Hometown Heroes
Sgt. Robert A. Bonneville - U.S. Army (1919-1944)
By Michael Rocchetti
The Allied Invasion of France in June of 1944 took place in Normandy along a section of coastline that had no port for supply ships to offload cargo. The Allies needed to capture a nearby port facility.
War planners decided that an all-out effort would be made to capture the port of Brest. The Battle of Brest was fought in August and September of 1944. The fight proved extremely difficult, as the German garrison was well entrenched and defended by an elite unit of the German Army Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) forces. The fighting was intense and the city was reduced to rubble. By the time the Germans surrendered, they had destroyed all the port facilities – rendering the port useless for the remainder of the war.
During this battle, Robert Bonneville was killed in action while his unit was engaged in house-to-house fighting on Aug. 26, 1944. Robert A Bonneville was a Sergeant, assigned to Company A, 9th Infantry Regiment, of the 2nd Infantry Division (the “Indianhead” division). Robert Bonneville was born in Putnam CT on Oct. 21, 1919 son of Eugene and Georgianna Bonneville. He enlisted in the Army on Dec. 18, 1942. He is buried at St Mary’s Cemetery in Putnam. He left behind a wife Rose Margolski and a daughter Rochelle. He was also survived by three sisters and a brother. The following article was written about him in a local newspaper:
Putnam Patriot, Oct. 5, 1944
Well known in the community where he was born and educated. Sergeant Robert A. Bonneville, 25, son of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bonneville of Livery Street and husband of the former Rose Margolski of Lynn Mass., and father of Rochelle Bonneville, 2, paid the supreme sacrifice in France on August 26th. According to word received here by his parents last Saturday.
Word of the Sergeant’s death was received by his wife, who is living with her parents in Lynn, and the message was relayed by telephone to local relatives.
Bonneville entered the service in October of 1942 and trained at both South Carolina and Maryland before being shipped overseas, estimated at approximately but six weeks ago. His Wife received a letter from him dated August 24th, and his parents also received their last communication on August 19th. In both instances he was reported as well. He was reported missing in action by the war department about a month ago.
Born in Putnam. Bonneville was educated in St. Mary’s Parochial School and graduated from Putnam High School in 1936, where he starred as an athlete. He was prominently identified with the Boy Scout movement in this district and was associated with the famous St. Mary’s Band since its organization. Before entering the service he was employed at the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Corporation in East Hartford.
Besides his parents, wife and daughter, he leaves three sisters, Mrs. Paul Snelgrove, Misses Viola and Barbara Bonneville and a brother, Norman, 29, serving his country as a member of the US Navy.
Saturday morning a requiem high mass will be celebrated at 9 o’clock in St Mary’s church with friends and relatives invited to attend.
Hometown Heroes is a series published in the Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger with this mission: We owe it to our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines to make sure that they are never forgotten, and that the memory of their service and sacrifice will forever live on in the hearts and minds of the grateful people of Putnam.
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EMS home for holidays?
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Perhaps it will be a completely excellent Christmas gift.
Town Administrator Elaine Sistare is hoping that if all the permits and scheduling and manufacturing go according to plan, the EMS crew will be in their brand new home around Christmas.
Currently, she said, HUD-certified contractor Nutt Construction is awaiting the building permit. Sistare said she hopes that the building permit will be approved, or suggestions made for it, in the next couple weeks. The two modular units are within 200 feet of the Quinebaug River but there are no Inland Wetlands issues because most of the area is paved and there won’t be any real disturbance to the land.
In addition there have already been discussions with the town’s water and sewer department about connections to the new building. The power connections will be new.
The site work should begin in the next couple weeks, she said.
Home Nation will supply the two modular units and Sistare said they need five to 10 weeks of lead time so she’s hoping they “will be in before the harsh winter.” Lead time is also needed for furniture and fixtures. “We need to order way ahead,” she said. It won’t be as bad as the lead time the town needed when building the Municipal Complex. COVID put schedules into chaos back then.
The site work will include some minor demolition and then excavation will begin. The buildings will be in the open space between the current EMS building and the fire department.
The concrete foundation and building supports will need 28 days of curing time. Nutt Construction said they’d prefer to have the units delivered and put into place when the concrete is ready. They do not want the units delivered to the site and then moved later onto the foundation. The two homes would be craned into place and then joined together.
The two units should be coming six to eight weeks from now, she said.
EMS crews will continue to operate in their outdated original building and there may be only a couple minor inconveniences during the building process, she said.
The ad hoc committee OK’d using $88,000 in ARPA funds for furniture, fixtures and a new generator. Also available is $260,000 in Local Capital Improvement Program funding.
The 1,200 square foot combined building would contain three bedrooms, a kitchen area and a shower area. It would measure 27 feet wide and 44 feet long. She said one of the bedrooms would be turned into an office. There would be nice clean modern space for sleeping, showers, cooking, a conference space and bathrooms.
The emergency vehicles would stay in the current building. That building was built in 1960 and saw a modest upgrade in 2000. But it does not meet regulation. The crews do not have a good place to “decontaminate” after returning from a call. The shower in the current building is being used for storage, Sistare said.
Sistare said the building would sit the same distance from Church Street as the current buildings do now. Traffic would have to be reworked with vehicles either going around the left side of the now-long set of buildings or to the right around the police station. EMS parking would also have to be reconfigured, she said.
“This is a unique project,” Sistare said and there is good communication all the way around. That will make the project work…. maybe in time for Christmas.
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caption, page 3:
New Home Space
The space between the current outdated EMS building, left, and the fire department will be the EMS's new home. Linda Lemmon photo.
Putnam’s art scene takes an ‘atomic’ turn
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
Putnam’s status as the art nucleus of northeastern Connecticut went atomic last week as a mural was unveiled at the Painted Baker Café in downtown Putnam.
Café owner Monique Mailloux said she’d been thinking about a mural for the large space behind the long counter for three years. “People always see a blank wall and they come in and say, ‘Oh, you should put a big screen TV there’ but I said, ‘No there’s art going there’.” She wanted a futuristic city going on the wall. She wanted the mural “residents” — robots, aliens and humans — all interacting together in harmony because she believes that harmony could exist. She wanted rockets, space ships and space cars “because I grew up in the ‘60s when the whole atomic era was very popular and the Jetsons and I have always thought that was really, really cool.”
She collected pictures of items she wanted. She also wanted a kind of “Where’s Waldo” for fun, too. Details explode on the mural. And many of them are personal. The Black Hawk helicopter is a nod to her son, Nick, who flies one for the National Guard. She loves chess so some characters in the mural are playing chess. She wanted WINY Radio there, too, in addition to the Painted Baker Café. Pancakes turn into buildings and a sunny-side up egg morphs into a space ship.
The Jetsons, near and dear to Mailloux’s heart, definitely belonged on the mural. “I figured Rosie is the best, the most recognizable.” There’s a building on the mural that is a takeoff of the radioactive donut sandwich — “we took it off the menu and made it into a building.” Food is very present in the mural – naturally.
Lots of animals, handpicked, populate the mural. And for sure, “I had to have the American flag. All my parents, my grandparents were in the military and I have two sons in the military, so absolutely!”
Mailloux said she loves how the mural goes from night to day.
She said she had asked her friend Amy Brunet who created her mural in downtown Danielson and Brunet recommended Jenn Brytowski of Jennerate. Brytowski made Mailloux’s dream a reality.
Artists Elizabeth Conway and Zoe D’Elia worked on the mural for two weeks.
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captions, page 4:
From left: Artist Elizabeth Conway, Painted Baker Cafe owner Monique Mailloux and artist Zoe D'Elia just after the unveiling Sept. 19. More photos Wed. night on our FB page.
Black Hawk helicopter