Comment

 E-mail

 Print

Research

This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of February 23

February 21, 1874 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

OUR POOR
[Image: Postcard featuring the Young Mens Christian Association, Nyack, ca. 1890. The YMCA was on Main Street near Broadway. Image courtesy of the Nyack Library.]
       The Charity Committee of the Y. M. C. A., having used up the moneys so kindly donated them, are obliged to appeal for further aid. The Committee have tried to use discretion, and help those who most needed assistance, but there are yet many urgent cases pressing upon them. Donations of money, food or clothing would be very thankfully received, and may be left with the Librarian at the rooms of the Association.
       The amount of money received by the Committee, thus far, is $90.70; expended, $87.09; balance on hand, $3.61.
       We know by experience that the times are dreadfully hard on all, but especially is this the case with the poor of our village and vicinity and we earnestly hope that the several churches in our village will respond liberally to this call made upon them.

February 23, 1924 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Times

TRUCK PROVES ITS WORTH — Snow Plow Device Attached to Big Fire Truck Cleans Main and Other Streets of Snow in Quick Time Wednesday
       The big automobile truck of General Warren Hose Company proved its worth to the satisfaction of many citizens who braved the sleet storm of Wednesday morning to watch its operation, and marvel at its stability and traction power to overcome obstacles as the truck was put to the severest kind of test in handling the snow plow appliance acquired by the Board of Trustees for that purpose.
       With the general use of the automobile, the necessity for keeping the streets open in handling the snow fall so as to make traffic possible, the snow plow appliance was procured. This is attached to the front of the fire truck, much on the same principle of a road scraper, the scraper or plow being handled by a wheel device that throws the scraper at either right or left angle.
       Morgan Demarest, Jr., was at the automobile wheel and James Campbell operated the wheel devices that controls the scraper mechanism, while Village Engineer Peck held the running board down.
       As it drives up and down Main Street, the ascent of the hill to the depot through the heavy snow, made doubly so by the falling sleet, tested the automobile mechanism. Several trips up and down were made with the result that the snow was piled in the centre of the street away from the gutter and sidewalk, and the long road served a double purpose, cleaning the streets and making the gutters free changing the old-fashioned custom of piling the snow in the gutter, and compelling the automobiles to proceed more carefully traveling, on each side of the long pyramid of snow.
       In the afternoon “Talky” took the wheel and the work of cleaning the other streets was successfully accomplished.

February 23, 1974– 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

‘AUNT SALLY’ CELEBRATES 101ST HAPPY BIRTHDAY
       Mrs. Edward DeWitt Woods of New City celebrated her 101st birthday Friday.
       “Aunt Sally,” as she is known to her friends and neighbors, attributes her longevity to working hard, according to her nephew, Alton Anderson. She has lived with him at 212 N. Little Tor Road, for the past year.
       “Aunt Sally is always doing something,” Anderson said. “Until recently; she wouldn’t even watch television unless she had something to sew or a rug to braid.” Although she requires a walker to get around, Aunt Sally still does the supper dishes and “occasionally mops the floor.”
       Mrs. Woods came to America from her native Sweden in 1896. Before she married, she worked as a French designer’s model and as a department store mannequin in Boston at the turn of the century. She has never smoked nor drunk alcohol but has taken a geriatric vitamin pill every day for the past 25 years.
       Her only wish is “to be a young 75 again.”
_____

 Comment

 E-mail

 Print