Wellesley to salute veterans in November

October 19, 2020 by Bob Brown 1 Comment

Disappointed but undeterred in not being able to celebrate veterans in Wellesley this past spring via the Annual Veterans’ Parade and fireworks show, the town this November is organizing an all new “Wellesley Salutes Our Veterans 2020” display.

The Wellesley Celebrations Committee is working with Wellesley’s American Legion Post 72 members, Wellesley Veterans’ office, and the Wellesley Board of Selectmen’s Beth Sullivan Woods to create this outside strolling attraction that you can take in on your own timetable.

Wellesley Flag The centerpiece of the display, honoring those who serve or have served in the U.S. military, will be window displays throughout town, including in storefronts that are vacant. The effort will “provide residents and shoppers with an historic outside window strolling event, which includes Rosie the Riveter through the actual landing on the beaches of Normandy including the planning process of the D-Day invasion, and the general orders from General Dwight D. Eisenhower to our troops and much more, including Wellesley residents who have served and are currently serving in our Military,” says Pete Jones, who along with his wife JoAnn, are spearheading the project for the Celebrations Committee.

This is also the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and we need to give thanks to all the Veterans who have given their lives so we can enjoy the freedoms we have been given in our communities,” Jones says.

A ceremony is planned on Veterans’ Day, Nov. 11.

Beth Sullivan Woods said during last week’s Board of Selectmen meeting that the town will wrap light poles in town and display flags. A WW2 restored Jeep, and perhaps other vehicles, could be part of the celebration, she said.”The merchants are excited about it, the veterans are excited, and I think the residents will enjoy that as a way to celebrate veterans and make it interesting to go downtown,” she said.

World of Wellesley Zoom event: What Kind of Communities Do We Want To Live In?

October 17, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

World of Wellesley, along with over a dozen area organizations, invites everyone to a Zoom event that will examine housing policies through a lens of equity. The interfaith conversation will focus on how a larger and more inclusive community can be achieved.

The drivers of structural inequality that have led to racial, ethnic, and economic segregation in communities, and what community members can do about it, will be explored and discussed.

EVENT: At My Neighbor’s Table: What Kind Of Communities Do We Want To Live In?
DATE: October 18, 2020
TIME: 5:00 – 6:15 pm
LOCATION: Zoom

Learn more and register

Virtual Historic Newton House Tour features Wellesley Cliff Estates home, celebrates prolific female designer

October 14, 2020 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

The annual Newton House Tour this Oct. 17 & 18 won’t include in-person tours but has been adapted through video to bring you into four homes designed by Maud Brodrick, who built and sold hundreds of homes in Newton and Wellesley during the 1920s and 1930s. An online panel discussion will shed more light on Brodrick, one of the few women in the field during her career.

A professionally-produced video tour will take you inside three Newton homes, and a Wellesley home in the Cliff Estates area –an area that Brodrick largely developed.

The videos will be released for viewing on Saturday, Oct. 17, and the panel discussion will take place at 3pm on Sunday, Oct. 18.

According to Historic Newton, Brodrick and her husband Walter launched Brodrick Bros., a real estate agency and design-build firm. Brodrick built some of the first houses on her own street, Randlett Park in West Newton. She boasted that their houses were “Woman-Planned, Woman-Designed and Woman Built,” and the Brodricks built about 200 homes overall in Newton, Wellesley, and beyond.

The Cliff Estates homes were considered Maud Brodrick’s finest, featuring copper fireplaces, wrought iron decoration, and themed basements with commissioned murals. Generously sized lots boasted terraces, ponds, and tennis courts.

cliff estates promo — Photo courtesy of Historic Newton

The Brodricks built 14 magnificent homes in the Cliff Estates area in the mid-1930s, fresh off the Great Depression. But after a bank foreclosed on Pondbrook, a baronial estate Maud had developed, the business was forced into bankruptcy.

mural basement cliff estates — Cliff Estates mural. Photo courtesy of Historic Newton

Tickets:

$15: Individual ticket (video tour only for 1 attendee, same price for Historic Newton members
and non-members)
$25: Household ticket with access to the panel discussion and Q&A about Brodrick’s life and
work (multiple attendees welcome)
$20: Member price for household ticket

To purchase tickets visit newtonma.gov/HouseTour or call 617-796-1450.

Tour videos will be released at 10 a.m. on Oct. 17. Ticket sales end on Oct. 18 at noon. The panel discussion takes place at 3 p.m. on Oct. 18.

Columbus Day in Wellesley—what’s closed, and what’s the latest

October 12, 2020 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

Wellesley Town Hall Happy second Monday in October, Wellesley. On the holiday, which is officially recognized as Columbus Day here in town and by the United States government, federal offices will be closed.

As for what’s closed in Wellesley:

Wellesley Public Schools will be closed.

The Wellesley Recycling and Disposal Facility will be closed.

Wellesley town buildings and offices will not be conducting business.

The Wellesley Free Library will be closed.

Post Offices will be closed, and there will be no home delivery of mail. It is not an official holiday for UPS, so all packages as well as scheduled UPS Critical Express should arrive.

Regular Town of Wellesley schedules will resume on Tuesday, October 13. Please check the Town of Wellesley website for specific hours.

About what to call the October holiday…

World of Wellesley (WOW) and the Committee to Preserve Wellesley’s Italian American Heritage are two organizations in town that have strong feelings about Columbus Day.

WOW has been working at the grassroots level for Wellesley to honor Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October in place of Columbus Day. In a citizens petition signed by hundreds last year, the group stated, “Our Indigenous friends and neighbors consider changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day as an important first step toward acknowledging the genocide of millions of their ancestors and the theft of their homelands, that began with the arrival of Columbus, as well as a recognition of Columbus’ role in the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of African people. It is a meaningful symbolic gesture to begin addressing the pain caused to Native Peoples by the many years of celebrating Columbus as a hero.”

Per the vote at the 2020 Annual Town Meeting, held in June, there will be a Ballot Question on the March 2, 2021 Annual Town Election. The motion included the following ballot question language:

“Should the Board of Selectmen, with the understanding that since 1977 Indigenous people of our country have requested Indigenous Peoples Day as a recognition of their humanity, culture and history and further, that our country was built on Native lands, proclaim the second Monday of October henceforth be commemorated as Indigenous Peoples Day and cease to recognize Columbus Day in Wellesley in recognition of the position of Indigenous Peoples as native to these lands, and the suffering they faced during and after the European conquest. This question is not binding.”

World of Wellesley co-presidents Chris Horner and Nova Biro in an email said, “If Wellesley is truly striving to become an antiracist community, we must stand in solidarity with Indigenous People and discontinue the grotesque practice of glorifying genocide. It is unfathomable that a community that proclaims to value diversity, equity and inclusion would continue to celebrate a day that is a haunting reminder of human suffering. Columbus Day symbolizes the fact that we, as a community, have not truly come to terms with the insidious nature of racism. Who we celebrate and what we celebrate says a lot about us. Let’s get it right this time.”

Another group in town, the Committee to Preserve Wellesley’s Italian American Heritage, on its website says, “We seek to defeat the non-binding ballot question at the March 2021 annual town election proposing to abolish Columbus Day in Wellesley and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day. This question disrespects Wellesley’s Italian American community and is divisive to our town. It elevates one group at the expense of another.”

Committee members say they want to honor tradition and preserve the second Monday in October for Italian Americans to coincide with National Italian American Heritage Month in October. They suggest that Native Americans be honored on a day during National Native American Heritage Month in November.

Committee chair Donna Ticchi says, “Defeating the ballot question in March would affirm Wellesley’s commitment to multiculturalism and inclusivity by recognizing both groups. Italians are people, too!”

Across the country, some states refer to the second Monday in October as Columbus Day (in New England that includes MA, RI, NH, and CT); some call it Indigenous Peoples Day (VT is the New England outlier in this); and others go with something different (Hawaii observes Discovery Day, while South Dakota celebrates Native Americans Day). Here’s how the rest of the states do it.

WOW events scheduled

WHAT: Stewards of the Earth event: gather safely with family, friends and neighbors and clean your neighborhood, local trails and ponds. (The brook near Whole Foods is in need of special attention.)

DATE: October 10 – October 12, anytime

WHAT: Virtual film presenting Lyla June, an Indigenous environmental scientist, educator, community organizer and musician. Lyla June, who is of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineage is from Taos New Mexico. Her work includes multi-genre presentations on climate crisis, Indigenous rights, inter-cultural healing, and traditional land stewardship practices.

After the short film there will be a community discussion.

DATE: Monday, October 12
TIME: 3:00-4:15pm

RSVP for ZOOM Link

Wellesley Historical Society guest lecturer to give talk on the Irish Famine

October 7, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Wellesley Historical Society, lecture The Wellesley Historical Society on Tuesday, October 13th at 7pm as part of its 2020-21 Lecture Series will host a virtual presentation delivered by Stephen Puleo, author of Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission.

Advanced registration is required.

A mission like no other

More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.

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Wellesley League of Women Voters to e-host international security expert

October 2, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Juliette Kayyem, Wellesley League of Women Voters speaker — Juliette Kayyem

The League of Women Voters of Wellesley invites the public to attend its fall Opening Meeting on October 8, 2020 at 7pm. The featured speaker will be international security expert, Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer and best-selling author, Juliette Kayyem.
Ms. Kayyem will speak on “COVID-19: Elections and the Road Ahead”.

More on Juliette Kayem

Juliette Kayyem is Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Harvard Kennedy School and Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Over the last two decades she has managed complex policy initiatives and organized government responses to major crises in both state and federal government.

She is currently the faculty chair of the Kennedy School’s Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects and is a frequent on-air national security analyst for CNN. Previously, she served as President Obama’s assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, where she played a pivotal role in major operations responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and H1N1 pandemic, and she was the homeland security advisor to Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

Ms. Kayyem is the author of the best-selling book Security Mom, and a Pulitzer finalist for her opinion columns in the Boston Globe. She is the founder of Kayyem Solutions, Inc, which provides strategic advice in cybersecurity, resiliency planning, risk management, mega-event security, infrastructure protection, and cybersecurity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been advising mayors through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, as well as governors and CEOs, on crisis response and recovery efforts. Now a contributor for The Atlantic, she has a new book, Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century, that was released in August 2020.

How to register in advance for this webinar:

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Wellesley Historical Society to present virtual lecture on Belvedere neighborhood

September 28, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

The Wellesley Historical Society will host a free virtual lecture about Wellesley’s Belvedere neighborhood on Wed., Sept. 30, 7pm. Keith N. Morgan, professor emeritus of the History of Art & Architecture and of American & New England studies at Boston University, where he taught from 1980 – 2016, will discuss the area and how it matters in the broader context of suburban development in the U.S.

Wellesley Historical Society

Professor Morgan’s lecture, titled The national and regional context for the Belvedere neighborhood: Wellesley’s premier example of suburban planning, will focus on:

Why suburbs matter as a cultural form in the United States
What characteristics make the Belvedere neighborhood distinctive
How the neighborhood part of an evolutionary suburban environment for its time

Professor Morgan will discuss the national background for the Belvedere development and how the neighborhood relates to comparable suburban subdivisions in the Metropolitan Boston area. He will examine the role of two families in the creation and control of what was the largest real estate development in Wellesley when it was first built, and what defines the area as a place of significance.

Advance registration is required. Please email Amanda Fisher, Executive Director of the Wellesley Historical Society, at [email protected]

More on the presenter:

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