Looking back at writings of 2022
By Erik Pekar
Another year has passed, and with it completes another year’s group of issues of the Sentinel. Last month, we went through a set of the 2022 issues. With a folder and a pair of scissors, we clipped out the 2022 articles of “Granville Then and Now.” A copy of each issue was saved every week for this purpose. This is a tradition that began when we first started writing for the Sentinel.
As we progressed through the stack of newspapers, clipping out the column, our attention was taken at times by historical topics or then-current items of interest. We wrote of the naming history of the Mettowee River, how it was once called the “Granville” or “Pawlet” river and emphasized that the spelling with the “o” is correct (Mettowee, not “Mettawee”).
We told of the several yearly installments of stories of “Lincolniana” recalled by Morris Rote-Rosen in his “Main Street” column during the late 1950s and 1960s. We wrote of the story of a collection of glass plate negatives found by the now-defunct Granville Heritage Society in 1979, and how the photo of the A. C. Smith ice cream parlor led to this writer identifying the negatives as being taken by photographer Nellie J. Lewis.
We wrote of the 1967 Main Street fire, of the events of that day. We also wrote of concerns, in the wake of the Wilmarth building fire in Greenwich, about firefighter access if a Main Street fire occurred again. We wrote about the elusive board game called the “Game of Granville”. We told of the 1918 influenza epidemic in Granville, its impact, and the establishment of an emergency hospital, where local nurses made a valiant effort in helping those affected.
We wrote of the Palm Sunday flower show put on for many years by Jim and Mona Crandall out of their greenhouse on the Middle Granville road. We told of the history of Daylight Savings Time, and how the village of Granville used to adjust the time so DST would not interfere with the schedule of rural non-village students who resided in the town where there then was no DST. We lamented the closing of Parker’s Dairy after more than 120 years in business, and expressed thankfulness that the land of the former Diplock farm in Middle Granville, rented out to another farmer for some years now, would remain farmed land in a continuation of that arrangement.
We wrote a retrospective of the life of Granville resident John Norton, best known for being an owner of the Wilson’s clothing store in Granville. We wrote of the owners of businesses and offices on Granville’s Main Street in the 1960s contemporary to Norton and Wilson’s. We made an appeal for Granville memorabilia and historic documents and thanked Dennis and Kathy Williams when they donated a Granville promotional vanity plate.
Reflecting on the request for a traffic light in West Granville at the intersection of Route 40 and County Route 17, we wrote of past attempts to get flashing traffic lights at other local intersections. We wrote of the history of crosswalk curb ramps on Granville’s Main Street, and the part that the Granville Lionesses played in getting the first set installed in the 1980s. We commemorated the reintroduction of the “files features” in the Sentinel and the Times last July by writing of the history of such features in both papers.
We wrote of the radio career of Granville’s Bob Bascom, who worked for many years at radio stations in this vicinity, including a few long stints at Lakes Region Radio (WVNR and WNYV). With the research request made by Elio Del Sette, we wrote of his recollections of the Granville Drama Club and “The Sound of Music”. We wrote an uncommon topic for this column, a business retrospective, on the Pine Grove Diner at its ten-year anniversary of current ownership. We wrote of the local participation over the years in the state’s Adopt-a-Highway roadside garbage removal program. To commemorate the 140th anniversary of the Granville Baptist Church’s current edifice, we wrote of the church’s history and the chronology of its pastors.
Two Granville women became centenarians within weeks of each other, and we wrote retrospectives on both Helen Macura and Marge Thomas. We wrote of the history of the naming of McGuire’s Corners, the intersection of Routes 22 and 149 south of Granville. We wrote a retrospective on the real estate career of Craig Campbell, who was in the industry for nearly 50 years. We recalled the introductions of new 1958 model year cars as advertised by local dealerships in autumn 1957, and the following week we did the same for new 1958 model year pickup trucks. The Christmas greetings given by Granville area merchants in 1952 were reprinted. We closed the year of columns with one recalling the business happenings of the Granville area during 2022.
Many current happenings also were covered or noted as they occurred. We wrote of the Church Street bridge reopening, and the Granville Community Foundation’s announcement of meeting its 2021 fundraising goal. We paid attention to events in the area, such as the town wide yard sale, Penrhyn car show, Autumn Leaves Car Show, tree lighting, Festival of Trees, and lighted tractor parade. In one issue we noticed an item which reminded us again of the marching on of time. The passing of Iva Liebig last March marked the end of an era, for with her went the longtime business of Liebig Berries. It did not reopen, and the land has been listed for sale.
We congratulated our Granville athletes, such as the varsity field hockey team making it to sectionals. We also noted the doubly interesting situation of the modified field hockey team; they had a new coach, Payton Barlow, and they completed the season undefeated.
We kept up with most, if not all, of the road work for highways in or near the Granville area. These were state, county, town or village roads, and even the Church Street bridge, the final project stages of which were finally finished. Early in the year we noted of the bad condition of some of Granville’s sidewalks, and that they had been this way for many years. After the village board approved fixing up some sidewalks in September, we commended them for taking that action, and the village DPW for doing the quality work to replace those sidewalks.
We covered new business openings and reopenings, some of them with interviews, and as always, we wished the owners the best in the new business endeavors. In the event of business closures, we lamented the loss of the business from the Granville area. From the word on the street there were two business happenings which gave the most surprise to Granville people. One was the return of Scarlotta’s Car Hop under the ownership of the Barlow family. The other was the reveal that the future occupant of the former Manchester Wood factory is Amazon, which is redeveloping the building for a type of package distribution center they call a “last-mile delivery station.”
We continued to follow the merging of the Granville and Whitehall football teams. We wrote of the approval of the merger, of the choosing and hiring of head coach Darin Eggleston and his assistant coaches. We wrote of the introduction of the first season of merged Granville-Whitehall football, which many were looking forward to, and talked with Matthew Barlow, a Granville senior on the team, who was excited about playing for the merged team. We congratulated the team on their first winning game. Their first season may not have been a breakout success, registering an overall record of 3-7, but in any case it is a start from which to improve on.
The process of clipping out the columns of “Granville Then and Now” continued until we reached the end of last year’s papers. We sorted out all the clippings of the column in order by published date and placed the stack of columns in the folder we mentioned at the beginning of this writing. Having finished clipping all of “Granville Then and Now” for 2022, we filed the folder in the cabinet and put away the scissors until next year.
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