.

February 11

• The heaviest snowstorm of the year thus far leaves 7 to 8″ of snow.
• ANSONIA – The Home Trust Company, is ready to turn the Pine Manual Training School over to the city of Ansonia, in accordance with the wishes of its benefactor, Gen. Charles Pine.
• ANSONIA – Over 6,000 attend Vocational Exposition at the Ansonia Armory, hosted by the Housatonic Council. Over 450 Boy Scouts participate.
• DERBY – Miss Adelia Stewart Shelton dies at the Greystone mansion, the same home she was born in (where today’s Irving School is). The last surviving child of Edward N. Shelton, she started the first playground in Derby, and was a published poet. She was credited with writing the annual letter from Santa Claus which delighted the girls of the St. James Sewing School, where she was active for decades.
• DERBY – A car containing 3 Derby girls and a New Haven man skids across Derby Avenue, over the trolley tracks and an embankment, and into the Naugatuck River. Stephen O’Shaughnessey witnesses the accident. He alerts the firemen at nearby Paugassett Hook & Ladder Co. No. 4, the police, and another man, who work as a team to rescue the driver and passengers. All are saved, though they nearly drowned.

February 12

• The temperatures fall to 8 below zero this evening.
• ANSONIA – A 2-alarm, $10,000 fire at the Glazer building at 240 Main Street, and burns part of the roof off the Walsh building south of it. The closed Ansonia Grille, a law office, barber shop, apartment, and shoe repair store are wrecked. Vonetes’ Palace of sweets has water damage.

February 13

• ANSONIA – The Board of Aldermen accept the Pine Manual Training School on behalf of the City. They also approve a river wall project for no more than $4,000.
• SHELTON – A controversy begins when a Coram Avenue man insults the Street Commissioner at the Aldermanic Relief Headquarters on Howe Avenue. The Commissioner reportedly slapped the man in the face. Both post conflicting stories in the days ahead as to exactly what happened.
• SHELTON – A double-ripper sled crashes into a parked truck owned by Beard Construction Company on Wooster Street, injuring 2.
• SHELTON – A Walnut Avenue home destroyed after water from a well supplying the Echo Hose pumper gave out. Neighbors manage to save most of the furniture before the fire department arrives.

February 14 

• ANSONIA – The State General Assembly passes a bill allowing the City to issue $300,000 in relief bonds.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 92 men a total of 1670.5 hours on 4 projects, and paid them $644.29 this week.

February 15

• OXFORD – Construction of the new highway is shut down for 2 weeks due to weather.

February 16

• ANSONIA – The Vonetes Brothers is repairing the roof of the Walsh building.
• DERBY – A rash of thefts, including a complaint from Stratford High School that lockers were broken into during an away basketball game, leads to 20 Derby High School boys disciplined.
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund will try out a plan of letting men work for shoes. Geared for men in bad, but not desperate circumstances, they will be paid one shoe a day for themselves or their families.

Saturday, February 18

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid has completed work on the stone retaining wall on the southern side of Tremont Street. Work now shifted to the storm water sewer between First Street and State Street.
• SEYMOUR & OXFORD – The Citizen’s Engine Co. No. 2 will likely stop responding to Oxford. Calls there becoming more frequent, and the firemen are not feeling very much appreciated. In years past donations would come from Oxford, but none have come in lately. Also, not long ago a fire broke out in Seymour while the Citizens were tied up in Oxford, resulting in a fireman being injured. The fire company also occasionally responds to Beacon Falls, Woodbridge, and Bethany.

February 20

• DERBY – The Housatonic Boy Scout Council opens its campaign for funds to meet its 1933 operating expenses. 

February 21

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 38 men in the past week and paid them $308.09.
• DERBY – Miss Adelia Shelton’s will is probated. It includes a $500 trust fund to purchase books for Derby Public Library, adds $1000 to the memorial fund of her father, the late Edward N. Shelton at St. James Episcopal Church. She also left $300 to Long Hill Cemetery in Shelton, where her family is buried. The Greystonemansion is left to 3 nieces.

February 22

• OXFORD – Many want the town to organize its own fire department.

February 23

• DERBY – Former Bridgeport mayor Fred Atwater dies at Bridgeport Hospital. He was born in Derby on December 28, 1870, and his family moved to Bridgeport when he was 8.

Friday, February 24

• DERBY – Frank Vaccaro, former Derby blasting contractor, writes that he got a job with MGM in Hollywood, and just completed his first movie, “Hell Below“, and is starting another called “Tugboat“. Note: the second film was probably “Tugboat Annie“. Since Vaccaro is not mentioned as a cast member or major crew member of both pictures, it is possible he was either an extra or a minor crew member.
• DERBY – A new Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) Grocery Store opens in the former Purdy Drug Company store, in the Hotel Clark at 30 Elizabeth Street.

February 25

• ANSONIA – Vontes Brothers Palace of Sweets reopens for first time since the February 12 fire next door forced it to close. Business is very busy.

February 28

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 83 men on 6 different projects and paid them $533.06 in the past week.
• DERBY – Both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly approve allowing Derby to issue $100,000 in bonds in anticipation of future tax income.

Thursday, March 1, 1933

• ANSONIA – Miss Annie E. Larkin, principal of the Elm Street School, dies at her home on 441 Main Street. She had been the school’s principal for 35 years, and would have celebrated her 50th anniversary of teaching in the school system this June. When she was hired in 1883, Ansonia still a part of Derby, and for a short time she taught at the old Academy Hill School in Derby.
• DERBY – A Derby Relief Fund meeting reveals the average unemployed family in Derby is earning $2.62 per member per month. Those on the charity list are earning $5.93 per month.

March

Friday, March 2, 1933

• SHELTON – The 200 year old George Shelton homestead on Nells Rock Road burns to the ground after the fire department sucks the nearest well dry. The house was in Shelton family for over 100 years, and was sold to the Potiotente family in 1924. This is the second house destroyed by fire in 2 weeks, and the fourth to be destroyed for lack of water in the past few months.

March 3

• ANSONIA – 15 Ansonia Mutual Aid men begin work constructing a new river wall along the Naugatuck between the Maple Street and Bridge Streets bridges, behindBroad Street. Fifty more men will start Monday.
• ANSONIA – Connecticut National Guard, Co. I, based at the Ansonia Armory, will sponsor a Sea Scout Ship called “Ansonia”.

March 4

• All Valley banks remain open, despite the fact that a nationwide bank panic causes many others to close nationwide. 
• ANSONIA – The Second Annual Home Progress Exposition closes at Ansonia Armory. A total of 13,373 visited the five days it was open.
• ANSONIA – Special services at the Congregation of the Sons of Jacob, on Factory Street, asking God’s blessing for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inaugurated as President today.
• DERBY & SHELTON – Trolley car service between East Derby and south Shelton is scheduled to be discontinued today, replaced by busses on the same schedule.
• SHELTON – A large amount of pork is distributed by Shelton Social Services, after a dog kills a boar in the Isinglass District in Huntington. A neighbor shot the dog, and the boar’s owner donated the meat to the needy.

March 6

• Every bank in the United States was ordered closed by President Roosevelt yesterday, in order to stem the nationwide bank panic which led to massive withdrawals. All Valley banks comply, though there was no panic here. Later, Roosevelt says that banks can open if needed to meet payrolls and other vital services, which is a relief to the industrial Valley. This would become known as the Emergency Banking Act.

March 7

• Many local people support President Roosevelt’s drastic moves to stop the bank panic.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual aid employed a total of 134 men on 7 projects and paid them $790.30 in the past week.
• DERBY – A warrant is issued for the arrest of the secretary of the Regionale Marchigiana Club on Hawthorne Avenue. He has disappeared, and is said to have embezzled $1,746.26 from the club. His wife is afraid he may have been the victim of foul play.
• DERBY – The Derby Elks hold their 1,000th regular meeting.

March 8

• Despite all banks ordered closed, most local employees are still getting their paychecks.

Thursday, March 9

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund has given out 7,455 quarts of milk since December of last year. In that time, the unemployed have participated in workfare programs for a total of 4,353 hours. The Fund has also mended 225 pairs of shoes, and distributed 184 shoe repair slips.
• SEYMOUR – Because of a nationwide shortage of cash due to the Emergency Banking Act, local merchants have begun issuing scrip, in 10, 25, and 50 cent notes.
• SHELTON – Probate Judge Thomas Ward, of 571 Howe Avenue, dies. Born in Shelton on January 7, 1882. he was the last Warden (chief elected official) of theBorough of Shelton. He served as a Probate Judge from 1927 until he was voted out of office in 1931, but he was reelected to the position last year. He also served as Shelton’s Fire Chief from 1909 until his death.

March 10

• DERBY – The Derby Gas & Electric Company installs an experimental light on the south side of the Derby-Shelton bridge. It is a 150 watt, cone shaped globe suspended from an arm over the center of bridge. This is different from the usual 4-globe inverted lamps, which have 75 watt lights.
• DERBY – Mrs. Francis Kellogg is elected president of the Connecticut Holstein-Fresian association in Hartford.

March 11

• SEYMOUR – The State Police raid the Germania House on Second Street, and arrests 1 for keeping moonshine.

March 13

• ANSONIA – Mayor Hart reads the first mayor’s quarterly message to the Board of Aldermen in a number of years. It once was a city tradition.
• ANSONIA – Miss Annie Hine, an Ansonia public school teacher for 50 years, dies at her home on 34 Winter Street. Born in Oxford, she moved to Ansonia as a young girl. She retired in 1927 from the Fourth Street School.
• ANSONIA – Thomas Wentworth dies at the age of 75, at his home on 142 Tremont Street. He was a local grocer for 36 years, who retired several months before his death. 
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Savings Bank is given permission to reopen in accordance with the Emergency Banking Act.

March 14

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 141 men on the Naugatuck River Wall project in past week. In all, Mutual Aid employed 253 men, and paid them $1,124.31 for working on 7 projects in the City.

March 15

• Valley banks are finally given Federal permission to reopen, in accordance with the Emergency Banking Act. This includes Ansonia National Bank, Birmingham National Bank, Derby Savings Bank, Home Trust Company, Seymour Trust Company, and the Shelton Trust Company. Much gold is being turned in for cash, in accordance with the Federal Act, $34,000 was turned into Ansonia National Bank alone. There is also a $25 withdrawal limit at the Savings Banks right now, unless the customer can prove a hardship. All banks have long lines, and many make a record number of transactions today. Business is also brisk in the Valley downtowns, as people finally have cash again.
• ANSONIA – Federal agents go to the police station, and ask for an officer to accompany them to 41 Bridge Street for a liquor raid. The agents were about to batter down the Canal Street entrance, when the city police officer suggests they go to the front entrance on Bridge Street. There, they find a notice of attachment placed by the sheriff. The establishment had been closed for 3 weeks.
• SEYMOUR – The Town’s merchants announce that the scrip program will be discontinued due to the reopening of local banks.

Thursday, March 16

• Today is payday for many of the mills, and the rush continues at Ansonia National Bank, Birmingham National Bank, Seymour Trust Company, and other fiscal institutions in the wake of the Valley banks reopened under the Emergency Banking Act. P5 Seymour Trust Company very busy. Scrip being returned, some kept as souveniers.
• DERBY – The Board of Apportionment votes to spend $50 to help defray the expenses of bringing a German field gun to the American Legion grounds. Derby is presently one of only two cities in Connecticut without a World War I trophy, and the Army is running out of captured war prizes.
• SEYMOUR – The scrip handed out by Seymour merchants is being returned now that the Seymour Trust Company has reopened, though some are keeping a few notes a souvenirs.
• SHELTON – The City’s first Cub Scout Pack, the third in the Housatonic Council, registers. Pack 1 is sponsored by the Shelton Methodist Episcopal Church.

March 18

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia National has so far received $99,545 in gold and gold certificates in the past week. The gold is being returned as part of the Emergency Banking Act.
• DERBY – Senate Bill 538, introduced by Sen. Henry Bradley Jr. of East Derby, has passed the Committee on Education of the State General Assembly. The bill calls for state and local history to be taught in public schools.
• SHELTON – Laurel Heights Hospital is now the second largest tuberculosis sanatorium in Connecticut, with a capacity of 350 patients.

March 19

• DERBY – City police officer Stephen Degnan dies at his Caroline Street home after a long illness at age 53. He became a supernumery in 1914, and joined the regular force in 1916. He was shot while searching for chicken thieves at Osbornedale Farm on June 25, 1921, though recovered and returned to duty.

March 20

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Property Owners Protective League votes to incorporate.
• DERBY – A new electrically refrigerated drinking fountain is being installed at City Hall, replacing the old spring water cooler. The new fountain will save the city money on paper cups.
• DERBY – The Griffin Hospital Aid Society sponsors 3 successful amateur one-act plays at Sterling Opera House.

March 21

• ANSONIA – Torrential rain falls, raising fears that preliminary digging done by Ansonia Mutual Aid for the river wall project would be ruined. Although the Naugatuck River did rise, the work was not ruined. 
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 188 men, and paid them $990.04 in wages on 6 projects last week.
• SEYMOUR – At a tumultuous special town meeting, a 23 mill tax rate voted down after a big debate over who would serve as the meeting’s moderator. A group of taxpayers then tries to say that the October 24, 1932 meeting that fixed the city’s budget was held illegally, and with the exception of the item which called for fixing Hoadley’s footbridge, the entire budget should be thrown out. After some debate, this motion is later withdrawn.

March 22

• ANSONIA – On this first clear day of spring work resumes on the Ansonia river wall project, though the north end of it is still impeded by high water which completely surrounds a derrick.
• ANSONIA & DERBY – Ansonia and Derby Fraternal Order of Eagles welcome Grand President Henry J. Berrodin of Akron, OH. The Eagles paraded through Derby and Ansonia, then held a meeting at the Ansonia lodge. After the lodge meeting was concluded, an open meeting was held at the Ansonia Opera House, attended by 700 people.
• DERBY – Southern New England Telephone Company workers remove the teletype machine from the Derby Police Station, which served Derby, Ansonia, and Shelton. Derby and Shelton could no longer afford their share of the yearly rental, and Ansonia could not afford it alone. This was the first police teletype machine in the State.
• DERBY – The Purple Heart Association members approve the charter of the organization’s third chapter, Alexander Hamilton Chapter No. 3 in the Bronx, New York City.
• SHELTON – Miss Helen Upton has opened a drawing school at her Ripton Road home in Huntington.

Thursday, March 23

• ANSONIA – Sen. David Goldstein of Bridgeport, President Pro Tem of State Senate, addresses 300 people at the Jewish Community Center on Factory Street. There he calls Adolph Hitler (who has just been granted dictatorial powers in Germany) “the worst demagogue and clown in the history of Germany, a man unfit to be a street cleaner much less a dictator”. He also predicts his political life “will not long endure”, and says he is not afraid of a similar dictator in the United States.
• DERBY – The Board of Education votes to discontinue school buses in Derby Neck as a economy move starting April 1.
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund has thus far repaired over 375 shoes, and given out 319 shoe repair slips. 443 have registered for the workfare programs. 100 quarts of milk are handed out daily, 9835 to date. Mrs. Frances Kellogg of Osborndale has contributed much of the milk. Soup is given out twice weekly – 402 quarts in all. 2271 articles of clothing have been given to 389 families.

March 24

• ANSONIA – A new factory making women’s and children’s washable dresses opens on third floor of the Tremont Theater Building on Main Street. The factory boasts 120 machines. 150 experienced local garment workers have been or will be hired.
• ANSONIA – A new store opens in the Ansonia Opera House block at 102 Main Street. Herman Schwartz will sell. automobile accessories, and radio and electrical supplies.
• ANSONIA – Roller skates are popular with children, prompting police chief John Mahoney to warn children to keep off the streets on their way to school. There have been a number of close calls recently.

March 25

• DERBY – Derby voters approve a $50,000 bond for public improvements to relieve unemployment by a vote of 493-207. The turnout was light.

March 26

• Heavy snow falls yesterday and today, but it melts quickly when it hits the ground. Had the snow not melted, it would have accumulated to 8″.
• DERBY – A small one story house on 121 Park Avenue is gutted by fire.

March 27

• ANSONIA – Over 500 Jews from Ansonia, Derby, Shelton, and Seymour gather at the Sons of Jacob synagogue on Factory Street to protest the “atrocious excesses” of Adolph Hitler and his persecution of the Jews in Germany. There are also calls for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The group agrees to draw resolutions to send to Connecticut Senators and Congressman.
• ANSONIA – Tenants of 2 buildings had to resort to hauling buckets of polluted water from the Naugatuck River, after the water to their buildings was turned off. The landlords say the tenants were not paying their rent, and without it they couldn’t pay the water bills. The health officer intervenes, and gets the tenants to pay enough rent to get the water turned back on.
• ANSONIA – The stonework of the river wall project has begun today.
• DERBY – Derby Neck residents are up in arms over the discontinuance of school busing in their district, and are starting a petition. Some children must now walk 3.5 miles.

March 28

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 135 men and paid them about $700 in past week. 59 worked on the river wall job.
• DERBY – The New England Brewing Company has been organized, and will operate in the former brewery on Derby Avenue. Prohibition will end, and 3.2% beer will be legal on April 7.

Thursday, March 30

• ANSONIA – The first in a series of roundtable discussions is held at Jewish Community Center on Factory Street. The topic is Germany and “Hitlerism”. Some recommend that the solution to Jewish persecution in Germany is to resettle in Palestine.
• DERBY – Once again, the Derby Relief Fund is facing a shortage of work for its workfare programs.
• DERBY – Stephen O’Shaughnessy, of Hawthorne Avenue, thenational vice president of the Purple Heart Association, is awarded the new Silver Star medal from the War Department for attacking a German 77mm gun with only a 37mm gun while experiencing heavy artillery fire. His attack was successful, though it left him wounded, occurring on October 8, 1918, in the Argonne Forest of France.
• SHELTON – The State General Assembly authorizes the City to issue bonds up to $75,000, for direct relief both in 1933 and 1934.

March 31

• DERBY – The City will soon have a German field gun, which was captured during World War I. It will be placed at Seymour Avenue and Atwater Avenue at the Veteran’s Memorial Home. There are only two captured 155mm German howitzers in acceptable condition left in the US Army inventory, and it will be brought here thanks to the efforts of the John H. Collins Post American Legion.
• DERBY – A fire practically destroys a 2 story house on Hawthorne Avenue in Derby Neck, owned by Mrs. Francis Kellogg. The home was the former Murphy residence just above Cedric Avenue, adjoining the property of the late Sidney Hart.
• SEYMOUR – Despite the end of Prohibition next month, Federal Agents raid a South Main Street address near the Ansonia line. They arrest one man, and seize get 2 stills, along with 1000 gallons of mash and 38 gallons of finished alcohol. The entire operation was a well arranged illegal moonshine plant, with about $1,000 in equipment being used.

April

Saturday, April 1

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid men worked all night last night, and probably will tonight too. They are constructing a manhole on the edge of the Ansonia Canal near the Farrel – Birmingham employment office. The manhole leads to a large pipe which will connect to the storm water sewer under North Main Street, which will carry water runoff after the nearby section of the canal is filled in. Farrel-Birmingham is  building their own sewer, which will cross their property from the manhole to the river. The canal was drained yesterday for the construction project, and some blasting was needed. 
• ANSONIA – In other Ansonia Mutual Aid news, 70′ river wall was completed by Ansonia Mutual Aid in 5 days.
• DERBY – Six “youthful” bandits with sawed off shotguns and revolvers hold up the Charles Celone poolroom at 133 Main Street at midnight. A dozen men and 3 passerby who were unlucky enough to walk past the lookout on the sidewalk were lined against the wall, and a total of $250 in cash, along with watches, rings, etc stolen. The victims are locked in basement while they make their getaway. The car, which is later discovered to have been rented in New York City, ran out of gas in Lordship, Stratford, and the bandits flee.

April 3

• ANSONIA- The City has now gone 4 years now without a diphtheria case.
• OXFORD – The first “peepers” of the year are heard, a sign of spring.

April 4

• DERBY – Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, director of the national Girl Scouts, is a guest of the Sarah Riggs Humphreys DAR at Derby Gas & Electric Company hall. This is the first meeting in the hall since the January 19 fire. Her speech focuses on the Girl Scouts of America.
• DERBY – The investigation into the holdup at the Celone poolroom leads to New York, and that City’s police department is now involved.
• SEYMOUR – All but $23.10 of the $1500 in scrip issued while the Emergency Banking Act was in effect has been returned.
• SEYMOUR – There are several scarlet fever cases in town.

April 5

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund approves $1,000, or about 2,500 man hours, for work on local cemeteries. These include Mt. St. Peter’s, Oak Cliff, Colonial, the Greek and Russian cemeteries, as well as Elm Street and St. Mary’s in Ansonia, and the Jewish Cemetery in Orange.

Thursday, April 6

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid has employed 180 men in the past week, 100 of whom were on river wall project. They were paid $1,145.
• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Water Company is arranging for the unemployed to have use of free garden plots on their land. There will be 40 plots in all, measuring 100′ x 50′.
• ANSONIA – Purple Heart Association national president Frank Cushner gets a letter from the Los Angeles Chapter No. 2 of Purple Heart. Their members worked 3 days and nights on relief work after the Long Beach Earthquake. They now want to form an auxiliary.

April 7

• DERBY – The Board of Aldermen votes to turn off the streetlights on the “white way” on Main Street and Elizabeth Street every night except Saturdays, to save up to $700 per year.

April 9

• DERBY -The treasurer of the Adriatico Marchiangiano Club on Hawthorne Avenue, who has been missing since he was accused of embezzling $1,700 on March 1, surrenders to the Derby Police.

April 10

• ANSONIA – The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union drinking fountain is removed from the front of Ansonia City Hall. The fountain was set up in 1918, but has not been used in recent years. It will be moved to Athletic Field, where it will be hooked up and used by thirsty athletes and fans there. While this may not sound like a big deal, newspapers across the country picked up on the story due to its symbolic value. The drinking fountain was installed by a Prohibition group near the dawn ofNational Prohibition, and now is being moved just as beer is becoming legal again. One minor detail – while beer is legal in some states, the Connecticut General Assembly still has not come up with guidelines for distribution of 3.2% beer, so for now, beer is still illegal in this state.

April 11

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 124 men a total of 2,066 hours on 5 projects this week. 78 worked on the river wall.
• DERBY – The charges against the former treasurer of the  Adriatico Marchiangiano Club on Hawthorne Avenue are dropped, as he and the club have agreed to a restitution plan.
• DERBY – The Ousatonic Water Company has proposed that the City of Derby can save the $600 it pays for renting of Buddies’ Field. The OWC is asking for $220 in annual tax abatements, as well as the acceptance and maintenance of 7 streets in the vicinity that the Water Company owns. In return, the OWC will furnish 100 yards of fill for the street maintenance, and material for a fence on E Street. The proposal receives a lukewarm response, though it is under consideration.

April 12

• The summer cottages along the Housatonic River are being prepared for the summer season.
• A storm which began yesterday continues all day today, turning to sleet and snow in evening, accumulating to 2″ on the ground by evening.

Thursday, April 13

• ANSONIA – The Elizabeth Clarke Hull DAR Chapter will soon mark the Native American settlement and burying ground off Deerfield Lane with stone markers. Previous wooden signs erected there have disappeared. The settlement is on Ansonia Water Company land.
• ANSONIA – The Valley Market opens at the corner of Main Street and Bridge Street, selling groceries, fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
• DERBY – With Prohibition expected to end in Connecticut at any time, the Southern New England Ice Company is leasing the former brewery on Derby Avenue to the Old England Brewing Company. They are building a new brick and frame building, 44’x75′, on the grounds that will serve as a brew house and bottling plant. The work needs to be done by May 5, 2 daily shifts will work on the construction to meet the deadline. Ice making will also continue at the site, as this is still lucrative with so few people owing electric refrigerators.

April 14 – Good Friday

• Over 5,000 hot cross buns are made in Derby bakeries. Opotzner’s Bakery on Howe Avenue made 1,800.
• ANSONIA – High water on the Naugatuck River halts the Ansonia Mutual Aid river wall job. 100′ of wall is completed at this time.
• OXFORD – Oxford will contract with Seymour’s Citizens’ Engine Co. No. 2 for fire protection. Citizens’ will charge Oxford an initial $25 for each response into town and the first hour. Every hour after that will cost an additional $10. Oxford property owners will be assessed 50% of the bill.
• SEYMOUR – Fire destroys a 2 story house near St. Augustine’s cemetery, forcing a mother and children to flee. The only water water supply nearby was a stream, which was not enough to quench the flames.
• SHELTON – The Aldermanic Relief Fund is taking care of 415 families weekly, in addition to the 215 families given aid by the Charties Department. Of the over 900 applications from people seeking assistance have been rejected.

April 15

• DERBY – 20 Derby young men whose families are receiving public welfare will be candidates for the first training contingent of Connecticut’s Civilian Conservation Corps. 

April 16 – Easter Sunday

• The holiday brings cloudy skies, with rain in the afternoon. The churches are filled. 
• DERBY – Methodists hold a sunrise service on McConney’s hill
• SEYMOUR -69 Methodists hold a sunrise service on Skokorat hill
• SHELTON – Methodists hold a sunrise service at Highland Golf Club.

April 17

• ANSONIA – The incessant croaking of frogs from Biddy Lamb and Hotchkiss ponds is driving nearby residents crazy. One resorts to attempting to quiet the the frogs by dynamiting Hotchkiss pond. The frogs are quiet for a minute, then start croaking louder than ever. The mayor and health officer have been called to the scene, and they are reportedly shocked at how loud the frogs are in the ponds. Both ponds had practically dried up, but with protracted rains this season have reformed. 

April 18

• ANSONIA – 36 Ansonia young men whose families are receiving public welfare will be candidates for the first training contingent of Connecticut’s Civilian Conservation Corps. 
• ANSONIA – Ansonia’s Health Officer appeals to the State regarding loud croaking of frogs at Biddy Lamb and Hotchkiss ponds. Draining the ponds is considered too expensive.
• DERBY – Derby Relief Fund workers begin taking care of city cemeteries today. Among the first projects is the building jof a retaining wall at Oak Cliff Cemetery, which adjoins city property.

April 19

• ANSONIA – The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station sends experts to Biddy Lamb and Hotchkiss ponds, and are shocked at what they hear. They have never heard croaking that loud, in all tones from bass to soprano. Their preliminary findings seem to indicate this may be a new species that can hibernate 10 years. Samples are taken to New Haven for further study.
• SHELTON – Federal agents and State troopers raid a Waverly Road barn, and find a 1000 gallon still operating at full steam. A Bridgeport man arrested. This occurs as the State is preparing to make alcohol legal.
• SHELTON – Otto Rapp, proprietor of Rapp’s Restaurant on Howe Avenue, has leased Otter Rock Park on River Road, one mile below the Stevenson Dam, which he will turn into a beer garden called “Rapp’s Old Heidelberg”. He will serve dinners and cater parties and clambakes.

Thursday, April 20

• ANSONIA – Bishop William Jacob Walls, of Chicago, speaks at the first day of the New England youth conference at AME Zion Church. In a stirring address, he says that the current Scottsboro Boys Trial is a trial of all African Americans.
• ANSONIA – Howard Green dies at his home at 74 Elm Street. The 73 year old man came to Ansonia 48 years ago, and was the longtime secretary and treasurer of the Ansonia Flour and Grain Company. A community activist, he was the first to establish a summer playground in the City, behind Mead School which was then located on Factory Street. He was also involved with the Julia Day Nursery School, and served as Ansonia’s Fire Chief, joining the Eagle Hose Hook & Ladder Co. No. 6 in 1886.
• ANSONIA – The frogs which caused such a ruckus at Biddy Lamb and Hotchkiss ponds have been identified as Spadefoot Toads, Scaphiopus Holbrookii, which are extremely rare in Connecticut. It was believed in 1933 that they appeared once every 20 years, breed, then disappear. They were quiet last night. Renowned scientist Dr. Ball of the Peabody Museum spent much of the day researching the ponds. Also, the New York Times writes a scathing editorial defending the frogs and criticizing Ansonia for trying to eradicate them. More information from the Connecticut DEP website on this species can be found on the above link and here (press “cancel” when the print screen appears).
• ANSONIA – The news of the moving of the WCTU fountain from in front of City Hall, and its timing with the end of National Prohibition, has made it as far as France and Romania. The Paris edition of the New York Herald-Tribune contained a poem that was written about the event by a Paris reader.
• SEYMOUR – The town now has 200 new street signs, which were made and erected by Seymour Mutual Aid.

April 21

• ANSONIA – The President of the Connecticut State Federation of Nature Study Clubs visits Biddy Lamb and Hotchkiss ponds. The frogs are now completely gone, though some dead ones remain. The President disagrees with Dr. Ball, and thinks the rare frogs will be back next year. Yale University wants to buy the ponds to study the toads’ habits.
• ANSONIA – A Shelton man falls asleep in back of a friend’s car at the Charters Hose Co. No. 4 Ball at the Ansonia Armory. After the ball, the car is discovered missing. Both the owner and the Shelton man’s wife are frantic, as the man cannot drive. The Shelton man later wakes up in Danbury, alone in the car, with no idea how he got there. “My husband is a sound sleeper”, the wife says.

April 22

• DERBY – The Yale rowing season begins. Kent School beats the Yale freshmen by a third of a length over a mile and 5/16th course.

April 23

• DERBY – Local Italian clubs meet at Sons of Italy Hall on Olivia Street, to organize a Bocce league.
• DERBY – Over 600 young people attend a Young People’s Rally at the Derby Methodist Episcopal Church.

April 24

• DERBY – In an effort to combat sweatshops that drive shirt prices down, the Unity Shirt Company of Seymour Avenue is 1 of 8 Connecticut shirt manufacturers that shuts down to force the prices up and drive the sweatshops out of business.

April 25

• Today is the 9th Tuesday in a row where it has rained – a record for consecutive days of the week for those keeping track.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 128 men on 6 projects in the past week, and paid them $697.74. 85 of them worked on the river wall project.
• DERBY – James J. McGarry of 44 Chapel Street, (Burtville) Derby, is awarded a Purple Hart for being wounded in World War I.

April 26

• SHELTON – The Boards of Aldermen, and Apportionment & Taxation vote unanimously to authorize the mayor to issue $75,000 in relief bonds.

Thursday, April 27

• DERBY – A delegation from Derby Neck appears at a Board of Education meeting to ask for better school transportation. The school busses to the neighborhood were recently discontinued as an economy move.
• DERBY – Lombardi Motor Cars on Minerva Street will now sell International Harvester trucks.
• DERBY – Work begins on improving Academy Hill, using 18 unemployed men. This is the first expenditure involving the $50,000 relief bond issue.

April 28

• ANSONIA – 45 employees of the Ideal Dress Company in the Tremont Theater Building go on strike for higher wages at 1 PM. They are ordered out of the building by the police. The strikers, who are all female, and mostly quite young, demonstrate loudly in front of the building, during which one of the two managers is arrested for hitting a female striker during a heated exchange. The strikers then parade up Main Street to City Hall and deluge the Chief of Police with complaints. They compare the Ideal Dress Company, which only opened recently, to a sweatshop, saying they are working 55 hours for only $3 a week. The Chief says he’ll invite the State Labor Commissioner to Ansonia to investigate. The remaining manager says the reason the wages seem so low is because the jobs earn piece work, and because the factory is new most of the employees are inexperienced and therefore earning less at the present time.

April 29

• ANSONIA – The City Courtroom is packed with strikers and their supporters for the trial of the manager accused of hitting a female striker during yesterday’s walkout at the Ideal Dress Company. The trial is continued to Monday.

May

Monday, May 1

• Temperatures climb to 75 degrees.
• ANSONIA – The two managers of the Ideal Dress Company are arrested by the Ansonia Police Department for employing people under 16 years of age without permits from the State Board of Education. This followed an investigation by the State Department of Labor. Meanwhile, the case of the manager arrested for hitting a female striker is nollied.
• ANSONIA & DERBY – Today is the 45th anniversary of the first electric street car running between Ansonia and Derby, the first use of an electric streetcar in New England.
• SHELTON – The Boards of Aldermen, and Apportionment & Taxation have special meeting, where they ratify action of Mayor Daniel Shelton in selling $75,000 in relief bonds.

May 2

• ANSONIA – All but 10 of the 45 strikers at Ideal Dress Company return to work. The management announces they’ll now make a higher quality of dress, that will give the employees a chance to earn more through piece work. They admit they were previously making cheap dresses, so was not to waste more valuable material while their inexperienced workers learned how to do the job adequately. 
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 161 men on 5 projects, and paid them $968.42. 106 of the men worked on the river wall project.

May 3

• DERBY – Approximately 425 men have applied for work that the City is doing with the recently obtained $50,000 bond issue.

Thursday, May 4

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund employed 82 people this week, a record, and paid them $550.40 Most of them are working on cemeteries and Academy Hill Road improvements.

May 5

• ANSONIA – The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union opens in Ansonia, with the International President giving an address at Christ Church. The hotels are packed.
• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid has spent $1062.35 in the last 4 months on labor.

May 6

• ANSONIA – The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union continues with a grand banquet at the Ansonia Armory.
• ANSONIA – William P. Crawford, armorer at the Ansonia Armory, dies at Griffin Hospital in the early morning. He had been in charge of armory since it was built, and before that was the coachman for Charles Bliss. The Bliss house stood where the Armory would later be built, and Mr. Crawford simply switched his employers, remaining on the same spot. He lived in the armory, being tied to the neighborhood for 44 years.
• DERBY & SHELTON – 40 state police, and the entire regular and supernumerary polices of both cities are on duty for the Yale Regatta. Yale varsity rowing crews win the Blackwell Cup in one of the closest races ever up to that time, beating Penn State by only 1/5th of a second. The Columbia rowing team was a distant third. Yale crews sweep all 4 races. Rain kept crowds small, and there were only 12 cars on the observation train which ran parallel to the race on the Shelton side, the smallest train ever. There wasn’t even a grandstand at Riverview Park as had been on past “Derby Days”.  The Penn State shell capsized in 1 race, dumping 20 into the water. Yale and Columbia crews made sure the rowers made it to a raft before they continued the race. It is felt that the ongoing Great Depression may have lessened crowds.

May 7

• ANSONIA – The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union closes at the Ansonia Congregational Church in Ansonia. The convention delegates adopt a resolution opposing the legalization of alcohol by federal and state governments.
• DERBY – The Polish Falcons officially open their new clubhouse in the former Derby Savings Bank building at Main Street and Caroline Street. The all day program includes a parade from the clubhouse to St. Michael’s Church for mass.

May 8

• ANSONIA – The head of the Ideal Dress Company is fined $40 and costs for employing 4 minors without school certificates, and for doing it for more than 8 hours a day.
• DERBY – Two men are arrested for cutting trees for firewood on Island Park.
• SHELTON – The United Shirt and Blouse Company on 84 Center Street reopens with 125 employees and a 7.5% increase in wages. Employees are now unionized through the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The firm had closed 2 weeks ago to protest low prices from competing sweatshops.

May 9

• It is announced in today’s paper 3.2% beer and wine will be legal in Connecticut tomorrow. 
• ANSONIA – 22 seek liquor permits in Ansonia, 14 for chain stores and rest to individuals.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 168 men and paid them $1084.62 in past week. 83 were put to work on the river wall job.
• DERBY – The Unity Shirt Company reopens on 300 Seymour Avenue with a 7.5% increase in wages. The firm employs 250 girls, and is now unionized through theAmalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The shirt factory has urged other textile manufacturers to unionize and fight sweatshops

May 10 – THE END OF PROHIBITION IN CONNECTICUT – 3.2% beer and wine is now legal in Connecticut, for the first tine since 1919. Despite this, alcohol is in short supply in the Valley. There are 133 alcohol selling permits pending at the Superior Court at New Haven pending, mostly for chain stores in area. 

• ANSONIA – The St. Sebastian Young Men’s Club is organized by Italian youths of Ansonia.
• DERBY – The City is as “dry as a bone”, no one has permits to sell alcohol yet. Chain stores actually have beer in stock, but cannot sell it.
• SEYMOUR – 15 have sought permits to sell alcohol.

Saturday, May 13

• ANSONIA – The Michael Comcowich Post, VFW, hosts 18 drum and bugle corps at its annual competition at Athletic Field. Thousands attend the event, and more watch the corps’ parade through the City, and attend the dance at Ansonia Armory that evening.

May 14

• ANSONIA – An unoccupied house owned by Derby Savings Bank at 269 Beaver Street burns to the ground.

May 15

• ANSONIA – The Board of Education approves cutting teachers’ salaries by 16% due to the Great Depression.

May 16

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 133 men, and paid them $870.87, in the past week on 4 jobs. 79 worked on the river wall project.

Thursday, May 18

• ANSONIA – The American Brass Company permanently shortens its workday from 10 hours to 8 hours.
• DERBY – 15 young men leave for Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) training. Derby’s quota has now been filled.
• DERBY – The Annual Spring Meeting of the Connecticut State Nurses’ Association is held in Derby. The meeting itself takes place at Derby Methodist church, with a luncheon at Hotel Clark.

May 19

• ANSONIA – The MGM traveling motion picture studio sets up in front of City Hall. Nearly 1000 visit. The exhibits shows how movies are made.
• SHELTON – The Sutter Post American Legion will move into the new Tisi building, once it is completed, with a 10 year lease.
• SHELTON – This year, instead of holding Memorial Day exercises alternately in Huntington Congregational or St. Paul’s Church, the services will be held on the Green.

May 21

• ANSONIA – Rt. Rev. E. Campion Acheson, the Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, officiates at the dedication of new a altar in the chapel of Christ Episcopal Church, which was given by church societies and this year’s confirmation class. He also honors Rev. Dr. George Barrow’s 25th year in ministry.
• SHELTON – Rt. Rev. E. Campion Acheson, Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, confirms 25 at the Church of the Good Shepherd.

May 22

• SHELTON – Camp Irving hosts 42 Boy Scout troop leaders from 20 New England councils, for a 3-day course in troop camping, sponsored by the national Scout leadership.

May 23

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid paid $889.98 to 128 men working on 4 projects in the past week. 94 worked on the river wall job. By the end of this week, 600′ of the 1100′ river wall has been completed.
• OXFORD – At a Special Town Meeting, it is voted to build a new Town Building on the north end of Oxford Green, using unemployed labor. The new building will be 26’x32′, one story, located near the Episcopal Church.
• OXFORD – There are many complaints about the new Oxford Highway (today’s Route 34), of ruts, gullies, and bumps.

May 24

• ANSONIA – The City has sent its full quota of young men for the CCC.
• DERBY – 95% of Derby Relief Fund subscriptions have been paid. Oak Cliff, Three Saints, Mt. St. Peters, and St. Marys’ have all sent thank you letters for work done by unemployed labor in their cemeteries. It is also noted the fund has 800 pairs of shoes.
• DERBY – The Old England Brewing Company on Derby Avenue now has 26 employees and makes about 500 barrels of beer every 24 hours. The brewery is awaiting new machinery, after which it will probably go to 40 employees and make 1000-2000 barrels a day.
• SHELTON – The Laurel Heights Sanatorium office manager, in charge of payroll, is being sought by the State and local police for obtaining money under false pretenses and embezzlement of $4,200. The 42 year old manager is well known in Shelton, having come to the sanatorium as a patient in 1916. He allegedly padded the payroll.

Friday, May 26

• DERBY – At a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen, it is agreed to re-grade Talmadge Street and recondition the Strom Engine Company’s old chemical fire engine. Both issues are controversial.

May 27

• ANSONIA – The Elizabeth Clarke Hull Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Ansonia Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and 400 people attend the dedication of a new stone gateway and markers at the old Paugassett settlement and cemetery off Deerfield Lane.

May 28

• ANSONIA – St. Joseph’s Hall on Jewett Street hosts the City’s memorial services, sponsored by the Ansonia Memorial Day Association. Rev. Howard B. Warren, pastor of the Ansonia Methodist Church, delivers the keynote address.
• DERBY & SHELTON – Dr. Jerome Higgins, Derby High School Principal, gives the keynote address at the Derby-Shelton Memorial services at Shelton High School.

May 29

• ANSONIA – Students from Ansonia and Pine High Schools gather at the Capitol Theater to hear George Lyon, one of the city’s two remaining Civil War veterans give an address.
• DERBY – Eight are injured, none seriously, when a car goes over a 15′ embankment off New Haven Avenue.

 May 30 MEMORIAL DAY 

• ANSONIA – Thousands turn out for the Memorial Day Parade and exercises at Pine Grove Cemetery and St. Mary’s cemeteries.
• DERBY & SHELTON – The Derby-Shelton Memorial Day Parade starts in Shelton and ends at the Civil War soldier monument on Derby Green.
• SEYMOUR – The Seymour Memorial Day Parade draws many from nearby towns.

May 31

• ANSONIA – A child releases 50 albino white rats that his mother made him get rid of behind Fountain Hose Co. No. 1. Many children show up to catch them in the neighborhood and Pine Grove. The adults turn out to watch the children. Those rats that are caught are taken home, to mixed reaction from the children’s’ parents. Later in the evening, after the children had gone, the neighborhood cats move into the area and take care of any remaining rats.
• OXFORD – The Lounsbury House in Oxford Center, an old Colonial owned by a New York City party and used as a summer home, burns to the ground. The fire spreads to a small caretaker house adjacent to it. By the time the Seymour Fire Department arrives, both houses are destroyed, and the neighbors couldn’t do much prior to their arrival.
• SEYMOUR – A New Street house badly damaged by fire at 2 AM. Just when the fire seemed to be out, the fire department was sent to Oxford for another fire at 5 AM (see above). While at Oxford, the fire broke out again at the New Street house at 7 AM, and the firemen had to rush back from Oxford to put it out.
• SHELTON – The fire damaged former Huntington Piano Company building has been sold to James Dickie of Fairfield, who says he will make it into a 2 story building.

June

Friday, June 2

• ANSONIA – The final shipment of government flour is doled out at a Canal Street railroad siding by the National Guard unit from the Ansonia Armory. People line up with baby carriages, wagons, wheelbarrows, etc., to get all they can.

June 3

• DERBY – A 53 year old Shelton woman dies of injuries sustained last week, when she was hit by a parked car that had been pushed onto the Main Street sidewalk. The parked car had been struck a Derby Fuel & Ice Company truck.

June 5

• ANSONIA – St. Joseph’s Polish Roman Catholic Church has purchased 35 acres from the Ansonia Water Company on New Haven Avenue (Pulaski Highway). This is the future Warsaw Park.

June 7

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund had distributed 20,065 quarts of milk in 5 months, 1680 in the past week alone. In all, it has spent $4903.25 on workfare projects which employed 836 men a total of 12,524 hours.
• SHELTON -The Laurel Heights Sanatorium office manager and secretary, pleads guilty in superior court of embezzling $6,729 from the hospital He is sentenced to 1-3 years in State Prison.
• SHELTON – The 29 children who live in the old French District (the Meadow Street area) will likely lose their school bus to the new Commodore Hull School this fall as an economy move.

Thursday, June 8

• The Northeast is in the grip of a major heat wave. The temperatures reach 92 degrees, with high humidity.
• SEYMOUR – Schools close due to the high heat and humidity.

June 9

• The heat wave continues. The temperatures are once again 92, though less humid then yesterday. An evening thunderstorm dumps little rain on the Valley (though it causes damage elsewhere), but it lowers the temperatures 14 degrees.
• ANSONIA – Standard Oil sells its property on Main and Division Streets. It includes a 2 story brick building, 2 garages, and a service station. The site used to be the location of oil and gasoline storage tanks, which served as the distribution point throughout the area.
• SEYMOUR – The swimming pool at Legion Park will open this weekend.

June 12

• Temperatures are near 100 degrees. An evening thunderstorm brings heavy rain, and drops the mercury 30 degrees.
• SHELTON – The Board of Aldermen approve projects on 11 dirt roads with state Good Roads funds. Affected roads include stretches of Waverly Road, Ripton Road, Willoughby Road, White Hills Road, Walnut Tree Hill Road, as well as its “left fork” (today’s North Street), Long Hill Avenue, 3 miles of Huntington Street, as well as Grove Street, and Coram Road.

June 13

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Property Owners’ Protective League publishes a letter in the Evening Sentinel calling for salary cuts to the Police Department as an economy move.
• SEYMOUR –  West Church Street will be improved with state Good Roads money.
• SHELTON – The Apex Tool and Cutter Company of Bridgeport is taking over the former Silver Plate Cutlery factory on Canal Street. The firm will employ over 50 skilled mechanics.

June 14

• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid is currently employing 27 men, who relinquish all other charity as a condition of employment. They are working on Lafayette Field, also inside Lafayette School and Shelton High School, as well as grading Riverview Park.

Thursday, June 15

• ANSONIA – A horrible tragedy ensues when a 14 year old Canal Street boy is killed when he climbs up a 40′ tall Derby Gas & Electric tower near Wooster Street and touches a high tension wire. He is stuck on the tower for some time, in full view of many witnesses, with electricity surging through him, before he plunges to the ground. He died on the way to the hospital. His father died a week ago, and his mother is hospitalized after she collapses at the scene.
• DERBY – Derby High School graduates 110 at Commodore Hull Theater, its largest class ever up to that time. This is the first time the graduation exercises are held at the theater, previously they were in the high school auditorium, and before that in Sterling Opera House. James Ramsbottom is the valedictorian, while Frances Margaret O’Connell is the salutatorian.

June 19

• ANSONIA – Over 400 attend attend formal opening of the new Jewish Community Center at the Congregation Sons of Jacob synagogue on Factory Street.

June 20

• Today was the first time in 16 weeks that rain did not fall on a Tuesday, despite threatening skies.
• Today Connecticut is formally voting for 21st Amendment, which will  repeal of the 18th Amendment, and end nationwide Prohibition of alcohol sales. Voter turnout is light in most cities and towns. The tallies are:
          ANSONIA – 2724 to 328 in favor of repeal.
          DERBY – 1713 to 130 in favor of repeal.
          OXFORD – 74 to 23 in favor of repeal.
          SEYMOUR – 722 to 169 in favor of repeal.
          SHELTON – 1924 to 466 in favor of repeal.
• DERBY – A Special Meeting of the Board of Aldermen is held to devote state funds to continuing the Academy Hill Road project.

June 21

• ANSONIA – Ansonia High School and Pine High School hold the City’s 50th annual commencement at the Capitol Theater. Bernard Mochan is the salutatorian, while Miss Frances Brodie is the valedictorian. Miss Flora L. Terry, the surviving member of the first graduating class of two seniors of the Class in 1883, announces a $500 fund has been established at Ansonia Savings Bank to purchase books for Ansonia Public Library. The brother of the other student from the Class of 1883, the late Emma Walsh, also donated $250 to the fund, which is in memory of Wilbur F. Gordy, Ansonia’s first school superintendent.
• SEYMOUR & OXFORD – Seymour High School graduates 64 students at the Strand Theater. Marie Conroy is the salutatorian, while Blanche Mikoda is the valedictorian. Over 100 are left standing outside, as there was no room for them in the crowded theater. The class also includes students from Oxford.

Friday, June 23

• ANSONIA – A large portion of the Ansonia Canal will close for good tonight. A dirt dam has been built across it near the Cliffway. Another dam has been built near the old brass mill office in the north end of town, near Liberty Street. The Canal will be filled in between the dams. An old concrete wall that blocked an ancient tail race at Farrel-Birmingham has been broken to let the water out. The canal basin below Tremont Street will be retained to supply water for the nearby copper and wire mills.
• SHELTON – Shelton High School graduates 69 seniors in the school auditorium. The number is significantly lower than last year’s graduates, which was 83. The salutatorian is Marian Patricia Calderwood, while the valedictorian is Bertha Gurland.
• SHELTON – A number of men who benefited from the Shelton Mutual Aid workfare program are now contributors to it.

June 24

• DERBY – The City hosts the 27th convention of the Connecticut Fraternal Order of Eagles, at Eagles’ Hall. Over 500 attend. The Derby order started in 1904.
• SHELTON – A new 5.5 mile road will be constructed between White Hills and Monroe later this summer or fall.
• SHELTON – The City’s Charities Department is spending over $1,200 weekly.
• SHELTON – Workmen start razing the top 4th floor of the old Huntington Piano Company building on the corner of Howe Avenue and Center Street. It will be 3 stories afterwards. This later became the Lower Naugatuck Valley Boys & Girls Club, which burned down in 1991.

June 25

• ANSONIA – The 30th anniversary celebration at the Swedish Methodist Church on Franklin Street closes.

Thursday, June 29

• ANSONIA & DERBY – Reemployment in the mills has allowed the Ansonia Charities Departments to drop 100 cases, reducing $1000 a month. Derby has experienced a drop in its cases, too.

June 30

• ANSONIA – All but 275′ of the river wall project has been completed. It is expected that Ansonia Mutual Aid workfare employees will finish it by August 1. A total of 2,000 cubic yards of fill was used to fill in the gully just above the Bridge Street Bridge.
• DERBY – City playgrounds are closed again this year due to the Great Depression.

Saturday, July 1

• ANSONIA – The State will repave the Maple Street Bridge, and from there Main Street to Bridge Street, as well as Howard Avenue from Colburn School to Short Street and a section of Grove Street from top of the hill to Mary Street.
• DERBY – A severe rain storm causes a washout on Academy Hill. Gravel covers the trolley tracks on Derby Avenue, and for several hours riders had to change trolleys at the brewery. 250 telephones are out of service due to downed lines.
• OXFORD – Camp Palmer, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, opens for its 12th season on Lake Zoar.
• SEYMOUR – Seymour Mutual Aid is installing a new sidewalk on Derby Avenue in front of Union Cemetery.
• SHELTON – Improvements in the industrial sector has resulted in 100 cases removed from Department of Charities, saving $1000 a month.

July 2

• SHELTON – Housatonic Council Boy Scout Camp Irving opens for its 16th season on Lake Housatonic. 44 boys are in the opening session.

July 3

• DERBY – The Recreation Camp announces new classes for lifesaving on the water.

 July 4 – INDEPENDENCE DAY

• Low temperatures during the day. Rain falls in the evening, torrential at times. 
• ANSONIA – There is less noise than usual this year, though there were 4 fireworks injuries.
• ANSONIA – Fire breaks out in an old brick powder house located on the American Brass Company property at Woodlot on The Flats. The building was used to store explosives during wartime and for river diversion projects. The damage is slight.
• SEYMOUR – The Town is “unusually quiet” this Fourth of July.
• SEYMOUR – Fire badly damages a vacant, small tenement house behind 809 South Main Street.

July 5

• ANSONIA – The City now has 56 men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Their first checks will arrive this week. The men get $5, while their families back home get $25. The extra $1400 a week flowing into the City’s economy is a much needed boast during the Great Depression. Mutual Aid of Ansonia helped raise the quota of men for City up to 56.
• ANSONIA – The State Police raid a North State Street property, and seize a 200 gallon copper still and alcohol. 2 are arrested.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Girl Scout Day Camp opens with 62 in attendance, the largest number on record.
• SHELTON – Naugatuck Council Boy Scout Camp Pershing opens for its 15th season on Lake Housatonic.

July 6

• DERBY – Derby has permission to use state dirt road money to repave a couple square blocks of streets formed by Caroline Street, Third Street, Fourth Street and Minerva Street. Also Caroline from Fourth to Fifth Street, and Fourth from Minerva to Elizabeth Street.

July 7

• DERBY – Land sales in the Academy Hill Road area are picking up, due to the new improved roadbed which should eliminate damaging washouts.

July 8

• SHELTON – A new 16.5′ long, 26′ wide slab bridge built “on the Huntington Road beyond the first reservoir” by unemployed at a cost of $564.69. This is modern day Shelton Avenue, just west of Meadow Street.

July 10

• ANSONIA & DERBY – The hourly wages at Farrel-Birmingham go up 10% on this day. Also the 8 hour day – 40 hour week is adopted for all employees. This is tied to President Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act.
• OXFORD – Otto Rapp announces he has purchased a 40’x60′ tent for the Old Heidelberg Beer Garden. This will completely cover the banquet tables, protecting them from sun and rain.
• SHELTON – OK Tool Company employees get a 10% raise and adopt the 40-hour work week as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

July 12

• ANSONIA – The public swimming pools at Mead School, Colburn School, and Fourth Street Schools open.
• DERBY – Police officer Thomas Conaty, the oldest member of Derby Police Department, dies suddenly at home at 260 Hawkins Street. He wore Badge No. 1. He was appointed to the police department on August 3, 1907. He had also been a member of the Storm Engine Co. No. 2 since May 4, 1892, and served two terms on the Board of Aldermen in the first decade of the 1900s.
• SHELTON – 21 girls attend the first session of the Derby-Shelton Girl Scout Council Camp Millcroft off Huntington Street. In all there will be 12 sessions. 

Thursday, July 13

• ANSONIA – American Brass Company employees will get a 8% wage increase, effective next week. Many factories are increasing their stock in anticipation of having to hire more men due to the 40 hour weeks called out by National Industrial Recovery Act. On average Valley employees work a 10 to 12 hour day now.
• DERBY – A pair of sand sharks are found swimming near the Derby-Shelton Bridge. A number of men get on boats in an attempt to spear them, while about 150 watch. One is caught, and it weighs in at 20 pounds.
• SEYMOUR – “The hotels in Squantuck have many guests who may be seen bathing in the clear waters of the Housatonic, riding in various types of river craft, and hiking through the woodsy roads that wind over the hills. Could the staid old residents of former days, now sleeping in Squantuck cemetery, come to live they would be more than startled at the change in their quite valley. Would it be the motorboats shooting noisily through the waters, or the stream of motor vehicles flying over the hard roadway, or the unbelievably abreviated costumes of summer folks that would startle them most? We often wonder”.

July 14

• DERBY – The Industrial Association of the Lower Naugatuck Valley meets at Hotel Clark. Take agree to take no action regarding the National Industrial Recovery Act because each industry will be effected differently, and in some cases its hard to tell how.
• DERBY – The Charities Department will exceed by $5,000 to $10,000 the estimate submitted to the Board of Apportionment & Taxation last fall.
• SHELTON – A 14 year old girl, bedridden for 10 years, is rescued from her second floor bedroom by her mother just before the house is destroyed in an early morning fire on Kings Highway. The Fire Department had no water source nearby to fight the fire.
• SHELTON – Rumors that the Civilian Conservation Corps will being working in Indian Well State Park are not confirmed.

July 15

• ANSONIA – A car overturns on Prindle Avenue. A Derby woman is seriously injured, she is not expected to live. Another victim is hospitalized, with another 2 others treated and released.

July 16

• OXFORD – The cornerstone of the new town building and public library is laid on Oxford Green with impressive ceremonies. What we would today call a time capsule is placed in it.

July 17

• SHELTON – Employees of the Shelton Basket Company start a 40 hour workweek with an increase in wages from ranging 5 to 12.5% today.
• SHELTON – The Sudella dump on River Road has been burning for 2 days now.

July 18

• ANSONIA – Ansonia has received $2,100, which it its share from State for issuing new beer permits.

July 19

• ANSONIA – The City’s two synagogues, Sons of Israel and Sons of Jacob, plan to merge next week. The Sons of Israel synagogue on Colburn Street will be closed in favor of the Sons of Jacob synagogue on Factory Street. The merger is the culmination of years of negotiations.
• DERBY – The City Health officer urges precautions after issuing a rabies warning.
• OXFORD – 100 Bridgeport Boy Scouts have arrived at Camp Pomperaug on Lake Zoar. In all 264 are registered so far this summer.

Thursday, July 20

• DERBY – The Purple Heart Association holds a special meeting, and announces that its first National Convention will be held at the Sterling Opera House on  September 22 and 23.
• OXFORD – “The huckleberry season is now on in Oxford and large quantities of the succulent fruit that makes the best of pie timber and preserves are being picked in the fields and woodlands”.
• OXFORD – Heavy thunderstorms sweep the State, though the worst damage seems to be here. Some state that two violent thunderstorms actually merged over Oxford, producing torrential rains that cause small streams to dramatically swell, and gale force winds lays corn to the ground. The flood washes away the temporary wooden bridge on the Seymour-Oxford (today’s Route 67) road over the Little River. Several dirt roads are so washed out they are considered destroyed. Lowlands areas are flooded, destroying crops and washing out gardens. In some places, the water rose from 5′ to 8′ over its original level. Telephone and power lines are down north of the Center. Large trees are felled near the Oxford Hotel. Residents say they can’t remember a storm this bad. The bridges near Chestnut Tree Hill Road and Riggs Street are destroyed. Hail the size of quarters fall in some sections. A barn is hit by lightning, killing a dog.
• SEYMOUR – Many telephone wires are down too.
• SEYMOUR – The town’s share from the state sale of beer permits is $800.
• SHELTON – White Hills residents have been overrun by rabbits, which are destroying gardens. Now they are being told by the State Deputy Game Warden they may shoot jackrabbits, but not cottontails, even if they are caught destroying a garden, because cottontails are endangered.

July 21

• ANSONIA – Children save a 1 year old collie thrown into a well in the woods between Rockwood Avenue and Ellis Street. The dog had a stone attached to its neck with a rope. Residents are incensed at the cruelty, but their anger knows no bounds when six hours later a second dog is found thrown in the same well, again with a stone around its neck, 6 hours later. It is rescued by the Ansonia Police Department.
• DERBY – The Academy Hill Road job is almost done, and is now one of the finest stretches of pavement in the City.
• SHELTON – The New Haven Railroad asks the police department for help in controlling train jumpers riding between Shelton and Stevenson. Boys are starting to get in the habit of doing it to reach favored swimming spots along the Housatonic River.

July 22

• SHELTON – The 46 members of the newly organized Pine Rock Park Fire Co. No. 4 announce they have completed a new firehouse. The firehouse’s hall can accommodate 200 people. The members are building an adjacent swimming pool for the Pine Rock Park neighborhood, too. The fire company has the approval of the City fire commissioner, and is delegated with responding to fires in and around the Pine Rock Park section. The firehouse was located on what is today the corner of Algonquin and Seneca Trails

July 23

• 96 degrees in the shade, humid.
• ANSONIA – A pitcher is overcome by heat at a baseball game.
• ANSONIA – A 47 vehicle convoy from World Brothers Circus begins unloading at Pioneer Field. Attractions include Goliath, said to be largest elephant in the world, and by amazing coincidence the promoters announce that today is his 109th birthday. Little Nemo, billed as the smallest elephant in the world, is also in the menagerie. 

July 24

• 98 degrees in the shade, humid.
• ANSONIA – The World Brothers Circus is sold out.
• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Chamber of Commerce has a special meeting, and votes to telegraph the administrator of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) saying they will cooperate fully.
• ANSONIA – Fire guts a home at 66 Colony Street.
• SHELTON – 4,000 people visit Indian Well State Park over the weekend.
• SHELTON – The City’s biggest employer, the Sidney Blumenthal Company (Shelton Looms) starts a 40 hour week for its employees in the Production Department, and expand to 3 shifts. Hourly and piece work rates are being raised. This is in compliance with NIRA code.

July 25

• OXFORD – A 22-year old Bridgeport man goes under in Lake Zoar. Derby Gas & Electric Company rushed to the scene with its resuscitator, but the the victim could not be found. His body is recovered the next morning by State Police.
• SHELTON – The Charities Commissioner is considering establishing a farm barracks to put idle men to work. An outlying farmer is offering use of his land and a house for the purpose.

July 26

• SHELTON – Hundreds have been gathering at the Sidney Blumenthal Company for the past few days, hoping to get new jobs that are being created by the new 40-hour workweek. (Which is exactly what NIRA intended!)

Thursday, July 27, 1933

• DERBY – Derby firms that are about to comply with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) are: Sterling Pin Company, Hershey Metals, Union Fabric Company, the F. Kelley Company, Creamery Package Company, M&P Corset Company. The Derby Steel Company on Housatonic Avenue is already in attendance.

July 28

• DERBY – In a hopeful sign, the expenses of the Charities Department are falling.
• SEYMOUR – The Seymour Merchants’ Association telegrams President Roosevelt its endorsement of NIRA.

July 29

• SEYMOUR – The West Church Street road job being done by unemployed labor with Good Roads funds is nearing completion.
• SHELTON – Over 300 attend the grand opening and dedication of the new Pine Rock Park Fire Company firehouse.

July 30

• Temperatures are up to 100 degrees. Downtown streets are deserted. People flock to the river and shore to beat the heat.
• SEYMOUR – Over 800 people, a record, crowd into the Legion swimming pool.
• SHELTON – Over 6,000 people at Indian Well State Park, which at the time was the largest one day total since park opened 3 years before. 1,000 cars are parked in the lots.

July 31

• Temperatures reach 101 at noon.
• ANSONIA – The Retail Merchants Branch of the Ansonia Chamber of Commerce meet at City Hall. They invite all merchants, from all Valley cities and towns, to coordinate their compliance with NIRA.
• DERBY – 700 pack the Recreation Camp waterfront.
• DERBY – The Derby Business Men’s Association telegrams President Roosevelt that it endorses NIRA. The Union Fabric Company is now in compliance with the act. 
• DERBY & SHELTON – The 270 employees employed in the plants of the Sponge Rubber Products Company are now working a 35-hour week with a 20% wage increase, in compliance with NIRA.
• SEYMOUR – Another record is set when 1,000 people crowd into the Legion swimming pool.

August

Tuesday, August 1

• Temperatures are 98 degrees.
• ANSONIA – Ansonia Manufacturing Company adopts the 40 hour work week and raises its wages about 25% in compliance with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).
• ANSONIA – The directors of Ansonia Chamber of Commerce meet at City Hall to organize for the national recovery drive.

August 2

• ANSONIA – The new Naugatuck River wall is completed today, by the members of Ansonia Mutual Aid. The derrick that assisted in the construction is being dismantled. The Ansonia Garden Club will plant shrubs along the new wall, which greatly improves the of the west side riverbank.
• ANSONIA – Warner Brothers will replace the original 1,100 leather seats at the Capitol Theater with new rubber air cushion seats.
• SEYMOUR – Seymour stores will end their long tradition of staying open late on Thursdays to comply with NIRA.

Thursday, August 3

• Another half inch of rain overnight helps parched farmers. The temperature was 93 degrees before the rain made it drop.
• The Valley’s demand for ice is up 50% due to the heat wave. The Southern New England Ice Company is bringing in 3 box cars a day, each with 30 tons each of artificially produced ice, to meet the demand.
• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid has spent $3,513.35 in 7 months putting unemployed to work – $750 last month alone.
• SHELTON – The City receives $800 from the State as its share from state beer license money.

August 4

• SHELTON – The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) administration is requesting the Sidney Blumenthal Company to operate its looms which make automobile upholstery and dress velvet 96 hours a week, instead of 80, due to the seasonal nature of business. In order to do this, the plant will operate 6 days a week, and daily hours will remain the same.

August 5

• DERBY – Academy Hill Road will be extended to New Haven Avenue.

August 6

• OXFORD – Thomas Pratt, superintendent of Ansonia Public Works, saves a 2 year old child from drowning in Lake Zoar by jumping in and pulling it out.
• SHELTON – A 12 year old Riverview Avenue girl drowns below the Maples.

August 7

• ANSONIA – The American Brass Company starts 35 hour workweek, 7 hours a day, to meet its National Industrial Recovery Act standards. This replaces the 40 hour, 4 day workweek it recently adopted. Wages will rise from 35 to 40 cents an hour. 73 Ansonia firms have thus far joined NIRA, and the Ansonia Chamber of Commerce have also endorsed it.
• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Property Holders’ Protective League meets. A proposal to build new Ansonia High School is slammed, as was Police Commissioners “unfavorable attitude” toward cutting police officers’ salaries. The restoration of part of the emergency pay cuts from teachers’ salaries is also opposed.
• ANSONIA & DERBY – Farrel-Birmingham goes to a 35 hour work week, with a 14.5% raise in wages, in compliance with NIRA.
• DERBY – The Derby Businessmen’s Association agrees to a 52 hour week for all stores, except food and hardware, in compliance with NIRA.
• SEYMOUR – Seymour Mutual Aid has been making improvements to Union Cemetery for the last 3 weeks. The work should be done within a week.

August 8

• The heaviest thunderstorms of the summer dump 1.81″ of needed rain.
• ANSONIA – 42 more new firms have joined NIRA.

Friday, August 11

• SHELTON – Due to popular demand, Boy Scout Camp Irving will remain open an extra 7th week, starting Sunday. Other Housatonic summer camps are preparing to close.
• SHELTON – The Wheeler Street work relief project is nearly completed.

August 14

• ANSONIA – The Board of Aldermen approve a double entry system for keeping track of City accounts, over the objections of Mayor Hart and the City Treasurer. Implementing the new system will cost $700.
• ANSONIA – American Brass Company returns to 40-hour week, after unsuccessful experimenting with a 35-hour week. 
• DERBY – There are complaints that some Derby stores are not adhering to National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) codes.

August 15

• ANSONIA – The City’s Postmaster telegraphs Washington D.C. that he needs more blue emblem NIRA posters (which have the new, shorter acronym “NRA” for“National Recovery Act”). The 160 sets that were originally issued have been handed out. The new posters (see below) arrive 2 days later. In other NRA news, Valley gas retailers meet at Tomlinson Garage on Wakelee Avenue and agree to 40 hour work week to comply with the Act.

• SEYMOUR – The old Congregational Cemetery off South Main Street may be extended.
• SHELTON – The Shelton Theater is being renovated. The marquee has been painted red and yellow, with large “Shelton” letters on it. Two large NRA blue eagle insignia are painted on either side of the front door, and these attract a lot of attention.
• SHELTON – Grocers are upset that chain stores are opening earlier and closing later than NRA regulations. Meeting this evening, they agree to split downtown into 3 zones, Howe Avenue, Center Street, and the other neighborhoods. Each zone will have different hours of operation. This will allow Howe Avenue merchants to compete with the chain stores.

August 16

• DERBY – Good news is reported to the Board of Apportionment, that 75 names were removed from the charities list last month. Expenses have dropped from $2,200 to $1,300 a month for the Charities Board.
• DERBY & SHELTON – The State Emergency Relief Commission makes its first disbursement of federal funds. Derby gets $7,147.38, while Shelton gets $7,894.99.

Thursday, August 17

• ANSONIA – A recreation center has been established out of AME Zion Church for African Americans from the City and its vicinity, called the Negro Community Center (NCC).
• ANSONIA – Mayor Hart vetoes a resolution for a double entry accounting system. He vetoes a new driveway from the west end of Bridge Street Bridge to the adjoining property of James Fitzgerald.
• ANSONIA – The timbers of a railroad trestle over the Ansonia Canal crack under the weight of a switcher passing over it. Immediately sensing the danger, the engineer throws the switcher’s accelerator thrown wide open. The engine gets off in time, as the trestle partly collapses behind him. The entire switcher could have fit into the gap and plunged into the Canal.
• ANSONIA – Shoe makers and shoe shine proprietors form an organization that agrees to a temporary code regulating open and closing hours, and endorse the National Recovery Act. Hardware dealers also organize under NRA today. 

August 18

• SHELTON – The abandoned passenger station off lower White Street, which has been abandoned for several years since the New Haven Railroad combined its operations with Derby, has been leased to the Sheehy Brothers Trucking Company for use as a warehouse and headquarters. The area has been renamed Sheehy Square.

August 19

• ANSONIA – An early morning fire guts the Ansonia Tavern on 402 Main Street.
• SEYMOUR – The covered bridge over the Naugatuck River on Bank Street will soon be replaced by the State. It is only one of four still in use by automobiles in Connecticut at this time, the others are in Beacon Falls over the Naugatuck, and Bull’s Bridge and Cornwall, both over the Housatonic. Built about 1857-58, it is also considered the oldest covered bridge still in use as of this date.
• SEYMOUR – Citizen’s Engine Company win the Best Appearing award at State Firemen’s Convention in Old Saybrook.

August 20

• DERBY – Five Massachusetts young women walk from Springfield to Derby in 25 hours on a $50 bet from their boyfriends. They arrive at the police station soaking wet and tired after walking 75 miles in that time. A sixth companion dropped out in Hartford. No word on whether their boyfriends made good on the bet they lost.

August 21

• 2.28″ of rain falls. The August total is almost 6″ so far.
• ANSONIA – The Board of Aldermen makes a resolution to only do business with NRA compliant firms.

August 22

• ANSONIA – There are currently 255 firms that have endorsed NRA in the City.
• DERBY – There are currently 128 firms that have endorsed NRA in the City.
• ANSONIA, DERBY, & SHELTON – They mayors of the three cities all favor a joint sewage treatment plant, but fear the cost would be too much even with federal aid.
• SHELTON – There are currently 90 firms that have endorsed NRA. The new 5.8 mile Shelton-Monroe Road, which will be designated Route 110, has been submitted to NRA administrator with the request that 30% of it be financed by the Federal government. The current route between downtown Shelton and Monroe Center is 8 miles.

August 23

• A major storm, now called the 1933 Chesapeake Potomac Hurricane, strikes the Atlantic Coast, bringing high winds with 80 mph gusts and 1.17″ of rain, frightening many. Limbs fall down, and there is some damage to crops. Most summer flower gardens are destroyed.
• ANSONIA – The Naugatuck River is up 2′. For the first time, it is touching the bottom of the foundation of the new river wall for first time.
• ANSONIA – There is much talk about building a new Ansonia High School due to overcrowding, but it is not expected that Federal Aid will be coming soon.
• DERBY – Some power and telephone lines are down.
• SEYMOUR – Trees are down.
• SHELTON – Country roads are washed out, shutters and awnings blown off, and trees are down.

Thursday, August 24

• ANSONIA – William O. Wallace dies at his Clifton, New Jersey son’s home. The son of the local inventor and industrialist of the same name, at the time of his death he was the last Eagle Hose, Hook & Ladder Co. No. 6 charter member, and served as its Foreman (Captain) from 1887 to 1890. He is buried at Pine Grove.

August 25

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Property Holders’ Protective League code of fair competition is accepted by the National Recovery Act administration.

August 26

• ANSONIA – As of this date, 272 Ansonia firms have signed up for the NRA.

August 27

• SEYMOUR – An elderly man hit by car on River Road near Actors Colony is in critical condition at Griffin Hospital. The Bridgeport driver who hit him is arrested. The victim is unidentified.
• SHELTON – About 1,000 attend the automobile races at the old Huntington Fairgrounds off Mohegan Road.

August 30

• DERBY – A temporary injunction is obtained by the Southern New England Ice Company, in its sale of its Derby Avenue brewery to the Old England Brewing Company, on the grounds that the previously agreed upon price is too low.
• SEYMOUR – The elderly man hit by a car on River Road three days ago dies in Griffin Hospital, having never regained consciousness. He remains unidentified.

Thursday, August 31

• SHELTON – The Street Department commences repaving West Canal Street between Bridge and Cornell streets for the first time in 10 years.

September

Friday, September 1

• ANSONIA – A mass National Recovery Act (NRA) meeting is held at Ansonia City Hall, to appeal for support for the program from all citizens. Over 100 attend, listening to speakers urging them to do it as their patriotic duty. 
• DERBY – An application has  been received for a new Purple Heart Association Chapter in North Adams, MA.
• DERBY – City native Harry Haugh’s Electro-matic traffic signal system is in use in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and Johannesburg, and now one is being installed in Trafalgar Square.
• DERBY – Hershey Metal Products has joined the NRA. The firm has 60 employees on Seymour Avenue, and will operate on 40 hour week with an increase from 15% to 40% in employees’ wages.
• DERBY & SHELTON – The Derby-Shelton NRA Consumer’s Committee begins a house-to-house canvass for support for the federal program. The effort is compared to World War I Bond drives.
• SEYMOUR – The apple season is underway at Hale Orchards on Great Hill.

September 4, LABOR DAY

• DERBY – Fire guts the basement and first floor of a vacant store on 176-178 Main Street, which most recently housed the Blume Furniture Company.
• OXFORD – “Labor Day was observed locally by the men folks in the cessation of employment but the gentler sex, especially the farmers’ wives so far as their laboring hours are concerned are apparently not affected by the NRA as they put in the usual amount of work from early morning until late at night”.

September 5

• ANSONIA – A 53 year old man employed at the American Brass Company wire mill since 1902 dies instantly when a red hot metal rod passes through his body. He stood next to the machine, apparently thinking it was finished producing rods for the day.

September 6 – First day of school for most of the Valley.

• ANSONIA – A hundred women begin a house to house canvass soliciting support for the NRA.
• ANSONIA – 2539 are enrolled in the grammar schools, down 159 from last year. By contrast, Ansonia High School is up by 49, at 925, and Pine High School is up 18, at 239. 
• DERBY – There are 543 enrolled in the Derby High School.
• SEYMOUR – Ground broken on new 30×50′ brick single story structure to be used by the Seymour Cleaning and Dyeing works on First Street.
• SHELTON – 1520 are enrolled in the grammar schools and 550 in Shelton High School, the largest ever up to that time. 335 are enrolled in St. Joseph’s School.

Thursday, September 7

• ANSONIA – Following a parade on Main Street, a mass National Recovery Administration (NRA) meeting is held at the Ansonia Opera House. Despite oppressive heat and humidity the meeting is well attended.
• ANSONIA – A 42’x80’ barn, one of the largest in the area, and a 45’ tall silo, containing a total of 125 tons of hay are destroyed in a fire at the Petruzello farm on Ford Street. Bucket brigades are used until the Fire Department can get water from Two-Mile Brook, about 1000′ away. The water is relayed from the Brook using the fire engines from Eagles Hose H&L Co. No. 6 and Charters Hose Co. No. 4. A bull and some calves saved.

September 8

• ANSONIA – The merger of the Congregation of the Sons of Israel and Congregation of the Sons of Jacob are now complete. The merged synagogue will be known as Congregation Beth El (which means House of God). The Colburn Street synagogue will be closed, and the Factory Street synagogue will be retained.
• SHELTON – 153 firms have signed up for the NRA, and nearly 100% of residents, 1,786 families, have signed up for the pledge drive.

September 9

• ANSONIA – There are now 1,212 High School students, between Pine High School (232) and Ansonia High (990). Ansonia High is so overcrowded the upper classes report at 8:05 AM, then 3 groups of freshmen report at staggered times at 11:49 AM, 12:36 PM, and 1:30 PM.
• ANSONIA – Over 2,500 have signed pledge cards in the NRA drive
• DERBY – Over 100 families are off the Charities Department roles. 100% of City families have signed NRA pledge cards.
• DERBY – The Commodore Hull Theater reopens for the season. The line for tickets stretches half a block long. The foyer has been repainted and decorated. The first feature of the season is the movie was Tugboat Annie.

September 10

• SHELTON – 400 attend the auto races at Huntington speedway. The first 3 mile race is called off after 4 cars missed the turns, with 2 flipping over. There are no serious injuries.

September 11

• ANSONIA – The Evening Sentinel comes under NRA code, and now shows the NRA eagle symbol (see below) on its masthead. 

• SEYMOUR – 481 are enrolled at Seymour High School, and 1,320 are in the Town’s elementary schools.
• SHELTON – The Board of Aldermen learn of a $401.99 discrepancy in the City’s tax books in an Auditors’ Report.

September 12

• ANSONIA – The City’s Public Works Department has adopted the NRA 40-hour workweek. The first of a series of NRA shorts are shown at the Capitol Theater this evening, staring Jimmy Durante in Give a Man a Job, which lasts 7 minutes.
• ANSONIA – One of the only salaries the Ansonia Taxpayers’ League does not want to cut is the Ansonia Mayor’s. The League states the current $900 a year to manage a quarter million dollar budget is inadequate, and should be a full time position.
• SEYMOUR – The Town has started an NRA pledge drive.

September 13

• ANSONIA – NRA enrollment is near 100% in the City.
• DERBY – Valley radio dealers meet at Hotel Clark to organize under the NRA.
• SEYMOUR – Town industries are near 100% enrolled in the NRA.

Thursday, September 14

• ANSONIA – There are now 408 National Recovery Administration (NRA) firms in the City.
• DERBY – In the past year Derby reported 113 juvenile delinquents, of which 8 were girls. There were also 13 cases of neglected children. This is the second worst in State – one delinquent for every 12.6 inhabitants, though it may also be an example of more vigorous police work or better reporting.

September 16

• SHELTON – A 51year old Howe Avenue Extension man struck by a hit & run driver, while walking near Riverview Park. He dies hour later at Griffin Hospital. A Newark NJ man is arrested in connection with the crime four days later.

September 17

• DERBY – One of Derby’s last Civil War veterans, Andrew Dean, falls off the porch of his house at 8 Cottage Street. His daughter tries to catch him, but she falls off too. His arm is badly bruised, and she has a broken collarbone.

September 18

• Over a thousand unemployed men from the Valley have registered at the NRA committee offices at the Ansonia Armory in the past week.

September 19

• ANSONIA – State and local police raid a State Street address, where they seize 2 small stills and arrest 1. The next morning, the bootlegger’s 30-day sentence for being a second offender is suspended when he says he has already taken papers out to return to Italy.
• DERBY – An NRA parade through the City, featuring veterans’ groups, Boy Scouts, and drum & bugle corps is followed by a packed mass meeting at Sterling Opera House. NRA pledges among Derby residents are almost 100%.
• SHELTON – The International Silver Company, Factory B, reopens its finishing department with 8-10 skilled workers, due to overflow in the finishing department in Factory A in Meriden. Many hope this is a precursor to the Bridge Street factory’s reopening entirely, but it is not clear.
• SHELTON – Local police seize a large 1,000 gallon still and related items in a White Hills barn. An Ansonia man is arrested. Bags of brown sugar, an ingredient for moonshine, have the name of a Central Street, Ansonia grocery store, where they were bought recently using twenty $10 that were later found to be counterfeit. The police believe the barn to be a large distributing center for moonshine. The woman who owns the farm denies all knowledge, saying the barn was rented to the bootlegger, and she was unaware that activity was taking place.

September 20

• ANSONIA – Nearly 100% of residents have pledged for the NRA

Thursday, September 21

• SHELTON – A building behind the Bassett bolt works on Canal Street is raided by the police. Two large stills with 1,500 gallon capacity are found. An Ansonia man is arrested.

September 22

• ANSONIA – The Women’s Auxiliary of the Purple Heart Chapter No. 1 is organized at the Ansonia Armory.
• DERBY – One of only six known copies of the First Acts and Minutes of the Continental Congress is stolen from a Waterbury man’s car, which was parked in front of the Miss Freda Sanford residence on 147 Caroline Street. The papers date to 1774. Historians across the country and around the world are stunned. The Waterbury police offer their assistance to Derby. 
• DERBY – Sir Inka Aaggie, a yearling bull at Osborndale farm, is named Grand Champion at the Eastern States Exposition (The Big E). Another bull from the farm, Josiah, takes second prize in the senior bull class.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Commercial High School defeats Derby 26-0 in New Haven.

September 23

• DERBY – The Sterling Opera House is in bad repair. The Evening Sentinel says it is because of lack of community pride and interest. The State Police has condemned the gallery section because of inadequate fire escapes, and the roof leaks.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Ansonia beats Lewis High School of Southington 31-6 at Athletic Field, before 1,500 fans.

September 24

• DERBY – The Storm Engine Company’s rebuilt chemical fire engine has returns by rail from Columbus, Ohio. It is uncrated the following day. The fire engine has been re-nickeled, and now has a windshield, siren, single wheels, new ladders, axes, headlights, red revolving lights and is longer, narrower, and faster. The cost was $4,750.

September 25

• DERBY – Police Officer Frank Manion and Derby High principal Dr. Jerome Higgins appeal to the high school students at the end of the school day for help in finding the stolen acts and minutes of the Continental Congress. The two appeal to the students’ sense of history and civic pride. Within 20 minutes, two students come forward with a tip that they saw a young boy walking along Caroline Street carrying a load of papers at the time of the crime. The boy is identified, confronted, and admits to the crime, saying he did not know what the papers were, and threw them behind the Sanford residence. The yard is searched, and the papers are found. The Derby Police and High School are lauded for their cooperation in recovering these invaluable artifacts.
• SEYMOUR – A big general Court of Honor is held by the Hosuatonic Council at the Seymour Congregational Church hall, following a street parade. 500 attend the event, and 200 merit badges are handed out.

September 26

• SHELTON – 10,000 people witness the biggest parade in Shelton in years, as the Sutter Post No. 16, American Legion, dedicates its new headquarters in the Tisi building on Center Street.

September 27

• ANSONIA – A new 14′ diameter, 36′ high silo is being built at the Petruzello farm on Ford Street, to replace the one destroyed by recent fire. A new barn will soon be built as well, measuring 38×108, and 33′ high.
• ANSONIA – Sidewalk steps are being installed on the corner of Central Avenue and Jewett Street
• DERBY – Yale varsity rowing crews have their first practice of the year on Lake Housatonic.

Thursday, September 28

• ANSONIA – There is a cricket problem in City Hall.
• DERBY – The Old England Brewing Company formally buys the land and building it occupies on Derby Avenue from the Southern New England Ice Company.

September 29

• DERBY – There is debate within the Board of Education over the transportation of East Derby and Derby Neck students. Many are in favor of a horse-drawn carryall, which costs $2-$3 a day, as opposed to chartering a motorized bus which is $5 a day, or using the trolley which is 8.3 cents per pupil. Others suggest the Board buy its own bus.
• DERBY – Three different fires break out at the same time in a tenement building on 308 Main Street, the first floor of which until recently housed the Derby Post Office. While producing much smoke and excitement, the damage is not great, but the fires are under investigation.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Ansonia beats Wilby High School 8-0 in Waterbury. Derby defeats Darien High School 7-0 in the fourth quarter at Island Park.

September 30

• SEYMOUR – Great Hill – “Apple picking is the order of the day at Hale Orchards where 1500 bushels of Macintosh are being harvested, with thousands more bushels of later varieties to be gathered in the near future. Here are enough to put all of the doctors in the surrounding towns out of business if the public will do its part”.

October

Sunday, October 1

• 1/24″ of rain falls in a 24 hour period, much of it around 10 PM. Parts of Ansonia are under several inches of rainwater for awhile.
• ANSONIA – A 9year old Broad Street boy is hit by a car on Franklin Street on his way to a football game. He dies at Griffin Hospital that night.
• SHELTON – A 21 year old Hill Street man drowns near the Ousatonic Dam, while swimming across the river on a dare from his friends.

October 2

• Election day in many Connecticut towns (but not cities).
• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) recruiting stations open around the state for a second 6-month term of enlistment.
• ANSONIA – The City’s Board of Health rules that taverns must wash drinking glasses in hot water and soap, instead of the old practice of dipping them in cold water.
• OXFORD – 309 vote in the Oxford elections, Democrat Charles Pope defeats Republican R. I. Sanford for First Selectman.
• SEYMOUR – Republicans sweep the Seymour elections. First Selectman Harry Mannweiler is reelected over Joseph Lanyon 808-600 
• SEYMOUR – Former State Senator Clayton Boies, President of the Seymour Trust Company, dies.

October 4

• The Valley cities are patriotically decorated for the upcoming Purple Heart Association convention on October 6 and 7. Two new chapters, in Newark N.J. and Pittsburgh, PA have been added.
• ANSONIA – 15 men leave for New Haven for CCC training this morning.
• DERBY – An approximately 60 year old Water Street man is accidentally shot while walking home from work from the Ansonia Farrel-Birmingham on the railroad tracks on Derby Meadows. The shooter was a 38 year old Factory Street man who was shooting at crows with his two sons. The victim is discovered the following day, in severe pain, in his apartment. He is in critical condition at Griffin Hospital. The shooter is arrested.
• OXFORD – “Light frosts are reported in some sections of town. The trees are fast taking on the colors of autumn. The hills and valleys of old Oxford are again resplendent with the glory and beauty of autumn days”.

Thursday, October 5

• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund will rely upon sewer and road work for its workfare projects in upcoming months.

October 6

• ANSONIA – West Haven man arrested for keeping a large still in a barn on Myrtle Avenue.
• DERBY – The first ever Purple Heart Association convention opens at the Sterling Opera House. There are now ten chapters in the Association since the first chapter, George Washington Chapter No. 1 was formed in the Valley twelve and a half months ago. Some delegates come from as far as California. Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross and Massachusetts Governor Joseph P. Ely, as well as many other dignitaries, are on hand. The day’s events are mostly dedicated to making the organization a national movement. For more information on this event, see the Washington Chapter’s history section of their website.
• DERBY – Across the Green from the Purple Heart Association convention, the Connecticut Branch of the World War Nurses’ Association has its annual convention in the Second Congregational Church hall.
• DERBY – George Washington Branch No. 1 of the Purple Heart Association forms a Woman’s Auxiliary at Legion Hall.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Derby defeats Branford 2-0 in an away game. Shelton defeats Southington 7-0 at Lafayette Field

October 7

• ANSONIA, DERBY, & SHELTON – A giant parade of Purple Heart Association veterans, as well as veterans from other groups marches through the cities after the close of the convention. 50,000 spectators, many from around the country, witness it.
• DERBY – The Purple Heart Association closes at Sterling Opera House. Elections are held for national offices, and it is very significant that while all offices were held by Valley residents before the convention, most of them were filled by members from across the country, thus fulfilling the goal of making the Association a national organization. The Association’s founder, Frank Cushner of Ansonia, retains his position as National Commander (President).
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – West Haven hands Ansonia its first defeat of the season, 13-0, at Athletic Field.

October 9

• DERBY – Mrs. Waldo S. Kellogg is elected president of the New England Association of Holstein-Freisian Breeders at annual meeting at the Eastern States Exposition (Big E).

Thursday, October 12

• ANSONIA – The Maple Street Bridge is reopened, with new amiesite paving replacing the deck’s old wooden blocks.
• ANSONIA – The upper story of a house on 66 Cheever Street is destroyed by fire. The home was behind the Julia Day Nursery. It took 2 hours to put out.

October 13

• ANSONIA – City Hall auditorium is filled with an overflowing crowd commemorating the 150th anniversary of the conferring of American citizenship to Gen. Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
• ANSONIA – Federal agents raid a large Howard Avenue barn with 2 owners, separated by a brick wall. They go into the north side, which is owned by the City, behind Colburn School. There, they find nothing but Street Department equipment. Puzzled, they shift through the equipment, trying to find clues, when they hear people trying to be quiet on the others side of the wall. They go around the barn, break a padlock leading to its other side, and find large a still making moonshine. Five men are arrested.
• OXFORD – The fire tower on Miss Shelton’s farm is reopened for the season.

October 14

• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Ansonia defeats Xavier Military Academy of New York 18-0 at Athletic Field, before a crowd of 2000. Derby defeats Lyman Hall of Wallingford 6-0 before 2,000 at Island Park. Derby is now in first place in the Housatonic League. Milford defeats Shelton 13-6 at Lafayette Field
• OXFORD – New Boy Scout Troop 2 is organized in Quaker Farms Community Hall, encompassing the entire town.

October 15

• OXFORD – The new town office and library building is dedicated on Oxford Green. It is the first public building to be erected in town history, outside of the one-room school houses. It is one story, measuring 32’x26′ with a hip roof, and constructed of field stone from local stone walls. The building has two main rooms – a 14’x25′ town library on the north side, and the town clerk and officers’ room on the south side. The building also contains a 6’x12′ vault.

October 16

• SHELTON – Former resident Thomas Newcomb dies in New Haven at 84. He was one of the founders of Derby Silver Company on Bridge Street, and also served as secretary and treasurer of the South End Land Company, which developed much of the south side of downtown Shelton.

October 17

• SEYMOUR – An autogiro circles town for 20 minutes, 1,000 feet in the air, trailing a banner for Silver Brook anthracite coal, which is sold locally.

October 18

• ANSONIA – Figures show the City received 35 cents back for every dollar spent by the Charities Department in the just-completed financial year, for a net cost $164,070.30. The outlook for the current year appears much better.
• SEYMOUR – Great Hill – “A medium frost struck this section on Sunday when tender garden flowers and plants succumbed to the low temperature. There was no frost at the Hale orchards and other high spots. Nature has been fairly kind this season in prolonging the summer weather”.

hursday, October 19

• SHELTON – 400 line up in front of Bassett Metal Goods plant on Bridge Street to apply for newly announced jobs.

October 20

• ANSONIA – A 10″ water main is dug up on Beaver Street after it springs a leak. The pipe is made of cement, and has been in use since 1868.
• DERBY – Mayor Riordan tells Board of Apportionment he would like to see the Old Town Bridge rebuilt.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Shelton defeats Lyman Hall of Wallingford 13-7 in an away game.

October 21

• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Stratford hands Derby its first Housatonic League defeat of the year at Island Park 6-0. This leaves Derby and Stratford tied for first place with one defeat each. Litchfield Junior Republic defeats Ansonia 12-0 at Athletic Field. 

October 23

• DERBY – A Japanese maple and 50 forsythia are planted on Derby Green, a gift of the Derby Garden Club.
• SEYMOUR – Hoadley’s Bridge, over the Little River on Bank Street, will be replaced by a concrete bridge as an NRA project.
• SHELTON – Ira Thompson, of 207 Coram Avenue dies, at 69. Born December 19, 1863, he came to Shelton in 1909 and bought the Baldwin livery on Third Street in Derby. He later converted it into an early Buick auto dealership. Mr. Thompson also serviced Buicks himself, though he never learned how to drive a car.

October 24

• OXFORD – About 100 families have signed NRA pledge cards, and 25 have registered for employment.

October 25

• SEYMOUR – School Enumeration shows 1,773 students between 4 & 16 live in town, which is 57 less than last year. Of these, 1,555 attend public school, 17 attend private schools, and 201 do not attend any school. Those not attending includes 87 children under 5 years old, 80 between ages 5 and 7, and 11 between ages 15 and 16.

Thursday, October 26

• Residents awake to the first big freeze of the season – 26 degrees. Ice forms. A 60 year old man is found dead on the side a road in Ansonia, the cold may have contributed to his demise.
• ANSONIA – Over 200 attend a Board of Aldermen hearing on 3 National Recovery Administration (NRA) projects at Ansonia City Hall. A proposed new Ansonia High School is the main topic. Ansonia Property Holders’ League is against the cost of the new school, even though it is overcrowded. A sewage treatment plant and new road are also discussed.
• DERBY – The Board of Aldermen will provide a horse-drawn carryall for Derby Neck students between Thanksgiving and Easter. Franklin School transportation may be cut back due to the large number of students living 1.5 miles away or less.
• DERBY – The Derby Relief Fund holds its annual meeting. Among the highlights of this local workfare program – many cemeteries have been improved, a monument for a soon to be delivered World War cannon has been built in front of war memorial, and road work throughout the City.
• SHELTON – The Ousatonic Water Company announces the Bassett Metal Goods plant will be purchased by the Shelton Industrial Corporation. The massive plant will be subdivided into small factories. The Empire Novelty Company of New York City has already leased half of the fourth floor. The firm manufactures handbags and pocketbook frames, and will employ about 50 hands.

October 27

• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Branford defeats Shelton 6-2 at Lafayette Field.
• SHELTON – A small safe containing $200 and valuable papers stolen overnight at Shelton Theater.

October 28

• DERBY – 1,200 West Point cadets pass through Derby in a convoy of 42 Greyhound buses to the Yale-Army football game at Yale Bowl. It takes the convoy about half an hour to pass through town. Both local and state police provide a motorcycle from Zoar Bridge to New Haven. Many residents come out and wave as the cadets pass by.
• DERBY – A small barn and coop are destroyed by fire on 23 North Spring Street. Some rabbits and pigeons inside are killed, while others manage to escape.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Torrington defeats Ansonia 7-0 at Athletic Field.

October 29

• ANSONIA – 250 attend the dedication of Three Saints’ Russian Orthodox parish clubhouse on Howard Avenue.
• SHELTON – About 1000 attend the automobile races at Huntington Speedway. That track record is broken when “Wild Bill” Holmes of Brewster, NY, completes the half mile loop in 31.5 seconds.  There are several accidents but nothing serious.

October 30

• DERBY – The police raid an Olivia Street address, and arrest one for owning and keeping liquor with intent to sell.

October 31 HALLOWE’EN (as it was spelled in the Evening Sentinel)

• Many are out trick or treating in costume. Many lighted jack-o-lanterns can be seen. At one point, the Ansonia, Derby, and Shelton fire alarms go off at the same time, all for false alarms.
• ANSONIA – 6 youths arrested for pulling a false alarm – there are three false alarms overnight total.
• DERBY – 2 false alarms are pulled, and a number of doorbells are rung and fence posts are broken, including the fence at St. Mary’s Church. By 10 PM the entire City is quiet.
• DERBY – The safe stolen from Shelton Theater on October 27 is found in Pioneer Field. The safe was smashed and its money taken, but some its valuable papers were recovered.
• SEYMOUR – The night is quiet.
• SHELTON – The night is quiet downtown, accept for one false alarm. Many children are out. In White Hills, trees and corn are felled at the Victor Nelson farm, and a nearby bridge damaged. Eight young men are later arrested.
• SHELTON – A truck with dimmed headlights is stopped by a police car in Huntington. It is learned that the driver, from Bridgeport, was to carry 24 bushels of apples, which were in a cornfield next to Bridgeport Hydraulic Company orchards. Upon learning that the apples were stolen, the driver left the scene, and told his story to the police officer. 

November

Wednesday, November 1

• ANSONIA – Officers and representatives of 13 Ansonia Italian-American clubs meet in Italian-American Political Club on Central Street. They propose changing the name of Elm Street School to Annie E. Larkin School in recognition for her nearly 50 years of the late teacher’s education service.

Thursday, November 2

• ANSONIA – 34 merchants who are compliant with the National Recovery Administration begin a “Blue Eagle Days” sale, part of a “buy now” movement that’s sweeping the nation.
• DERBY – The Veterans’ League is formally organized at the Veterans’ Memorial Home, which brings together and coordinates all of Derby veterans’ groups.

November 3

• DERBY – E Street is accepted at a Board of Aldermen meeting.
• SHELTON – An appeal is about to go out to fix up Lafayette field and put a fence around it. The football coach says other teams refer to it as “the rock pile”

November 4

• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Ansonia ties Bridgeport’s Central High School 0-0 at Newfield Park. Danbury beats Derby 20-6 at Island Park, the Shelton football team is in attendance at this game because they do not have a game this week.

November 5

• DERBY – Isadore Gaboury, Civil War veteran, dies at Griffin Hospital from illness. Called “The Colonel” in Derby, Mr. Gaboury was a French Canadian, born in Vermont. He ran away at 15 and joined a Vermont artillery company during the Civil War. He came to Derby about 20 years ago. His death leaves only 1 Civil War veteran left in Derby, Andrew Dean.
• OXFORD – “The first snow of the season covered the fields and hills of Oxford Sunday night, Nov. 5, just a month earlier than the first snowfall of 1932”.

November 8

• ANSONIA – The Purple Heart Association, George Washington Chapter No. 1, has its annual business meeting at the Ansonia Armory. Andrew Purcella succeeds Frank Cushner as the Chapter’s Commander.

Thursday, November 9

• ANSONIA – 2 New Haven men arrested by the police in that City, and bound over to Ansonia in connection with November 5, 1932 holdup at Marcel Tyszka’s store on Factory Street and Tremont Street. Two others connected to robbery are already in prison
• ANSONIA – Over 1200 Ansonia High School and Pine High School students pack the Capitol Theater for the annual Armistice Day exercises. George Lyon, one of only 2 surviving Civil War veterans in Ansonia, speaks.
• ANSONIA – Sam’s Annex, an addition to popular the Samuel Impellitterri restaurant, opens with festivities. The original Sam’s opened in 1931. The Annex can accommodate 62 patrons, has 12 booths, and a 20’ long colored marble and art tile counter for lunch, soda, and ice cream.

November 10

• ANSONIA – The Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut is considering what to do with old Mansfield House on Jewett Street.
• DERBY & SHELTON – Friend A. Russ dies at 76 in Greenwich. He managed the R. N. Bassett Company in Shelton, and contributed much for philanthropy in the Valley.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Derby defeats Milford 2-0.
• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid spent $5,566.13 in workfare labor in the past 10 months.

 November 11 – ARMISTICE DAY

• ANSONIA – A street parade accompanies ceremonies at the Ansonia Armory, followed by a dance there later that evening. 
• DERBY – A parade marches through town, accompanying ceremonies at the Civil War Monument on the Green. The Russell Sons of Union Veterans decorates 12 cemeteries in Derby, Shelton, and Monroe.
• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Stratford defeats Shelton 12-0 at Lafayette Field.
• SEYMOUR – American flags line the main streets.
• SHELTON – Exercises are held in front of City Hall, along with a small parade.

November 12

• SHELTON – “With the Huntington speedway covered with snow and mud on Sunday afternoon, the auto races were curtailed after drivers had raced around the rack for three races to provide numerous thrills for several hundred spectators. ‘Wild Bill’ Holmes was unable to drive when it was found that he had a slit hub on his races, and George Rice had to leave the track when he found that the steering apparatus had broken”.

November 13

• SHELTON – A 20 year old Wooster Street man and 16 year old Oak Street girl are killed this evening when a train hits their car at the railroad crossing on Wooster Street near the Shelton Basket Shop. They die early next morning.

November 14

• ANSONIA – The Board of Aldermen authorizes the Ways and Means Committee to select a site for a new Ansonia High School.

November 15

• Residents awake to the first real cold snap of the year. People who didn’t put antifreeze in their cars have a hard time starting them. Ice forms on ponds.
• ANSONIA – The City will spend its $15,000 in federal highway aid on improving Division and Hill Streets, and constructing a storm water sewer on State Street.
• DERBY – Mayor Riordan receives telegram stating that $15,000 of federal highway aid will be spent on Derby roads in coming months. 
• SHELTON – Shelton Theater will run Fox Film Corporation movies. The first will be November 19, staring Warner Oland in Charlie Chan’s Greatest Case.

Thursday, November 16

• DERBY – Four more men have been hired by the trolley company due to its adoption of the 48-hour workweek.
• OXFORD – The Town is building a new 14′ wide graveled  roadway at the west end of Chestnut Tree Hill Road, which will connect Park Road with the main Quaker Farms Road. First Selectman Charles Pepe in charge of work.

November 17

• A light snowstorm this evening causes problems. Many automobiles are abandoned because they couldn’t get up hills or too slippery. City and town sanders are out the next morning.
• ANSONIA – 1,200 high school students attend a pep rally at Capitol Theater for upcoming football game against Derby.
• OXFORD – “Most of the ponds in the vicinity are frozen over and with a continuance of the cold skating will be the sport of the hour. Yesterday a few small boys were seen walking on the shore ice of Hoadley’s Pond. The writer does not remember since his boyhood days of having skating two weeks before Thanksgiving”.

November 18

• HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL – Derby defeats Ansonia 6-0 at Athletic Field, with a dramatic, controversial touchdown near the end of the game. Afterwards, irate Ansonia fans surge around referee, who feels so threatened he’s given a police escort out of town. The Derby player and band busses are pelted by snowballs and some of their windows are broken. A car carrying four Derby cheerleaders saw people jump upon its running boards on Wakelee Avenue. The car’s windows are broken, and the cheerleaders roughly handled. School and city officials on both sides announce that the violence is “deplored”. Derby High students parade down that City’s Main Street after they are safely in town, and hold an impromptu dance at the High School later.
• OXFORD – “At an early hour this morning the state snow plows made their first appearance in this section, the new cement road (today’s Route 67) through Oxford being cleared for the first time”.

November 19

• SEYMOUR – A 60 year old New Haven man is killed on the east side Ansonia Road, after being struck walking away from another accident he was involved in.

November 20

• ANSONIA – The Board of Education rejects a popular appeal to rename Elm Street School after deceased longtime schoolteacher Annie Larkin by a vote of 5-4. Those voting for the rejection state they are afraid doing so would set a precedent.
• DERBY – Miss Mary Lathrop dies. She was a teacher at Derby High School for 44 years, from before retiring to become the High School’s librarian. 
• DERBY – State Police stop a car on New Haven Avenue and arrest two Ansonia rum runners. 
• SEYMOUR – The State will remove the Wheeler, Stoll, and Buckingham apartment buildings on Bank Street.

November 21

• ANSONIA – Police raid a Colburn Street address, where they discover a still in operation. One man is arrested.
• OXFORD – “The first fox reported killed this season was obtained by R. Z. Hawkins last Saturday”.

November 22

• SHELTON – Wilby High School of Waterbury defeats Shelton 6-0 at  Lafayette Field.

Thursday, November 23

• ANSONIA – Meeting of Clinton Community Club, members pledge to form a league of local young African-American organizations. 
• SHELTON – A small, smoky fire in Empire State Novelty factory in the Bassett Building is quickly extinguished.

November 24

• An organizational meeting is held for the Valley Civil Works Administration Board, which will cover Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, and Shelton, is held at Ansonia City Hall. It is expected that the new program will provide approximately 450 with jobs in Ansonia, 225 in Derby, and 150 in Seymour.
• ANSONIA – Civil Works Administration projects approved by the Board of Aldermen include the following: All work previously done by Ansonia Mutual Aid; A storm water sewer for State Street and Pleasant Streets, which including draining of Biddy Lamb’s Pond and Hotchkiss Pond; Grading Division Street at Chatfield Street; grading Hill Street; Rebuilding the retaining wall on Jewett Street; Extend a trunk sewer to Island Park in Derby (if a proposed tri-city sewage treatment plant is approved; Rebuild Division Street Bridge if Derby will cooperate; Install a storm water sewer on Vose Street, and a surface water drainage system on Main near Beaver Brook,; Grading and improving Athletic Field, the Town Farm, and Rutland Street; and creating a municipal golf course.
• ANSONIA – The City will apply for Federal aid to build a new High School.
• SEYMOUR – The door stone to the dismantled William Treat farmhouse on Great Hill has been moved to the entrance of Great Hill Church.

November 25

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia League of Negro Clubs is organized. The initial clubs are the Copper City Club, Clinton Community Club, Juvenile Club, and Willing Workers.
• DERBY – The Board of Education votes to have a 21-seat horse drawn carryall transport Derby Neck children to school.

November 27

• ANSONIA – 219 CWA men start working today.
• DERBY – 110 CWA men start working today. 
• SEYMOUR – 30 CWA men start improving Park Field, and 105 will be working next week. 
• SHELTON – 60 CWA men begin replacing 2′ of playing surface on Lafayette Field. Upcoming projects include improving Long Hill Avenue, Nichols Avenue, Beardsley Road, Waverly Road, and Booth’s Hill Road.

November 29

• Combined Valley CWA payroll is $4,862 the first week, with 522 families off the charity lists.
• DERBY – The Federal Government assured the City that pork, butter, and other staples for the poor would arrive in time for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The have not, now none of the traditional Thanksgiving baskets are ready for the estimated 250 idle families.
• SHELTON – About 480 baskets have been prepared by the Relief and Charity Departments for needy families for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

 Thursday, November 30 THANKSGIVING

• The day starts with sunny sides and summer temperatures, turning very windy in the afternoon.
• THANKSGIVING FOOTBALL – Naugatuck beats Ansonia 32-0 at Athletic Field. Shelton defeats Derby 7-0 at Island Park. This is the first time Shelton beat Derby since 1926. The goal posts are dismantled by fans and taken to Shelton, with the American Legion band leading the 2000 players and fans to a 20′ tall bonfire at Lafayette Field.

December

Friday, December 1

• ANSONIA – Spector’s furniture store opens at its new location on 360 Main Street. Previously it was at 415 Main.
• SHELTON – International Silver Company, Factory B, on Bridge Street closes again after reopening for 3 months.

December 2

• ANSONIA – Ansonia Mutual Aid is waiting until the CWA runs its course before starting this winter. The CWA will build a 9 hole golf course at Town Farm. 
• DERBY – Santa Claus arrives for the first time at Main Street’s Howard & Barber Department Store.

December 3

• ANSONIA – A vacant 2-family house on North Fourth Street is badly damaged by fire.
• DERBY – Derby Methodist Episcopal Church celebrates its 140th anniversary.

December 4

• DERBY – Rev. George H. Buck, rector of St. James Church from 1887 to 1928 dies in Baltimore. His tenure of 41 years at St. James is second only to Rev. Mansfield, who served 72 years, from 1748 to 1820.

December 5 

• OXFORD – In the past 3 years, Oxford has built 9 miles of road with state aid funds of $17,500 every year. The work includes parts of Chestnut Tree Hill, Christian Street, Park Road, Maple Hill Road, Barry Road, Hawley Road, and Riggs Street.
• SEYMOUR – 110 CWA men were employed this morning.
• SEYMOUR – 22 children have already registered for a Polish language school, which will start in three days at St. Stanley’s Hall.

Friday, December 8

• ANSONIA – Community Motor Sales on Main Street is displaying two new 1934 Ford standard coaches and a four-door sedan in its showroom.
• DERBY – William Moore, a substitute clerk at the Derby Post Office, dies after his car strikes a telegraph poll on Hawthorne Avenue, near Coon Hollow. He was 34 years old.

December 9

• In the past week, the CWA employed 749 Valley men, paying them a total of $11,243.73. 

December 11

• The CWA will have its entire quota to work by the end of week. This includes 140 from Seymour, 438 from Ansonia, 213 from Derby, and 258 from Shelton. 
• SHELTON – Last week E.J. Buckingham celebrated his 50th anniversary running the Huntington General Store.

December 13

• The Valley towns’ CWA quotas have been increased. Derby can now hire 50 more men, and Ansonia 150 more. Shelton can receive an additional 100 to Shelton, 30 more to Seymour. Snow interferes with some projects today.

Friday, December 15

• ANSONIA – The Ansonia Water Company is again offering free pine boughs for Christmas decorations this year.

December 16

• OXFORD – Oxford has been added 5 more CWA workers to its quota, bringing the total to 12. They are currently grading Burton Road, and making it 14’ wide. 
• SHELTON – Shelton Mutual Aid will discontinue operations on December 30, but could start up in the event of another economic emergency. The workfare agency’s mission is largely being taken up by New Deal programs now. It spent $6,147.76 for labor in the past 11 months.

December 18

• OXFORD – Oxford Library will move into the new Town Building in a few days.

December 19

• A total of $13,243.49 is distributed among 1,019 CWA workers in the Valley today. This is a huge boast to the Depression-ravaged economy.
• ANSONIA – T he Annie E. Larkin Memorial Association has been established to provide a suitable and permanent memorial to the late Miss Larkin, who was a teacher for nearly 50 years and principle of Elm Street School at time of death.

December 20

• DERBY – The John H. Collins Post, American Legion plans to distribute 50 or more Christmas baskets to the needy, and are soliciting donations. Local Girl Scouts will hold their annual caroling on the Green Sunday.
• SEYMOUR – The Town’s community Christmas Tree has placed in position near parking lot north of the railroad depot, with a commanding view of the business district.
• SEYMOUR – Heavy rain causes a damaging freshet at Hoadley’s Pond.

Thursday, December 21

• ANSONIA – Renowned scientist Dr. Ball of the Yale Peabody Museum is alarmed of the pending draining of Biddy Lamb’s Pond and Hotchkiss Pond. He is afraid he will lose the chance of studying the rare spade foot toads, which appeared in April. Hotchkiss Pond is mostly dried up, but expected to refill this winter.
• SEYMOUR – Several hundred surround the Community Christmas Tree, singing Christmas carols.

December 22

• Downtowns crowded on last regular shopping day before Christmas. 
• Schools close for Christmas vacation today.
• The Valley CWA accepts the resignation of its chairman, Henning Bengston of Ansonia. Alfred Weinmann, Shelton’s street commissioner, is recommended to succeed him.
• SHELTON – Over 200 Christmas baskets will be distributed to the needy for Christmas. This is in contrast to the almost 500 needed on Thanksgiving. The CWA is credited with the drop.

December 23

• ANSONIA – 1,800 Ansonia children attend a Christmas party at Capitol Theater, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, Lions Club, and Rotary. Santa arrives and gives bags of candy to the children, after which two movies are shown.
• DERBY – The John H. Collins Post American Legion gives out 80 Christmas baskets to needy today. Typical baskets contain 1 or 2 chickens depending on the size of the family, 1 pound of butter, 2 pounds of sugar, 1 pound of coffee, a peck of potatoes, 2 quarts of onions, canned goods, 2 cans of milk, a package of nuts, and a bag of apples.

December 24

• SEYMOUR – A Wood Street boy is found strangled to death by his own necktie in a field near his home. His father is being held on the coroner’s orders.

 December 25

• The Christmas trade was better this year than in 1932, a hopeful sign that the worst of the Depression must be over.
• ANSONIA – The Salvation Army gave out 150 Christmas baskets, and the Elks gave out baskets too. The Joint Veterans’ Association gave out another 50 baskets, and food collected by Ansonia High School and Pine High School was distributed.

December 26

• After a green Christmas, one of heaviest snowstorms of the winter so far strikes today. 3-4″ of snow fell by noon, and CWA work was suspended.

Thursday, December 28

• The area is in a severe cold wave. Temperatures are 12 to 15 below zero tonight. 
• ANSONIA – Alfred F. Weimann, Shelton’s Street Commissioner, is confirmed as the new Valley CWA Chairman.

December 29

• The cold wave continues. The temperatures were 2 degrees in Ansonia, 12 below in Seymour, both at 7 AM. CWA men try to go to work, but for the most part are forced to stop because of the cold. Four CWA men get frostbite grading Grove Avenue and F Street in Derby. Few are on the streets in the evening, many automobiles are having trouble due to the cold.
• Derby line trolley men make 52 cents an hour on 2-man cars and 60 cents an hour on one-man cars. This is below the New England average of 70 cents an hour.

December 30

• It is 6 degrees in Ansonia, and 14 below in Seymour at 7 AM today.
• SEYMOUR – Great Hill – “The road between Great Hill Church and Squantuc was barely passable after the snow of Tuesday and to date only three cars have been through, one being that of the mail carriers”.

December 31

• New Years Eve – The snow has finally started melting. Watch night services are held in many churches. It is noted that there is a general feeling of optimism of the coming year.
• ANSONIA – Among the highlights of the many parties are a floor show at Sam’s Annex, and  midnight show at Capitol Theater.
• DERBY – Highlights of the night include a midnight show at Commodore Hull Theater, and the annual ball at Elks Hall.
• SHELTON – Highlights of the night include a midnight show at Shelton Theater and a Watch Night Service at the Methodist Episcopal Church.