Milton A Cochran, 78, of Landenberg, died on March 30, at his home. He was the spouse of Mary Cochran with whom he shared 55 years of marriage. Born in Fort Dodge, IA, he was the son of Eugene Cochran and Lucile (Howie) Cochran. He grew up in Lakeside, Storm Lake, IA.
Milton A Cochran
Milt attended Iowa State University and graduated in 1968. Following graduation, he joined the Army and served two years during the Vietnam War. In 1970, he was hired by the DuPont Company as a mechanical designer where he worked for 25 years. In 1994, Milt retired to form his own company, Cochran Consulting Inc., a mechanical design company he operated until 2009. A tragic auto accident in 2009 abruptly ended his career as Milt permanently lost his eyesight.
Milt is remembered for his fine woodworking skill having built several pieces of furniture including a solid walnut cradle for his firstborn and subsequent children and grandchildren. In addition, he designed and renovated an old house in Landenberg, which he called home for 50 years.
Milt will be missed for his reminders of the many books on tape he read daily from the Library of Congress. He delighted in telling the author’s story through his own rendition.
In addition to his wife Mary, he is survived by two daughters Abigail Cates and her husband Kevin of Port Orchard, WA; and Laura Kuhs and her husband Daniel of Biddeford, ME; four grandchildren, and one brother, Dale Cochran and his wife Beverly of Highland Ranch, Colo.
Contributions in his memory may be made to Kenneth Area Community Service, https://kacsimpact.org/support. Checks can be mailed to PO Box 1025 Kennett Square, PA 19348.
Arrangements are by Matthew Grieco of Grieco Funeral Home & Crematory (484-734-8100) of Kennett Square. To view Milton’s online obituary and to share a memory with his family, please visit www.griecofunerals.com
Kathy Carney describes Reaching Milestones as “an agency that provides early intervention to children and their families. We provide services in the homes to support families who have identified that they have concerns with their child.”
After 10 years in Regency Plaza in Concord Township, Reaching Milestones recently moved into Olde Ridge Village Shoppes in Chadds Ford
Carney — who has a master’s degree in speech and language pathology — and her team provide speech, occupational and physical therapies, plus special instruction for children and their families. While the goal is to improve the child’s health and development, the team engages and trains the families to help them meet those goals whether they involve behavior issues, delayed speech and language, dealing with premature birth issues, feeding and nutrition challenges. They also work with autism issues.
Reaching Milestones currently gets referrals from the Delaware County Early Intervention Program, and that can start at birth, especially with some premature infants who’ve been in NICU, neonatal intensive care.
“If the NICU has suggested they get services in the home to get help so they’re not bringing their babies back to the hospital a lot. It’s a safer environment to go into the home so they don’t get sick again,” she said.
Another significant reason for the home visits is to train the families, the child’s parents, or other caregivers.
“Our going in there once a week isn’t going to make a huge difference unless the family can take part and carry on [when we’re not there].”
As part of that, carney said she and the team members need to know what the parents are or have been doing.
“We can go in and say to the parents, ‘Show me what you’re doing and let’s tweak it some. If that’s not working, what do you think what else might work?’”
And it all depends on what issues the child is having. Some preemies weren’t in utero long enough to develop the ability to suck. Sometimes changing the formula in the food or changing the nipple on the bottle can help.
At other times, when the child is a little older and can swallow and eat, but seems to reject food, Carney said pictures can help. If children push certain foods away, but can’t articulate what they want, putting pictures of different foods on the refrigerator at child-level, children can then point to what they want.
For others, maybe the child isn’t making the sounds involved in learning to speak. She said the reaction to COVID hampered some of that development. Kids weren’t socialized outside the home and weren’t exposed to hearing different people and the masking prevented them from watching how the human mouth works in forming words and speaking.
“It’s a way of getting parents to think about it themselves so I’m not just telling them right away what to do,” she said.
In short, she said, they help teach the parents how to help teach their child.
Currently working with kids from birth to 3 years of age, Carney said they hope to expand the age group and have already started the expansion when it comes to speech therapy. They also get calls from past client families who start noticing other issues developing after age 3 and want the Reaching Milestones team to do an assessment.
For those kids in the birth to 3 range when referred through the county, services are taxpayer-funded if there’s a referral.
For more detailed information about services, Reaching Milestones is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, or by appointment. The address is 100 Ridge Road, Suite 37, Olde Ridge Village Shoppes, Chadds Ford, PA 19317. Carney can be reached at 484-832-3005, or via email at info.reachingmilestones@gmail.com. The website is https://www.reachingmilestonestherapy.com.
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.
Alison S. Dobbins, 44, officially begins April 22. Her new responsibilities will also include acting as township secretary and right-to-know officer.
She was introduced and formally voted in at the April 17 supervisors’ meeting and told those in attendance that she deeply believes in municipalities’ impact on the community.
“I believe work at the municipal level is most impactful,” the Delaware County resident said. “I take that responsibility seriously.”
She added that she is committed to the area “and very excited to work at Kennett.”
Alison S. Dobbins, the new Kennett Township manager.
Dobbins replaces Eden Ratliff, who left Kennett in February to become the deputy city manager for Charlottesville, Va. Kennett Township Finance Manager and HR director Amy Heinrich served as the acting township manager in his absence.
Supervisors’ Vice Chairman Richard Leff said the township received “well over 70 applications,” including from “well over 40 qualified individuals” in the first month of the search.
“Welcome, Alison, to our little Kennett family,” Supervisor Pat Muller said. “We’ve got a lot of opportunities and challenges.”
“We feel lucky to have her on our team,” Supervisors’ Chairman Geoffrey Gamble said in a press release. “Alison has a broad base of skills and experience perfectly aligned to help us through the opportunities and challenges facing Kennett Township now and in the future.”
Dobbins had worked for Upper Darby Township in Delaware County since 2020, first as the deputy chief administrative officer and then, since January 2023, as the acting chief administrative officer. She also had positions with the state legislature and with Drexel University.
According to the press release, she is currently working toward a master’s degree in business administration from Eastern University and also an International City County Managers Association accreditation. Her skills include “financial management, grant management, parks and recreation, as well as emergency management and public safety. She is experienced in contract and union negotiations and helped to navigate Upper Darby’s public services through the recent COVID emergency crisis.”
At the meeting, Dobbins shared the story of how her father asked what she would be doing as the Kennett Township manager. When she explained, “He said it’s perfect for you, because you love history, the outdoors, and helping people.”
The new township manager said she plans to spend her first 30 days listening to residents, township staff, and supervisors, among others.
“Our success as a team depends on all of our individual successes,” Dobbins said, thanking Heinrich “and all that she and her team have done to prepare for our arrival.”
The supervisors also praised Heinrich for her work as acting manager.
“You’ve had your plate full and it’s greatly appreciated,” Muller said.
In her last report as interim manager, Heinrich thanked everyone for their support.
“Thank you to the board of supervisors for the opportunity to serve Kennett Township in this capacity,” she said. “Thank you to the Kennett Township employees who have supported me in this role and helped us through the transition. I’ve already had the opportunity to spend some time with the new township manager. I expect to truly enjoy working with them and know the township is in good hands with this person and the excellent team of professionals at Kennett Township.”
Monica Thompson Fragale is a freelance reporter who spent her life dreaming of being in the newspaper business. That dream came true after college when she started working at The Kennett Paper and, years later The Reporter newspaper in Lansdale and other dailies.
She turned to non-profit work after her first daughter was born and spent the next 13 years in that field.
But while you can take the girl out of journalism, you can’t take journalism out of the girl. Offers to freelance sparked the writing bug again started her fingers happily tapping away on the keyboard.
Monica lives with her husband and two children in Kennett Square.
Peter Skiadas, 88, former owner of the Longwood Inn and Hank’s Place in Chadds Ford, died peacefully at his home surrounded by loved ones on Wednesday, April 17. He was born in Homori, a small village of Greece north of Nafpaktos, on Palm Sunday, April 22, 1935, and he was the first out of five children of Nicholas and Fotini Skiadas.
Peter Skiadas
He came to the United States as an immigrant in June of 1954, bringing with him an unquenchable thirst for education and hard work. He carried with him a profound respect for education and was, himself, well-educated in the Greek classics and philosophy. He took immeasurable pride in his two sons’ advanced educational achievements: Nicholas, a doctor of cardiology, and Anthony, a dentist and, owner of Smilebuilderz Dental in Lancaster County.
He had a strong and clear perspective of life’s ephemeral pleasures. His philosophy on life and death was very realistic. “I am not afraid of dying”, he used to say stoically. “Death is the ultimate fate of all human beings. I have no regrets for that. What I am regretful for is that death, many times, comes at a period of our lives when we are just beginning to understand the deepest meaning of life.”
His entire life was one of faith in the American dream, love for his church and Hellenic heritage and devotion to his wife of 48 years, Stavroula Demestihas.
His elementary and high school years were very turbulent and interrupted by the German occupation and the civil war in Greece. Due to the absence of a teacher in his own village, he had to attend school in the next village one and a half hours away from home. Rain or snow he had to walk that distance five days a week, most of the time barefooted and without food.
In 1954, having graduated from Nafpaktos High School, he came to America where he was accepted to attend the Hellenic College and the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass. (institutions preparing Greek teachers and priests for the Greek American communities in the United States). After his graduation from Hellenic College and the Holy Cross Theological School, as Valedictorian of his 1961 class, he was awarded the Taylor Scholarship from the Greek Archdiocese to study classics and philosophy at The University of Athens. After receiving his diploma from the University of Athens, Magna Cum Laude, he returned to Boston, Massachusetts, where he was appointed by the late Archbishop Iakovos to teach classical Hellenistic and modern Greek literature at Hellenic College and the Holy Cross School of Theology. In 1969 while teaching, he received his master’s degree in the classics from Boston College and he continued expanding his education by taking graduate courses in the classics and Byzantine literature at Harvard University. After eight years of teaching at Hellenic College and the University of Massachusetts (Boston campus), he decided to give up academics, he joined Skiadas Brothers Enterprises, a family-owned company engaged in the restaurant, gift shop, and real estate business in Pennsylvania.
The first restaurant that he managed was The Longwood Inn in Kennett Square, a town known as the world’s mushroom capital. There he became very much interested in the mushroom culinary arts and with the help of local mushroom growers, he became instrumental in starting the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival that eventually became an annual event. In order to promote the use of mushrooms in cooking, Peter initiated the “Mushroom Symposium”, a culinary event at which famous mycologists participated. This culinary event quickly became a huge sold-out event and attracted the attention of the national media like The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other magazines to write extensively about the Kennett Square mushroom industry.
For Peter Skiadas, love for flowers and gardening ran pretty deep. For him, planting flowers and vegetables and watching them grow was a sort of mystical-spiritual experience. The Brandywine Garden Club awarded him with an honorary plaque commemorating his efforts. He was a supporter of the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society for many years, and he received awards from them for the beautification of his properties.
Peter, together with his brothers Ted, George, Pete, and his brother-in-law Harry Keares, was involved in many projects and organizations beneficial to the community. Whatever he did together with his brothers, was the result of a strong faith and a genuine belief in the American spirit of volunteerism. He believed that good relations with people produce benefits that eventually flow back to the community. He also believed that if you take from your community, you should be more foresighted about putting something back into it.
The year 1983 was the year that Lee lacocca started a noble project to raise money for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Peter and his brothers responded to lacocca’s call by commissioning and raffling a large hand-crafted liberty centennial quilt. More than 50,000 one-dollar raffle tickets were printed and sold to the public. All the proceeds of the sale were donated to the Statue of Liberty Restoration Fund. The winner of the quilt agreed to donate it to the American Folk Art Museum of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The quilt is now in permanent exhibit there. The project of the centennial quilt was praised locally and nationally. The local newspaper of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, “The New Era” wrote … ‘The community is better because of the Skiadas family initiative and creativity. We value this exceptional group of people.”
In 1987, Peter and his brothers financially supported the Friends of Agriculture, an organization in Lancaster County aiding the farmland preservation effort. For this initiative, his company, Skiadas Brothers Enterprises, was honored by President Ronald Reagan for outstanding achievement in volunteer service and community outreach.
In 1991, Peter and his beloved wife, Stavroula, bought Hank’s Place, a very popular eatery in Chadds Ford. Under their 27 years of ownership, Hank’s Place became very well known, not only for its homestyle cooking but also for its friendly atmosphere and service. It became a place “where hungry people eat, and friendly people meet” and the center of artistic endeavors. Frequented by all local artists of the Brandywine area including the master painter, Andrew Wyeth. To celebrate their ownership of Hank’s Place and to show their neighborly support, the Skiadases instituted an annual breakfast to benefit the Chadds Ford Historical Society. Each year, the proceeds of that breakfast were donated to the Historical Society. For their generosity and community spirit, the Historical Society presented Peter and his wife, Voula, with a lifetime membership to the Society and the Brandywine Museum of Art.
One of Peter’s favorite organizations that he belonged to for 35 years was the Rotary Club of Kennett Square. He was attracted to joining it by his conviction and belief that “service above self’ should be the driving force of one’s life.
One of the most important service projects of Rotary that attracted his attention was Rotaplast. Rotaplast provides free reconstructive surgery for children in other countries who were born with cleft lip and palate anomalies. Peter took time from his business to voluntarily participate in four of these Rotaplast reconstructive surgical missions. Three in Peru, high up in the Andes Mountains, and one in Shijiazhuang City of China. In 2007, he was elected by his Rotary Club as Rotarian of the Year. “In sincere appreciation and recognition of distinguished service, loyalty and devotion to the ideals of Rotary”.
Other organizations that he was affiliated with were the Modern Greek Studies Association of America and Canada and the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA). He joined AHEPA in 1988 and served as chairman of its scholarship committee for many years.
Peter’s greatest joy and source of happiness and pride was the wellbeing of his family. His beloved wife, Voula, his two sons, Nicholas Skiadas, and Anthony Skiadas, husband of Kara, and their children, Pano, Roula, Elizabeth, and Billy always came first. He loved cooking for his family. Peter’s family also includes his brothers Ted N. Skiadas, husband of Martha, George N. Skiadas, and Nondas N. Skiadas, husband of Patti, and his sister Irene Keares, wife of Harry.
After retirement Peter and Voula moved to Lancaster and he loved hosting his grandchildren and family and friends and visiting Little Chef Restaurant in Coatesville with his brother Pete for lunch and visiting his other brothers and cousins. He loved Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church and seeing Fr. Veronis who gave him the courage to continue his journey, and Fr. Hector who continues the legacy of Fr. Veronis. When living in Kennett Square he loved his St. Nicholas Orthodox Church family in Coatesville, who constantly prayed for Panos’s and Voula’s wellbeing.
Aside from always being busy with his business, Peter never lost touch with his roots in Greece. He visited his ancestral home two times a year and, along with his brother Ted, financially helped to convert the old, abandoned school of his village into a cultural center with a library and a museum where local artifacts are being exhibited. They did this as a tribute to their parents’ memory, Nicholas and Fotini Skiadas.
A viewing will take place Tuesday, April 23, , from 6 to 8 p.m. with the Trisagion Service at 7 p.m. at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 64 Hershey Avenue, Lancaster, PA 17603. Another viewing will take place on Wednesday, April 24, , from 9:30 to 11 a.m., followed by the funeral at 11 a.m. with The Rev. Hector Firoglanis officiating, at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 392 Charles Street, Coatesville, PA 19320. Interment in Fairview Cemetery, Coatesville.
In lieu of flowers kindly consider a contribution in Peter’s memory to Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church Building Fund, 64 Hershey Avenue, Lancaster, PA 17604, or to St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, 11 Oak Street, Coatesville, PA 19320.
Ridge Road between the Ridings and Coopers Hawk Road remains closed through the end of the month for storm sewer replacement.
PennDOT has announced the following weather-dependent road projects that could affect drivers in the greater Chadds Ford area from April 22 through April 26. Motorists are urged to allow extra time traveling through one of the construction zones. Work schedules are subject to change.
•PennDOT announced today that the bridge carrying Smithbridge Road over Webb Creek has reopened following the completion of a $1.7 million project to replace the 96-year-old structure in Concord Township, Delaware County.
•Utility installation will cause a daytime lane closure at the intersection of Newark and Line roads in New Garden and West Marlborough townships through May 2.
•Utility installation will also cause daytime lane closures at the intersection of Route 202 and Spring Mill Drive in Concord Township through May 5.
•A storm sewer replacement project will cause a daytime closure of Ridge Road between Route 202 and Cooper’s Hawk Road in Chadds Ford Township through May 1. During the closure, motorists are directed to use Smithbridge Road and Route 202.
•Construction is underway on a $15.2 million project to replace the South Creek Road bridge over the Brandywine between Chadds Ford and Pennsbury townships. Work is expected to continue through fall 2025. South Creek Road will be closed 1,200 feet south of Bullock Road and 1.1 miles north of Cossart Road. During the closure, motorists are directed to use U.S. 1, Route 52, Center Meeting Road, and Delaware State Route 100 (Montchanin Road). Bicyclists traveling Bike Route L will be directed to use Bullock Road, Ring Road, Ridge Road, and Delaware State roadway Smithsbridge Road.
•Road construction for the Pulte Homes development on northbound Route 202 in Concord Township will continue through Friday, April 26. Periodic weekday lane closures are scheduled between Cornerstone Drive and Springhill Drive when crews are actively working. Work may also take place on Saturdays or Sundays if needed by the contractor.
•Motorists should expect a 24/7 lane closure on Route 1 between Orchard and Greenwood avenues in East Marlborough Township because of a house being moved out of the right of way. That is expected to last through April 26.
Drilling will cause daytime lane closures on Birmingham Road at its intersection with Country Club Road in Birmingham Township through April 30.
•Intersection improvements at South and Cypress streets in Kennett Square and Kennett Township, are scheduled to continue through April 30. Weekday road closures are set for South Street between Center and Broad streets in the borough, and on Cypress between Walnut Street and Cope Road in the township.
•Motorists should expect lane restrictions with a detour for trucks on Route 162 at its intersection with Route 82 in Newlin Township because of bridge repair. There is currently no date for completion.
