Hamilton Hamilton PPost ost
MAY 2021
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
Handbell composer rings Sue’s Blues
What’s in a name?
The names of Hamilton Township schools have varied, and often interesting, origins
By SUsan Van DonGen
Handbell music composer Susan Nelson is a rock star in Estonia. In that country near the Baltic Sea, hundreds of people come out for handbell choirs. But they also get together in substantial crowds for all kinds of other music, as well as performing and literary arts, even poetry readings. That’s the power of the arts in Estonia, and Nelson got swept up in that love when she befriended the Campanelli Handbell Ensemble and its leader, Inna Lai, who embraced Nelson and her work. “Estonian commitment to and love for music is amazing, in fact they like to say they sang themselves free from Soviet occupation,” Nelson says, adding, “Music is mandatory in education, there are statues of poets, writers, musicians, visual artists everywhere, it’s a very creative and artistic country.” The Hamilton resident was invited to Estonia in October, 2013, by Lai, to attend an “author’s concert,” consisting entirely of her works. The composer knew her music was being performed in the Baltic country, but was quite surprised when Lai reached out via e-mail and described the all-Nelson program, which would be titled “Sue’s Blues.” See HANDBELL, Page 16
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By SUe Ferrara
Hamilton has welcomed two new bakeries in the past year featuring a wide variety of desserts. Left: fruit pastries from KK Sweets. Right: a cake with macarons from Lilla Vanilla.
Their courage New bakeries bring and compassion sweet treats to us Hamilton inspire all. By AleXa D’Aiello
Canele is one of their best- thing the same,” she says.
with other chefs at selling items and is written almost in Working One morning, a message chalk appeared At 5 a.m., K.K. Sweets is guaranteed to be sold out by the bakery allows them all to in front of an RWJBarnabas Health facility. The words already bustling with action the end of each day. This treat bounce ideas off one another couldn’t have been simpler,crepe or more stirring, andsoul come up with different of caramelized for the day … but not because consists or more batter,accurate. madagascar vanilla desserts that keep customers of customers.
Baker-owner Kelsey Krieg beans, and a sweet taste of coming back. As far as where their ideas is making fresh pastries so rum inside. Most other bakbut K.K. take them, they try to stick the residents of Hamilton eries don’t offer this “Heroes with what’s in season when can have treats that are never Sweets does! work here.” Aside from this delicious it comes to fruits and typical reused from the day before. K.K. Sweets first opened in French dessert, the rest of favorites around certain times their menu sets the bar just of year. September 2020, and despiteThree words of gratitude and encouragement that For Mother’s Day coming time delays, has been doing as high. Anywhere from cincourage and compassion of health namontherolls to crumb cake, up, K.K. Sweets is planning better than expected withcapture workers across are America. share mini your cakes decothese here otherand desserts all toTo offer their new business. or to support our Emergencyrated Response withFund, their own elegant big-sellers she explains. Their daily menu consiststhanks “We try to switch up our designs as well as fresh flowof many choices that are fitvisit rwjbh.org/heroes for anyone with a sweet tooth. flavors so we never have anySee SWEETS, Page 14
It’s Shakespeare who has Juliet telling Romeo: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I thought about Juliet’s words after a lively discussion at the March school board meeting about the names of the schools in our district. And of course, a school by any name is still a school, but where did all the building names come from? Let’s start at the beginning. The Hamilton Township Board of Education had its very first meeting on July 13, 1894. Here’s a description of the number of students who attended district schools according to the census of 1898. Hamilton had 981 schoolaged children. Of those, 517 were formally enrolled in the township school system. Twenty-five children attended private schools. The remaining 339 didn’t attend schools. Local historian Tom Glover has noted that at that time, Hamilton was a large farming community, and many chilSee SCHOOLS, Page 18
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