Home Care In Bethel, DE

The Repair Shop – now in its Primetime Wednesday night slot – has continued to entertain viewers throughout lockdown, each week taking a trip to the past through some unique objects.

We’ve seen everything on the show from soldiers’ hats to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang train sets. While The Repair Shop wizards can fix up any item they come across, sometimes the biggest challenges come in the smallest forms.

One of the trickiest repairs to date is undoubtedly the papier-mâché de Bethel cat.

Find out everything you need to know about de Bethel cats here, plus more on how ceramics conservator Kirsten Ramsay worked her magic on the antique.

Caroline Crabtree and her daughter Jenny are from York. They travelled all the way to The Repair Shop in West Sussex to have their de Bethel cat fixed.

Caroline is the daughter of Joan and David de Bethel, who became known for their papier-mâché cats.

The de Bethel cat featured on The Repair Shop was one made by Joan for David around the time they got engaged. It was the first ever of its kind, meaning a rare piece of history and a valuable collector’s item.

As we learnt in the episode, there are thousands of de Bethel cats out there, some people collecting them en masse. They are valued in the hundreds of pounds per cat on eBay.

Kirsten Ramsay had quite the challenge fixing the cat, as the papier-mâché had started to flake away and the neck was significantly weakened, threatening the sculpture’s head.

Next, Kirsten had to delicately replicate Joan’s painting on the cat to fill in the missing patches.

When Caroline saw the repair work Kirsten had done, she was blown away. Caroline said:

It’s an absolutely fantastic job. I can’t see where you’ve been. Mum would’ve been so impressed to see it done so well… Absolutely everything I wanted.

Joan de Bethel (née Burton) was an artist famous for her papier-mâché cats. She was born on November 25th, 1923 in Brighton.

Joan studied at St Martins School of Art and Design where her interest first lay with theatre and costume design. In fact, as a young student, Joan contributed to creating banners and costumes for Laurence Olivier’s Henry V. She found success throughout the 1950s in theatre.

On May 3rd, 1951, Joan met fellow artist David de Bethel. They were engaged in 1953 and in 1955, their daughter Caroline was born.

Joan and David started to work together throughout the 1960s on their de Bethel cats. David made them and Joan painted them.

Joan passed away in October 2017 at the age of 93. David had passed decades earlier in 1977.

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The year 2023 marks the 100-year anniversary of the establishment of the Brazil branch office. Throughout the branch’s century-long history, Brazil has seen continuous growth—evidence of Jehovah’s ongoing blessing.

The history of the preaching work in Brazil goes as far back as the late 1890’s, when issues of Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence first began to be distributed in the country. An increasing number of people started to show interest in the magazine. So in March 1923, Brother J. F. Rutherford dispatched Brother George Young to the country to establish a branch office and organize the preaching work.

Brother Young rented a small office in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and it became the first branch office to begin operating not only in Brazil but in all of South America. He also made arrangements for the publications to be translated from English into Portuguese and then to be printed by a local commercial printer.

In 1925, Brother Young continued his missionary service in Argentina, and Brother John Rainbow was appointed to serve as the branch overseer of the small operation in Brazil. In 1926, a small printing press was sent to Brazil from the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. This allowed the local brothers to print their own magazines and booklets.

Starting in 1945, missionaries from the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead were assigned to assist with the preaching work in Brazil. Jehovah greatly blessed their efforts, and between the years of 1948 and 1968, the number of Kingdom publishers increased from 1,000 to 50,000. In the last three years alone, an average of over 21,000 people have been baptized each year. Today, there are some 900,000 publishers sharing the good news in the country. This remarkable growth has repeatedly brought with it the need for updated and larger Bethel facilities. In 1980, the branch relocated to the town of Cesário Lange, some 150 kilometers (93 mi) from São Paulo. Since then, the Cesário Lange facilities have been expanded three times. Today, more than 1,200 brothers and sisters work there.

We rejoice to see how Jehovah has blessed the disciple-making work in Brazil over the last one hundred years.—1 Corinthians 3:7.

BETHEL — A five-mile trail system that would expand local recreation opportunities is proposed for the Terre Haute property on the Bethel-Danbury border.

The Fairfield County chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association looks to construct five machine-built trails, accessible from the Turnage Lane cul-de-sac in Bethel’s Clarke Business Park, with one extending to Long Ridge Road in Danbury.

First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker said he thinks it’s “a great idea.”

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“We have talked for more than a decade in town about improving recreational opportunities, specifically in the Terre Haute area, among other places,” he said. “A trail system of this nature, I think, is a marvelous idea.”

The idea is to create more outdoor recreation opportunities in town, and extend the Ives Trail Greenway that runs through Bethel, Danbury, Redding and Ridgefield, according to Bethel resident and NEMBA member Michaela Lawlor, who presented the proposed trail system to the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday.

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She said there would be five, roughly four-foot-wide paths with varying degrees of traversing difficulty, including one “cross-country-style” trail that connects to the southeast section of the Ives Trail Greenway.

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Creating more opportunities for outdoor recreation in town would come with social, health and safety benefits, Lawlor said.

“A social impact would be that it improves upon life in general (by giving) people something to do with friends or family,” she said. “A public health aspect (is that) it encourages a healthy and active lifestyle — and hand-in-hand with that comes public safety.”

Lawlor said the proposed trail system would also make Bethel the first municipality in Fairfield County to have machine-built trails, which could “bring a big draw of people” to town and have economic benefits.

Knickerbocker said he sees that potential, too.

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“I see this trail system as being a very attractive thing not only for residents who are avid mountain bikers and hikers, but the region,” he said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for economic growth.”

Although there’s no set timeline for the trail project, Lawlor said it would be great to get town approvals within the next year while work is underway to generate funding so NEMBA can break ground on the project a year from now.

With approval from the town and money raised for the project, Lawlor said NEMBA’s next steps would be to hire a trail-building company to survey the land, then build the first set of trails.

“You can do a phase buildout so it’s not all at once,” she said.

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Lawlor said the projected cost to complete about two-thirds of the project is around $250,000.

“Our beginning goal would be to raise about that much so we can pay for the planning and first and second phase of the buildout,” she said.

In addition to collecting donations, Lawlor said a number of grants are available for trail projects — including ones through NEMBA, as well as the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — that would be sought.

To move forward, Knickerbocker said the project needs to be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning and Inland Wetlands commissions, and get a referral from Planning and Zoning.

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After that, he said the Board of Selectmen can vote.

The Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday to forward the project proposal to the Planning and Zoning Commission for review and the referral, as well as to the Inland Wetlands, Parks and Recreation and Economic Development commissions for comments.

STRASBURG – The Strasburg Theater has been sold to La Iglesia Asambleas de Dios Bethel, a Pentecostal hispanic church formerly based in Front Royal, for $275,000 by Alpine Rose L.L.C.

The 10,000-square-foot building is located at 151 W. King St. Michelle Bixler, Strasburg’s economic development and marketing manager, said she’s glad it has a new owner.

“We’re happy to have somebody in the building and giving it some of the attention it deserves,” she said. “I’m excited to have it draw in a community that’s a little more diverse than we’re used to and we’re looking forward to that.”

Built in 1930, the building sat vacant for roughly three years before its purchase on Nov. 3.

Church pastor Elias Pimentel said he and his congregation are looking forward to moving and they plan to revamp the former theater.

“We’re very excited,” he said. “It’s unbelievable for people right now. We didn’t have anything like this before. We are a young church and we haven’t experienced anything like this previously. … We’re planning to update the space, and maybe do some touch ups and things. We’re going to put new carpets and stuff like that, new toilets, everything pretty much new.”

Pimentel, a plumber by trade, said he’s going to do all the work himself, which will save quite a bit of money.

“We want to make it beautiful,” he said. “We’re not just serving people, we’re serving the Lord and it’s not only for ourselves, it’s for everybody here. … I don’t think this is my plan, it’s the Lord’s plan.”

Pimentel plans to create some rooms for children’s classes on the former theater’s second floor and will be putting an office for himself near the front door. The theater’s 450 seats will remain in place, offering ample accommodations for the congregation’s growth.

The church, founded in 2013, has a congregation of about 60 people and Pimentel said they hope to open around the end of the month. He said that he has plans to institute bilingual masses to give English speakers a new perspective and to maintain traditions among the younger generations of Spanish speakers who have lived their whole lives among English speakers. Pimentel said that his parishioners come from up and down the county and Winchester as well as Front Royal, adding that the location in Strasburg is a good midpoint between those areas.

The church will offer services at 10:30 on Sunday mornings and 7 p.m. on Friday evenings, Pimentel said.

The town will no longer be able collect property taxes on the building, due its exemption as a church, but Bixler said the town will welcome visitors who may visit the local shops and restaurants.

“We welcome anyone who wants to come in,” Bixler said. “I don’t care if its five people or 600 people – anytime we have an opportunity to bring folks downtown and keep them here.”

For those interested in learning more about the church, they can be found online at http://tinyurl.com/qg2p4jv or at http://tiny.cc/hicrgy.

Contact staff writer Nathan Budryk at 540-465-5137 ext. 155, or [email protected].