Making pie dough
Holiday events, and preparations for these holidays are the perfect time to get the next generation involved in continuing your family traditions. The challenge for many parents is that this is exactly the time when they have little energy to include children in all that “needs to get done.” Continue reading
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Here I am with Dad, ready to work on his stories
As our parents age, we often fret about “What do you give someone who has everything?” But there is another side of this equation. What does an increasingly frail elder have to give when getting out is more difficult? Money may be in short supply, energy is diminished; in short, elders often feel increasingly like they have nothing to give. Continue reading
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At the ocean–Gooseberry Island, Westport, MA
Members of my family all grew up near the ocean. Whenever we are able to get to the shore, we each take a big sniff and announce, “Smells like the ocean.” Tradition? I guess, if you understand “tradition” as being something that is repeated with significance beyond the actual act, something that brings long-held family experiences up to the present. Continue reading
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Stone marker near parking area at Lane Conservation area, Foxboro, MA
Neponset reservoir, viewed along the trails of Lane Conservation area
When I first set out on my quest to document very local trails in the towns near where I live, I kept wondering what this had to do with my work as a personal historian. Surely these were two separate parts of me. Perhaps my life was headed in a different direction that I had thought. But slowly, in my travels I’ve come to realize that walking the trails and properties of south central Massachusetts is often a lesson in history, a tracing of family life, of walking the same track as many who have gone before me.
While visiting a new (to me) property in Foxboro, MA yesterday, I encountered not one, but two markers, memorials along the way. Continue reading
One of my dad’s first letters to the woman who would be his wife for the coming 50 years
I’ve been a personal historian for a number of years, and have seen how powerful the experience of documenting and preserving one’s family stories can be. We personal historians often talk about the gift of passing on family stories to the next generation, assuring that you’re not forgotten and more. But I never realized that doing the work of preserving your family legacy—the photos that tell stories, documents, letters, and the stories themselves—can actually be a powerful time machine. Continue reading
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I was recently invited to guest post on Family Legal Partner’s blog about ‘legacy’ and thought of a story I could share. It’s a simple story of something my dad taught me as we worked to share his stories of growing up. When I thought about what happened to him in this process, I realized he had given me a key to creating a personal time machine.
One of my dad’s first letters to the woman who would be his wife for the coming 50 years
To learn more, Continue reading
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This interview is part of the Bellingham/Mendon Veteran’s Oral History Project, taped at the ABMI Studios in Bellingham, MA. Coordinator and interviewer is Marjorie Turner Hollman.
I’m grateful for each veteran who has been willing to share his or her experiences. MTH
Joe DiPietro has been a fixture in the Bellingham, MA educational program for as long as many of us can remember. He was the superintendent of Bellingham Schools his last five years in the school system, and before that he taught high school, was a guidance director and spent twenty-five years as elementary school principal of South School Elementary, Pinecrest, Keough, the old South School and Assumption School when it was under the purview of the Bellingham School Department. [As told to Marjorie Turner Hollman] Continue reading
Pierrette Corriveau was born in Bellingham, MA at Silver Lake, but says that she and her mother must have been transported to Woonsocket, RI immediately afterwards since her birth was registered in Woonsocket. She has stayed in this area her whole life, raising seven children with her husband, the late Eugene Corriveau, who for many years was the town collector and Treasurer in Bellingham. [As told to Marjorie Turner Hollman] Continue reading
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Lee G. Ambler was Bellingham’s town counsel for forty-five years. He was instrumental in obtaining for the town the land on Blackstone Street where the town high school, library, fire department, and senior center are located. He was born and grew up in Bellingham and returned after college and law school to open a law practice and raise a family with his wife, neuropathologist Dr. Mary Ambler. Continue reading
Marjorie Turner Hollman 