100 Years Ago, 1923: The crying of a baby at 3.36 this morning probably saved Peter Rubenski and his family of six from being burned to death. Mrs. Rubenski took the child down stairs to give it food, then she was driven back by flames. The family rushed to the open air. The flames consumed the house, which is located on Star Hill Road, Village Green. The loss is estimated at $5,000. There is said to be no insurance. The Rubenski family lost everything.
75 Years Ago, 1948: A McIlvaine Street man was arrested on charge of drunken driving Monday night after the new sedan he was driving swerved from the highway and struck a utility pole at Tenth Street and Morton Avenue. The 43-year-old escaped injury despite the fact that his auto was traveling at a high rate of speed and the impact of the crash knocked the pole on an angle. The collision damaged a transformer on the police and a score of homes on Morton Avenue and Hyatt Street were left temporarily without electric power. The accident happened just before 9.30 p.m. Hollis was driving towards Chester on Morton Avenue, coming from Eddystone.
50 Years Ago, 1973: A historic piece of architecture has disappeared from the Chester skyline – the 97-year-old steeple at Immaculate heart of Mary Catholic Church. The disappearance wasn’t part of a planned modernization program at the church. Rather, it was necessity that dictated the steeple’s removal. Wind, weather and time have taken their toll and the steeple was in a state of collapse. According to Alfred A. West, chief estimator for A.A. West roofing contractors who have worked on the steeple for the last 35 years, it would have cost nearly $40,000 to repair the steeple property.
25 Years Ago, 1998: The Delaware County Hall of Fame for Darts has chosen the borough to house its plaques, according to Brookhaven council. Representatives from the art League, the Invitational League, and the D.A.R.T. League, which has 500 members in the three leagues, presented the Hall of Fame name plaque, which will permanently hang in the community center on Cambridge Road.
10 Years Ago, 2013: A little rain did not dampen the spirits at the dedication ceremony of the Delaware County Veterans Memorial at 4599 West Chester Pike on Saturday, attended by 5,000 people. “It must be the tears of all those that said good-bye,” the developer who donated the land where the memorial stands, Claude de Botton, said. “They want to bless this monument today.”
— COLIN AINSWORTH