Author Archive for Ruthie Douglas
Ruthie Douglas is originally from Springfield but has called Chester her home for 58 years, and has been writing the Chester Chatter column for more than 40 of those years. Ruthie is also a longtime volunteer throughout the community.
Chester Chatter: What a wonderful place to live
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Chester is a place that everyone wants to live. Our Main Street and Village Green are picture perfect and are admired by tourists almost every day. But you who live here, stop and look about. Chester blends the old with the new. A stroll around Main Street shows […]
Chester Chatter: Happy Halloweens
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC It was Halloween once again. We kids in the neighborhood were excited. For a week we planned our costumes. Some of the kids’ mothers sewed and made their costumes, but usually my sister and I were ghosts, hiding under a sheet with holes for eyes. Right after supper, […]
Chester Chatter: Fall foliage on the Mohawk Trail
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Come every fall, my father would announce “Get ready. We will go over the Mohawk Trail today.” We dressed in some nice clothes for the trip and took our pocketbooks, which my sister and I put our allowance in. On our Sunday drives, we never went anywhere without […]
Chester Chatter: Three months on the mend
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Back in June, a scrape on my leg soon became infected and was to become the worst thing that ever happened to me. However, the infection led to doctors finding other problems that needed to be tended to and, now, I have been in the hospital and in […]
Chester Chatter: The reluctant farmer’s wife
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC I grew up in town and when I became a farmer’s wife, it was a very different life. Moving into the big farmhouse with my husband’s family, our plan was to go into business together, father and two sons. I woke up late, read and sat outside on […]
Chester Chatter: Joys of the new school year
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Summer was over. The swimming pool closed, day camps were all done. Little League played its last game. School had begun, and most kids were very excited. At last they would see the friends they had not seen all summer. And — even though they would not admit […]
Chester Chatter: The sounds of summer
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing The sounds of summer, the often annoying noise of crickets, the buzzing of the bees. A soft summer evening with music on the Village Green, the rustle of breeze through the leaves of the trees. Children on the playgrounds and kids at the swimming pool. And of course the […]
Chester Chatter: On the mend, and back to writing
Editor’s note: The Chester Telegraph happily welcomes back Ruthie Douglas to our pages after a four-week absence. By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing This has been the summer of all summers for me. I have been on a journey to places I have never been before. Since the beginning of June, I have been in […]
Chester Chatter: Ruthie now in physical therapy
Ruthie Douglas continues her recovery after several surgeries and is now in physical therapy close to home. She’s looking forward to getting back to writing and is contemplating the contents of her next column. She also thanks everyone for the good wishes and sends it back to all in triplicate!
Chester Chatter: Ruthie off again this week
Ruthie Douglas is taking another week off as she recovers from surgery. She’ll be heading to rehab soon and expects to be up to her old tricks in no time at all. She continues to send her best wishes to her friends and readers.
Chester Chatter: Ruthie off this week
Ruthie Douglas is taking this week off due to surgery, which has become a bit more complicated than she expected. She sends her best wishes to her friends and readers, who she says she misses terribly.
Chester Chatter: Summer is filled with music
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Everyone’s favorite, the Starline Rhythm Boys, played to a good crowd at the Chester Summer Concert Series on the lawn of the Academy Building on the last Thursday of July. It has been an almost perfect summer for the outside concerts. To find out more summer concerts, click […]
Chester Chatter: Those good time radio days
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Our family radio was the focal point of our living room. It was a nice piece of furniture made out of polished wood, with tapestry covering the speakers. The dials and knobs lit up and it had a aerial that ran outside and tubes that had to warm […]
Chester Chatter: Movie violence is just too much
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Alright, already, I can no longer stand violence. Filmmakers seem to think that moviegoers want to view blood, guts and gory scenes. Not this woman. I have the right to walk out of the theater or I can turn on the lights. I get so upset, I can […]
Chester Chatter: A Cole Pond camp in the woods
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC For more than 50 years, my family enjoyed the cabin on Cole Pond in Jamaica. It was our gathering place, the cabin in the great woods, our retreat from a busy world. It was built by the unskilled labor of family members, put together with hand tools, without […]
Chester Chatter: A ball called Tommy and my guinea pig hairdo
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC These past few days, I have been hanging out near my air conditioning, as I have been on the mend from a leg infection. Being bored, I have been recalling times long ago, emptying out my head. Our family oftentimes rented a cottage on Lake Hortonia for a […]
Chester Chatter: Summertime is for children and parking lot carnivals
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Oh for the hot, hazy, lazy days of summer, a long time ago. We kids always looked foreword to the coming of parking lot carnivals. In Springfield, usually there were a couple over the warm days. The carnival was set up in the Plaza parking lot, in the […]
Chester Chatter: The joys of Alumni Day
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC It was Alumni Day once again! Vermont folks celebrated their school years. Once a year, classmates and friends gather to recall past times and many memories. There are cookouts, dinner gatherings, and sharing of the latest happenings. Times change and perhaps the parade is not so long and […]
Chester Chatter: When communication is key
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC What if native Americans had had modern-day communications at their disposal? If they had had a website, a computer handy, well how different would our world and nation be today? In my opinion, the native Americans were unable to communicate with Europeans and with many tribes of different […]
Chester Chatter: Summers were for mom & kids
By Ruthie Douglas ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC The best thing that Jerry Ford ever did during his short term as president was to allow lunch workers to collect unemployment when school was not in session. It meant I did not need a summer job. I could be a housewife, a mother and have time to […]
