Ruth W. Bussierre, 87, of Kennett Square, passed away on Tuesday, Oct. 11, at Crosslands. She was the wife of Norman L. Bussiere, with whom she shared 65 years of marriage.
Ruth W. Bussierre
Born in the Bronx, N.Y., she was the daughter of the late Fairfax Randall Wheelan and Elizabeth Ovens Wheelan.
Mrs. Bussiere worked at various public libraries, retiring in 2006 from Emma S. Clark Library, in Setauket, N.Y.
She was dedicated to her family and friends and spent her happiest times with them.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by one son, Robert D. Bussiere and his wife, Alice of Wilmington; two daughters, Jeanne B. Stephens and her husband, James of Shaker Heights, Ohio, and Elizabeth Bussiere and her husband, Daniel Cohen of Worcester, Ma.; four grandchildren; and one great grandchild. She was predeceased by three brothers.
You are invited to her memorial service at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 12, in the William Penn room at Crosslands, 1600 East Street Road, Kennett Square. Burial will be held privately.
In memory of Mrs. Bussiere, a contribution may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, 399 Market Street, Suite 102, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Gunfire erupted on the Lincoln University campus on Sunday, Oct. 16, resulting in one of three victims’ being shot in the arm, and state police from the Avondale barracks are seeking the public’s assistance to solve the crimes.
Police said they were requested to assist Lincoln University police following a robbery and shooting that occurred at 3 a.m. on the north side of the campus. Police said six or seven black males in their early- to mid-20s approached two 22-year-old males from New York, brandished a handgun, and forcibly removed jewelry from the victims, according to a police press release.
One of the victims – a member of an outside security team hired for extra assistance during homecoming – then got into his vehicle and attempted to stop the alleged robbers, striking several of them with the vehicle. The robbers than fired between three and four rounds from one or more handguns, the release said.
Gunfire struck the victim’s vehicle as well as a van passing in the other direction, hitting a 20-year-old female inside the van in the right arm. Police said the woman, a Philadelphia resident, was transported to Christiana Hospital with a non-life-threatening wound.
Lincoln University police requested that the state police handle the investigation, the release said. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the barracks at 610-268-2022.
In 2015, 63 drug overdose deaths occurred in Chester County, 56 of which involved fentanyl, heroin, or prescription opioids. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in Pennsylvania, overtaking car crashes, according to the Chester County Department of Drug and Alcohol Services.
On Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Chester County is observing National Drug Take Back Day. Sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the program provides a safe opportunity for disposing of expired, unused, unwanted medication. Law-enforcement officials warn that medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse.
According to national research, 75 percent of people who abuse prescription pain relievers get them from friends or relatives, which should give people extra incentive to clean out their medicine cabinets. In addition, statistics suggest that one in five high school students has abused prescription drugs.
The service is free and anonymous, with no questions asked. The prescription drugs that are turned in at collection sites are boxed up in special containers and delivered to a DEA main collection site for safe disposal, which prevents them from polluting area waterways, another growing problem, according to police.
Area police departments that are participating in National Drug Take Back Day include the Kennett Township Police Department at 801 Burrows Run Road, Chadds Ford; and the New Garden Township Police Department, which will be set up at the Giant supermarket at 350 Scarlet Road in Kennett Square.
For more information about Medication Collection Boxes in Chester County, call 866-286-3767. To learn about collection sites that are being added to the list daily, visit www.DEA.gov.
Permanent collection boxes are available at dozens of county locations, including the Kennett Square Borough Police Department, 115 N. Broad Street, Kennett Square; the New Garden Township Police Department, 8934 Gap Newport Pike, Landenburg; the Chester County Sheriff’s Office at the Chester County Justice Center, 201 West Market Street, Suite 1201, West Chester; the West Goshen Township Police Department, 1025 Paoli Pike, West Chester; and the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department, 1041 Wilmington Pike, West Chester.
For some local Vietnam veterans, if not most, Saturday was a homecoming of sorts. It was the day the Chadds Ford Vietnam monument — one of the oldest in the country — was rededicated during a ceremony at the monument’s new location in a green area of the Wegmans development.
Air Force veteran and former prisoner of war Ralph Galati called the ceremony a “long overdue welcome home.”
Galati was the featured speaker on Saturday, Oct. 15. He spoke of the time when many Vietnam veterans were cursed at and spat upon here in the states when they came home from the war. They couldn’t wear their uniforms on leave because of the insults of “baby killer,” “drug addict” or “warmonger.” Some concealed their past military service when applying for jobs because of prejudice and mistrust, he said.
He’s glad that those attitudes have changed.
Ralph Galati, a former prisoner of war, says ‘freedom has a taste to those who fight and almost die that the protected will never know.’
“As citizens, you might disagree with our government. You might not support a particular conflict. But at least today you respect the soldiers, seamen, airmen, and marines that have honorably served our country,” he said.
And as a prisoner of war, Galati said, his homecoming was not the problem others had, but being a POW left him with an understanding that others might not have.
“It’s been said until you’ve had your freedom denied, only then do you realize what we have in this great country of ours. Freedom has a taste to those who fight and almost die that the protected will never know,” he said.
Patrick Hughes, a marine veteran of Vietnam and one of the veterans behind the push to save the monument after it was rediscovered in 2012, said, “Finally, a fitting place was found for this monument to bring meaning to Vietnam vets.”
Fellow Marine veteran Chuck “Graves” Roth also said the ceremony was long overdue. “For once, somebody did something they said they were going to do to honor Vietnam veterans.”
The monument — a cannon on a stone base — was originally dedicated on Veterans’ Day 1966 amid little fanfare. So little that it was only recently when an old newspaper report turned up.
Marine veteran Chuck “Graves” Roth salutes the colors during a ceremony he says was long overdue.
Bill Gafford, the president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 67, found the article while preparing for the ceremony. Gafford, of Birmingham Township, is an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam and Thailand during the war.
That story, with no byline, has a photo of the late state Sen. Clarence Bell with Leroy F. F. Wright, the president of the old Delaware County National Bank; Ridley Township resident Lily Mari, the mother of Army Capt. Louis A. Mari; and Mrs. Clifford Dunn, the mother of a Capt. William Carpenter.
Dunn reportedly unveiled the monument’s plaque, which reads: “Dedicated to the men of Delaware County for their valiant service in Vietnam.”
It also contains part of a quote from Wendell Willkie: “Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone…”
There was no indication of who commissioned the monument or why it was located in a bank parking lot on Route 202.
That bank eventually became a Sovereign Bank and it was there in 2012 when Steve Quigley, of Concord Towing, rediscovered it while cleaning out some brush.
Some veterans wear their memories.
In addition to the monument’s history, its future was also a mystery. That original location was going to be the Chadds Ford entrance to the Wegmans supermarket. Where would the monument go?
Peter Miller of Carlino Construction, who developed the site, said the monument would be stored during construction, and then moved to wherever the township wanted it. But the cannon was stolen shortly before work began in 2014.
Carlino commissioned another cannon to save the monument. While the original cannon was stolen, the plaque was saved, and is on the new stone base with the cannon.
When the monument was rediscovered four years ago, many people — including those in the National Park Service — believed it to be the oldest monument to the war. Last year, however, local veterans learned that a monument in Charlottesville, Va., is older by seven months, being dedicated in April of 1966.
A monument in McKeesport, Pa. was also dedicated the same day as Chadds Ford’s.
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
Is God love? Is God king? Are the two mutually exclusive? I spent the recent Jewish High Holy Days gripped by these questions. It all started when I heard a rabbi ask children at a family service how they think of God.
The answers were generationally very different and in stark contrast to the themes and tropes of the High Holy Days. Immediately, I wanted time to ponder this question: have we lost something or are we onto something better?
The High Holy Days are also known as the Days of Awe. Only in English do we call Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) “high” holidays, or as I prefer holy days. In Hebrew, the terminology leaves no doubt as to the awe and reverence due on these days: they are the Yamim Nora’im (literally, awe-some or awe-full days), usually translated Days of Awe. I have always found some comfort in the annual self-accounting, contrition, and Divine judgment, especially since the rabbis show us a God who is willing to tip the scales in our favor.
The God of Judgment, a shepherd reviewing its flock, a general surveying his army, that God is a consistent part of the liturgy, both poem and prayer, we recite on these Days of Awe. That God is not the God of whom the children I heard spoke. They spoke of God as Love, as Kindness, as Everywhere, and even as In-Us.
To be sure, I believe in the God of whom they spoke. I believe fervently that we experience God through love; that we are God’s hands and feet when we do acts of kindness (and are touched by God when others are kind to us); that God’s infinitude means God can be found anywhere and is in all places at all times; and that, by extension, God is, of course, within each of us. Most of the time, I talk about the same God as those children did.
And yet…and yet, I wonder if we need more of that other God, that challenging God, that demanding God in our lives. Especially today, when it seems leadership can be defined by obstructing someone else from achieving their goals or by conducting business as usual even when the status quo has been proven to be corrupt. Especially today, when it is too easy and too common to find judgment without evidence or rational basis in the comment section of online articles and personal Facebook feeds. Especially today, when parents want so much to help their children that they forget children most need boundaries. It seems to me that a world with increasingly less examples of authority needs a counterweight.
On Rosh Hashanah, Jews crown God, the Creator of the World, as King of King of Kings. There is no monarch or ruler as high as God, the Sole Ruler. On Yom Kippur, we present ourselves as without merit, asking for compassion. Can the rituals associated with these efforts mean anything if we see ourselves as equally important, equally powerful, and accountable really only to ourselves?
The God of Love, Kindness, Everywhere, and In-Us equalizes us in powerfully good ways. We see each other as fellow creatures, as deserving of love and respect, as aspects of the divine image. We need this view to work better together, to get along. I am grateful for this God.
This year, I am grateful, too, for the God on High, enthroned in majesty that defied imagination. How fitting that the next holiday, which begins tonight, asks us to go out of our homes and to be fragile. Sukkot, the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles, forces us out of our routine, to be exposed to Nature, and perhaps to get one more view of God as power. Even better, Sukkot celebrates God’s bounty and protection even as we acknowledge our smallness. Perhaps, then in its balance of God Above and God Within, Sukkot should be our High Holy Day.
Rabbi Jeremy Winaker is the executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hillel Network, responsible for West Chester University, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and other area colleges. He is the former head of school at the Albert Einstein Academy in Wilmington and was the senior Jewish educator at the Kristol Hillel Center at the University of Delaware for four years. Rabbi Winaker lives in Delaware with his wife and three children.
