WHO WE ARE:
Board of Directors
Al Gorman
Barbara Hogan
Sam Becker
Martha Becker
Committee Chairs
Louise Brundage
Lois Casey
Betsy Gorman
Stella Johnson
Ken Minkema
Joe Pepe
Virginia Zukunft
The above streamlined list does not do justice to the Board members who wear more than one hat serving on many committees, assuming a variety of roles and contributing in numerous ways, making our Society an active and responsible community organization.
Help us, help Hamden.
THE HAMDEN HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
SPRING 2003
IN THIS ISSUE: Annual Meeting, Grant News, Footnotes, Spring Glen Cookbook, Donald Hall and The Brock-Hall Dairy
Our Society will hold its annual meeting on Thursday, May 15, 2003 in the Activity Room in the Miller Memorial Library Complex at 2901 Dixwell Avenue, Hamden. The entrance is at the rear of the building. A short business meeting will be held at 7:30 PM, including the election of officers. The Society will host Norman Thetford, Executive Director of the Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association, who will present a slide program:
CANAL TO RAIL TO TRAIL
from the archives of the Hamden History Room
Refreshments will be served upon conclusion. Please try to attend.
Correction to last issue: CHARLTON GILBERT not Carlton Gilbert as it read
In 1985, the Hamden Historical Society and the Connecticut Historical Commission sponsored a TOWNWIDE HISTORIC AND ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY OF HAMDEN. This inventory of important structures was completed by professional consultants relying largely upon the Society’s records and the expertise of Martha Becker, Municipal Historian. The product that resulted was a two volume description and assessment, with photographs of Hamden’s historic resources and architecturally significant buildings…FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX of them!
In 2003, the Hamden Historical Society and Hamden’s Historic Properties Commission have been awarded a Historic Preservation Assistance Grant of $2,000. The funds will allow us to support data entry of the survey information into electronic form. It will be accessible to the public on the computer and no longer just gathering dust on a shelf. This matching grant is from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation in cooperation with the Connecticut Humanities Council.
FOOTNOTES FROM THE SOCIETY’S PRESIDENT
Looking Ahead:
Soon you will be receiving your membership renewal notice in the mail. Please respond as soon as you can and continue your support of the Society’s mission and work.
Still needed:
A Program Chair. Anyone interested in arranging programs for one or two membership meetings a year, please contact me at 288-0017. Also any ideas for programs would be welcome. The more we can offer, the more involved members can become in our activities.
A big thank you:
To our members who participate in SNET’s Community Connection Program. The Society receives 5% of every dollar spent on long distance calls by the member. If you are a current SNET customer, you can register by calling (800) 635-7638. There is no extra charge for you.
Docents:
This summer we will open the Jonathan Dickerman House to the public on Saturdays and Sundays, 1:00 to 4:00 PM and we will need Docents as guides and monitors. The Society’s Docent organizer, Lois Casey, will be calling for a commitment and choice of dates. Be thinking about your dates; this public service just needs a friendly face and a bright hello.
Al Gorman
AMONG THE TREASURES found in our archives in the Hamden History Library is a Cookbook compiled by and published for the Spring Glen Garden Club in 1929. The following are some of the recipes as printed in the 56 page booklet.
LEFT OVER CHICKEN: MRS. B. BANFORD
Cut chicken off bones, and make a nice cream sauce, pour over chicken and cook a few minutes. Also a nice way to fix cold lamb.
RINK-TUM-DITTY MRS. C. B. DIMOND
1 chopped onion, quarter pound of butter, half can tomatoes 1 egg, 1 lb. cheese cut fine, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, paprika, salt.
Chop onion, brown slightly in the butter, add tomatoes and allow it to simmer a while. Add cheese, when melted add beaten egg and stir. Cook a few minutes with gas turned very low. Add seasoning to suit taste. This is delicious served on hot buttered toast, with lettuce to accompany it
CORN PUFFS: Mrs. William J. Landon
11/2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ can corn, 1 egg, half cup milk, pinch of salt, melt 1 pound lard and drop the above mixture into hot lard. Serve with maple syrup.
ROSE BLUSH SALAD Mrs. Pihosky
Put currant jelly in the center of half pears. Add cream cheese, serve on lettuce leaves, with whipped cream for dressing
BRE’ER RABBIT LOAF CAKE Mrs. William Stewart
Sift together 1 ½ cup of flour, 2 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. ginger, 1 ½ tsp. of cinnamon. ½ tsp. nutmeg, ½ baking powder.
Mix 2 unbeaten eggs with ¾ cups of brown sugar, ¾ cups of Bre’er Rabbit Molasses, ½ cup melted shortening (Crisco or butter). Add dry ingredients and lastly 1 cup of hot strong coffee.
Bake in shallow pan—slow oven. Use with white nut frosting.
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have gone into graveyards, who worked at this loading dock wearing brown uniforms with the pink-and –blue lettering of the Brock-Hall Dairy…
At the roof’s edge, imperial Roman cement urns flourish and decorate exhausted air. Now suburbs have migrated north leaving Whitneyville behind, with its dead factory beside a dead movie….
I wait For traffic to pause, shift, and enter the traffic.”
excerpts from “Traffic” by Donald Hall
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The Brock-Hall Dairy on Whitney Avenue
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Donald Hall was born in New Haven in 1928; he grew up in Hamden on Ardmore Street and attended local schools before going to Phillips Exeter, Harvard, Oxford and Stamford. Having begun writing books before his teens with poems and short stories, he then moved on to novels and dramatic verse. Hall taught writing at the University of Michigan until 1975, when after marriage to his second wife and fellow poet, Jane Kenyon, he left academic life to write and live in rural Danbury, New Hampshire where he still resides. The author of many books of poetry and prose, Hall was the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and recipient of the Robert Frost Medal (1990) and three time winner of the National Book Award.
IT’S SPRING CLEAN UP SEASON AT THE DICKERMAN HOUSE
SATURDAY, JUNE 14th, 2003
Members gather your dust rags, window cleaner, mops and bring your elbow grease to help clean and shine the Society’s Dickerman House Museum. Please assemble at 9:00 AM to assist in putting the ‘old red house’ in order for its public openings beginning the first weekend in July.
The House Committee will meet to discuss improvement projects, as well as attend to property maintenance, the grounds and to clean up the Barn.