The Families
The Families of West Street
The West Street School's class photos, attendance sheets, and reunion rolls carry the same names for nearly two centuries — Arszyla, Borovsky, Buchko, Duksa, Smoron, Tolles, and the other farm families of West Street. Their children filled Southington's one-room schoolhouse from 1750 to 1945, and their summer reunions helped save it.
The Surname Roll
The names that filled the school
These are the West Street farm families whose children filled the school.
- Arszyla
- Borovsky
- Borysewicz
- Buchko
- Burzler
- Dlugolenski
- Duksa
- Edele
- Natchiko
- Owen
- Sepko
- Smoron
- Tolles
If one of these names is yours, the West Street School is part of your family's story.
The Class of 1922
The farm families of West Street
Arszyla · Borovsky · Borysewicz · Buchko · Burzler · Dlugolenski · Duksa · Edele · Natchiko · Owen · Sepko · Smoron · Tolles
The Reunions
Every summer, they came back
The West St. farm families gathered every summer to celebrate their Colonial One Room Schoolhouse.
In 1936 the families organized as the West Street School Association — and their summer reunions drew crowds, music, and the Governor of Connecticut.
West St. School Association Reunion · August 22, 1936
The farm families organized as the West Street School Association in 1936, posing together in front of their schoolhouse with the American flag.
Governor Wilbur Cross addresses the reunion · 1936
Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross addressed the 1936 reunion — a one-room schoolhouse summer that drew the governor of the state.
The August 1938 reunion, under the oak tree
Guitars and a banjo in hand, the families gathered again beside the school in August 1938.
Attendance in 1938 — from the minutes book
The Association recorded who came: page after page of signatures, the same family names that filled the school's benches.
From the Association's minutes book
The Association's meeting minutes survive, kept in Secretary Mary A. Kennedy's careful hand — with a newspaper clipping pasted in: “Tolles Named President of School Group.”
Farm Life
A school surrounded by farms
Horse teams, tractors, dairy herds, haying — West Street was farm country, and its farms sent their children to the one-room school.
The farms of West Street — and the children they sent to school
West Street before I-84, with the Borovsky land on the right
Keep Exploring
Descendants
We are looking for West Street School photos, objects, papers, articles, and stories.
If your family name is on this roll — or your family lived on West Street — we want to hear from you.