Brooklyn – The township suffered severely from the storm of Sunday evening. The barn of E. E. Rozell was leveled to the ground and a large shed and silo attached to James Bunnel’s barn was blown down, the barn also being moved on its foundation. Charles Snyder had four calves killed during the storm at about midnight, the bolt following a wire fence. On the farms of Isaac VanAuken and C. A. Rozell many fruit trees were uprooted. Silos were leveled in many places, the F. B. Webster farm suffering from such disaster. Quite a number of fruit trees in the orchards of Henry and G. Fulmer Decker, of South Montrose, were also blown down. The storm was about as severe a one as has been experienced in some years, and from all over the county comes reports of damage.

Uniondale – It afforded the writer much pleasure to greet Hon. Philo Burritt, of Washington, D. C., while here last Friday. He is north for the summer. He has been with his daughter, Mrs. Frank Couch, of Carbondale, for several weeks. He owns a farm in Virginia, a portion of which is on the site of the famous battlefield of Bull Run. It was allowed to grow to forest and there are many trees large enough for saw logs. Mr. Burritt will spend the summer with us. Also the town council held a meeting, Saturday evening, and discussed and cussed certain problems. They have not been strawberrying yet, so they have no shortcake to hand out.

Springville – The school board met on Saturday and elected teachers for the High school. Prof. Hardy was chosen principal. Only one of last year’s teachers, Miss Lena Lyman, was returned for next year, the others not applying. Also the base ball game played between the Lynn and Dimock teams on Saturday resulted in a score of 10 to 0 in favor of the home team. Walter Hartman was score keeper and Rev. Kilpatrick umpired the game.

Herrick Center – On Monday morning the farm house owned and occupied by Alvah Corey, in the western part of the township, was burned to the ground with nearly all the contents.

Montrose – But nine members are left of Co. G, 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers, who left here 100 strong for the front, 52 years ago. They are: W. H. Stark, Bridgewater; Benj. Vance, Silas Knapp, Augustus Smith, G. P. Stockholm, Franklin Forks; Isaac Morgan, Jr., Lestershire; James Leach, South Gibson, and Morris and Richard Davis, of Uniondale. The last mentioned, Richard Davis, it is expected, will participate in the transfer of flags, which will occur at the State capitol next Monday. Mr. Davis was color bearer for the company during the war. Also C. R. Sayre, who recently came back to Montrose for the purpose of opening “Rosemont,” permanently, has re-named the place, “Rosemont Inn,” and swung a nice sign to the breeze to that effect, to appraise automobilists and other strangers passing through town that they can find accommodations there for either a short or long stop, one meal or a whole season. And those spacious grounds and handsome trees sure look inviting these red-hot days.

New Milford – M. B. Perigo has the honor of being chosen one of the four men of his regiment—the 143d [Pennsylvania Volunteers]—to act as flag bearer at Harrisburg on Monday, when the old army flags are to be moved to their new quarters in the capitol building.

Clifford – Ira Snyder came into town the other night with a brand new five passenger Ford. Bill Baldwin, also, sits back of the wheel of a new five passenger Maxwell, just as natural as life.

Forest City – Three boys, whose ages ranged from 12 to 16 years of age, entered W. E. James’ store, Monday evening, by raising a window in the rear of the store. They helped themselves to base ball bats, balls and gloves. The goods were nearly all recovered the following day and settlement for the balance was promised. No arrests were made.

Harford – By request, the sermon on “Hell” will be repeated Sunday evening at the union service at the Congregational church.

Gibson – Mrs. E. H. Sweet, Mrs. C. A. Sweet, of Binghamton, and Mrs. Taft, of New Milford, attended the reunion of the Kazoo Band, at the home of Mrs. W. H. Estabrook, Saturday, June 6.

Thompson – F. W. Sheldon, of North Jackson, went to Thompson Saturday last to attend a bee for the benefit of the traveling public between Gillett’s crossing and George Crosier’s and during the time setting off fifty three blasts. Six men from Thompson borough and six men from Thompson township (and three were rural mail carriers) gathered to assist in the good work while the people, who think they have taxes enough to pay, stayed at home. Perhaps their horses will appreciate it when they come with heavy loads and find that the hill has vanished and it will cause less shorting of the automobiles.

Glenwood – Memorial day was largely attended at the Tower cemetery, there being only six of the surviving veterans in attendance. They are dropping out of ranks fast. In a few short years Captain Lyons Post, No. 85, will have answered to the final roll call. Then each one of us will obey their duties, proud to be a veteran’s daughter and son, but we pray them years to do their duties.

Forest Lake – U. D. Barber has opened a new store in the school house, near the Hubert Everest stand, which burned down a few years ago.

Hop Bottom – Mrs. C. A. Corson and daughter, Lena, are in Syracuse this week attending the commencement of Syracuse University, of which Mrs. Corson’s son, Guy, is a graduate. Guy has been engaged as principal of the Hop Bottom High School for the coming school year.

Little Meadows – Mike Butler was fishing down to Waits, N. Y., Sunday, along the river. He reported “the fish was good at that place.”

Hallstead – The Demer Brothers’ Company is moving the glass factory from the old Brush building in Great Bend into the concrete building in Hallstead. They expect to commence work in about a week. ALSO On Saturday, at Highland Park, the Corn Huskers defeated the Holy Terrors ball team, in a one-sided game, to the tune of 14 to 2.

Susquehanna – The class honors of the Susquehanna High School are: Isabelle Conn, valedictory; Cecil Dixon, salutatory, and Reed Tucker, class response.

Binghamton – Sumner Thatcher, aged 90 years, color-bearer of the 114th N. Y. Inf., during the Civil War, was found dead at his home where he lived alone, on June 1. The aged man was standing upright, clad in his faded suit of blue, and holding the colors which he had very bravely borne in many a battle. He had returned from the Memorial Day services with his comrades, and when entering the house, the overtaxed heart gave way after the strain of the march, and leaning against the wall of the room, the flagstaff served to keep the lifeless body upright. The deceased was for many years an engineer on the Erie, being the first to be retired on a pension a few years ago.

For more than a decade, this column has granted me a very special privilege – a weekly opportunity to talk to my constituents about things that interested me – and hopefully the reader as well.  There is one thing that this column has done that I never expected: it has led to friendships with many readers who simply took the time to respond to what was written.  I just lost one of those friends.

Many years back, a reader called and made an appointment to speak with me.  His name was Robert Curley.  We had never met, but he read the column and wanted to help me with its preservation and dissemination.  He also brought me a pile of stuff that he thought I might find interesting, including a copy of the Philadelphia grand jury report on the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.  For about an hour, we talked about the importance of information – or more particularly, public access to it – and how this office could do a better job at being a public resource.

Prior to his retirement, Bob had a background in education as well as computer technology.  His passion for those two things led him to my office with a fledging idea of creating a website.  He did not want any compensation – he was volunteering his service to design, create and maintain a separate website for our office.  Bob was so sincere and eager – I quickly agreed.

Bob then created our website – and continued to modify it and improve it over the years.  He would schedule periodic meetings to review the website with me – look for suggestions for improvement – as well as discuss what we wanted to see it do.  We added forms to the website – which allowed attorneys to simply download some of the documents that they needed for different proceedings.  This resulted in time saved for my employees as they no longer needed to fax the forms out.

Bob was the keeper of this column – he posted it every week onto the website so that anyone could access it – even if they did not purchase a local paper.  He also created a title for each column and indexed them on the website.  Bob then decided that we needed to have a blog and he set that up as well.  The blog never got a lot of use – which is probably just as well given the amount of time responding to the blog would have taken – but that effort shows just how much Bob believed in public access to their elected officials.

Periodically, Bob would send me material that he found interesting – some of which I must confess that I still have saved and have not read.  Other material that he sent me ended up as a topic for a column.  We had many lunches together where we discussed life, faith, politics and the law.  We were both Roman Catholic and Bob had a relative who was a priest – so faith formed a big part of our relationship.  Bob gave me a book entitled “Prayer in America,” which highlighted the historical importance of faith in our public discourse and government life, as well as another book entitled “Rediscovering Catholicism,” which speaks to the forgotten beauty of the Catholic faith.  At the same time, Bob also provided me with a speech by Mario Cuomo entitled “Religious Belief and Public Morality – A Catholic Governor’s Perspective,” and he encouraged me to read it, which I did do and I have the link saved.  Bob encouraged me to really think hard on the intersection of faith and public office – and whether you can ever truly separate your faith from your public work, and even if you can do so, whether you should.

Bob and I were scheduled to have lunch together on Thursday, May 29, 2014, and when he did not appear, I sent him an email looking to reschedule.  I did not hear back – until Monday morning when someone handed me his obituary stating he passed away unexpectedly on May 28, 2014.  Bob was a thoughtful man with a quiet sense of humor – and he will be deeply missed.

Coincidentally, our office website went offline about the same time as Bob’s death as a result of an administrative glitch on the payment on the account with the service provider, which we are working to fix.  It is only fitting that the website takes a few days off to remember its creator – as the rest of us do as well – though I am not sure what we are going to do without Bob there to guide us.  It is another reminder that each day is a blessing that we need to cherish and that our time here is fleeting.  Bob made a difference not only in his community, but his friendship and guidance served to make us all better people.

Please submit any questions, concerns, or comments to Susquehanna County District Attorney’s Office, P.O. Box 218, Montrose, Pennsylvania 18801 or at our website www.SusquehannaCounty-DA.org or discuss this and all articles at http://dadesk.blogspot.com/.