50 Years Ago – May, 1971

50 years Ago – May, 1971

By Jim Ignasher

April, 1971

     Tec. Sergeant Kenneth E. Bessette of Esmond was serving in the U. S. Air Force at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

     Second Lieutenant James L. DeStout was serving as a pilot with the U. S. Air Force.

     The Georgiaville Baptist Church held its annual candlelight memorial mass for all deceased war veterans of Smithfield.

     Roy Andrews of Stillwater was installed as the Exalted Ruler of the Smithfield Elks Lodge No. 2359.

     On May 8, NASA launched its Martian probe, Mariner 8. Its mission was to orbit and photograph the planet Mars, but five minutes after the launch a malfunction prevented it from achieving earth orbit. Two days later the Soviet Union launched a Mars probe of its own, and it too failed. Later in the month both countries launched second probes aimed at Mars. Both successfully reached the red planet, but the Russian probe crashed on its surface. This was the first time in history man-made objects had gone to another planet.

     A flowering cherry tree was donated to the Greenville Grange by the members of the Apple Blossom Garden Club. The tree was placed on the grounds of the grange as part of a beautification program. Members of Girl Scout troops 101 and 882 assisted with the planting.

     The historic grange hall stood on Austin Avenue just in from Putnam Pike. Unfortunately, both the building and the tree are no longer standing.

     On May 9, the tenth annual Apple Blossom Queen Pageant was held at the Smithfield High School. The event was sponsored by the Rhode Island Fruit Growers Association, and the Rhode Island State Grange Agriculture Commission.

     Local young ladies who participated included Debby Dupointe, Ellyn Thurber, Betty Dolbey, Bonnilyn Dobson, Cheryl Place, Janet Hill, and Janice Hill.

     The winner was Linda Bertrand of Newport.

     A controversy arose when a local businessman petitioned the town to approve the operation of an outdoor flea market next to the Apple Valley Mall. The Town Council met on May 28, and numerous residents came to protest the plan. Some objected to the types of goods that could be sold, others spoke of unsold goods and trash being left behind, while others claimed property values would be lowered, and traffic in the area would increase. The Council denied the plan.

     If one went to the movies in May of ’71, they might have seen “Support Your Local Gunfighter”, a comedy starring James Garner who is mistaken for a notorious gunslinger in an old-west mining town. Two competing factions try to hire him to drive the other out of town. And thus the hi-jinx began.

     Another popular move that month was “Escape from the Planet of the Apes”, a prequel to the 1968 movie, “Planet of the Apes.”

     On May 16, the price of mailing a letter in the U. S. rose from six to eight cents.

     Voters at the annual Town Financial Meeting approved funding for a new police station. Up until this point the police station had been located in the Town Hall, and the department had outgrown the space.

     Charles Sandner of Greenville was presented an award for his service as Cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 43 of Greenville. He had been associated with scouting since 1954, and Cubmaster since 1966. Pack 43 was sponsored by the Greenville Baptist Church.

     On May 22 the Smithfield Police held its annual policeman’s ball at the St. Michael’s Church parish hall. More than 300 people attended.

     On May 28 the Rhode Island Heart Association sponsored a “balloon dance” for 7th and 8th grade students which was held at the Greenville Grange Hall. Radio personality Joe Thomas of WPRO served as master of ceremonies and DJ.

 

50 years Ago – November, 1970

50 Years Ago – November, 1970 

By Jim Ignasher

 

December, 1970

     Air Force Sergeant Mary C. Hess of Greenville was serving as an inventory management specialist at Naha Air Force Base in Okinawa.

     Richard N. Kanea of Greenville was serving his fourth tour of duty aboard a navy gunboat in Vietnam.

     A local Ford dealership was advertising a 1970 Ford Galaxie 500, with a V-8 engine and a “cruse-o-matic” transmission for $2,994.

     On November 6, the rock band Aerosmith, performed for the first time.  The concert took place at the Nipmuc Regional High School in Mendon, Massachusetts.

     On November 7 the Smithfield High School Student Council held a spaghetti supper at the high school as a fund raiser.

     Leo Bouchard of Esmond, president of the Rhode Island Association of Conservation Commissions, led the Rhode Island delegation to a conservation convention held in Bedford, New Hampshire.  The convention was held to exchange ideas about the “growing national crisis of environmental problems”.  

     Smithfield Senator F. Monroe Allen was among those who spoke at the convention.  

     Shrubs and trees donated by the Rhode Island Highway Department were planted at William Winsor School by volunteers from the Apple Blossom Club, and the Smithfield Jaycees.

     Loam for planting was donated by Clint Gustafson of Greenville.

     The Greenville Pharmacy, owned by the Kayatta family for thirty years, was sold to Vincent Volpe.  The pharmacy was located at the intersection of Rt.44 and Austin Ave.

     The establishment opened in 1940 in the former “Woods Store”, and was the first drug store in the area.  Prior to its opening, the closest drug store to Greenville was in Centerdale.

     At the time of its opening, there were few retail stores in Greenville Center.  There was the Greenville Garage across from the bank building, an ice cream parlor, and a First National grocery store, which later became Benny’s, and is today Woods and More.  

     In 1941, Francis Kayatta, Jr., entered the armed forces and served with the 1st Calvary division in the Pacific during WWII. 

     Linda Piscatelli was crowned Home Coming Queen at Smithfield High School during half-time on the football field.

     The Smithfield Elks Club presented Greenville Manor with brand-new Boston rocking chairs.

     November is the time some start to think about Christmas shopping, and one local retail establishment came up with a novel idea to bring in early customers.

     The Family Store, a clothing store once located in Route 44 in Greenville, advertised a “balloon sale”.  Hundreds of balloons were filled with helium and allowed to float to the ceiling.  After making a purchase, a customer would choose one and pull it down and see a number on the top.  The number would indicate the amount the purchase would be discounted.  Numbers ranged from 10% all the way to 100%. 

     1970 was an election year for the Smithfield Town Council.  When the new council was sworn in it consisted of Allan B. Schwartz, John F. Emin, Jr., Peter Coogan, Thomas J. Vanner, and Geoffrey S. Weston.

     If one went to the Apple Valley Cinema in November of 1970 they had a choice of seeing Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Patton, Catch-22, and Diary of a Mad Housewife.     

     On November 26, the Greenville Grange hall, which stood on Austin Ave. just in from Rt. 44, was rededicated after extensive repairs were completed due to a disastrous fire the year before.  The building had been used as a Grange hall since 1939, and was demolished in the 1980s to make way for further development.    

     Thomas J. Connor, Jr., of Greenville, a 7th grader at St. Philip School, auditioned for the Barrington Players for their production of the Broadway musical Mame.  He won the major role of “Patrick Dennis”, the nephew of Mame Dennis.     

     A Farewell reception was held for Reverend W. Stanley Pratt of the Greenville Baptist Church.  Rev. Pratt had served as pastor for eight years and was leaving to serve as pastor of the First Baptist Church on Block Island.  Four-hundred people were in attendance. 

 

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50 Years Ago – December, 1968

50 Years Ago – December, 1968

By Jim Ignasher

 

December, 1968

     This month denotes the 50th anniversary of a tragedy. On December 10, 1968, Smithfield police officer Norman G. Vezina was dispatched to Indian Run Trail for a report of a 5-year-old boy who had fallen through the ice of the Spragueville Reservoir. The youth’s name was Kenneth Firby, and when Vezina arrived he saw the boy struggling in the frigid water. Without hesitation, the officer went to aid the child, but unfortunately both were lost.

     Officer Vezina was promoted to the rank of sergeant posthumously.  

     Airman 1st Class Robert J. Mitchell of Greenville was home on a 30-day furlough after serving a year-and-a-half in Vietnam.

     Navy Lieutenant (j.g.) Andrew H. Aitken, Jr., of Greenville was also home on leave.

     Air Force Sergeant Robert G. Browne of Greenville was stationed in Thailand.

     The Smithfield squadron of the Civil Air Patrol awarded cadets Dennis Duhaime and Mike Hennessey the Curry Award after successful completion of training.

     Cadet Master Sergeants Linda Fornaro and Richard Larkin were promoted to Warrant Officers.

     Cadet Lieutenant Lynette Blackmore was promoted to Captain, and Cadet Captains Rosalie Verin and Paula Blackmore to Majors.

     On December 7 a Christmas dinner and theatrical program was held at the Greenville Grange Hall titled, “The Lighting of the Candles”. The event was open to the public.

     That same evening the Smithfield High School Drama Club held it first theatrical production for the 1968-69 Season with its presentation of the play “Dracula”.

     Cast members included Kevin Fallon as Dracula, with Kurt Anderson, Kathy Kelly, David de Pasquale, Susan Dearmin, Mark Beaudion, Deborah Imbruglio, and Karen Kapanakis, in supporting lead roles.

     The club had been rehearsing since the beginning of the school year.

     A fire safety tip that appeared in a local newspaper of the day advised all homeowners to keep “an ashtray in every room”, and to empty them often. It went on to explain how many fires in the home are accidentally started by careless holiday guests. Yes kids, there was a time when smoking cigarettes indoors at people’s homes was not only acceptable, it was also permissible to light a pipe or a cigar.

    Among the “Christmas specials” to be had at a local clothing store were turtle neck shirts for men, and “wool checkered” bell bottom pants for both sexes. In 1968 there was a word for these clothing styles – “groovy”.    

December, 1968

     Another store was advertising Polaroid “Swinger” cameras for $17.93 – regularly $23.95. For those too young to remember, the “Swingers” offered an “instamatic” finished photograph within sixty-seconds. The picture quality was generally poor, but it was considered quite the innovation in its time, and perfect to using to capture those special moments, or for giving as a gift for the holidays.

     The Providence Gas Company was advertising a free ham or turkey with every new gas stove purchased before Christmas. Price – $214.00

     On December 15 the annual tree lighting ceremony took place on the Greenville Common sponsored by the Apple Blossom Garden Club. Mrs. Everett Fernald, Jr., served as Chairwoman, and Senator F. Monroe Allen turned the switch that lit the tree.  

   Mr. Robert Reall of Greenville was appointed Campaign Director of Smithfield for the 1969 March of Dimes charity fundraising campaign.

     The Emblem Club of Smithfield, and the Cranford Club of Greenville, joined together to bring a Christmas celebration to the patients at Zambarano Hospital in Burrillville.

     On December 22, Santa took time out of his busy schedule to come to Smithfield, but on this occasion he wasn’t using reindeer to remain airborne. Instead, he landed at Anna McCabe School in a helicopter! The event was sponsored by the Smithfield Town Council, the Greenville and Georgiaville volunteer fire companies, and the Smithfield Jaycees. (Don’t you wish they still did stuff like this today?)

     On December 23, Scuncio Chevrolet opened for business and remained so for more than twenty years. The large auto dealership once stood where the Stop & Shop supermarket is located today.

 

 

 

 

Smithfield’s Early Schools

Originally published in the Smithfield Times magazine, September, 2017.

Smithfield’s Early Schools

By Jim Ignasher

     Everyone’s heard the old story about the father who tells his children how hard life was when he was young; “When I was a kid, we had to walk to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill, both ways!” We laugh at it today, but there was a time when such a statement wasn’t that far removed from fact. In the days of the iconic “one-room school house”, youths of all ages walked to school, or if they were lucky, rode a horse. They probably weren’t barefoot unless it was summer, (yes, school was sometimes held in summer.) but it’s likely that some weren’t adequately clothed for harsh weather. It was a time before electric lighting, central heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing. The classroom was lit with oil lamps, heat came from a pot-bellied stove, AC consisted of open windows, and the outhouse was just a short hop, skip, and a jump through the schoolyard. Perhaps that’s why the father who first uttered those words began with, “Kids today have it too easy!”      

     It’s September, the month that signals the end of summer and the start of a new school year, so an article about early schools in Smithfield seemed appropriate. In the archives of the Smith-Appleby House Museum is a lengthily research paper written by a former Smithfield teacher, Thomas B. Davis in 1933 titled “District Schools of Smithfield, R. I. Before 1871”. Part of the information in this article was derived from his research, and some from other sources.

     From 1730 to 1871 the town of Smithfield included the present-day municipalities of Central Falls, Lincoln, North Smithfield, and Woonsocket south of the Blackstone River, and by 1871 Smithfield had no less than thirty-six separate school districts. (The boundaries of each district can be seen on the Beers 1871 map of Smithfield, found in the Beers Atlas, at the Greenville Library.) Space does not permit mentioning all of them, so this article will only focus on those seven districts that were within the boundaries of present-day Smithfield.  

     As a point of fact, the “one-room school house” commonly depicted in art and literature didn’t become a common part of the American landscape until the early 1800s. Before then, school was generally held in comparatively informal settings such as homes or businesses.   And although many tend to picture a “little red school house”, photographic evidence from the 19th century indicates schools were just as likely to be painted white, and in some cases, made of brick.

     District 13 was the “Evans District”, and included Evans Road and Mann School Road. Between 1806 and 1826, Daniel Mann taught school in his home, (Hence the name of the road.), before a proper school house was erected in the vicinity of Mann School Road and Burlingame Road. That school house was later replaced by a new building in 1853.  

     Greenville was District 14. According to Mr. Davis, the first school in this area consisted of a room in the Greenville Tavern, a.k.a. the Waterman Tavern, sometime around 1750. This seems laughable when one considers that no establishment that serves alcohol can be located within 200 feet of a school in Smithfield today.

     The first school house in Greenville was constructed sometime later in the vicinity of the present-day Greenville Post Office. In 1804 it was replaced by a two-story structure known as the Greenville Academy, which was later relocated on Smith Avenue and converted to housing. In 1874, another two-story school was built on the site of the former academy and remained in use until the William Winsor School was completed in 1930.

     In 1939, the former school was acquired by the Greenville Grange and utilized as a meeting hall until it was demolished to make way for new development in the 1980s.

   The Village of Stillwater was District 15. As with other early districts the first “school” was taught in a private home – in this case the home of John Smith Appleby, which everyone knows today as the Smith-Appleby House Museum. Stillwater’s first school house wasn’t built until 1828, but its exact location is unclear. In 1856, (Some sources state 1869), a new school was erected just to the north of the intersection of Stillwater Road and Hanton City Trail.

     Georgiaville was District 16. Up until 1820, school was held in the home of John S. Farnum before classes were conducted in a building owned by the textile mill. The first school house was erected on Railroad Street in 1850. It was originally a one-story structure, but a second floor was added in 1873.

     From 1924 to 1942 the building was utilized as a fire station by the Georgiaville Fire Company before the present station was built. It later served as a DPW garage before being burned for training by the fire department in 1962.

     Esmond (formerly known as Allenville and Enfield) was District 17. The first school was erected in 1820 on Maple Street, but was replaced in 1849 by a new building on Esmond Street. Another school was later built on Chamberlain Street and is today a private residence.

     West Greenville, District 20, was one of the smallest districts in town. Its school stood on Route 44, just before West Greenville Road. The building reportedly began its existence as a grist mill, but was moved to that site by Captain Elisha Steere to serve as a school.

   The first school house in Spragueville, (District 28), was constructed next to the Spragueville Dam in 1808, and stood until 1920.   

     Mr. Davis also noted that Smithfield had a school house that wasn’t designated its own district. He wrote in part, “Levi Barnes built a small school house at his own expense on Wolf Hill about 1825.” Levi had nine children, and hired a teacher to educate them, as well as any of his neighbor’s children who wanted to attend. The building was later converted to a home, and was still standing as of 1933.  

     Today, Smithfield has six public schools which are all under one school district, and although school buses have replaced horses, the story of trudging to school barefoot in the snow endures.

The Rhode Island Republican
December 11, 1839

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