As a way of honoring the memory of one of Wickford’s finest, Katherine Wheeler, owner of the Grateful Heart store, let’s take a close look at the place she called home for decades.

I expect that during the fall and early winter of 1938, Leonard Joslin’s temper would flare each and every time someone mentioned the construction of the new railroad underpass at Wickford Junction. Not that Joslin had anything against the railroad, mind you. He had worked for years as a railroad bridge supervisor and left the employ of the railroad in good graces.

I guess it’s been over the last 40 years or so that a certain phenomenon has seemingly snuck its way into the medical profession. Why, I remember back when I was a boy most doctors seemed to be just doctors.

We have taken a look, piecemeal, in a number of past columns over the years at the events that brought about the construction of the massive fabric mill along the banks of the Shewatuck River in Lafayette. Now that I see that the 92-foot-tall chimney there, is coming dawn after nearly a century and a half of braving the elements, I thought we ought to examine this place more closely.

Over the years, we have examined a number of old church buildings that have been repurposed, giving them a new life after they no longer can be of service to their congregations. We’ve seen churches that have become homes, senior housing complexes and even a warehouse. But today we will be taking a gander at a building that was a Church, not once, but twice, not to mention a laundry and a popular dentist’s office.

It’s just a sad fact of life that as you get older, you are faced with the reality that your friends and acquaintances are getting older too; the fragile nature of our mortality suddenly becomes real as this occurs with more frequency.

Every once in a while, a “what’s it” turns out to be the last physical reminder of a page of an episode in the history of our fair town. The ruins on Cornelius Island, the concrete and brick chimney on Old Baptist Road and the mill foundations on Featherbed Lane are artifacts such as this; they are all the last tangible reminders of something that was an important aspect of North Kingstown’s history many years ago.

This was Ken Mumford’s time of the year. After a long winter of caring for his dogs and horses, tuning up and sharpening his mowers, and tending to his wagon, hitch, harnesses, and bridles; spring, and then summer, would be upon him and Ken would mosey into action.

Reliable emergency medical transportation is something we take for granted these days.  Especially in these COVID19 days, we all rest comfortably knowing that an EMT and an ambulance are just a 911 phone call away. But things weren’t always that way.  This week we are going to take a look at how this vital public service began in our fair town.

Last week’s piece by Rob Duguay on the reopening of the Odeum Theatre in nearby East Greenwich got me to thinking about that wonderful place and what it has meant over the years, not only to the residents of East Greenwich, but all of us in South County as well.

The very recent hoopla surrounding the local Republican Party request to have the Providence statue of Christopher Columbus relocated to North Kingstown really saddens me.

So much about this house, including the name associated with it – the Baker homestead, is misleading.  You see, this home, or at least the core of it, was already nearly half a century old when the first Baker moved in.

This fine little home was constructed somewhere around 1800 for James Cooper on land that had already been in the inter-related Cooper-Updike family for many years. 

No matter how much time goes by, every time I pass by Razee’s Motorcycles, my mind is going to wander back to a time more than 40 years ago.