2023 inductee
Jerry Patton
Gerard Patton (1/17/1933- 8/29/2022) was the youngest of five sons of John Patton and Mae (McCormack) Patton. After high school and service in the United States Coast Guard, he married his childhood sweetheart, Barbara “Diane” Doebler, on January 3, 1953. Jerry earned an engineering degree from UConn, and moved to Milford in 1959 where he resided the rest of his life. In 1965 he joined Russ Clarke Real Estate. He took over the agency upon Mr. Clarke’s retirement in 1970, renaming it Clarke & Patton Realtors.
Clarke was a descendant of early Milford setters and familiar with local history which inspired Patton. He was a respected businessman expanding into travel and other services. He and Diane traveled much of the world together.
As a valued member of Milford Rotary since June 1992, he got the support of the club to initiate the Milford Memories Project. Jerry helped compile almost 50 video interviews of senior citizens recounting their memories of Milford history. Videos are available at the Milford Public Library.
In 2008 he founded and served as long- time chairman of the Milford Hall of Fame. This involved rounding up five living mayors to anchor a group of local historians and residents, a task akin to herding cats and a test of anyone’s organizational skills. They documented the contributions to Milford by notable and significant people and entities from our history with illustrated plaques in the Parsons Government Complex.
Inspired by one of his favorite films, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” he entered politics and served five terms representing Milford in the Connecticut General Assembly. He was instrumental in passing a bill mandating life-saving sprinklers in high rise buildings, hotels and motels, convalescent homes and senior housing projects. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988 as a Republican. The candidate met Ronald Reagan and visited George H.W. Bush with Diane in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Patton worked with Milford’s Stephen Stowe Society to develop the city’s first homeless shelter. This was an effort inspired by his mother who took into her Depression-era home people who had nowhere else to go. Often Patton woke up to find strangers sleeping on couches and floors.
Patton was fascinated by the fact that when the rest of the nation was mostly wilderness, Milford was already a thriving village having been founded in 1639. His legacy of the Milford Memories Project with videos containing oral history and the Milford Hall of Fame in the Parsons Complex, lived on. The corridor is lined with plaques with the faces of each honoree. All of the faces on the plaques have been drawn by long time MHOF committee member Dorothy Kozlowski, widow of Mayor Ed Kozlowski (MHOF 2022).
Patton was an active parishioner and volunteer for decades at St. Mary Church and is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery on Buckingham Avenue.
He was survived by his wife of almost 70 years, daughters Cynthia Vere, Cheryl Patton and Susan Fox and sons Kevin Patton and Kerry Patton, nine grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren.
Fred DeLuca
Frederick James Matthew DeLuca (10/3/1947-9/14/2015), born in Brooklyn NY, son of Carmela and Salvatore DeLuca moved to Bridgeport as a teen and attended the University of Bridgeport, receiving his BA Psychology in 1971. There was a reason for the six year trek to his degree.
A friend, Dr. Peter Buck, a PhD in nuclear physics, loaned the 17 year old $1,000, suggesting that he use it to start a fast food venture to help with his college expenses. The idea of a “healthful, less fattening” fast food was born marketed under the initial name of “Pete’s Super Submarines.” Radio ads sounded too much like “Pizza Marine” so Fred’s initial effort was changed to Pete’s Subway, also named for financier and partner Buck. The name was eventually changed to just “Subway” in 1968. The company was incorporated as Doctor’s Associates, Inc. in honor of Buck, not a medical doctor, and Fred who hoped to be, causing undoubted confusion on the part of many.
The first store opened in Bridgeport on August 28,1965 in a bad location. Mother Carmela ran the first shop with Fred’s Sister serving as “sandwich Artist.” The bad location dd not help him. The next two were very visible, the sixth was established in the heart of Milford lasting roughly fifty years in operation until 2019. By 1974 DeLuca had 16 outlets but was clearly short of the 32 the partners had intended in ten years. In a 2010 Interview DeLuca thought they had 24 by the end of 1975. The answer for growth would make Subway a world-wide phenomenon, Franchising.
The rest is history with the first “franchised” store opening in Wallingford, CT, in 1974. Growth was explosive as franchises numbered 100 stores by 1981, 300 the next year and 1000 in 1987. At least 1,000 new stores opened every year from 1987 through 2015.
The first international franchise came in 1984 in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Bucking the trend, Subway survived and flourished after the the crash of 2008 and the “great Recession.” It handily added 1,153 in the U.S. alone continuing the trend. At its peak Subway offered nearly 40,000 outlets from Afghanistan to Zambia all with roughly the same menu, adjusting only slightly for some local tastes.
More than 70% of new Subway franchises were sold to existing Subway owners in the US. Subway restaurant was routinely named the Number One Franchise Opportunity in Entrepreneur Magazine’s ‘Franchise 500’ rankings. Subway won this prestigious award 15 times in 22 years.
In a 2010 interview Fred reflected on the love of his life. It had been 45 years since the founding and he looked forward to the 50th year in 2015. He saw that but not the next 50 as he stated he would still be doing this at its 100 anniversary. Always an optimist, Fred would have been 118 years old on that date. At the time of his passing, the man who revolutionized the franchise industry had an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion, according to Forbes, making him the second richest person to hail in some way from Milford behind telecommunications magnate John Malone, a graduate of West Main Street school.
During the ensuing seven years since Fred’s death at age 67, Subway continued to be an international powerhouse - but cracks began to show. Franchisees complained about the new stores going up and competing in their non-existent “territories” and other costs and demands imposed by the company.
In 2023, competitor “Jersey Mikes” took the top spot in Entrepreneur Magazine. What went wrong? Not that much actually. The passing of Fred in September of 2015 was undoubtedly the most important blow to the company. His successors, mostly family, have employed JP Morgan as of 2023 looking to market the company. In April 2023, John Chidsey, CEO of Subway since 2019, announced its ninth consecutive quarter of positive sales as it continues to execute against its multi-year transformation journey.
In the first quarter of 2023, Global Results compared to the same period in 2022 were up 12.1% increase in same- store sales and up 11.4% increase in digital sales in the top performing 75% of the stores in 100 countries.
Similarly North America results, compared to the same period in 2022 were up 11.7% increase in same-store sales in the top 75% of the roughly 23,000 restaurants with digital sales up 17.9%, a company priority to improve traffic in the digital and post Covid world. Digital sales have quadrupled since 2019 and the number of franchise owners are back up to nearly 37,000 stores as part of its “smart growth” policy.
“Our continued impressive performance demonstrates that our efforts to build a better Subway and win back the hearts and minds of sandwich lovers around the globe is working,” said. “With strong sales momentum across our restaurants and a refreshed focus on strategic brand growth, there has never been a more exciting time to be part of the Subway brand,” said Chidsey. Fred’s legacy will continue.
A commonly cited issue in the grossly overstated decline of Subway is the matter of Jerod Fogle. Fogle, at the time a college student, claimed to have lost 245 pounds, by a combination of regular exercise and eating low fat SUBWAY® sandwiches for a year. The low fat menu contained 8 Subs with just 6 grams of fat or less.
Jared became a spokesman and marketing bonanza for Subway from 2000 to 2015, A huge following in the US and Canada, known as “Jared’s Army,” touted substantial weight loss. Jared however, turned out to be a double-edged sword. In July 2015, the FBI raided Fogle’s home in Zionsville, Indiana, and arrested him on charges of distribution and receipt of child porn. The same day, Subway announced they dropped Fogle as a spokesperson.
Just days later Subway celebrated 50 years by making the Guinness World record for 1,481 people simultaneously making sandwiches. Sadly, less than a month later DeLuca died after a long battle with cancer leaving behind his wife, Elisabeth, son Jonathan, granddaughter Sofia, sister and first “Sandwich Artist” Suzanne Greco, nieces, Gabriella and Jacqueline and the Subway family.
Modest and unassuming for a multi billionaire, even on his yacht, the local man was buried in St Michael’s cemetery in Stratford after the funeral at St. Mary’s Church, on Gulf St., Milford, CT.
Peter Buck died November 18, 2021 at the age of 90. Jerod Fogle is due to be released from prison in 2029 and paid approximately $1.4 million of his reputed Subway income of nearly $15 million in restitution to his victims. In prison, Jerod reportedly packed back 30 pounds.
And just last month, Subway sold itself to Roark Capital for about $9.6 billion, according to media reports, thus ending six decades of family ownership.
Muriel Grossfield
Muriel Davis Grossfeld, daughter of Harry and Evelyn Davis, hailed from the Town of Speedway, Indiana, yes the home of the Indianapolis 500 racetrack. According to her brother, Bruce Davis, his sister was a voracious reader, straight-A student who took art, dance, ballet, acrobatic and diving lessons. Her father built a small dance school in their home’s basement so she could teach dance lessons when she was as young as age 11. Her brother stated in an interview that she disappointed her mother by choosing gymnastics over ballet.
Muriel (October 7, 1940 – January 17, 2021) attended St. Mary’s Academy. Across the street in downtown Indianapolis was Athenaeum Turners, a German social club. They had a gymnasium where the young acrobat was coached by Walt Lienert, a Navy veteran of World War II. “I went to classes every day. I did a lot of my own choreography,” Grossfeld told IndyStar in a 1996 interview. “I was very good at looking and learning. It made me see someone and do the same thing.”
By age 15 she was already good enough to attend the 1956 Olympic Trials at Penn State. At the trials, Grossfeld was eighth heading into the final event, balance beam. Only six would qualify for Melbourne. Another gymnast fell, and, by one-tenth of a point, she was on her way to Australia. “It sort of changed her life,” Lienert told IndyStar in 1996. At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics a collision involving a delivery truck left the gymnast with minor injuries. She competed despite bumps and bruises.
She was arguably one of the most important persons in the development of Women’s gymnastics in America. When American gymnastics was mostly an afterthought on the international scene she won a team gold medal at the 1963 Pan American Games. She competed in all artistic gymnastics events at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics and finished ninth with the American team four times taking all-around in all three games and in the team portable apparatus in 1956. Her best individual result was 19th place in the floor exercise in 1960. She earned a “10” at the 1964 Olympic Trials in floor exercise at Kings Point, N.Y. She went on to win 18 various national championships. She coached the U.S. women’s gymnastic teams at the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games and at the World Championships in 1966, 1970 and 1974. She resolved to make the United States an international power in gymnastics. Grossfeld organized the first U.S. team training camp ahead of the 1966 World Championship.
Muriel and her husband Olympic gymnast Abie Grossfeld remained close after a divorce in 1966. They came to Connecticut and were instrumental in the growing Gymnastic program at Southern Connecticut State College in New Haven.
She started a private gymnastics school in Milford, Connecticut, first at the old A&P grocery store on River Street, then at the Masonic Temple on the Green and finally to a cinder block gym on Orange Avenue in the shadow of the Connecticut Turnpike.
As a USAG and USOC sanctioned facility, Grossfeld’s American Gold Gym (GAG) turned out tough gymnastic stars. According to People Magazine in 1978, she told one gymnast: “Don’t be a lady on that beam. Be an animal, Whatever you do, don’t fall off. Grab it with your teeth if you have to!”
At the time there were only three such special gymnastics-training centers in the country, the other two being
in Oregon and Louisiana. Dedicated prospects came from all over the country for years of incredibly hard work with only the hope of contesting the Soviet Bloc stars. In 1979 the New York Times reported on Grossfeld’s million dollar plans to expand the buildings and equipment on Orange Avenue. It was not to be. Constantly underfunded and neglected as a sport, Muriel spent most all of her income and fundraising on just keeping the doors open.
Grossfeld’s greatest coaching success was Marcia Frederick who began working out at the GAG at age 13. Frederick was a 15-year-old in 1978 when she became the first American to win a world title in women’s gymnastics (uneven bars). It was a great success for Grossfeld but marred by later claims that one of the eight GAG coaches, Richard Carlson, made sexual advances against her from age 16. She did not prevail in a subsequent lawsuit as claims against Grossfeld and her Gym were dismissed. Even so, it was part of a controversy that damaged both Muriel and the gymnastic sports training reputation nationally.
After the closing of the GAG Marcia did participate in the $425 Million settlement against Drs. Tyndall and Nasser and the USA Gymnastics (USAG) and US Olympic Committee (USOC) over sexual abuse of minor athletes led by Olympic star Aly Raisman decades later. In February 2018, the Safe Sport Act made it a federal crime not to report sexual assault or abuse claims to law enforcement.
After closing the GAG, Muriel continued to coach individual “elites” in the sport. Her longtime goal was finally achieved when the U.S. women won the team gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta. Olympics. Vivacious and beautiful, the 5’ 4” Grossfeld had a stint in Hollywood, staring in a TV Western pilot that did not get picked up. She also was a regular on ABC’s wide World of Sports for gymnastic color commentary and other coverage and a renowned spokeswoman for the sport.
The GAG training building is gone but the Platt house, a SRO dorm and living facilities, was moved to the adjacent Calvary Alliance Church, where it still stands, when the property was sold to build a convalescent hospital in the early 1980s.
In 1981 Muriel Grossfeld was inducted into the U.S. Gymnastics Hall of Fame. Memorializing Muriel Li Li Leung, CEO of USA Gymnastics said “Her passion for our sport was undeniable, and her efforts were instrumental to the growth of women’s gymnastics in the United States.”
The Muriel Grossfeld Scholarship Fund at Southern Connecticut University, and Muriel Grossfeld Invitational Gymnastics meet, also at Southern, live on after her passing. Grossfeld belongs to both USA Gymnastics and Women’s Sports Foundation halls of fame
J Edward Slavin
J. Edward Slavin was a long-term elected Democratic Sheriff serving from 1935 (elected in November 1934) then again as High Sheriff in 1959, serving a total of 26 years.
Square jawed Jack Slavin told the Waterbury Republican (July 23, 1944), “Do you know that we in America have the largest jail and prison population in the world? That proves we didn’t spend money in the right place. We spent it at the top, creating large police departments and other agencies for the prevention of crime and enforcement of law and order, while we neglected the bottom where crime starts.”
That is still true today as many point out. Sheriff Jack Slavin actually did something about it. Slavin believed that if he could intervene early enough in the lives of at-risk boys and girls they would become good, law-abiding citizens instead of law-breaking criminals who were an expense to society. To that end Jack created the First Offender Club in 1937. Youth who joined received a pledge card, a nickel- plated badge, and monthly newsletter. He promoted it in newspaper stories across the country, and a weekly coast-to-coast radio program heard on the Mutual radio network. More than 30,000 children took the pledge not to become a first offender or get a police record and to cooperate with authority figures.
Slavin turned to Hollywood to spread his message. Columbia Pictures produced in 1939 “First Offenders” based on Slavin’s screenplay of a hard nosed District Attorney dedicated to “Stop turning kids without a chance into men without hope!” The Movie debuted at the Loews-Poli Theater in New Haven to a massive crowd. The nationwide movie ads included contact information directly to the Slavin so that boys could reach him with their problems for personal counsel. He got back to the hundreds who wrote.
Jack did not stop there. He drew inspiration from the success of a residential program in Nebraska founded by Father Edward J. Flanagan in 1917 which had grown into a community known as Boys Town ten miles outside of Omaha. He and a dedicated team including Yale Star Albie Booth, former New Haven Jailer Wm.F. Hayes, 4-H member Stanley Konykowski and housing and trucking magnates Peter Juliano and Dan Adley.
To put their plan into effect Slavin offered to buy Charles Island from the Dominican Brotherhood which had a retreat off the Milford coast there. Before the sale could be consummated, the “Long Island Clipper” hurricane of 1938 devastated their buildings. Not deterred, the group purchased 82 acres on Wheeler’s Farms Road in 1941.
Boys Village was established the following year with Jack serving as their first president. Its doors opened in 1944. It initially operated as a summer camp and became a year- round facility in 1947. With a 14-room farmhouse, small cottage, cornfield, potato patch, dairy barn, and poultry buildings, it was originally designed to accommodate 16 boys who were 10 years old and older.
Patterned after a New England village, and of course Boy’s Town, it offered communal living, educational and training facilities for industry and farming, and a psychological clinic. The boys grew most of the food they ate and were responsible for performing chores around the facility. In1948 the board of directors made plans to accommodate a total of 31 boys.
Not everyone was pleased that “troubled boys” would be joining their neighborhood. NIMBY is not a new concept. Slavin stood firm however, pointing out to the Hartford Courant (1/2/1942) that his facility would be “... neither a penal institution nor a reform school. The fair-minded citizens of Milford, where I have been a resident and voter for nearly a quarter of a century, I believe, have confidence enough in me and know me well enough to know that I would not bring anything to Milford that would not be an asset to that beautiful town.” So much for that. His re-election as Sheriff proved his point.
Slavin’s oft-stated goal was “to provide a village of opportunity for the homeless boy, where he may develop a spirit of self respect, a love for work, and a desire to forge ahead through honest industry. ... I really believe all boys have good in them if they are shown the right way. I always believed that if you keep a boy busy he won’t get into trouble. I’m not interested in how much it costs to grow a boy. I’m interested in what kind of boy he’ll make.” He spelled out in Boys’ Village: A Home for Homeless Boys (1943) the goals of Boys Village:
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To establish and conduct a farm for boys on a plan sufficiently extensive to afford instructions.
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To restore handicapped and homeless boys in need of care and protection to a normal life wherever possible through a carefully planned and executed manner, involving relief, employment, medical care and education. To establish and conduct a place for the social betterment of young boys.
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To establish, maintain and provide a place for young boys so asto give them an opportunityto grow and develop in “social usefulness.”
The village was designed to operate differently from the more traditional homes for boys. An early Boys Village publication described the experience: “The one inflexible rule of Boys’ Village is that its boys shall not be regimented. The atmosphere is personalized and homelike, and the boys are guided rather than compelled by a trained staff. The boys live normally and wholesomely, with personal interests, possessions and friends, and they attend the churches of their choice and the Milford public schools where many of them are at the head of their classes. A sense of responsibility and self- sufficiency is developed in them to a far greater extent than is possible in “institutionalized” homes.”
Slavin under the auspices of Boys Village published several comic books in 1945 under the banner “Courage Comics.” The theme of the stories was courage in the face of adversity featuring crime, athletics, and heroism in World War II. Characters included U.S. Navy Lieutenant Chick Courage, boxer K.O. Brown, and a dog named Red Badge. One recurring character was self modeled. “Sheriff Jack” would save young offenders from a jail and exposure to hardened criminals. He dissuaded them from pursuing a life of crime by taking them under his wing and join the First Offender Club.
Slavin stepped down in 1947 but not out. Foreshadowing “Scared Straight” programs of today, Slavin outfitted a bus with exhibits in a traveling crime- education center he called “Jail on Wheels.” Displayed were tools used by police including fingerprints, recording devices, forensics, a lie detector, and means of restraint and punishment such as a reproduction jail cell and an electric chair identical to that used at Wethersfield for executions. The Mansfield News-Journal (Ohio) reported (11/12/1948) “Slavin ... is firm in his belief that, if a youngster sits in an electric chair and puts the leg irons around his calves and the steel cap on his head, he will never forget what the reward is for high achievement in the world of crime.”
Donations from more than a million people visitors in its first year covered expenses. Slavin paid off the remaining debts for Boys Village and put a second Jail on Wheels out on the road. Human services agencies from around Connecticut made requests on behalf of another 150 boys so plans for a badly needed expansion of Boys Village were undertaken.
Over the years, Boys Village has continued to seek ways to serve children with emotional and behavioral needs. It has been re- named Boys & Girls Village and is still at its original site on Wheelers Farms Road. Its services and reach have grown with the addition of a second campus in Bridgeport. It is still committed to the tradition begun by its founders of providing warmth, guidance, and life-training for children at risk of being forgotten.
Many thanks to the reporting of Michael Dooling archivist at the Mattatuck Museum (c) Connecticut Explored Inc. Fall 2016
Victor Loosanoff
Victor Lyon Loosanoff (10/3/1899- 6/15/1987) was a stern taskmaster. As the first director of the Milford Fisheries Laboratory, the former Russian military officer liked to think of himself as an orchestra leader conducting an orchestra and his staff as the instrument players. He visited each staff member every day and demanded a thorough progress report once a month.
Such discipline resulted in pioneering research for the growth of oysters known as The Milford Method used worldwide today.
Born in Kyiv (now Ukraine), son of a career officer in the Imperial Russian Army, Loosanoff graduated from the Emperor Alexander 1st Cadet Corps, Omsk, at age 17 and served 4 years as an artillery officer in the Royal Russian Army. He escaped the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, firing a machine gun from the back of the train to Siberia. Fighting his way from the Volga to Siberia, then slipping through China and Japan, he immigrated to the west coast of the United States in 1922. He worked in lumber camps and as a commercial fisherman on the West Coast while learning English.
He became interested in fish and entered the University of Washington in 1924, graduating three years later with a B.S. in Fisheries Science.
Following positions as a marine biologist in the states of Washington and Virginia, Loosanoff was appointed in 1931 as “Aquatic Biologist” with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and stationed at Milford where a thriving commercial oyster industry existed. He soon became a friend of Charles “Shang” Wheeler (MHOF 2016), general manager of the CT Oyster Farm Company in Milford. Wheeler and others lobbied Congress to establish a permanent research laboratory in Milford on the harbor of the Wepawaug River with Loosanoff as director.
Loosanoff served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Marine Biological Laboratory from 1935 to 1962 which was most of his illustrious career. In 1936 he earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from Yale University. Congress approved funds in 1938, and a substantial well- equipped two-story brick laboratory building on Rogers Avenue was completed in 1940. A director’s cottage next to the laboratory was also built where Loosanoff lived with his wife, Tamara, also a researcher. The couple had a special affection for the Mallard ducks that flocked from the shore to their cottage to be fed.
Loosanoff was a hard worker and demanded as much from his staff with a loud commanding Russian- accented voice. Although outwardly confident, he feared his laboratory would lose funds if papers were not regularly produced, and thus he expected his staff to publish at least one paper per year. If an employee was late, he was excused for the day. If it happened a second time, he was fired.
The “Milford Method” was the result of Loosanoff and his team developing methods to artificially spawn and rear shellfish in a hatchery. Research had revealed the secrets of laboratory manipulation of seawater temperature to induce gamete production out of season, stimulate spawning of egg and sperm, fertilization of eggs, and the culture of embryos and larvae. Methods were devised to grow large quantities of microalgal cells necessary to feed the growing larvae. Problems were also solved to enable the nurturing of the free-swimming larvae through a metamorphosis when they settle as tiny versions of the adults they will grow in to. This advance led to an alternative approach to shellfish cultivation, widely used today which relies solely on hatchery produced seed.
Loosanoff and staff published more than 200 scientific papers and articles and weekly reports to he industry during spawning season. He advanced knowledge not just about oysters and shellfish but also the life cycle of starfish, a deadly enemy of the oyster.
He was a leader among his scientific peers and received many awards and honors including the Distinguished Service Award from the Department of the Interior in 1965. The R/V Victor Loosanoff, a 49-foot research vessel docked at the Milford Laboratory and the sponge, Acervochalina Loosanoffi, were named in his honor. National Shellfisheries Association (NSA) named him a life member. He retired in 1962, moved to California with is wife Tamara and took another Federal fisheries position. He also taught at the University of the Pacific until his retirement in 1965, the same year he received the Distinguished Service Award, the highest from the Department of Interior. In declining health he took his own life at his home in Greenbrae, CA in 1987.
In Milford, a new laboratory facility was completed in 1967, and today it is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Northeast Fisheries Science Center. The Victor and Tamara Loosanoff Fellowship supports graduate students at the School of Aquatic
