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’
Filed under: Blaney Blog, Columns & Essays, Family, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
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.
Continue reading ‘“Let him be with his mother”’
Filed under: Blaney Blog, Family | 1 Comment
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.
Continue reading ‘A Brief Blaney Genealogy’
Filed under: Blaney Blog, Family | 3 Comments
Tags: Blaney, Blaney Blog, Blaney family, Boston, Co. Antrim, family history, genealogy, Ireland, Irish, John Blaney, Mark Sardella, Richard Blaney, Rosetta Blaney
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.
Filed under: Blaney Blog | Leave a Comment
TRAD is an Irish Feast of Words
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 Stage Company to end its 2010 season.
There’s a bit of Samuel Beckett in TRAD, but the play pays homage to a number of great Irish writers, if you know what to look for. TRAD is short for “tradition,” and the importance of tradition and legacy are major themes of the play, just as they are key elements of Irish culture.
Continue reading ‘TRAD is an Irish Feast of Words’
Filed under: Art, Columns & Essays, Reviews, theater | Leave a Comment
Tags: acting, actor, actors, Billy Meleady, Carmel O’Reilly, cast, Colin Hamell, drama, Gloucester MA, Gloucester Mass, Gloucester Massachusetts, Gloucester Stage Company, Ireland, Irish, J Michael Griggs, Jayscott Crosley, John Malinowski, Mark Doherty, Nancy E. Carroll, play, playwright, playwrights, priest, Rachel Padula-Shufelt, stage, theater, theatre, theatres, TRAD, tradition
Don’t Eat the Messenger
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 to feed a small country.
Continue reading ‘Don’t Eat the Messenger’
Filed under: Columns & Essays, Community, Humor, News, Opinion, Reviews, Television, Wakefield | Leave a Comment
Tags: Angel Fund, Bellino's, Bellino's Trattoria, Billy's, Billy's Famous Roast Beef, Billy's Roast Beef, Billy's Roast Beef Wakefield, bistro, bistros, Café Jag’s, Channel 25, Channel 25 Boston, Channel 25 Boston MA, Chuck Wagon Diner, Cindy Fitzgibbon, CnD’s Barbecue, Cravings, Daily Item, Dunkin’ Donuts, eateries, eatery, food, Fox, Fox 25, Fox Boston, Fox News, Fox25, FoxBoston, Gene Lacanchy, Guillow's, Item, John Encarnacao, Lake Quannapowitt, Mark Sardella, Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress, Meletharb, Phantom Gourmet, Phyllis Hull, Pleasure Island, Pleasure Island Jazz Festival, Rada Boutique, restaurant, restaurants, Ristorante Molise, Sew Trendy Studio, Television, The Farmland, The Gingerbread Construction Company, TV, VB, Wakefield, Wakefield Common, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Farmers’ Market, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts, Wakefield World War II Memorial, World War 2 Memorial, World War II Memorial, Zip Trip
Ghosts of Pleasure Island
The dry summer of 2010 lowered the water levels of the ponds at Edgewater Office Park in Wakefield, Massachusetts, revealing 50 year old artifacts from the Pleasure Island amusement park (1959-1969) which once sat on the site.
Pleasure Island opened on June 22, 1959. It was built on 80 acres of swampland just off Route 128 in Wakefield. The amusement/theme park featured dark rides, as well as a Pirate Boat Ride and the park’s signature “Moby Dick Hunt” whaleboat ride, where a giant fiberglass white whale would surface, spout water, and then sink back into the depths.
A Great Blue Heron flies over the remains of the hull that was once a schooner that sat in the pond that was home to the Pirate Boat ride and the Moby Dick Hunt ride at Pleasure Island (1959-1969) in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
Continue reading ‘Ghosts of Pleasure Island’
Filed under: Columns & Essays | 4 Comments
RIP, Rosaline (Blaney) McKenzie
On Saturday, August 28, 2010, we interred the ashes of my aunt, Rosaline (Blaney) McKenzie with her mother Rosetta Blaney and younger sister, Margaret Blaney, in the Blaney plot at New Calvary Cemetery in Boston.
Aunt Rosaline died earlier this year, months short of her 90th birthday. She was my mother’s older sister and the last surviving sibling among her three sisters (Anne, Rita and Margaret) and one brother (Henry “Bud” Blaney).
Continue reading ‘RIP, Rosaline (Blaney) McKenzie’
Filed under: Blaney Blog, Family | 1 Comment
Tags: Blaney, Boston, Boston MA, Boston Massachusetts, cemetery, Doyle's, Dpyle's Cafe, Frances Kilday, Gerry Burke, Irish, Jamaica Plain, John Blaney, New Calvary Cemetery, priest, Pudgy, Rosaline Blaney, Rosaline McKenzie, Rosetta Blaney, Roxbury
Farewell Esther, and Thanks
On August 19, 2010, a crowd gathered at the First Parish Congregational Church in Wakefield, Massachusetts to say a final goodbye to a woman who spent decades looking out for the weakest of God’s creatures. Esther P. Nowell died August 8, 2010 at the age of 92. She was the founder, prime mover and force behind the Protection of Animals in Wakefield Society, better known as “PAWS,” a humane organization that now reaches far beyond Wakefield.
I’ll leave it to others to enumerate Esther’s countless accomplishments with PAWS and her work on behalf of animals. I can best illustrate it through my own personal experience.
Continue reading ‘Farewell Esther, and Thanks’
Filed under: Cats, Columns & Essays, Community, Opinion, Profiles, Wakefield | 2 Comments
Tags: animal, animal rights, animal welfare, animals, cats, Daily Item, dogs, Esther Nowell, Esther P. Nowell, First Parish Congregational Church, humane society, leg-hold trap, leg-hold traps, Mark Sardella, P.A.W.S., PAWS, Protection of Animals in Wakefield Society, Wakefield, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Item, Wakefield MA, Wakefield Mass, Wakefield Massachusetts
When most people think of Oscar Wilde’s plays, the one that often leaps to mind is The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde’s lighthearted comedy of manners. So it’s refreshing to see the Gloucester Stage Company present one of Wilde’s darker, more complex works.
Not that An Ideal Husband isn’t funny. It’s Oscar Wilde after all, and he skewers the British upper classes like few others can. The Daniel Morris adaptation of An Ideal Husband adds a layer of gender bending that mostly works and mirrors the play’s themes surrounding upper class male and female roles in Victorian England.
Continue reading ‘Gloucester Stage Company’s “An Ideal Husband” is a theatrical tour de force’
Filed under: Art, Columns & Essays, Reviews, theater | Leave a Comment
Tags: Achilles, acting, actor, actors, actress, actresses, An Ideal Husband, Angie Jepson, Brendan Powers, Carrie Ann Quinn, comedy, Daniel Morris, David Remedios, drama, Fragonard, Gloucester, Gloucester MA, Gloucester Massachusetts, Gloucester Stage, Gloucester Stage Company, Julia Noulin-Merat, Karen MacDonald, Kenneth Helvig, Lewis D. Wheeler, Marsha Smith, Molly Trainer, olay, Oscar Wilde, plays, playwright, Reviews, stage, stages, The Swing, theater, theater review, theaters, theatre, theatre review, theatres
Mark Sardella 