Remembers Committee members (left to right) Francine Edwards, Mary Gillespie, and Bob Edwards . Photo by Digney Fignus.

LOCAL CABLE SHOW CHRONICLES THE HISTORY OF LEXINGTON FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

By Digney Fignus

“Know what’s under your feet.”  It’s the familiar mantra of Mary Gillespie, the driving force and Chair of the Committee for the long-running Lexington Remembers television series.  One of the staples of LexMedia’s local programming, the show documents an oral history of the Lexington community.  Mary recalls what inspired the project: “I was a Social Studies Specialist at the Harrington School.  I was surprised to find that many of my students didn’t know anything about the history of their own neighborhoods.  One day I brought members of the Busa family in to talk about their farm and personal history with the town.  What was supposed to be a one-hour talk ended up lasting the whole morning.  The Busas went home for lunch and then came back and spent the rest of the afternoon talking with the children.”  The school program was an instant success.  At the time, Mary was also involved with the Lexington Historical Society.  After enthusiastic responses to the program at a number of other Lexington Elementary Schools she felt a real need to create a more permanent record of this unwritten history.  The die was cast when Mary approached LexMedia with the idea of putting on a show about the “people behind the woodwork.”  As Mary says, “to preserve the contributions of the people who served our community and helped to make it what it is.”

Mary began to gather together a small team to produce what she thought would be “just a few shows.”  The project was seeded with a $500.00 grant from the Lexington Friends of the Council on Aging to purchase equipment and supplies.  Everyone involved in the project is a volunteer.  The shows don’t need a fancy sound stage.  Most of the interviews are shot right in front of Mary’s big white brick fireplace.

Bob and Francine Edwards are the show’s production team.  Bob is a retired Electrical Engineer who worked at Raytheon and helped to father the technology that led to the invention of the microwave oven. Bob heard about Mary’s idea for a community access show through the Council on Aging.  Being an engineer, Bob liked the idea of learning a new technical skill.  Francine was very involved in the Girl Scouts in Lexington.  Her outstanding work as a leader had earned her a “Wonder Woman Grant.”  As part of the prestigious award she attended a seminar about how to study and record woman’s oral history.  Francine recalls, “I only came to the first meeting to give a talk about what I had leaned from the seminar.” She laughs, “They roped me in.”

Francine and Bob Edwards filming at Hancock-Clarke House. After Francine and Bob were “roped in” to the project, they took a production class at LexMedia and they have been the production team on Lexington Remembers ever since.

Francine and Bob both took a production class at LexMedia to learn how to operate the cameras and run the editing programs. That was nearly ten years ago.  What started out to be “just a few shows” has grown to a collection of 43 episodes.  Bob and Francine have been working with Mary since the beginning of the project and have shot and edited most of the current catalog.  They make four copies of each show, one for broadcast at LexMedia, and one each for the Council on Aging, Lexington Historical Society, and the Cary Library.  For the Edwards it’s a true labor of love.  Between shooting the show (yes, Bob and Francine each run a camera, set up the lighting, and do the sound recording), formatting, synchronizing, editing, laying the sound track, and making copies, it takes nearly 10 hours of effort to produce each hour of the show.  Their hard work really paid off when in 2010 they were presented with LexMedia’s Producer of the Year award.

Part of the shows longevity and success has to be attributed to the incredible team that Mary was able to assemble at the start of the project. One of the first recruits was longtime resident and Lexington Town Meeting member Dan Fenn.  Dan grew up in Lexington and has had a storied career.  Nationally known, Dan was an advisor to JFK, taught at Harvard University, and was former head of the Kennedy Library.  Dan brings a wealth of experience to the project and is one of the shows principle interviewers.  Almost everyone working on the show has lived in Lexington for years. All in all, they are a testimonial to the adage: you’re never too old to learn.  Most of the current crew is over 80.  Nonagenarians Bob and Dan are 92.

Dan Fenn (right) with Sam Doran appearing on-camera for a Lexington Remembers segment. Dan was one of the first recruits for the Lexington Remembers team.

The story behind the show should be enough to inspire you, but the lasting value of these first-hand recollections of life in Lexington are priceless.  Any researcher would give their eye teeth to have access to this kind of information.  Yes, it’s community television.  There is nothing slick about it, no fancy special effects, just real people talking about their life and times. But isn’t that the point?

I binge-watched over a dozen Lexington Remembers episodes in between Patriot’s games and the World Series.  As I watched, I couldn’t help reminisce about my own experiences growing up in Lexington.  I remember bouncing rocks off the water tower and scrounging for a baby carriage wheel in the Lincoln Street dump just as one of the “Leading Ladies of Lexington,” long-time Town Meeting Member Shirley Stoltz, did when she was a kid growing up near the Stone Store on Mass Ave.  I recall graduating from a Sinker to a Pollywog at the town pool just as Helen Millican did as she recounted her days as a swimming instructor in Lexington.

The shows cover a range of topics and have no rigid time restrictions.  Some of them are as short as 15 minutes, some are just over an hour.  Some are already tremendously important because the people who were interviewed, like Dr. Winthrop Harrington, have since passed away.  Dr. Harrington is a direct descendant of the Harrington family who fought in the Battle of Lexington.  He was also an avid bird watcher.  Bob and Francine joked that this made the show particularly hard to edit because all he wanted to talk about was birds and not his family’s history.

One of my favorite shows was the piece on Lexington Gardens.  The Millican brothers, Harold and John Hall, told the remarkable story of how their father had lost the family’s 70-acre Lexington farm during the 1929 crash.  Never the type to give up, the family turned its fortune around when their dad was able to purchase the land that eventually became Lexington Gardens from a Harvard professor who had been using it to grow exotic plants for his Botany classes.  The brothers recount how they were able to get started for “$50.00, some furniture, and an old truck.”  It’s an inspiring story of success and hard work.  Lexington Gardens became famous as the home of the “Victory Garden” show that ran for many seasons on public television.

Over the years, Mary and her Committee have been able to secure interviews with some of Lexington’s most prominent citizens.  How refreshing is it to see Bill Dailey, former Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, take us back to a time when Lexington was primarily a farm community.  His family originally came to Lexington in 1828.  What a treasure to hear him talk with pride about the “Dailey Wall” that his family built on Waltham Street and his experience as a pinsetter in the bowling alley that still exists under the floorboards of one of the downtown shops.  He grew up in a Lexington where Carroll’s cows would stop traffic on Waltham Street to cross to the lower pasture where a golf driving range now exists.

Bill Dailey, former Chairman of the Board of Selectmen (center) with Father Colletti and Lillian McArthur at one of Bill’s “East Lexington Reunions” held at the Dailey Farm on Marrett Road.

I came to Lexington in the ‘50s and I still remember that world: a world where you could buy a nice house in Lexington for $12,500 and tuition at Tufts University was a whopping $250.00 (Harvard was only $500.00).  A recurring theme almost everyone interviewed talks about is how Lexington was so much more a blue-collar community then.  My father and his father were bus drivers for the Boston Elevated, and later the MTA, and then the MBTA.  My granddad had a house on Waltham Street with an upstairs apartment that I lived in as a toddler with my mom and dad.  My grandfather, who had been born in England, kept a pigeon coop in the backyard.  The pigeons are long gone, but some of our family still lives there today.

Lexington was typical small-town America not that long ago.  My dad’s sister Eleanor married Morris Bloomberg who owned Morris Motors that was just a few blocks down Waltham Street at Four Corners.  My cousin Barbara married Larry Carroll, one of the Carroll boys whose farm was a short walk down the street in the opposite direction.  Middleby Road was a just a dirt road in the mid-50s when my dad and mom saved up enough money to get their own little house.  There was no Bridge School.  There was an open meadow with a hollowed out crab apple tree we hid in during games of “52 Scatter.”  The two big chestnut trees near the current entrance to the school were our jungle gyms and just off the path were patches of blackberries, raspberries, and wild grapes.  For me, watching the Lexington Remembers episodes was not only nostalgic, it was informative.  Even though I’m related to the Carroll’s, I didn’t know that the Carroll family was once recognized as “The National Catholic Farm Family of America.”

Lexington was a place where it was not uncommon for a family to have roots that ran back multiple generations.  The show “A Conversation with Dick Michelson” traces that family back five generations.  Michelson’s Shoes was opened in 1919 by Dick’s grandfather who originally came to Lexington because the town needed a harness repairman.  From harness repair, to mending boots, to selling and stocking custom-fit shoes, Michelson’s has been a landmark in Lexington Center for almost 100 years.  Even today it is run as a successful family business.  I happened into the shop this last Halloween to take a photo or two.  Not only were three generations of Michelson’s working that day, they were celebrating Dick’s 82nd birthday.

Michelson’s has been a landmark in Lexington Center for almost 100 years. Three generations of Michelsons: (left to right) Mark Solomon, Dick Michelson, Barbara Michelson, Andrea Michelson, and Jerry Michelson. Photo by Digney Fignus.

Besides the archived copies, most of the Lexington Remembers shows are currently available for viewing On Demand at the LexMedia website.  From the history of the Boy Scouts, the Police and Fire Departments, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, to recollections of town leaders, and the inspiring stories of well-known families like the Busas and Dorans, there is bound to be something of interest to anyone with a Lexington connection.  The shows are always informative and have a genuine historic value.  The episodes are first-and-foremost entertaining.  How can you not chuckle when Mickey Khazam deadpans the “catchy title” of one of the Friends of the Council on Aging upcoming lectures: “New Neurons in the Adult Brain, Stem Cell Surprises.”

As they approach their 50th show, the Lexington Remembers Committee is putting out the call for more people to get involved.  Mary Gillespie has certainly realized her vision of a program “not only historical, but to honor some of the people who have made a difference in the community.”  In the last ten years Mary and her exceptional seniors didn’t just hit the mark, they struck a bull’s-eye and had lots of fun in the process.

The editing suite at LexMedia where Lexington Remembers is produced.

If you are interested in volunteering, learning more, or contributing to this important non-profit project please contact:

Lexington Remembers Committee Chair Mary Gillespie 781-862-9166

LexMedia –  www.lexmedia.org 781-862-5388

Lexington Friends of the Council on Aging – www.friendsoftheCOA.org

 

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To view episodes of Lexington Remembers visit the LexMedia Website at www.LexMedia.org and search Lexington Remembers in the On Demand section.

Below, the Lexington Fire Department assembled before the Minute Man Statue in Lexington Center.

By Digney Fignus

When I was a little I loved playing with my fire truck. I even had a bright red pedal car fashioned after a hook and ladder. I was awed by the big shiny trucks rolling along at the end of the Patriot’s Day parade blasting their sirens and bells. Doesn’t every school child at some point want to be a fire fighter?

Fire was one of the first elements of nature that we supposedly tamed.  But Prometheus’ gift to civilization is still held by the most tenuous grasp.  Like a powerful genie, fire is always ready to escape its restraints and wreak havoc upon those who would try to be its master.  Since ancient times, fire was both a great comforter and a great destroyer.  It cooked our food and warmed our homes but could also take our lives and reduce our property to ashes.  Fire was the scourge of every city large and small from the beginning of known civilization.

Rome was the first to try to solve the problem.  Rome was often plagued by fire, most famously when Nero was blamed for burning down 70% of the city in a fire that lasted six days and seven nights.  Emperor Augustus in 24 BC is credited with creating the first fire fighters called “vigiles,” Latin for watchmen.  This was the model for fire prevention up until the early Industrial Age.  The water bucket was the main firefighting tool.  Needless to say, it was hardly effective against a massive blaze.

As a result, as cities became larger and more densely populated conflagrations became more costly.  The problem of urban fires befuddled governments and politicians.  Fire brigades were only established after the tremendous destruction of the Great Fire of London in 1666.  Surprisingly they were first organized by insurance companies in an effort to avoid the massive financial losses that large fires created.  Government lagged far behind, only becoming involved after nearly 200 years when in 1865 London’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade was established.

In North America, Boston was the first city in the then Massachusetts Bay Colony to enact fire prevention legislation.  A year after the city was founded it suffered a major fire, so in 1631 the city banned thatched roofs and wooden chimneys.  But despite the best efforts of governments and insurance companies, until the twentieth century, cities burned to the ground fairly regularly.  Although fire departments started to become more common throughout the nineteenth century, large fires remained an urban nightmare.  The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, supposedly started in a small barn when Mrs. Murphy’s cow knocked over a lantern, burned for three days.  It destroyed much of the city’s business district, killing nearly 300, and left 100,000 homeless.  After the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, deadly fires destroyed 80% of the city, and left a death toll of nearly 3000.

Throughout the 1800s Boston continued to burn down periodically.  On July 6, 1861, the New York Herald reported “Terrible Conflagrations in Boston” that started in a rigging shop and burned down most of the seaport.  A year after the Chicago fire made headlines, Boston’s Great Fire of 1872 consumed a huge section of the city’s downtown and finally led to the appointment of the first board of fire commissioners.

During this time new fire codes were enacted and there were many improvements made to firefighting equipment in an effort to curb the great destruction caused by these disasters.  In addition to the time-tested water bucket and fire axe, which had been around since Roman times, leather hoses had been added to the Boston firefighting arsenal by 1799.  Firefighting wagons began to arrive on the scene in the 1800s.

At first these were little more than a big water tub on wheels to aid the bucket brigade.  Most Colonial homes had a fire bucket ready to be deployed at the first sign of smoke.  An example of one still hangs by the stairs in the Hancock Clarke House.  Wagons with hand pumps were soon replaced by controlled chemical reactions that increased water pressure so fires could be fought from a safer distance.  These first machines were hand-drawn or horse-drawn carriages.  Even though the carriages were equipped with large water containers, pumps, hoses, and ladders, they remained only marginally effective.  Most cities still had watchmen that reported fires until 1851 when the first fire alarm was installed in Boston using the then new invention: the telegraph.  Until 1895 Lexington had fire bells that were rung in East Village and the Centre to alert citizens of a fire.

As innovations continued, cities and towns scrambled to update their firefighting equipment with the most modern improvements.  Lexington was no different.  In 1855 Massachusetts passed legislation requiring cities and towns to establish fire departments.  The Fireman’s Standard of March 1, 1915 reports that prior to the Lexington Water Company laying water lines in 1885, fires were fought by “valiant attempts in which practically all the people participated, (using) hand tubs, (and) buckets such as the Liberty, the first known machine in town.”  The Liberty was essentially a bucket on two wheels. According to The Fireman’s Standard, it was painted “ bright yellow and kept in the barn of Bowen Harrington…There were no suction pipes in these machines…the tubs being filled by the use of buckets in a double line.”  At the start, fire equipment was often provided by private citizens.  Soon after the Liberty was put in service, a similar machine the “Water Witch” was purchased by Benjamin Muzzey and presented to the town.

The legislation of 1855 demanded that towns have a suction engine before they could create their fire departments.  In 1857 Lexington budgeted $2100.00 to purchase “two of the most up-to-date suction engines known, the Hancock and the Adams.”  A suction engine could draw water from any water source.  It was a huge improvement on the bucket brigade approach.  Areas that were not close to a natural source of water were encouraged to dig a “fire pond” that would feed water to the engine in case of fire.  An example of one can be seen today near Wilson Farm.  Built in 1856, after many years of service, the Adams suction engine still survives.  It has been lovingly preserved and is currently in the care of the Lexington Historical Society.

Since its early days, the Lexington Fire Department has gone through many changes.  One man has made it his life work to chart those changes.  Bob “The Goose” Washburn is a self-described dedicated fire buff.  He’s also a Lexington treasure.   Over the years he has compiled a complete history of Lexington’s Fire Department and its equipment.  Bob has written several detailed books regarding the subject.  He not only talks the talk, but with 31 years of service on the Lexington Fire Department, “The Goose” is an expert on how to walk the walk.  I had a chance to talk with this local legend about a subject that he loves: “Most of the first firemen were Civil War veterans or their sons. Before the Civil War, all firemen were volunteers.” We sat down over a cup of Joe at the “Dunk” on Woburn St. just outside the center.  “The pumpers weren’t very effective.  Hoses were made out of leather.  You had to oil the hose so it wouldn’t crack.  Horses were rented from the residents of the town.”

Bob Washburn was dressed casually in his Lexington fireman’s T-shirt and arrived with a stack of research papers.  He lit up when we began to talk about his research, fire engines he’d known, and the fires he’d put out.  The Dunk is a regular stop for our local fire crews and I soon began to notice the nods of recognition and respect for “The Goose” from the men waiting to order.   Even though Bob has been retired since 2002 he knew every one of the fire fighters in line, and every one of them knew him.  Bob can’t remember when he wasn’t fascinated by fire fighting.  In large part he thanks his mother Gladys.  She would often bring him to the fire house to play when he was a child.  Gladys encouraged her two boys to be fire fighters.  Both Bob and his older brother Arthur became firemen and for many years served together on the Lexington Fire Department.

Up until 1895 there were few changes in Lexington’s firefighting tactics.  The Adams and Hancock were upgraded and retired for chemical engines that provided better water pressure. But it wasn’t until the Cary Mansion fire on January 24, 1895 that real changes began to take place.  The Cary Estate was built by one of the town’s most beloved benefactors, Maria Hastings Cary.  In 1895 her adopted daughter Alice lived there.  While Alice was visiting her niece in Boston, a fire in the laundry quickly got out of control and consumed the mansion.  Efforts to put out the inferno were hampered by an inadequate water supply.  The Boston Herald reports a bit of mischief as well: “At some point during the blaze the firemen came across a large amount of stored liquor in the mansion and partook of same.  Some of the men evidentially indulged too much.  Two of the firemen were removed from the scene by Lexington Police Chief WB Foster.”

After the fire, in Miss Cary’s letter of thanks to the town she writes, “if only this calamity should result in a better equipped fire department and more generous and progressive town government, I shall feel I have not suffered in vain.” Her message was heard loud and clear. Before the end of the year, a town water system was established, a fire alarm box system was approved, three new pieces of firefighting equipment were ordered, the fire department was reorganized, and the first permanent fireman was employed.

The “father” of the modern Lexington Fire Department is considered George W. Taylor.  Taylor was one of the most powerful insurance men in North America and for a time Chairman of Lexington’s Board of Selectmen.  He pushed hard to improve the fire department.  In 1913 Edward Taylor, George’s son, was appointed Chief of the Lexington Fire Department.  He served as Chief until 1942.  Shortly after his appointment in 1915 The Fireman’s Standard concluded that the “Lexington fire department has evolved from a bucket brigade to one of the most up-to-date firefighting machines in the State.”

The current steward of much of the Lexington Fire Department’s history is the Lexington Historical Society.  I had a chance to talk with Elaine Doran, Archivist  and Collections Manager for the Historical Society, who invited me to research the archives that are in the basement of the Hancock Clarke House.  Besides a wonderful pictorial history of the Fire Department the Historical Society maintains two of the Lexington Fire Department’s most precious artifacts: the 1856 Adams suction engine, and the 1911 La France, Lexington’s first motorized fire engine.  Both are proudly displayed along with the rest of Lexington’s firefighting equipment at the annual Patriots’ Day parade.

Lexington’s newest Fire Chief, John Wilson, was appointed in 2012.  I had a chance to talk with Chief Wilson about the future of the Lexington Fire Department. This year the Department is celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the fire department’s Ambulance Service started in 1940.  Before that, if you needed an ambulance, the McCarthy Funeral Home dispatched one of its hearses to transport you to the hospital. With new state-of-the-art fire engines costing up to a million dollars things have certainly changed since the department’s meager beginnings.  The Chief likens the fire fighters to a large family, “It’s unlike any other job.  You eat, sleep, and train together.”  Chief Wilson is a lifelong Lexington resident.  When he was growing up “one of the Lexington firefighters lived across the street” and like Bob Washburn, when the Chief was growing up he was a frequent visitor to the fire station.  The Chief admits, “I always wanted to be a fireman.  Every little kid wants to be a fireman.”

The Lexington Fire Department has a long and proud history.  They are pledged to be there to help you when you need them most.  Be sure to give these career heroes a loud cheer this year at the Patriots’ Day parade, as they celebrate their 75th Anniversary and continue their tradition of service to the community.

Colonial Times contributor DIGNEY FIGNUS is a Lexington native and musician. His band perform in clubs and festivals around New England.  Check www.digney.com for the latest information on upcoming shows.