Nativity Seen
Being a Wakefield native isn’t what it used to be.
Not so very long ago, being able to say that you were born and raised here was seen as something special – a distinction that one could lord over those who moved here, for example, a mere 20 years ago (tourists).
Of course, it’s always been an unearned distinction, conferred by parents at birth by happenstance of geography. There are those who would argue that since the virtual extinction of home births in the last generation or so, there are no more true Wakefield natives being minted. All birth certificates list the town where the hospital birth took place, making many of us technically natives of Melrose or Winchester.
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Old School
The town is preparing to accept bids from developers that will determine the future of the Franklin School, and if things go as expected, another of a generation of nine schools that the town built around the turn of the 20th century will enter a new phase in its long existence.
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Tags: Beatrice Moody, buildings, Daily Item, Dorothy Remick, Elizabeth Brawley, Elizabeth Strout, Franklin School, Greenwood, Greenwood School, Hamilton School, Hilda Hayden, Hurd School, James Bolton, Jim Bolton, John J. McCarthy Senior Center, Lincoln School, Montrose School, Nazareth Academy, schools, teacher, teachers, Thomas Allard, Tom Allard, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts, Warren School, West Ward School, Woodville School
Two Partings, One Huge Loss
When all was said and done after this long campaign season, Tuesday’s election directly impacted Wakefield, Massachusetts in a couple of key ways. Two of Wakefield’s longtime representatives in the state legislature will no longer be there.
Running for Lt. Governor as Charlie Baker’s running mate, Wakefield’s Sen. Richard Tisei suffered the first loss of his long political career. His senate seat will be assumed by current State Rep. Katherine Clark of Melrose, who defeated Malden’s Craig Spadafora. We’re going to miss Richard Tisei.
State Rep. Mark Falzone was upset by fellow Saugus resident, businessman Donald Wong. Falzone’s district includes half of Wakefield and he was my State Rep.
I can’t say I’ll miss him.
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Tags: Charlei Baker, Donald Wong, election, elections, Mark Falzone, Massachusetts, Politics, Richard Tisei, Saugus, Scott Brown, State House, state representative, State Senator, Wakefield, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass
Donate a Paver for Veterans’ Day
Memorialize a veteran
With Veterans’ Day approaching, Wakefield Selectman John Encarnacao wanted to remind people that they have available to them a unique and permanent way to memorialize the veterans in their family – by contributing for a memorial paver for the “Veterans’ Walk of Remembrance,” which will encircle the new World War II Memorial that will be erected next year on the Common in Wakefield Massaschusetts .
“Everyone in the community has at least one veteran in the family,” Encarnacao noted at the end of last week’s selectmen’s meeting.
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At Lyric Stage in Boston
When The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby debuted in London and then on Broadway, it took on the character of a major theatrical event. The same is expected when David Edgar’s stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic makes its New England premier at Boston’s Lyric Stage October 21 – December 19, 2010.
The Lyric Stage production features 25 of the Boston area’s best actors, including Wakefield, Massachusetts native and 1983 Wakefield High School graduate Leigh Barrett.
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Tags: actor, actress, Boston, Charles Dickens, David Edgar, drama, Leigh Barrett, Lyric Stage, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Nicholas Nickleby, play, singer, stage, The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby, theater, theatre, Wakefield, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts
Taxes, jobs, illegal immigration and cuts in local aid were among the issues that Massachusetts State Senate candidates Katherine Clark and Craig Spadafora disagreed over in a televised debate Wednesday night in Malden. Clark and Spadafora are vying to represent the 3rd Middlesex District in the State Senate, encompassing Wakefield, Lynnfield, Malden, Melrose Reading and Stoneham. The seat is being vacated by current Sen. Richard Tisei, who is running for Lt. Governor.
Clark is currently a State Rep. representing Melrose and part of Wakefield. Spadafora is a Malden City Councilor.
Spadafora blamed Clark and the state legislature for voting in 2009 to give Gov. Deval Patrick “9C” powers resulting in mid-year cuts in local aid to cities and towns, including a $10 million cut for Malden.
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Henry’s Heroics
“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 Ave., Boston, last evening in Lake Quannapowitt, after she had sunk to the bottom of the pond.”
Mildred’s “male companion” was Henry Bagwell. Henry and my mother, Rita (Blaney) Sardella were first cousins who grew up in the same two-family house at 9 King Terrace in the Irish American enclave of Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts. Henry’s mother was Mary (Blaney) Bagwell, sister of my grandfather, John Blaney, my mother’s father. Continue reading ‘Henry’s Heroics’
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Tags: Arthur Philbrook, Blaney, Blaney Blog, Blaneys, Boston, Boston MA, Henry Bagwell, Irish, Irish-Americans, John G. Gates, Lake Quannapowitt, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts, Mildred Bickerton, Roxbury, Wakefield, Wakefield MA
“Let him be with his mother”
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 16, 1902, when her son James Blaney died at age 38. She would bury two more of her sons before her own death in 1917. The only names on the monument are those of her sons, James Blaney, Neil Blaney, Thomas Blaney (all of whom pre-deceased thier mother, Alice) and John Blaney, who died in 1950.
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Tags: Alice Blaney, Blaney, Blaney Blog, Blaney family, Boston, Daniel Blaney, Holy Cross Cemetery, Ireland, Irish, James Blaney, John Blaney, Joseph Blaney, Malden MA, Malden Mass, Malden Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Neil Blaney, Thomas Blaney
A Brief Blaney Genealogy
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 James Blaney, born about 1807 in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. James died November 15, 1879 in Lisnagarran, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. James Blaney married Jane Marks, who was born around 1804 in Co. Antrim and died January 1, 1904 in Lisnagarran, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland.
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The Blaney Blog
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 that my mother and my aunt told over the years. But now that their generation is gone, who knows how many stories and memories have been lost forever?
The Blaney Blog will be my effort to record some of these stories that survive in my own memory and in the memories of my siblings, cousins and other relatives.
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Mark Sardella 