Archive for September, 2010

“Girl Revived After Going to Bottom of Lake,” read the headline on the front page of the July 22, 1935 Wakefield Daily Item. “Presence of mind exercised by her male companion,” the story reported, “and prompt work by the Wakefield Police with the inhalator saved the life of Miss Mildred Bickerton, 21, of 881 Huntington […]


Still thinks about those who perished In October of 1942, Wakefield’s Alfred Willett was an 18 year-old Maine farm boy. Twenty months later, he was storming Omaha Beach with the United States Army in the Invasion of Normandy. When the draft notice arrived, young Willett was working at Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Company in Gardiner, […]


I recently paid a visit to the gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts where my gandfather John Blaney and my great-grandmother Alice Blaney are buried. I used to take my mother to this cemetery from time to time. According to family lore and cemetery records, Alice (O’Neill) Blaney purchased this plot on May […]


I hope to post occasional stories here collecting Blaney family stories and lore in the Blaney Blog, but a brief summary of my immediate family’s genealogy may also be in order. In the 1990’s, Richard W. Blaney compiled an excellent Blaney genealogy. He was able to trace our branch of the Blaney family back to […]


The Blaney Blog

12Sep10

The recent death of my aunt, Rosaline (Blaney) McKenzie, at age 92, made me acutely aware of the need to record some of the family stories that I recall hearing over the years. Rosaline was my mother’s older sister and the last surviving sibling (of five) in her family. I remember some of the stories […]


At Gloucester Stage Company through September 12 In the opening scene of TRAD, 100 year-old Thomas shuffles over to wake his improbably ancient father who is sleeping on a wooden cot. That absurd premise sets the tone for Mark Doherty’s hilarious fable set in the Irish countryside. TRAD is also a grand way for Gloucester […]


When I tuned in to Fox 25’s morning news on Friday, August 27, I wondered why it had been pre-empted by an episode of the Phantom Gourmet. Seriously, I understand that Wakefield wanted to grab the opportunity to showcase itself as a “dining destination,” but Friday’s “Zip Trip” show from Wakefield Common featured enough food […]