Wolcott Card Group

It was a typical Saturday evening sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s in the small town of Wolcott. Four young couples in their late 20s or early 30s were meeting for their monthly card playing. The game of choice was usually canasta with two sets of four at each of two card tables. If one of the couples was not able to make it that month, then there would be a single table set up and the remaining two people would just watch and rotate in as each game ended. Each of the couples were raising growing broods of children. Sometimes the children would be left at home with a babysitter, but sometimes the children would be brought along and put to bed in the master bedroom upstairs. As one of these children I can recall going along in a car-bed that would be brought in so the youngest child would not roll out onto the floor and then the car-bed would be carried back out when the game was over.

            These four couples were not neighbors, in fact they lived from one end of the town to the other. And there was only one family connection among them. And the men all worked for different employers in cities to the south (Waterbury or Naugatuck). But they shared a love for the town that they had each moved to in the years following WWII. And they each would be involved in the growth of that town during the coming years. Let’s look at these four families and their contribution to Wolcott.

 

George & Jane Woodard

            George (1916-2005) and Jane (1919-1986) were the oldest of the four couples (by just a few years) and the most recent to move to Wolcott (again by just a few years). They lived on Fairview Ave, overlooking Hitchcock Lake in the very southern end of town. They eventually had three daughters (born in 1944, 1946, and 1952). George worked as a night watchman in one of the brass plants in Waterbury. Jane was very involved in the political life of Wolcott as has been reported in great detail in the Wolcott History website). Of significance here is her working as town treasurer and deputy registrar of voters, both positions would have given her access to lists of all the other residents in town.

 

Cliff & Betty German

            Cliff (1922-2012) and Betty (1923-2022) lived on Woodtick Rd, just up the street from Frisbie School. Cliff had served in WWII on a Navy fuel supply ship in the Pacific in the closing years of the war. He worked for US Chemical (later part of Uniroyal). Betty was a younger sister of George Woodard and was a teacher in the Wolcott school system. They had married in 1945 and moved to Wolcott about that same time. They had four children, three boys and one girl, but the first-born boy had died at the age of 3 weeks in 1949. The others were born in 1951, 1952, and 1956.

            Betty was the ultimate substitute teacher. The school could call her at any time, let her know that some other teacher was going to be out that day and she would step in and take over that teacher’s class – it didn’t matter if was a high school English class, math, or another subject. You knew that if you walked into the room and she was there that you would not be able to get away with anything that day. Any my parents being part of that same card group would not get you any favors either. I recall on day where she was substituting for an English teacher that she mentioned that she had been a substitute in every single course except one that was offered that year – the exception being boy’s high school gym class as she was a woman and would not be allowed in the boy’s locker room/showers. But she had even substituted in the boy’s shop class the previous week. While neither Cliff nor Betty were involved in politics, her connection to every family in town through her teaching gave her valuable insights into others.

 

Charles and Gerry Cullen

            Charles (1920-1973) and Geraldine (1923-1983) lived near the center of town. They had married in Stamford in 1943, and had moved to Wolcott shortly after. They had two boys (born in 1947 and 1950). Like Betty German, Charles was a teacher – but in one of the high schools in Waterbury, not in the Wolcott schools. They also attended the same church in Waterbury as my parents. But Charles also had a “side job” working in the town assessor’s office in Wolcott. That meant that he and Jane Woodard would have been working together in the Wolcott town office.

 

Vernon and Sylvia Russell

            My father (1920-2006) and mother (1924-2012) had married right after the end of his WWII service in the Navy in 1946 and bought a large piece of property in the far north end of Wolcott. They eventually had five children, alternating boys and girls, born in 1948, 1949, 1954, 1956, and 1958. Vernon worked as a draftsman for Scovil in Waterbury.

            My father was very involved in town politics and served as a Justice of the Peace. While technically an elected position, the quota of positions was divided equally between the two parties so that if your party nominated you it was guaranteed that you would be elected. In his later years my father also served on the Inland Wetlands Commission, thus continuing to have friends in town politics.

            In her early years, my mother’s involvement was through the Girl Scouts – involvement that had begun in her pre-teen years and which continued through the war years and after. After we had added a garage onto our home, it became the center of the GS Cookie distribution for the entire town. And it was through them that our entire family got involved in the running of the regional GS camp in Otis, MA – leading to both my parents being on the regional GS Council. Once the children were old enough my mother began working for the town, first as being in charge of the annual census (not the every decade federal census, but one that visited every home in town to count the children by age so the school district could ensure that when school began each fall they would have enough classrooms with appropriate distribution and that the busing would be appropriate). In addition, my mother became the registrar of voters for the town’s Republican Party – a job she likely inherited from Jane Woodard. When she passed away a large piece of the property the family owned was given to the Wolcott Land Trust to be preserved in perpetuity.

 

Conclusion

            Four families, ostensibly just meeting for monthly card playing. But all within a few years of age of each other and all becoming residents of Wolcott in the years during and immediately after WWII. Thirteen living children among them – overlapping over a dozen years or so. And all involved in various aspects of running the town – not as significant elected officials, but in the behind-the-scenes jobs that are needed. Between them they knew everyone in town – where they lived, the value and age of their home, the names and ages of each child – a treasure trove of information. Even though I was too young to appreciate it at the time, I’m glad to have been a part of this small group, to have known each family and to have benefitted from their collective efforts on the town’s behalf!