Week of January 31

January 30, 1875 – 150 YEARS AGO

Rockland County Journal

 AROUND HOME

[Image: The Storms Steam Tub and Pail Factory. Detail from a map of Nyack dated 1854. The drawing on the map was created from a daguerreotype by the Mende brothers. The Storms Pail factory was on the waterfront, just north of the present-day Memorial Park. Image courtesy of the Nyack Library, via NYHeritage.org.]

 ☞  During the night in which the late John C. Freeman, of Haverstraw, came to his death, his sister dreamed that he was drowned in Sherwood’s pond—the place where his body was found on the following morning.

  ☞  “Slasher and Crasher” is shortly to be brought out by the Piermont Division S. of T. We would suggest, simply for the good of the cause, you know, that it be followed by that highly moral drama, “The Devil in Paris.”

  ☞  Pierre Anderson, Margaret Bross and Mary Wilson were arrested last week by Hubbell; the first for being drunk and the latter for begging. The first was sent by Judge Meeker to New City for ten days and the two women were discharged.

  ☞  Young ladies who have matured into womanhood, who wish to ride downhill, wait until the dusky shades of twilight have, fallen around them, then get some little urchin to loan them a sled, take it on the Elm Street hill and ride down at the rate of a mile an hour.

  ☞  A “tramp”—better known here as a “turnpike sailor”—was run over by some boys coasting one day this week, but being used to the trials and tribulations of this life, and having been run over so often by this cruel, wicked world, he was still able to navigate to parts where lock-ups are plenty and coasting is scarce.

  ☞  The boys start with their sleds up on the hill at the head of DePew Avenue, go down at the rate of sixty miles an hour to Broadway, where they make a turn and go south to DePew’s barn, then turn again and go all the way to the pail factory. Such coasting has never been known here before, but we are much afraid that unless it is stopped somebody will be seriously injured.

January 29, 1925 – 100 YEARS AGO

Pearl River News

CROSS WORD PUZZLES?

    The editor of the News has been criticized upon several occasions for not having a cross word puzzle appearing in the paper. It seems as though every paper throughout the entire nation is publishing cross word puzzles. A special effort is being made to start next week with one of these puzzles. It is hoped that they will be hard enough to carry through for a week, owing to the paper being a weekly publication. Probably some of our pupils here in Pearl River High School would like to contribute one of their puzzles for the public’s interest. Please call at the News Office in Theatre Building if interested.

January 30, 1975 – 50 YEARS AGO

The Journal News

POETS TURN KIDS ON TO SELF-EXPRESSION

       “What is a poet?” the teacher asked the little boy.

       “A poet is someone who’s dead,” he replied.

       Bobbi Chertok, county coordinator of Poets in the Schools, used the anecdote to illustrate one of the childish notions a new program is dispelling.

       Partially financed by state and federal funds, the program allows published poets to spend six days in local classrooms “to turn kids on to language, poetry, writing, and themselves,” Mrs. Chertok said.

        “Children think that poetry has to rhyme and make an important statement. The program frees them to see that colors, sensory perceptions and emotions can be poetry, too,” she said.

       Eleven Rockland schools have signed up this year. Each will produce a booklet, after the poet’s visit, with at least, one poem from each child who participated.

       Seeing their work typed is almost like seeing it published,” Mrs. Chertok said. “It’s very exciting for the students.”

       Congers Elementary School has adopted the program to its career education curriculum.

        “We hope the children learn that poets are real living human beings who do not live up in an attic or in an ivory tower, said Dr. Sue Reed, the school’s principal. “We also want them to see poetry as an organic thing and not as something old and dusty, you find in anthologies.”

       In keeping with that philosophy, Bill Wertheim of Manhattan never talks about alliteration, rhyme schemes, or onomatopoeia. He simply encourages them to exercise their imaginations and to think about their feelings.

       Although he does not correct spelling or grammatical errors, Wertheim said all aspects of language arts skills are enhanced by the program.

        “As they begin to write more, they begin to care about such things as grammar and spelling: it begins to matter to them,” said the former junior high school teacher.

       But for the purposes of the program, it is more important that “their self-respect is enhanced and that they feel capable of seeing the world in a valid kind of way,” he said.

       Wertheim, tries to show the students that language can be plastic and flexible, rather than rigid.

        “It’s all right for them to make up their own words, vocabularies and worlds he said.

       Poets in the Schools is designed for kindergarten through twelfth grades and is not reserved only for the gifted students in enrichment classes.

        “The more pampered kids in the special tracks tend to be very blasé,” Wertheim, 30, said. “But growing up is universal and the crises of childhood are very real to all children.” Wertheim, in fact, prefers to work with “so-called slower students” because they are “hungrier” to learn.

This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan for the Historical Society of Rockland County. © 2025 by The Historical Society of Rockland County. #FBF Flashback Friday may be reprinted only with written permission from the HSRC. To learn about the HSRC’s mission, upcoming events or programs, visit www.RocklandHistory.org or call (845) 634-9629.