The 17-year locusts appeared promptly on time this year, according to Robert A. Kemp, local naturalist who resides at Clifton, Md., and who has made a study of the subject. They last visited the county in 1906, he said. The damage done by the locusts has been grossly exaggerated, Mr. Kemp insists. Real young orchards are menaced by the 17-year swarms, he said. But the older trees are really helped by the pruning given them by the cicada.Their roar is still heard in the mountains but the sound is already beginning to die out.
Wheat harvesting has begun in the county. The season is expected to begin in earnest the first of next week. From Emmitsburg to Mt. Airy and from Woodsboro and Liberty to Lander and Knoxville binder knives will click next week. In some sections activities will begin today and tomorrow. The tractor-drawn binders will be used by some farmers bu the horse-drawn machine is still the one that is preferred by the great bulk of the tillers of the soil in this county.Aim to have something, strive to know something, determine to be something and plan to do something, was the advice of Dr. H.M.J. Klein, of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, in his address to the graduates in the Frederick high school before an immense audience at City Opera House Thursday night. He pictured the kind of men and women the graduates might become in twenty years if they started in life with high vision and determined purpose. His address was replete with practical suggestions and good advice and while his remarks were directed primarily to the graduating class, it carried a message to others in the audience well worthy of thought and reflection.
By Thursday afternoon there were few signs that this northern Frederick County town, Thurmont, was the focus of national attention for several days this week. The crowds and the buses were gone, the wire machines and telephones in the American Legion building were silent and the nearby national park, nearly deserted. Even the Cozy had no signs beyond a placemat sign noting in Russian and in English: “for Soviet delegation only.” The most activity was around Camp Greentop, where Russian officials were reported to be staying. Greentop’s entrance was guarded by park police Thursday afternoon and area residents reported that persons had been moved out of Greentop earlier this month into Round Meadow Camp.
A grain drier was virtually destroyed by fire Thursday at Farmers Co-Operative Association at 35 E. South Street, in a heavy blow to the co-op on the first day of the grain season. A co-op spokesman, Jack Hoover, said the full impact of the fire, which local volunteer firemen contained to the one drier unit and its conveyors, will not be known until a complete examination has been made. The drier had been in operation only about two hours when the fire was reported. Hoover said the co-op’s main grain drier was not damaged by the fire although it stands directly beside the unit hit by the blaze.
Kristin Ludecke stepped from a canoe at Lilypons Water Gardens on Saturday, spiffy in a 1930s outfit, re-creating a visit to the gardens 62 years ago by one of the era’s most famous entertainers. Alice Josephine “Lily” Pons was a 4-foot-11, 106-pound French opera singer when she visited in June 1936, and one of the highest-paid entertainers in the world at $3,000 a performance. George Leicester Thomas Sr., founder of Lilypons Water Gardens at Buckeystown, was “completely in awe” of Miss Pons, said Margaret Thomas Koogle, great-granddaughter of Mr. Thomas and president of Lilypons. So in 1935, when the U.S. Post Office asked Mr. Thomas to name a postal annex it was opening at his business, Three Springs Fisheries, Mr. Thomas named the annex, the bridge and the road on which the business was located after his favorite diva. Lily Pons was made one word, “Lilypons,” at the request of postal workers. He took a “long shot” and invited Miss Pons, a star at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, to come to Lilypons for the post office and gardens dedication. She agreed. Miss Pons and her entourage arrived on June 20, 1936.
(Editor’s Note: The News-Post does not have access to archives from 20 years ago for April 16 through December 2003. The “20 Years Ago” summary will return Jan. 1, 2024.)