Mark Read/Pages From The Past
100 Years Ago
August 1922
– A.H. Anderson, the real estate and insurance agent, has rented an office in the Novato Utilities Company building. He proposes to use most of the space to the exhibit of all products grown in this section.
– It is claimed that the Black Point cutoff road will be completed this. fall. An effort is being made to establish a second asphaltum plant in order to expedite the work.
– R. H. Trumbull has suffered for some time with sore wrists, one in particular giving him considerable pain. The trouble was the result of insect bites, causing blood poison to set in.
– The roofs of the railroad depot and warehouse look nobly in their new coat of green. A concrete walk and steps to the Presbyterian church are recent improvements worthy of note.
– Dr. John Dement has located in Novato, and with Mrs. Dement and daughter is domiciled in the McElherron house.
75 Years Ago
August 1947
– The Novato Chamber of Commerce meeting, Sam Gardner, Larkspur city attorney, gave the legal pros and cons necessary for the incorporation of Novato. Mary Courtwright, Larkspur city clerk for over 20 years, presented the practical aspects, stating that with incorporation “You got only what you paid for.”
– The Novato airport, directed by Woodrow Binford, has passed the C.A.A. inspection. Equipped with a maintenance shop, rest room, lounge, and three new planes, it is classed as complete and modern. Veterans of World War II may now be trained for private pilots’ licenses. They are asked to bring a certificate of eligibility and a photostatic copy of their discharge when applying for lessons.
50 Years Ago
August 1972
– Family and friends gathered Saturday to help Sadie D’Ambroglo celebrate her 92nd birthday. The festive occasion took place on the patio of Mrs. Louis (Marie D’Ambrogio) Salmina’s home on Fourth Street. Mrs. D’Ambrogio was born to Irish immigrant parents in the town of Bodega on August 5,1880. The family moved to the community of Valley Ford nine years later, and it was here that Sadie later met and married her husband, Louis, who was a butcher in the area. The couple moved to Novato in 1926, making their home on DeLong Avenue, across from Pini Mill. (Their house was recently razed by the state highway authorities to make way for the central business district off-ramp of the freeway bypass.) Mr. D’Ambrogio purchased a grocery store in the 700 block of Grant Avenue, later moving the business to the northwest corner of Machin and Grant Avenues where he added a meat department. In addition to Marie, the couple were the parents of Lucille, now Mrs. Robert Rogers of San Rafael, and a son who is deceased. Mrs. D’Ambrogio proudly claims six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Now a resident of Hill Road Convalescent Hospital, Mrs. D’Ambrogio took her first airplane ride when she was 89 between San Francisco and San Diego. The following year she flew to the Hawaiian Islands. She is in excellent health and quite alert. When asked what she attributes her long life to, she nonchalantly replies, “I just keep agoin’.”
– The city council last night refused to reconsider its condemnation of a strip of land on the Wilfred Lieb property at 1521 Hill Road and about 25 citizens went away mad. The city filed an action in condemnation last week offering $1000 compensation to Lieb for a 600 square foot strip so that a required 24-foot access road would be provided to the Pickart property between Hill Junior High and Rancho schools. The Pickart property is to be developed into an apartment complex. The city had earlier failed in its efforts to buy a 5 by 50-foot strip of land on the Hill School site because the school district said it had already dedicated the maximum required by law.
– North Marin Water District Manager Eugene S. Churchill resigned last night at the district’s board meeting to take a position with the World Health Organization. Churchill has been with the district for nearly 13 years, the last four as general manager. He will stay at his post until November 15.
25 Years Ago
August 1997
– The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is back in the Black Point Forest. The faire brings 16th Century Elizabethan England to Black Point beginning Saturday, Aug. 30. The celebration will be weekends through Oct. 5, with a special festival on Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 1. This is the 31st annual Renaissance Faire in Novato and the fourth year it has had a tenuous existence in its Black Point Forest Home, slated for development once all the political and administrative details are worked out.
– The City of Novato gave the U.S. Army $1 Monday morning and in return received the deed to 200 acres of Hamilton Field property with the promise of another 170 acres once it is free of contaminants. The transaction, conducted in ceremonial style in the former Hamilton Field Officers Club, now a community center operated by the City of Novato, brought the reuse of the former Air Force Base one step closer to reality.
Leave a Reply