Remember when…
Here's a look at what was making the news 15 and 50 years ago in the Hants Journal.
15 YEARS AGO (FINAL 2008 EDITIONS)
Fundy Gypsum announced
• a massive layoff heading into 2009. It was reported that one-third of its workers in Hants County – 46 staff in total – would be laid off due to the downturn in the U.S. market for gypsum.
The Windsor Curling
•
Club officially opened at the end of October, 13 months after the original building was destroyed by arson.
The twinned section of
•
Highway 101 between Falmouth and Avonport opened to the motoring public, with the roadway officially designated Harvest Highway to honour the province's agricultural heartland. The total cost for the 11.8-kilometre stretch was about $47 million.
In other Highway 101 news, some West Hants councillors were concerned for public safety due to merging back onto the single-lane highway section. They described it as an accident waiting to happen and wanted to see signage and lights alerting motorists.
A Mount Uniacke native,
• Pte. John Michael Roy Curwin, died while on patrol in Afghanistan. He was one of three members in his unit to die when the armoured vehicle they were travelling in hit an improvised explosive device
(IED).
Priest Michael Walsh
• awoke to a horrible smell followed by the smoke alarm sounding. He quickly turned off the furnace at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Windsor. It was noted he was lucky as the heating system had failed and the furnace could have exploded. While repair work was underway, the congregation worshipped at St. Mary's Church in Hantsport and held Christmas Eve mass at Avon View High School.
Despite reviewing 25 sites
• and having $60,000 in funding, Windsor's CAO Louis Coutinho said the town wasn't any closer to securing a location to build a skateboard park.
Windsor landlord Kevin
•
Saunders said he was tired of asking the town to construct a sidewalk near his apartment complex on Stannus Street so he hired a construction crew to do it. He said two people in wheelchairs had wanted to rent from him but couldn't because it wasn't accessible.
Six horses perished in an
• evening barn fire in Brooklyn,
and the barn owner, who was trying to save them, was treated for smoke inhalation.
Plans to have The Bargain!
• Shop move into the former SAAN store location in the Fort Edward Mall were scuttled.
Windsor Home Hardware
• won the national 2008 Hardware Store of the Year award at the Outstanding Retailer Awards ceremony in Ontario.
The Stanley Cup and a
• historical hockey display was in Windsor, at Scotiabank, in November. The first 500 people to stop by received a professional photo with the cup.
Hants County Christmas
•
Angels raised a little more than $29,000 to help parents with children aged 16 and under have a happy holiday.
Anthony Cook won the
•
10th annual Windsor Pumpkin
Regatta with a time of 10:56. There was an estimated crowd of 8,000 to 10,000 people gathered along the Windsor and Falmouth waterfronts to watch the spectacle.
Windsor councillors said
• they needed to review, again, the intersection of Payzant Drive and Wentworth Road following a three-vehicle collision. The mayor noted discussions should be held with West Hants to see if a second road artery could be created.
West Hants council was
• mulling over the idea of making its dog bylaw have a bit more bite after the bylaw enforcement officer outlined a number of recent attacks and the lack of accountability for owners to ensure the dangerous animals are euthanized.
Hugh Maynard was in for
• a surprise when a six-point buck came crashing through the front window of his Windsor auto shop. It collided with a truck before bolting out a back window. It was noted the deer population was up in the area, as were motor vehicle collisions with the animals.
The one-hour Vision dramatic
• special The Gospel According to the Blues was shot in Windsor. The producer, Doug Pettigrew, grew up in Hantsport, and one of the stars of the show, Tara Baxter, was a Windsor native.
A public site selection
• workshop was held in hopes of finding a good location in Windsor to house Hockeyland – a one-of-a-kind entertainment complex with interactive exhibitions that was being pitched.
Chris Rafuse, who was
• diagnosed earlier in the year with flesh-eating disease, was on the long road to recovery, after having 80 per cent of the skin on his right leg replaced. Thankful for the provincial health care he received, Rafuse wanted to give back to the Hants Community Hospital (he donated a new walker and Nintendo Wii for seniors) and was encouraging others to donate to the local facility.
Dunnery Bond, a teenager
• from Lakelands, won YTV's The Next Star. He received a recording contract with Universal Music Canada, rights to the single I Dare You To Shine that would be featured on YTV's Big Fun Party Mix 10 CD, plus a professional music video.
The 50th anniversary of
• the Windsor Fire Department Auxiliary was celebrated.
50 YEARS AGO (FINAL 1973 EDITIONS)
A ribbon-cutting ceremony
• was held to celebrate the opening of 10 new rental housing units available on Crosley Court Extension. It was noted the Nova Scotian-designed affordable homes featured three bedrooms to accommodate larger families. Each unit cost $20,000 and were built by
Donald Dill Construction Ltd., of Currys Corner.
Windsor firefighters rescued
• an unconscious Sheila Grandy from an upstairs room after her home in Newport Station caught fire. She was treated for smoke inhalation. In November, William Spurr and Fred Rogers were commended for their bravery in saving Grandy.
A Brooklyn sawmill
• owned by F.S. Etter and Son was destroyed by fire. The estimated cost of damage was $100,000.
Six Windsor firefighters,
•
Deputy Chief C. Ted Smith, Capt. Cyril Woodman, secretary Elmer MacPherson, Roscoe Schofield, David Hayden and Charles Murdoch, attended the 100th anniversary conference of the Association of International Fire Chiefs in Baltimore.
In other fire news, Windsor
• and Brooklyn firefighters extinguished a large barn fire in Scotch Village. Warren O’Leary’s auto body repair shop on Martock Back Road could not be saved when fire broke out.
A full-page feature on the
•
75th anniversary of the new St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church appeared, detailing the original church being built around 1827 and how the new church came to be built in 1898.
Cochrane, In sports news, Dan
• a Hants West Rural High School student, won a bronze medal at the Canada Games for his triple jump, and had his sights set on representing Canada at the next Olympics.
Big Daddies’ Pizza opened
• on Water Street in Windsor. An extra-large (18-inch) pizza cost $5.25 while a six-inch mini pizza was just 90 cents.
Stedmans had a sale aimed
• at people with a sweet tooth. Among the deals were three giant 4.6-ounce Hershey’s chocolate bars for 88 cents; a 10-ounce tin of Poppycock for $1.27; and a 14-ounce box of Turtles for $1.88.
Save-Easy was offering
• a variety of sales aimed to make the holidays affordable. Among the advertised items were Sussex 10-ounce tear top tin beverages for nine cents; a 14-ounce package of tomatoes for 33 cents; a “meaty blade” of roast beef for 95 cents per pound; and 10-pounds of sugar for $1.69.
Showing at the Imperial
•
Theatre in Windsor were
Easy Rider starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper; Fuzz starring Burt Reynolds Oklahoma and Raquel Welch; and Crude starring George C. Scott, Faye Dunaway, and John Mills. Some of the other movies included Class of ’44; Hammersmith; Walking Tall;
Stablemates; Black Tight Killer; Brother Sun, Sister Moon; children-friendly titles like Santa and the Three Bears and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians; and a double
Frankenstein horror feature of Lady and Scream of the Demon Lover. They also were showing some racy movies, including Threesome, Sweet Sugar, and The Daughter: I, a Woman part III.
In the Hants Journal from •
1948, farmers in East Noel were lobbying the government to place a higher floor price on butter as they were having to sell off cows due to insufficient returns.
Also in 1948, the Nova Scotia Tomato Growers Association was celebrating its first year in operation. The president was Fred Pulsifier, of Greenwich; the secretary was C.A. Good, of Kentville; and the sales manager was George H. Wilson, of Falmouth.
In the Hants Journal from •
1923, it was reported that two new phone lines were installed
Windsor, between Brooklyn and bringing the total home phones to 18.
In policing news from 1923, Chief Sam MacDonald arrested a Halifax man in Avonport as he had witnessed a murder.
Also in 1923, five-year-old Margie Athelen Miller was the Hants County winner for a provincial baby beauty contest. Editor’s Note:
The 25
temporarily years ago section is unavailable. If you have a collection of newspapers from 1999, please contact carole. morris-underhill@saltwire. com.