With the Norfolk Curling Club temporarily out of commission owing to Covid-19 restrictions, have a look at the earliest days of curling in Norfolk. The sport was introduced here sixty-six years ago by Elisabeth Childs, whose father, John Walcott Calder, had been an avid curler in Utica, N.Y. The first games were held on Tamarack Pond and Tobey Pond in the winter of 1954-55. Preparation required arduous work, with a section of ice 150 feet by 15 feet shoveled and scraped free of snow and 12-foot circles scratched 114 feet apart. A hole was chopped and water sprinkled on the sheet to pebble the ice.  The club was officially organized in 1956, and the original curling shed built that fall. To raise money for equipment, club members known as “The Broom Stackers” performed annual plays. Pictured in this photograph taken by founding member Darrell Russ in 1954 are some of the other charter members of the Norfolk Curling Club: (from left) Herb Robertson, Elaine Russ, Howard Malcolm, Ed Quinlan, and Elisabeth and Ted Childs. 

— Text by Ann Havemeyer
— Photo courtesy of The Norfolk Historical Society