50 years ago
On the front page of the Old Colony Memorial dated Dec. 16, 1971, a photo of a woman kissing a man on the cheek accompanied a bittersweet story. Melba Goyetch Brown of Plymouth had recently located a brother she had known about but never seen before. Attempting to find him, Brown had written more than 300 letters to people named Richard Hutchinson, her brother’s name. With the help of a Los Angeles detective agency, she learned her brother was working in a restaurant in California. Once he was located, she was able to inform him that his adoptive parents, whom he had not seen since 1960, had died in 1965.
Karl Eisen was serving a life sentence for the axe murder Nov. 3, 1966, in Kingston of his wife and 14-year-old daughter. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Eisen after a public defender, Alexander Whiteside of Boston, argued that evidence used in the 1968 trial in Plymouth had been gained while Eisen was mentally incompetent and should not have been used against him.
Eisen had told his lawyer that he had no memory at all of the 1966 events. Kingston police were told Nov. 4, 1966, by a Kinston couple that a family friend, Eisen, had called them to say he had killed his wife and daughter and had run away with his three remaining sons. He gave the couple the number of a motel. The children were later found in the motel and Eisen was picked up by state troopers as he emerged dazed from the woods that he wandered to after fleeing the motel.
During a break-in May 7, 1971, at M&M sporting goods store on Main Street, thieves had stolen ammunition, 21 handguns, watches, binoculars, cameras, tear gas guns, cartridges, hunting knives and handbags. The loss was reported as more than $4,000. Police investigated and questioned many suspects to no avail. A tip finally enabled the police to crack the case. Two Pembroke juveniles were arrested and admitted to the break-in. They were arraigned in Third District Court Dec 8. Almost all the merchandise was recovered including all the guns and ammunition.
An anonymous editorial said in part, “Any fair-minded person must admit that President Nixon has done all right so far, at least on the big issues. He is gradually detaching the country from Vietnam. He is doing something about inflation.” However, he had recently vetoed legislation that would have extended the life of the Office of Economic Opportunity, particularly by creating a national system of day care centers, for one thing. Nixon’s contention was “that day care centers would have a damaging effect on family life, which of course is absurd.” The writer felt that Nixon also refused to “face up to the need for low-income housing and to the festering horrors of the cities. He argues that people must improve matters themselves, locally.”
25 years ago
News in the Old Colony Memorial dated Dec. 19, 1996, was that a 36-year-old fisherman’s boat was found empty and running in circles in Cape Cod Bay early Dec. 17. Charles Harrington, of Sandwich, a former Plymouth resident, was reported missing by his family Dec 16 when he did not return from fishing. After a search by the U.S. Coast Guard was officially suspended, a helicopter crew and boat would continue looking, but Harrington’s chances of survival in the cold water were slim.
A handmade plywood model of the Grinch character was stolen off a lawn in North Plymouth as well as an artificial Christmas tree that had adorned his sleigh. The resident offered a $100 reward for the return of the items.
A construction worker from Kingston died Dec. 17 when the excavator he was operating apparently hit an overhead electrical wire in Manomet. A co-worker had found Darin Fantoni, 29, lying beside the excavator in a development under construction off Brook Road.
The hottest Christmas toy that year was Tickle Me Elmo and they were hard to keep in stock. The newspaper had acquired one that would go to the highest bidder, with proceeds to benefit needy children. A phone number was listed for bids.
The George Ridder Realty Trust paid $1.45 million for 242 acres of Digital Equipment Corporation property and work was to begin on the Plymouth Links golf course off Long Pond Road. The Ridders planned to build a 27-hole golf course, 12 houses and a caretaker’s house on the land.
Tamson Burgess of the OCM staff wrote an article about Jerry Rezendes, who had been compiling a list of nicknames for people and places in the North Plymouth neighborhood. He had about 273 and the list was growing. In addition to names like Slim, Skip, Junior, Honey and the like, there were names like Mustard, Pencil, Pin Head, Rainbow and Spongy. Some were taken from the Italian or Portuguese that was the first language for many of North Plymouth’s residents. Besides names of people, there were apartment building names like Swamp Block, Wood Block and Honeymoon Hotel Fields were nicknamed Potato Field and Rye Field and others. Other names included Jing Jing’s Pond and Library Hill.
A Marshfield realtor was convicted of arson Dec. 9 and ordered held without bail until sentencing Jan. 8. A three-alarm fire had swept through his commercial building on Ocean Street March 1, 1991. It took 90 minutes to control the blaze and four hours before firemen left the scene. Fighting the fire had involved four Marshfield fire engines, a Scituate engine and ladder, a Pembroke engine, a Duxbury engine and 35 to 50 firemen. The building roof caved in, wiping out the third floor, and the first two floors had damage. One firefighter was taken to the hospital with heart muscle pains and a police officer suffered a broken leg while climbing over a fence near the scene as he pursued a lead on a possible suspect. in court, a tenant of the building testified that he had agreed to set the fire for the realtor and had brought in a third man to actually set it. The third man admitted to pouring paint thinner and igniting it. The two men were set to receive $20,000 to split between themselves but the insurance company had denied the claim. The two would soon plead guilty and receive reduced sentences, six months for one and a year for the other.
“Snapshot” was a regular column focusing on a different local resident each time. That week it was Barbara Maccaferri. She was currently a dressmaker at A Perfect Fit on Court Street. She was a former professional model and had skated with the Ice Capades. In the 1970s she had been a production assistant and worked on the show “Charlie’s Angels.” She said she had thought Farrah Fawcett was a big phony but later met her and said, “She was really nice and warm and very sweet.” She also met Tom Selleck before he was a star. He had read for a part as Jaclyn Smith’s boyfriend on the show. “I went to my boss,” Maccaferri said, “and said ‘I don’t care if he even had a halfway decent reading. You have to hire him. He’s the one.’ He had that something. His eyes glittered and sparkled.”