Remember when…
Here's a look at what was making the news 15 and 50 years ago in the Hants Journal.
15 YEARS AGO (END OF MARCH 2007 EDITIONS)
The Dill Family Farm struck
• a seed distribution deal with Lowe's in the United States.
Although the patent for Dill's Atlantic Giant seeds had expired, the name was still trademarked, helping the Windsor-based business, run by Danny Dill, continue to market Howard Dill's legacy giant pumpkins.
Management announced
• the Hants Co-Op Store would close its doors forever on March 31. It had operated in Windsor for more than 80 years.
A large drug bust took
• place in Windsor, with seven men being arrested and four being remanded into custody. The undercover operation concentrated on the trafficking of cocaine and ecstasy at a licensed liquor establishment.
A Windsor barber and a
• town councillor teamed up to try to get the SPCA's TNR (trap-neuter-release) program set up in town to tackle the stray cat population. Singing barber Merle Jacklyn held a benefit concert in order to raise awareness of and funds for the program.
West Hants council hoped
• to open the lines of communication between residents, environmental groups and the Fundy Gypsum Company in order to get some answers about the proposed mine expansion near Avondale. A public information session was scheduled for early April.
Windsor Mayor Anna
•
Allen competed alongside other mayors for the season premiere of CBC's Test the Nation show. The mayors group came fourth overall, with an average IQ level of 110. The group comprised of surgeons took first place, followed by millionaires and fitness instructors. There were seven teams competing.
A Canning farmer penned
• his first romance novel, Starting Over. Glenn Ells, a veteran farmer and former provincial cabinet minister, said the plot for the novel came to him during a dream in 2004.
Halifax's Peter Lawson
• wrote and published a 30-page book entitled Stanley Flying School, 1941-1944: A British
Commonwealth Air Training Plan School. Lawson, who was a Cold War naval aviator with the Royal Canadian Navy and an avid historical documents collector, was surprised by how little was written about the school that graduated 1,093 student pilots during the Second World War.
Boxer Cameron Howatt
• returned home from the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse with a silver medal.
Garrett Clarke, formerly
• of Brooklyn, Hants County, was ranked in the Top 20 1992-born North American prospects by The Scouting
playing News. The defenseman, for the Shattuck St. Mary's Prep School in Minnesota, was off to the U.S. National Hockey Championships in 2007.
50 YEARS AGO (END OF MARCH 1972 EDITIONS)
Plans were announced by
•
Harry and Irven Burgess, who owned an extensive amount of farmland in Windsor and West Hants, for the construction of a 30-room motel with chalets near the Rawdon Road and Highway 101 interchange.
The Windsor Jaycees presented
• plans for a new tourist bureau and visitor park to be located near the Avon River causeway in Windsor. Aside from a 600-square foot tourist bureau, the plans included a spacious lawn, picnic area, shrubbery, landscaped flower beds, a pond and ample parking. The hope was tourists would be enticed to stay and visit Windsor.
Tidewater Construction
•
Company Ltd. was awarded a $562,925 tender to pave 18.6 miles of Highway 101 near St. Croix.
A feature on Everett Card,
• of Ellershouse, appeared in the Hants Journal. Card, 75, was “the owner, stockman, sales clerk, bookkeeper, and handy man” at the Ellershouse general store. It was noted he joined his grandfather, Francis Stevens, at the business in 1915 and took over operations in 1925.
The Journal wrote that many Ellershouse residents likely wouldn't have survived the ‘lean years' without Card's store.
As an interesting side note, the family home also located on the property once served as an inn and Card said an artist, perhaps with a love of the sea, stayed there as he found paintings of ships underneath the wallpaper.
Mike, John and Debby
•
Fogarty, well-known Maritime musicians from Windsor, N.S., made their first national recording. The country and western trio were hoping to make it big. Most of the LP's music was written by John and Debby.
Harold G.S. Adams, of
•
New Brunswick, who was married to Hants County's Frances Ainsworth, completed his articling period with the law firm of Lawrence and Hughes and was admitted to the Nova Scotia Bar.
A 12-minute film, entitled
•
This Film is About Canada's
Best Hogs, was released by the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture. It highlighted how such lean hogs were raised.
A story appeared in the
•
Journal quoting a leading Canadian food scientist, John deMan, who thought within two decades most of the steaks available at the supermarket counter wouldn't contain any
experimenting meat. He was already with making steaks from soybeans.
Canadian Tire was offering
• Mastercraft interior latex satin paint for $5.95 per gallon; ‘Storm Chase' wiper blades for $2.19; an electric can opener for $5.99 and a portable Sony table radio for $16.88.
IGA was having an 88cent sale in order to help families stretch their budgets. Included in the deals were two 20-ounce bottles of Heinz ketchup; four loaves of bread; a one-pound package of Kraft Velveeta cheese; and seven tins of IGA brand soup.
On screen at the Imperial
• Theatre in Windsor was Burt Lancaster in the Lawman; and Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind (which was now on a wider screen). Matinees for Hello Down There, A Nun at the Crossroads and Company of Killers were also offered.
In the Hants History column
• from 1947, fire damaged the Evangeline Inn and Russell Turple's Admiral Rock home was destroyed.
Also in 1947, Hantsport residents were lobbying for a community centre in town and architect C.A. Fowler was hired to draw up plans for a new school in Windsor.
In the Hants History
• column from 1922, it was reported that boring for coal was taking place throughout Hants County, with a fivefoot seam struck at 280 feet in Gore. An investigation was reported to be underway at the Bremner property in Falmouth after several bags of coal were collected.
Also in 1922, a full house turned out to the Imperial Theatre in Windsor to see the “K of P blackface minstrels.”