The pulp boat ‘Atlas Hugo Stinnes’ leaves the Weymouth North wharf loaded with pulpwood sometime in the late 1950s. Dan Fields photo
50 YEARS AGO: Weymouth fire leaves 100 workers jobless
35 years ago
Feb. 15, 1973 – There was a Valentine’s Day start to Winter Carnival at Digby Regional High School, and planned highlights included a hockey game between the school’s team, the Mobiles, and a visiting squad from Milledgeville, N.B. A concert featured music by the band ‘Pepper Tree’.
Representatives of the federal National Historical Sites Service were in Digby to photograph the area’s historic, pre-1880 buildings.
Peggy Gott of Smith’s Cove was re-elected chairman of the Digby Municipal School Board. Among the board’s decisions was to request decertification of its janitors before beginning a round of salary negotiations. The board said it no longer directly employed over 50 per cent of the janitors.
Premier Gerald Regan promised funds for two new women’s residences at College Sainte-Anne, adding that the province would also cost share with Ottawa other needed renovations and a new gym on the Church Point campus.
The Victoria Street home of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Belliveau was earning widespread fame for its bountiful roses. Visitors even asked to pay to photograph the house, said Belliveau, but he never charged.
At the Little Cinema was the Disney movie ‘The Biscuit Eater’, with stars Earl Holliman and Godfrey Cambridge.
50 years ago
Feb. 13, 1958 – Digby Board of Trade voted 22-1 to have provincial liquor laws changed to permit cocktail bars in first class hotels. Past president C.M. Levy introduced the motion, arguing that the Pines would close if tourists weren’t allowed drinks. Current board president Victor Snow, a long-time temperance worker, said relaxing liquor laws would lead to such conditions that only total prohibition would bring relief.
A flash fire totally leveled the boat and furniture plant of Weymouth Industries Ltd., leaving 100 men jobless. It was the village’s largest employer and had substantial orders for the year. Damage was estimated at a quarter of a million dollars.
Clare Municipal council added its agreement to plans to sell assets of Digby Power Board, including the generating plant on the Sissiboo River, to the Nova Scotia Power Commission.
The Capitol Theatre was showing ‘The Wild Party’, Anthony Quinn as an embittered ex-athlete who takes part in “the new sin that is sweeping America.”
60 years ago
Feb. 12, 1948 – J.J. Wallis was elected president of the new Digby Historical Society.
Herbert Hazelton of Bear River received word from his son George, a wireless operator on the tanker ‘Pachito’, which sank off the coast of France, taking with it 18 of the 31 people aboard. The younger Hazelton said the survivors were being well cared for after being plucked from the water.
The facility was not yet in full operation, but hundreds of youngsters turned out for a free skate on Digby’s new rink.
In Tiverton, Eugene W. Outhouse was re-elected president of the Canadian Legion’s Capriquet branch, and repeated a call for the province to build a new road in the village that would allow veterans to build homes.
Olivia deHavilland and Lew Ayres were the stars of ‘The Dark Mirror’, showing at the Capitol.
