A Chance To Make Some History (from Ashfield News, April 2007)

On Sunday afternoon, April 22, the Ashfield History Project will host a community get-together at Elmer's Store. The festivities begin at 3 p.m. There will be refreshments and a chance to visit. The centerpiece will be a conversation about what we need to include in our account of life in this town over the past half-century (since 1960).

Several people who have played prominent parts over this period will be on hand to give brief accounts of their activities. We will hear stories about the origins of Fall Festival, the renovation of the Town Hall steeple, the challenge of farming under modern conditions, and the planting of new businesses.

Mainly, though, we want to hear from people who have lived here, about people, projects, and events that helped to shape the town we live in.

History sometimes seems remote. When we focus on the past half-century, we are talking about people we know and events we ourselves have experienced. In producing a new history of the town, we are building a collective memory. We do this as a community, together.

We pride ourselves on being a radical democracy. Nowhere else do communities govern themselves by assembling, as many as choose to come, and deciding laws and public budgets together.

Our third history volume should partake of the same spirit. It should be made democratically.

Inevitably, much of what happened over the past five decades is already forgotten. In collecting the town's history, we are deciding what we think needs to be remembered. The book we produce will have to be highly selective. We hope you will join us in making the choices.

See you on Sunday afternoon, April 22, at Elmer's.

by Don Robinson

Mary Priscilla Howes Grant awarded

At the last meeting of the Town Finance Committee, our application for a grant from the Mary Priscilla Howes Fund was considered and, with whole-hearted support, approved. The application requesting $1.900 was approved in full. The funds have been used for the purchase a powerful IMac computer, capable of generating and manipulating everything from designs to text to photographs and moving pictures on DVD, VHS and more; a scanner; a separate, large hard-drive with the capacity to safely backup a large amount of data, and a color ink-jet printer. Kit Nylen, new to the Board, has well researched the equipment on the market and skillfully matched it up to our anticipated needs. She’s found the best prices and sources, and allowed us all a sigh of relief. Kit is incredibly skilled and experienced when it comes to the application of technology in the field of publication and we are fortunate indeed to have her.

It is very fitting that the fund Mary Priscilla established, before her death, be used to help underwrite the publication of the third History of Ashfield. Our town, its history and its people embodied her most precious pursuits. She was seminal in the writing and publication of the second volume of our history as well as in the establishment of the Ashfield News.

by Phyllis Kirkpatrick

Preparing the Headquarters

The Ashfield History Project has spent much time and effort during the past month preparing space for the Project’s headquarters, the space so generously offered in the basement of the Ashfield Historical Society building on Main Street.
Stuart Harris has been doing most of the work of renovation. Several file cabinets have been donated by Hans Teensma, a graphic artist whose firm, Impress, is moving to new quarters in Northampton.

We expect to be “open for business” at our new headquarters before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, work has gone forward on collecting materials to document the history of the last half-century in Ashfield. We have been talking with David Gold about organizing and indexing the audio-visual tapes he has made of important events of recent decades, including “Save the Hills,” the sewer project, and other sagas. David’s tapes contain a remarkable record of democracy in action.

We continue to do live oral interviews with the Town’s leading history-makers, ably assisted by Hannah Robertson. Most recently, Janice Scott told of her work with the Girl Scouts and the Town Ambulance service, and provided rich background generally regarding the Town’s development over the past half-century.

We continue to look to Town residents for suggestions about stories that need to be included in this survey. Please contact any member of the Editorial Board (Tom Carter, Stuart Harris, Grace Lesure, Kit Nylen, Eleanor Ward, Phyllis Kirkpatrick or Don Robinson) if you have suggestions.

by Don Robinson

A special tribute to Ashfield’s Annual Fall Festival

Of all the stories to be told during the period covered in our new history book, few are more beloved than this one. But how much do we know or remember of when and how it started? Was it in 1967 or 1968? Did it spring forth as the fabulous event that it is today, or was it very different? Did it spread the length of Main Street and beyond as it currently does? Or did it really grow out of a little rummage sale run by St. John’s Church?

What did it have to do with Citizen Scholarships then and now? Who had the inspiration, and who made it a reality?

We want this story in the new book, and we need a few of you to help dig up all the background. Find the people who know what happened – they are still around - interview them, get photos, discover the craftspeople and services, the volunteers who facilitated everything, and even what the weather was like. In other words try to present anything that can be found to explain this miracle for our town and what the impact for us has been and might be.

We can give you lots of leads. Let’s talk.

Board Changes

As summer winds down, the Ashfield History Project reports two changes in its Editorial Board.

Kit Nylen, of Bug Hill, has joined the Board. She brings considerable experience and expertise in publishing, as well as involvement in a number of community organizations, including service as an elected member of the town’s Finance Committee.

Also, in late August, Alden Gray resigned from the Board, effective “immediately.” In his letter to the Select Board, Alden took the Board gently to task for a lack of progress and for the “autocracy” of its leadership, and noted that he had not been able to make the Project a priority in his own life at this time. Happily, however, he did promise to help whenever he could, from his position within the Historical Society.

Meanwhile, the work of the Project proceeds on a number of fronts. David Newell has agreed to work, with others, assembling data relating to the Town’s finances over the past half-century. The public-finance research team will trace the changing allocation of budget resources (proportions spent on roads, schools, town government, etc.), and movement in assessments and the tax rate, as well as other sources of income to the Town.

Another intriguing effort will look at changes in Ashfield’s climate over the pasty half-century. We were delighted to learn that Harriet Sears kept daily records of high, low and mean temperatures and rain-fall, beginning in 1960. Later Russ Fessenden took up that effort, and about ten years ago, the baton passed to Steve Sauter. As a result, we may be able to report the truth, whether convenient or not, about warming in our own neck of the woods. Steve reports that other nearby towns have maintained similar efforts, so we may have some good comparative data, as well.
Board member Grace Lesure has been working on a filing system for the Project’s body of materials. Her initial index will be ready when the Project moves into its new quarters in the basement of the Ashfield Historical Society, we hope sometime early this fall.

by Don Robinson

Research Teams Organizing

The Editorial Board for the Ashfield History Project (preparing the third volume of the Town’s history, focusing on the half-century from 1960-2010) continues to organize research teams around particular topics.

Generally the impulse for topics comes from interested residents. The best example is the current effort to gather material about Apple Valley. It began with Lou Battalen’s suggestion that we study the neighborhood as a whole. In discussions with Lou, we realized that we need to establish the history of Bear Swamp Reservation. Martha Townsley was eager to contribute what she knows (which is a great deal about Apple Valley!), and Johanna Pratt was enthusiastic, too. So a team is organizing, and we are eager to identify others who would like to be part of this neighborhood effort.

Surely there are other neighborhoods (South Ashfield? Steady Lane? Baptist Corner?) where similar efforts could be organized. If you know of one, please contact a member of the Board. We will put you in touch with others.
Meanwhile, Eleanor Ward is burrowing through the vault at Town Hall to assemble a chronology of Town government.

And Don Robinson is eager to work with a team of volunteers to put together a record of voting and elections over the past half-century. How has turnout fluctuated? Who have we supported in national and state primaries and general elections? What trends can we discern? (Someone, for example, remembered a primary election in which there were exactly two Democratic votes.)

We’d love to have a team undertake a history of agriculture in Ashfield since 1960. There seems to be a renaissance going on now. What have been the ups and downs over the past half-century?

Let us know your ideas. We are eager to encourage and support a variety of research efforts.

by Don Robinson (for The Ashfield News)

Building a Book AND a Permanent Archive

It’s our wish that the book containing the third history of Ashfield
will be richly illuminated by representations of people who took part
in the life of the town during the years covered in the book (1960 *
2010), as well as of places and mementos that spark our memories and
affections. In any case we invite everyone to look for what they have
received, created or saved, that represents significant events and
moments. We also ask that there be a special effort to start now to
capture such moments as they occur. Naturally finances will determine
how much illustration will make it into these pages but we wantto see as
much as we can. We are not only planning a book but want to build a
permanent tangible collection to be safely stored at the Ashfield
Historical Society for future generations. Where copies can be made of
things folks don’t want to relinquish altogether, we will try to do it.
Please don’t overlook photographs, drawings and paintings,
correspondence, diaries or other souvenirs.

We are about to embark on our first project. Lou Battalen of Apple
Valley and Librarian at the Arms Library in Shelburne Falls, has come
forward to begin doing research on his neighborhood. He is particularly
interested in the Bear Swamp Reservation, its history and natural
features. This is a rich and fascinating resource in town and, with the
weather being favorable during the next few months, it should be
appealing to plumb the depths of its riches now. There’s a need for
record keeping of all discoveries and observations, the combing through
records as well as finding people willing to share their memories in
one way or another.

by Phyllis Kirkpatrick