The banks didn’t loan money in those days. So in about 1922, I was only six months old, they bought a house through what they called the Chester Building and Loan. But my father and mother had five children, and the house was very small. The house I was born in was just one house down here. My father and mother moved here from Scotland and settled into Chester after a couple of other small towns. My birth date is May 12th, 1922, which makes me 81 years old, and I was born one house from where I’m living now, so you might call me a Chester native. This interview was taped at Bob Blair’s house on Straits Road, at its intersection with Straits Road. Interview with Robert Blair for the Chester Historical Society, June 11, 2003. His interview, we think, is very interesting and contains some interesting history of early Chester. We are including Bob Blair’s oral history here because Bob was one of the founders of the Historical Society, as well as a Chester native and a Chester First Selectman. We currently have over oral histories from more than 60 people.
The Chester Historical Society has been taping Chester residents for decades.
