Redevelopment Forum: A lovely time was had by all

Leola Schroeder would have loved Plainfield Mayor Robinson-Briggs' forum on economic development and redevelopment Wednesday evening.

It had everything she adored about meetings: it was orderly and smoothly run, with nice refreshments, and lots of reassurance that all was well and everyone is included.

In my childhood, Leola was the local correspondent for The Grape Belt, a weekly broadsheet newspaper that circulated in New York's westernmost county, Chautauqua. It served the farmers who made their living from Concord grapes and dairy cows and the residents scattered among the hamlets of the mostly rural county. Her beat was our little hamlet of Laona and its environs, about a mile from my folks' farm.

Mostly she wrote up the meetings of the Ladies' Aid Society and the W.S.C.S. (Women's Society of Christian Service, to those who may be unfamiliar). The Ladies' Aid Society catered to women of a certain age, while the W.S.C.S. was for more 'modern' and younger women. Both groups relished good gossip.

Leola also made a staple of the Sunday afternoon 'motorings' of people to visit relatives or friends in other nearby hamlets, where the names of all those who made the trip and those who received the visit, as well as what kind of refreshments were served and whether or not cards were played, were scrupulously recorded and reported.

Typically, her dispatches would end "and a lovely time was had by all."

She did not write of Aubrey, who was on the church council and went to jail for embezzling from his car dealership -- leaving his wife bereft and mortified.

She did not write of Edith, who ran the local grocery store, with a heavy thumb on the meat scale and a padding of the entries in the little marble notebook where she kept the tally of purchases by those who could only pay monthly and to whom she extended credit.

She did not write of Irene, the married Sunday School teacher who was having an affair with the game warden and was discovered in flagrante delicto along a country lane, becoming the talk of all the ladies in the Ladies' Aid Society and the W.S.C.S. combined, as well as the gents at the blacksmith's shop.

No, Leola was the voice of unity in the community.

No conflicts, no disappointments, no jostling agendas, no winners and losers.

Just the serenity of knowing -- and reporting -- that "a lovely time was had by all."

-- Dan Damon

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