Andrew Bella 

From Byram Boy to High School Principal

by Mary A. Jacobson

There aren’t too many residents of Greenwich who can trace their ties to the Greenwich Public Schools from their earliest childhood years at New Lebanon School to their retirement after a career spanning forty years. Such a man was Andrew Bella for whom Bella House at GHS is proudly named.

Andrew Bella.
Courtesy of the Oral History Project.

Andrew Bella was interviewed for the Oral History Project in the 1970s by Margaret F. French and Brooks Lushington. Born in 1907, Bella’s memories of his early life in Byram are vivid in his mind. “Byram was more or less a self-contained community . . . called East Port Chester in those days because without cars people did their shopping in Port Chester.” He was born into the German Lutheran Church - a “P.K.” or “Preacher’s Kid” - as he said. Most of his dad’s parishioners were immigrants who worked at Abendroth’s, the foundry in Port Chester. “. . . as kids we could look in there, and you could watch the red-hot molten metal being poured.” His dad would advise his immigrant newcomers, “Go to church, get your citizenship papers, and buy a home.” According to Bella, “Many of the homes on Mead Avenue in Byram . . . are still owned by the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those people who came here at the turn of the century.”
 
Bella’s description of his early school days at New Lebanon were far different from those experienced today. “We had a crowded school even when I was here, and we had to use the church on William Street for some of the classes.” Bella’s favorite game of baseball was played on a field where the ashes from the school furnace were disposed. “The playground actually was just the open field with stones for bases and ashes in the outfield . . . We passed the hat and made enough to buy the balls and bats and the equipment we needed. So that was the Recreation and Parks Department!” As Bella recounted, “No one had a car. My dad didn’t have a car till I was sixteen (in 1923). Cars and airplanes were a novelty. If you’d see a plane, everybody would look up.”
 
From New Lebanon School, Bella went to Greenwich High School, which was located on Havemeyer Place. However, for Bella, there was “no gym, no yard, no nothing.” For physical education, the students would do calisthenics in the third-floor hallway. “Weather permitting, we would run around the block.” There was also no auditorium. For assemblies, Mr. Folsom, the principal affectionately known as “Pop,” would climb on a platform in the corridor “and we would stand around him, and we’d have our assemblies there.” The year Bella graduated in 1925, however, construction began on the new high school on Field Point Road (now Town Hall).

Havemeyer School, on Havemeyer Place, eight years after its opening in 1892.
Site of the first Greenwich High School graduation in 1895.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library.

Despite the lack of facilities, “we managed, and I think we had an excellent faculty.” In particular, Bella extolled the science department. “We did have an excellent science department.” Bella excelled in physics and chemistry and enrolled at Yale, graduating as a physicist. However, “By then the Depression had struck, and no one knew what a physicist was, let along hire one.” His luck changed through a chance meeting with Pop Folsom. “I came home one vacation from graduate work at Yale and I met Pop Folsom who said ‘We have an opening in the physics department. Would you be interested?’ . . . So that’s the way I came back to Greenwich High School (in 1929 at age 22), by meeting Pop Folsom on the street one day.”
 
By 1940, with a master’s degree in educational administration from Columbia, Bella was named principal of Greenwich High School. During his tenure, until his retirement in 1969, the high school experienced much growth and development. “The athletic program evolved from football, baseball, and basketball into the complete spectrum of sports we have today (1977 at the time of interview), including lacrosse, tennis, and soccer . . . We developed ice hockey when the rink was built in Playland . . . We were the only out-of-state school that skated in Playland. Many times we were champs of the Westchester County Hockey League.”
 
Bella also supported increasing school services for students who had learning difficulties or were academically challenged. “The whole guidance movement developed during my tenure at the high school.” Bella was also particularly proud of a program developed in the aftermath of World War II. “Boys who had not finished their high school education were allowed to come back as veterans . . . they were the best students; they knew what they wanted to do.”
 
As the post-World War II baby-boom generation moved through the school, its facilities became cramped with some classes held in the auditorium and gymnasium. “Toward the end of my career at Field Point (now Town Hall), our proms were so large that we had to have two orchestras. We had one inside the girls’ gym and we had a tent on the front lawn, so there was continuous music inside and outside.” “Afterglows” (post-prom gatherings) were held at The Clam Box in Cos Cob so the students would have a place to go after the prom.
 
Bella fondly recalled an incident in which he was summoned to the second floor because there was a car in the hallway. “A crowd of maybe a hundred students followed me up and, sure enough, there in the corridor was this Volkswagen completely assembled . . . What they had done is, during the night, under blankets with flashlights, taken this car apart, and hoisted it up to the second floor . . . no gasoline . . . no scratches . . . They did it and they were fine students.”
 
Bella had definitive views about the value of discipline. “I think that discipline, if it’s fair . . . is something that students want . . . If they don’t have it, they’re going to look for it, and they’re going to look for it by doing something that demands discipline . . . Youngsters want to know what the lines are.”

Greenwich High School on Field Point Road in 1960.
Opened in 1925.
Now serves as Greenwich Town Hall.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library.

Bella’s tenure extended from the World War II era to that of the Vietnam War and the turmoil of the sixties. Through those years, he led with a steady hand. The present high school on Hillside Avenue opened in 1970, the year after he retired. Bella had championed for a new school to accommodate the swelling student population. A clandestine petition, signed by hundreds of students, requested that one of the houses in the new school be named Bella House after him, a recognition in which he took great pride. “I go to about three reunions a year and you get this outpouring of affection for the school . . . And that’s where you begin to feel the real quality and value of what went on at that time.”
 
The interview entitled “From Byram Boy to High School Principal” may be read in its entirety or checked out at the main library. It is also available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Greenwich Celebrates the Fourth

“Before the festivities began, there was a reading of the Declaration of Independence.”

This Fourth of July the Town begins a yearlong celebration of America’s 250th Anniversary, culminating on July 4, 2026, our semi-quincentennial. The Greenwich Library Oral History Project has documented the remembrances of several residents whose reminisces of festive patriotic events are vivid and heart-warming. The following excerpts recall Fourth of July celebrations in the late 1890s and 1920s and Greenwich’s Tercentenary in 1940.

Bicentennial Fireworks display, 1976.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

Gladys Husted Rungee Owen, a descendant of the storied Husted family, one of the seminal families in Greenwich, was interviewed in 1993 by Oral History Project volunteer Rhonda Barney Jenkins. Originally owners of one of two of the largest farms in town, Mrs. Husted traces her family back twelve generations in Greenwich. “There were two big farms here in Greenwich at the time, the Husted Farm…and my cousin’s farm, John Lyon, which spilled into Port Chester.”

The Fourth of July celebrations at the Husted Homestead were huge events. “Entire families of the whole town were invited here,” with as many as two hundred people. “Everybody…loved this party, even though it meant a lot of work… the last Fourth of July celebration was in 1903 on this place.” Some relatives from Brooklyn communicated their attendance by the arrival of homing pigeons, “our Morse code.” Before the festivities began, there was a reading of the Declaration of Independence “always read by some member of the Husted family, and also they never broke bread until the Congregational minister had given a prayer.” Henrietta Husted, Gladys Rungee Husted Owen’s grandmother, provided all the food and all the prizes. “In 1903 the big prize was her late husband’s beautiful shotgun.” It was awarded to the winner of the clay pigeon shooting contest. The surprise sharpshooter winner was seventeen-year-old Adeline Smith Husted, Gladys’s mother.

Lithograph reproduction of Fourth of July parade in Greenwich, circa 1800.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library.

Children looked forward to playing croquet, hoops, darts, horseshoes, and archery. Pony rides and billy goat rides were also popular activities for them. In case of rain, there were indoor games of Parcheesi, chinese checkers, charades, blind man’s bluff, pin-the-tail-on-the donkey, and hide-the-penny. “You were supposed to guess which person had the penny. Grandmother Henrietta always said, ‘You take care of the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.’” Prizes for the winners included produce from the farm including apples, peaches, cherries, eggs, and potatoes.

The employees on the Husted Farm and neighboring farms also gathered together for games and activities. The different farms would play against one another in competitions including tug-of-war, wood-sawing, “bale the hay,” horseshoe pitching, baseball, and ox-pulling. For the latter, “They’d bring a great big boulder, and the oxen of the different farms would come and pull, up towards Knollwood Drive; and that was really quite something.”

Meat preparation would start the day before by heating the rocks in the large pit of the barbeque and keeping the spits continually rotating. “Almost the whole body of a steer would be on this.” The feast included beef and pork, fresh corn, baked potatoes, clams, oysters, and homemade apple pies. Around four o’clock there would be singers and musicians, followed by dancing.

At the end of the evening, guests would sit on the lawn and watch fireworks. Each child would also be given a sparkler “and they would dance around the lawn; and, of course, they didn’t have the electricity we have today. And Grandmother Henrietta said it looked like a whole bunch of fireflies descending on the group.” The one forbidden activity concerned firecrackers. “Great-grandmother would allow no firecrackers, absolutely no firecrackers…and they never had an accident because great-grandmother had very strict rules about what the children were to do and what they were not to do if they were coming to her party.”

Firecrackers, on the other hand, were the highlight of Fourth of July celebrations in the 1920s for Warren White and Frank Nicholson, interviewed by OHP volunteers Marian Phillips (in 1983) and Olwen Jones (in 1974), respectively. As Nicholson recalled of his youth, “You had to make preparation for Fourth of July. You had to save up your money to buy your firecrackers one at a time…and store them away in some place where your brother couldn’t find them so you could be the first one out here on the Fourth of July at the crack of dawn to set off the first firecracker.”

According to Warren White’s memories of those days, “We purchased our fireworks in Breslow’s News Store. Mr. Breslow had a cigar, newspaper, and magazine store on lower Greenwich Avenue… At Fourth of July time, he sold fireworks. In front of this store, you’d have two or three counters heaped with these skyrockets, salutes, the most volatile things…and just see the fire commissioners today. They’d have apoplexy… Anyway, it was something to be looked forward to and I remember it with great pleasure.”

American Legion Drum Corps marching in Greenwich Tercentenary parade, 1940.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

On a more historic note, Marie Krumeich, interviewed by OHP volunteer Kim Klein in 1974, remembered the extravagant Tercentenary Pageant held in June 1940, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of Greenwich. “…July 18, 1640 is the date of the founding of Greenwich. The founding fathers Daniel Patrick and Robert Feake landed on Greenwich Point in a small boat from Captain’s Island, and purchased the land for the first settlement from the Indians for twenty-five coats and some trinkets.” A reenactment of the purchase “actually took place right out there on the Point.” The Tercentenary Pageant lasted a week. “There were many parades, lovely costumes, musical programs, floats, and fireworks every night. It was entitled ‘Under Three Flags’ because Greenwich was first an English colony, and then it became a Dutch Manor for a few years, and finally after the Revolution, American.”

This was a town-wide event in which “it seemed everyone in town had an active part,” including the storekeepers who had their windows decorated with historical displays. Various scenes from Greenwich history were reenacted on the old Greenwich football field including the colonial period, the visits to Greenwich by General George Washington and General Lafayette, the first train passing through town in 1848, the period of industrial development, the Civil War period, the Gay Nineties, the Turn of the Century, and the First World War Years in which Greenwich lost a flyer by the name of Major Bolling, for whom a statue is dedicated in front of the Havemeyer Building. “The finale even had a scene with a vision into the future of Greenwich. But this scene I don’t remember very well.”

Tercentenary Parade Viewers, 1940.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

To commemorate this historic event, “a special Tercentenary Stamp designed by a local artist, George Wharton Edwards, was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in Washington. And a special Tercentenary Medal was made at the U.S. Mint, and I have a few of these.” In conclusion, Marie Krumeich stated, “Yes, it was a very exciting time and made a lasting impression on me. In fact, I have been deeply interested in Greenwich history ever since.”

The interviews “Husted Family,” “Growing Up on Lewis Street in the 1920s,” “Ice Cream and Automobiles,” and “The Tercentenary Pageant,” may be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrators’ recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

WGCH – A Community Radio Station

By Mary A. Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor

“Radio is still a miracle to me. It was in the 1920s when I walked three miles to listen to Jack Dempsey try to knock out Gene Tunney unsuccessfully (for the title of world’s heavy-weight champion), or listen to Babe Ruth hit one out. And it’s still a miracle.”

 

George C. Stevens, WGCH President
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

WGCH Lobby Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

George Cooke Stevens, general manager of the Greenwich Broadcasting Corporation which owned WGCH at the time, spoke to Oral History Project volunteer Arthur Holch in 1976. His pride and excitement in heading a community radio station was palpable in his interview. Now, close to fifty years later, his words still speak to the relevance and continuing role WGCH plays in the community of Greenwich.
 
The first broadcast of WGCH 1490 AM was on September 15, 1964. It had taken the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) almost twenty years to approve the AM license to broadcast from its initial application. Initially, WGCH was an FM station. “I don’t think too many people remember WGCH–FM, which started in 1949… After three or four years, it was an uneconomic venture… The FM failed only because there simply weren’t enough FM sets around. FM all over the country were going dark and channels were being abandoned.” AM stations were also concerned about television, and were fearful of being put out of business. Stevens continued, “I was at NBC at the time… Television was looming as a huge threat to radio audiences.”

WGCH Lobby Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

Walter Lemmon founded the Greenwich FM station in 1949 and held the position of head of the Greenwich Broadcasting Corporation. He remained in that position when the AM license was granted in 1964 and died in 1967. Lemmon “was a naval communications officer…a pioneer in international short-wave broadcasting…a man of very strong character, of great determination. Extremely knowledgeable in all technical matters.” When Stevens first met Lemmon, “we seemed to hit it off from the beginning… He felt I could be of some assistance in helping the new fledgling WGCH 1490 AM. And, of course, I was interested.”
 
To help listeners remember the call numbers of the station, the Greenwich Post Office was  persuaded to change the original postal address of WGCH 1490 to 1490 Dayton Avenue. The Post Office box number “is Box 1490 and our telephone number is 869-1490. We felt it would help impress on the consciousness of the community the 1490 numbers.”

Saturday Night Request Party
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

So, why a community radio station? In the age before Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and so forth, it was a way “to establish a degree of news and information for people in this area which they can’t find anywhere else… So, we’re constantly looking for new ways to give people reasons to tune into WGCH, but intentionally to be a community-oriented station, locally based, and giving service to the people who live nearby.” When there’s an emergency “like the big power blackout of three or four years ago, then the whole town looks to a station like WGCH to serve as the heart of its communication system… We simply turn over the station to kind of a total community service role in emergencies like that.” Another way in which WGCH judged its effectiveness in those days, was its ability “to open up the airwaves to callers and let the community establish a total community dialogue… People on the street…can listen to the radio and find out really what’s going on in the whole town and the degree of the problem.”
 

Family Quiz Night Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

Parents of yore may well remember telephone chains to alert one another of school closings or delays. They could also listen to the radio to learn this news. Despite the special codes established by the radio station to thwart false information, occasionally a school closing was fatuously reported by a student. “I think it was Father Gay of Saint Mary’s High School who had just driven down through heavy snows from Danbury in order to get here for opening of school. Few people were there… We learn from experience.”
 
WGCH was proud of its commitment to broadcast meetings of importance to the community. “We’ve carried every town meeting live, start to finish. We carry all of the Board of Education meetings live, start to finish. We carry all Board of Estimate meetings live, in their entirety, as well as many special Planning and Zoning hearings…Then we follow that up with numerous forums and discussions. We have ‘The Open Line.’”
 

WGCH Management and Staff
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

In addition to its focus on local news, Stevens cited the importance of national and world reports. “In fact, on some days I dare say we give our audience more national and world news on the hour than the networks do in New York, with the exception of the all-news stations like CBS and WINS.” Of the staff who worked at WGCH, Stevens cited Bill Coddaire (“our morning man”); Burt Steere (morning news); John Gentri (call-in programs); Marge Staples and Elizabeth Karp (interviews); Neil MacMillan (program manager); Fran Donald (library news); Grace Mackall (gardening expertise); George Barber and Earl Price (big bands and classical music), among others. At one point, four hundred high school students signed a petition requesting more rock music. “We’ve talked to them about putting some more on late nights. They claim they study better with this in the background.”

The Teen Turntable, 1949
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

In conclusion, Stevens said, “Well, I think it (WGCH) has an identity.” One of its listeners summed it up for him. “He said, ’There’s something that’s different about this station outside of the fact that it’s obviously a local station. Your station is more human.’” Stevens proudly reflected on that observation. “I naturally was pleased by that. If we’re going to get a label, I’d be happy to settle for that one.”
 
The interview “WGCH: A Community Radio Station” may be read in its entirety or checked out at the main library. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.