Old Home Day 1934

Old Home Day 1934 marked the 2nd year the event had been sponsored by Treadway-Cavanaugh Post No. 64 American Legion and Auxiliary aided by 9 other Legion Posts from around Middlesex County.  Billed the 17th annual OHD,  it actually had been suspended for five years beginning in the late 1920s before our very active Legion members stepped up to revive this important community event.  Similar actions by member of the EH Fife and Drum Corp in the late 1970s revived the modern OHD now in its 35th year.

 

As now, the biggest day of the year for EH and its former residents who wandered far and wide from their childhood homes, the combined OHD observance and the Middlesex County American Legion Fair arrived with it thousands of townspeople, former residents, friends, visitors, guests, and the curious to partake in the huge celebration.

 

Then as now, the colorful and lengthy parade, still acknowledged as one of the largest in Connecticut, featured snappy colored uniforms of many state Drum Corps, each competing for viewers attention.  Interspersed between marching units were picturesque floats designed and staffed by local organizations, each depicting the parade theme of "name a song." A baseball game between the East Hampton Bombers and the Middlesex County All Stars followed.  (Maybe something our current OHD Committee might re-institute).

 

The evening held a variety show with dance and song performers such as Clara and Sidney Bradley, a one-man act by Harry Bolden, and strong-man stunts by Richard Vintour, who had appeared at Radio City Music Hall.  Later, a fireworks display on the school grounds followed by dancing and other activities at Carriers Casino and other venues such as Clearwater Lodge on Lake Pocotopaug.

 

Event officials included Paul Voelker, Chairman, Mrs. Phyllis Thatcher, Vice Chair, Mrs. Mary Garvey, Treasurer. 

In Honor of Our Veterans

On May 31st, like thousands of other communities around our Nation, East Hampton will celebrate Memorial Day, in honor of those who so valiantly gave their lives for the freedom and liberty we all enjoy, but often take for granted. Probably very few have ever noticed or studied our first Veterans Memorial. It sits in the Village Center on the corner of the Congregational Church lawn. The annual Memorial Day Parade culminates their and a tradional service occurs, remembering those veterans who passed away during the year. Typically High School Students make presentations such as The Gettysburg Address and the poem In Flanders Fields with a guest speaker.


The Memorial's origins in the Village Center stem from a public meeting held at Carriers’s Casino attended by over 800 people on the first Armistice Day (Nov. 11, 1920) recognizing the end of World War I, after the organization of the local American Legion Post No. 64. Carl Price, author of Yankee Township, delivered an address about The Town in Seven Wars, and his “remarks were concluded with a taunting reproach for East Hampton's failure to erect a memorial to the men and women who had represented the town so valiantly in the several wars.” Present was Henry T. Sellew, Civil War Veteran, then over 80, who left the meeting “in high dudgeon, vowing that he would not rest content until such a monument had been erected, even if he had to go get the stone himself.” “This he did literally, with the assistance of Mayo S. Purple; and sixteen oxen bore the huge glacial bolder from Marlborough, where on the church green it was set up.”

Dedicated on Labor Day 1921, Thomas J. Bannigan, Vice Commander of the National American Legion and Governor Everett J. Lake unveiled the monument, which disclosed a rough monolith typical of the New England hillsides, and bearing bronze tablets inscribed “TO THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT MEN OF CHATHAM WHO BRAVELY BORE THEIR PART IN THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION; THE WAR OF 182; THE CIVIL WAR; AND WW I,” with their names thereon inscribed.