Days Gone By
100 YEARS AGO, 1924 » Daylight saving for Philadelphia this year was proclaimed Friday in a resolution unanimously adopted by the City Council, which requests the citizens to set their clocks ahead one hour on the last Sunday in April and retard them again to accord with Eastern Standard Time on the last Sunday in September. Charles B. Hall, president of Council, said every precaution has been taken so the resolution would not affront the State law fixing Eastern Standard Time as official in Pennsylvania. Council is merely requesting the people to put into practice what it believes is in accord with the wishes of the great majority, said Mr. Hall.
75 YEARS AGO, 1949 » The need for an additional common pleas judge in Delaware County was pointed up last November, President Judge Harold L. Ervin revealed today, when, swamped with civil suits waiting trial, assistance from judges outside the county was sought. None was available because of pressure of work in their own courts. For several years there has been a growing realization among the three Delaware County Common Pleas Court judges of the need for another judge.
50 YEARS AGO, 1974 » From the AP, Harrisburg — The Pennsylvania Lottery has paid off more than a million winners in its first two years, says the agency’s executive director, Henry H. Kaplan.
25 YEARS AGO, 1999 » A fixture in Delco politics for more than four decades, Joe Dorsey of Collingdale left an inimitable GOP paw print with his death yesterday at CrozerChester Medical Center. “He was one the hardest working politicians in the county,” Dorsey’s daughter Dorothy Powers said. “And he was the best father and husband you could have ever hoped for.” Dorsey was one of the core GOP powerbrokers, riding shotgun with Springfield’s Charlie Sexton, Upper Darby’s John McNichol, Ridley Township’s
Nick Catania, Chester’s Jack Nacrelli and Darby Township’s Thomas Judge. “I always felt that he was a brilliant leader,” Sexton said. “He always delivered and if he gave you his word, that was his bond.” McNichol remembered Dorsey as a tireless campaigner, a straight-shooter in a part of the county that demanded no-nonsense representation.
10 YEARS AGO, 2014 » Nether Providence Township will formally request bids for the replacement of the roof at a historic landmark it owns and operates. For several years, officials have expressed concern about the deteriorating condition of the cedar-shingle roof at the Thomas Leiper House, an Avondale Road structure on the National Historic Register. It was built as a summer home around 1785 by Leiper, a Revolutionary War patriot, Philadelphia Council president, merchant and railroad pioneer.