This week’s $1 news prize goes to Dorothy
Wasko, of 299 Rivermoor Drive, Marietta, for
sending us the photo and information about Mrs.
Kuzemka’s tomatoes [story on page 11].
SUSQUEHANNA TIMES
Susquehanna Times & The Mount Joy Bulletin
MARIETTA & MOUNT JOY, PA.
Vol. 78, No. 34, August 23, 1978
Disease killing pets in Marietta; people can catch it
Cats and dogs in Mari-
etta are becoming ill lately.
The disease is dangerous
and is believed to have
caused pet deaths. We
Birchland Ave. residents
Mount Joy’s borough
council was pelted with
complaints by a phalanx of
citizens from Birchland
Avenue at last week's
regular council meeting.
were told by Dr. Fayez
Awad, veterinarian in Mt.
Joy, that it is caused by a
corona virus which is under
study by - researchers at
‘“Not one of you council-
men — nor you, Mr.
Bateman —would put up
with what we have,”’ said
one of the approximately 20
irate people who had come
Inside: money for Historic Distric
STOR
Cornell University in New
York. They are trying to
develop a vaccine.
In the meantime, local
pet owners should be on
the look out for loss of
apetite in their pets. Dr.
Awad suggests that pets be
taken to a veterinarian
immediately if the animal
refuses food.
The virus can also infect
humans, who will show the
usual symptoms of a cold;
fever and aches, as well as
diarrhea and possibly an
upset stomach.
blast Mount Joy Borough Council
to complain about rain-
water washing into their
basements with every re-
cent downpour.
Several people muttered
accusations that council
was pandering to monied
interests during the some-
times heated protests. The
councilmen remained calm
under the onslaught.
Miss Catherine Zeller retires!
Miss Catherine Zeller
announced last week that
she will retire from teach-
ing after 36 years in local
schools. This created a
problem for the staff at the
school district office.
They wanted to send her
a letter, thanking her for
her years of service to the
community, but they were
very nervous about the
the prospect of actually
sending the letter. What if
it contained a grammatical
error, or, worse yet, a
misspelling? Everyone in
the office proofread the
letter at least once. Then,
with trembling hands, they
finally mailed it.
WI sure hope there's
nothing wrong with it,”
says secretary of business
Peggy Nissley, ‘‘because if
there is, she’ll spot it at a
glance.”
Mrs. Nissley, a former
student of Miss Zeller’s,
adds, ‘‘If you couldn’t
learn from her, you
couldn’t learn from anyone.
Even to this day, there are
times when I call her to
check the wording of some-
thing.”
Miss Zeller brought to
her classes the erudition of
Noah Webster, the stage
presence of Sarah Bern-
hardt, and the enthusiasm
of a whirling dervish.
“If you pronounced the
word ‘detail’ with the
accent on the wrong syll-
able, she would get really
excited,”” former student
Newt Kendig recalls. ‘‘She
got excited whenever any-
body said anything that
was grammatically incor-
rect. If 1 had to pick one
word to describe her, I
think that ‘excitement’
would be the word.
““Once there was a huge
bumblebee in the room,
and she was trying to kill
it. She kept trying to hit it,
and missing, and each time
she missed, she became
more beside herself until
the whole class was in
stitches. We had never
seen anyone get so excited
about a bumblebee.
‘“‘Maybe that’s why her
classes were so interesting;
she was excited about what
she taught, and she made
the students excited about
it, too.”
Ramona Sell, who gradu-
ated from DHS three years
ago, says, ‘‘She’s the best
English teacher I ever had;
and she’s full of life, un-
predictable. When she was
in a good mood, she’d do
crazy things.”
Ramona recalls that Miss
Zeller once portrayed all
three witches from the
opening scenes of MacBeth
“complete with sound ef-
fects. You know, bubble,
bubble, and all that. She
liked reading Shakespeare
aloud, and when the script
called for a scream, she’d
let one rip—and 1 mean a
loud one.”
Ramona adds: ‘‘Her
favorite expression is,
‘Ring the alarm bell!’ It’s a
line from a famous play,
but I forget which one. She
can really say that one with
feeling. On second thought,
that’s not her favorite ex-
pression. Her favorite ex-
pression is, ‘Never put a
preposition at the end of a
sentence.’
‘She didn’t like to be
distracted while she was
teaching. If somebody
knocked on the door during
a class, she’d explode,
even if the poor guy at the
door was just delivering a
message from the office.
Afterwards, she’d say, ‘Oh,
my goodness, I wonder if
he got the wrong impres-
sion. I'm not really angry
at him.’
‘““There were no dis-
cipline problems in her
class. I don’t know how she
did it. With her voice, I
guess.”’
Peggy Nissley related
one of her husband’s
stories about Miss Zeller:
“One day she said that she
was so sore, she just felt
like hitting someone across
the face. My husband said,
‘Well, go ahead.’ She said,
‘I'm serious.” He didn’t
believe her, but he told
her, ‘So am I. Go ahead
and hit somebody.” So she
smacked him one. Then he
knew she was serious.
He reminded her of that
a while ago, and she acted
sort of embarrassed. 1
guess she had forgotten.
He thinks she’s great.”’
Two more comments,
from people who didn’t
want to give their names:
“When 1 was in her
classes, I hated them,
because she made us work
so hard. Then, after 1
graduated, I realized that
she was the only teacher in
the school who had taught
me anything.”’
“lI have the impression
she was always playing
practical jokes on Mr.
Drenner, but I can’t give
you any details.”
And finally, from Clair
Mummau (who thinks he
once almost convinced Miss
Zeller that spring water
was a cheap substitute for
anti-freeze): ‘‘l1 heard that,
if you had her for English,
you’d never have any
problem in college. I didn’t
have her, luckily, ’cause
then I'd have had to
study.”
Alumni game
is scheduled for Friday
Hear ye! Hear ye! All
former DHS football
players—the annual Odds
vs. Evens Donegal Alumni
Football Game will be
decided on August 25th, at
8:30 PM. That’s a Friday
evening. If you'd like to
play, it’s not too late to join
a squad; but don’t delay!
At one point councilman
Paul Bower sounded for
order with his gavel. The
man who had been speak-
ing said, ‘I believe I am in
order.”’
“Yes, you are,’ Bower
replied. ‘‘Just calm down."
The Birchland Avenue
residents all said that water
runoff from a nearby area
was causing serious prob-
lems. One woman said she
had taken off from work to
FIFTEEN CENTS
In small animals the
disease is more dangerous
than for humans and their
temperatures will rise up to
108 degrees.
tell the council that her
home had cracked walls
and a possibly unstable
foundation as a result.
Another person said, ‘‘We
are going to be washed
down the Chiques if there’s
a really good rain.”
The land off which the
rainwater is flooding is not
in Mount Joy Borough, but
in Mount Joy Township.
[continued on page2]
Marietta Council
Downtown Marco’s
a ‘nuisance’?
A seven-unit Marietta
apartment building owned
by Lloyd Miller, a Mount
Joy R3 developer, has been
declared a public nuisance
and unfit for human habi-
tation.
Marietta Borough Coun-
cil made the announcement
Tuesday, saying that the
property, located at 534-536
E. Front St., endangered
the welfare of borough
residents and must be
abandoned.
Council heard reports on
cockroaches, rats, excessive
garbage, furnace hazards
and a general lack of repair
and then authorized its
owner to take steps to
ensure the property is
rehabilitated before further
occupancy.
Miller said Wednesday
that the building ‘is as
nice as anything in Mari-
etta’” and stated that
council ‘‘Doesn’t like me
personally and has been
trying to get me.”’
He conceded that two
tenants have given him
problems.
‘“‘But that doesn’t make
the building unfit for
human habitation,’”” he
said.
He cannot understand
council’s position although
he recently repaired a
waterline leak that had
knocked out some plaster.
ry
Explaining his belief that
council is out to ‘‘get’’
him, Miller said that in
1976 borough officials ‘‘ar-
rested me 11 times in one
day’ for alleged deficien-
cies. at the E. Front St.
dwelling and two other
properties in Marietta.
That action stemmed
from such ‘‘small things’’
as a cracked step, mold on
a bathroom ceiling and an
excessive number of people
in one apartment.
Miller added, ‘It bothers
me that these housing
inspectors get 16 hours of
schooling and then say they
are experts.’
After a tour of the
building, Housing Inspector
Ralph Shope said there
were ‘“‘thousands of cock-
roaches... mean they were
in people’s food and every-
where else.”
Along with being very
rundown generally, there
were dead rats in the
cellar.
“It’s not fit for any
human being to live in
there,”’ said Shope. “‘It's
terrible.”
Near the end of July the
seven tenants were given
1S days to vacate the
building says a borough
spokesman. According to
Miller, all but one of the
[continued on page2]