Days Gone By
100 YEARS AGO, 1923 » While helping his father on his huckster wagon yesterday, William Gorman, age 10 years, who lives with his parents at 620 Morton Ave., was bitten by a dog belonging to a Flower Street family. The incident took place in front of the Watts School. Young Gorman was taken to a doctor by his father and had the wound cauterized. He was not seriously injured.
75 YEARS AGO, 1948 » Walter Pietryka, 119 Lewis St., has been announced the winner of the first scholarship awarded by the newly-organized Polish-American Scholarship Foundation. A halfback on the football squad, and catcher on the ball team, Walter has been an outstanding student at Chester high School, whence he was graduated in June last. Following a competitive examination, the foundation’s Board of Directors ratified Pietryka’s selection to enter Alliance College, Cambridge Springs, Pa., for a pre-engineering course in
the fall.
50 YEARS AGO, 1973 » Bethel Township supervisors Tuesday night again postponed a decision on the request of the Sun Oil Co. to rezone nearly 179 acres north of Marsh Road on Naamans Creek Road for a tank farm. The area had been rezoned on a recently adopted new zoning map to plan residential development. The supervisors said they will announce their decision at a special meeting immediately following the regular township planning commission meeting Sept. 5.
25 YEARS AGO, 1998 » Customers and staff were evacuated from Springfield Park shopping center at routes 1 and 420 for about an hour yesterday after a backhoe operator ruptured a gas line while digging a trench for a Bed, Bath & Beyond store, said township Fire Marshal Lee Fulton. “It started with the Target store and then the odor reached the rear of the center,” he said, noting concerns about store ventilation systems absorbing the fumes.
10 YEARS AGO, 2013 » After a 10-day journey into the wilds of Swarthmore, an escaped snake has been found and returned safely to its owners. Snakey, a 7-foot-long boa constrictor, escaped the yard of Dr. David Spiegel on Aug. 11 while the snake was soaking up some rays on the warm afternoon. He was found about 1:25 p.m. Wednesday in a yard in the 300 block of Vassar Avenue, less than a block away from the Spiegels’ home. Nobody seemed to be alarmed by the discovery, least of all the snake. “The person who called it in didn’t seem to be too concerned,” said Swarthmore Police Chief Brian Craig said. “The snake appeared to be docile. The homeowner even let the snake crawl on her shoulders.”