Editor's Notebook: Looking Forward to Founders Day

The year was 1997. Hundreds of residents, including children from local schools, marched down Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown in a springtime parade that celebrated the historic suburb's 50th anniversary.

I was among those children. Looking back, I now realize the history you learn as a student in social studies class – American history, world history – isn't the only type of history that matters. Local history is just as important, maybe even more so, but there wasn't a class for that in the school curriculum.

I made the connection during Wednesday evening's Three Village Community Trust general meeting, which celebrated the organization's ten years of progress in restoring and preserving various historical properties. As a relative newcomer to this area, I'm still learning about the rich history of the community. I listened intently to a presentation about the Three Village Community Trust's various projects, such as the restoration of the rubber factory worker houses; stewardship of the Setauket-Port Jefferson Greenway Trail; the acquisition of the Zacariah Hawkins homestead, which might be the oldest house in Stony Brook; and others.

There was talk of the upcoming annual Founders Day celebration, this year set for May 2, during which fourth graders in the Three Village Central School District will get exactly the kind of local history lesson I wish I had all those years ago in my own hometown of Levittown.

The majority of my knowledge of my hometown came in snippets over the years from my mother, her own mother, my father, and his mother, all longtime residents of the community. And although I departed in 2010 to take up residence closer to Three Village and become your local Patch editor, I still immedately recall with a vast fondness my memories of the historic suburb. Why that remains important: It established a sense of place for me. It established roots, a feeling that I belonged somewhere, which sustained me during the transition to a new community with a history and identity all its own.

Teach the history of a community, make it relevant and ask people to participate, both children and adults, that's how you plant roots for the next generation. Three Village seems to be doing a fine job of this.

With the memory of Levittown's anniversary parade in my heart, I can't wait until Founders Day.