St. Louis parish festivities fill up Sept. 29 plans.

Byline: Ed PATENAUDE 

COLUMN: SO I'VE HEARD

A snafu placed the 125th anniversary celebration of Webster's St. Louis Elementary School in a tough competition with its own parish festival, but the people planning the celebration persevered.

All systems are go and the big evening - dinner, lots of reminiscing, and dancing - will tap off at 5 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Sturbridge Host Hotel & Conference Center on Route 20 in Sturbridge. A couple of hours later, the St. Louis parish festival at the 200 Sportsmen's Club in Webster will be winding down.

The date conflict didn't seem to faze the St. Louis alumni gang. They turned to the spirit that carried former St. Louis High School athletic teams to their share of victories against mostly bigger Central Mass. Catholic League clubs for probably 50 years, mostly in the 1930s to '50s, but through 1969.

The party committee had 184 reservations as of Sept. 13 and anticipates more, said Ann O'Connell, publicity chairwoman.

"It will be great to see old friends and meet some of the older grads," she said.

One of the true St. Louis alumni organizers, Celia Provost, won't be around. Ms. Provost, who promoted the idea of holding 125th anniversary celebration, died some months ago.

"She would have loved being there," Ms. O'Connell said.

Terry Fitzgibbons and Jimmy Moore, who started reunion plans along with Ms. Provost, and others have carried on. Anniversary tickets are available through Ms. Jovette Gauthier, 13 Riverview Drive, Southbridge, MA 01550. Registrations will be honored through Monday, and this might get stretched to Tuesday.

Regarding the parish festival, just 16 chicken barbecue tickets were left as of last Saturday. Calling for a sellout, the Rev. Edwin Gomez said he and the pastor, the Rev. Joseph Marcotte, can't eat that many chickens. Maybe because they'll likely be expected for a sit-down meal at the 125th celebration.

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Claire Huckins of Oxford made life a bit easier for press types when she prepared honors and awards lists, news releases, and even graduation profiles for the public relations office at Nichols College in Dudley.

This was some years ago, and Ms. Huckins worked with true professionals like Bruce Baker, but her clerical efforts were always the same: Names were spelled accurately.

It was a pleasant surprise, then, to hear from Ms. Huckins last week. The topic was Warren B. Johnson's post Civil War book and our earlier reference to his walk from Irvine, Calif., to Webster with a horse, carriage, cow, and dog.

"I was glad to see that someone knew about his arduous trip so many years ago," wrote Ms. Huckins.

Mr. Johnson completed the trip in 1884, and subsequently wrote a book, "From the Pacific to the Atlantic." Ms. Huckins has one of the books as well as a two-page news feature that was folded into the copy she bought. "Probably at a yard sale," she said, adding that it has been on her "old-books shelf" for a long time.

In the 1880s, with horse, wagon, dog and a cow, W.B. Johnson traveled from California to Webster, accomplishing the hazardous trip in just under two years, according to the long subhead to the story of the "Curious Journey," published in the Worcester Sunday Telegram on Sept. 29, 1957 - 50 years ago Saturday after next.

Laura Page authored the feature, offering opinions I heartily agree with: "Traveler he was - but writer never," and "in 369 long pages, for Mr. Johnson was a wretched writer, he told of his adventure, what people said to him and what he said to people." The book, never that popular, is a difficult read, but can still be found in the Chester C. Corbin Public Library in Webster.

An old etching, published with the Telegram feature, shows "the strange procession of Mr. Johnson, his cow, horse, dog and wagon as they arrived in Webster in 1884."

The etching shows a big building with high pillars and columns. I've seen a lot of old downtown Webster illustrations, but never one with a big government-type building. History says Mr. Johnson's return to Webster was on Main Street at the original Joslin House Hotel. To offer an opinion, Warren Johnson rested for a while after arriving in Webster, hitching up his menagerie and walked to Lynn and the Atlantic Ocean to validate his ocean-to-ocean claim. The etching might have been from that add-on excursion.