Framingham History Center Blog

Once or twice a year we have a program called “Street Smarts”, where we focus on the history of a certain part of town.  On Sunday we held a Street Smarts presentation about the neighborhood around the Women’s Reformatory.

You may not think “Women’s Reformatory” and “neighborhood” would go together but it actually was the case at one time.  Framingham residents Ellen Walker and Martin Mulvey grew up on the prison grounds because their parents worked at the prison and they shared their surprisingly fond childhood memories.

Our fabulous volunteer, Ronnie Cronin, who clocked many hours of research and is also a childhood friend of Ellen Walker, started off the presentation with a brief history of how the The Sherborn Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for Women became the Framingham Women’s Reformatory (dropping “prison” from the title).

Ellen and Martin then spoke about what their childhood was like with acres of fields used by the reformatory  for their own vegetable gardens and livestock.  Martin remembered realizing why the fence was so much higher around the field with the bull in it  (there to “service” the female cows) after he hopped over it.  He also recalled playing in the giant bales of hay and eating all the strawberries he and his friends wanted while on the way to the apple orchards.   Ellen told us about playing inside the prison with the superintendent’s niece and interacting with the inmates, who were never referred to as prisoners during their “temporary stay”.  She was even in a play with the inmates and recalled how lovely and lady-like they all were.  She never had a bad experience with anyone inside the reformatory.  Below is a photo of Ellen in a prison production of an unknown play.

What I found most interesting was hearing about the Superintendent, Miriam Van Waters who sounded like a remarkable woman. She was a pioneer in criminal rehabilitation.  She cared deeply about the inmates, the staff working at the Reformatory and their families.
Below is a photo of Miriam Van Waters and Eleanor Roosevelt during Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit to the Reformatory.

It was such an interesting program and I really felt enlightened by Ellen and Martin’s stories.  A big thank you to them and everyone who attended and shared their memories as well.

Michelle McElroy
Operations Manager

 
As you may or may not know, there is a monthly History/Biography Book Group at Barnes and Noble which is organized by Dr. Mary Murphy, past President of the Framingham History Center.  I didn’t even know these book groups went on until I started working here and when I saw the next few books in the line-up, I was excited to read them and attend the meetings. 

So last night was my first book group and we were discussing “The Children’s Blizzard” by David Laskin.  It’s about the devastating mid-west blizzard in 1888 which killed lots of children trying to get home from school that day.  The discussion was lead by Ilene Hofrenning, a native of North Dakota and Director of Health Services at Framingham State College and her husband Chris.

Ilene is of almost pure Norwegian decent, like most of the people in the book and to have her describe what it’s like to live in North Dakota and the Norwegian culture helped me understand why people would want to live out there.  After reading about the blizzard (and all winters out in the plains), lack of shelter and building materials, droughts in the summer, locust swarms the size of California (no joke!) which ate everything in their path and even just the solitude of being out in the middle of acres of field, it was rough living to say the least.  It was really interesting to discuss this book and talk with Ilene, Mary did a great job of orchestrating the event.   

I’m looking forward to the next one which will be discussing The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough on March 17th at 7:30pm at the Framingham Barnes and Noble.  You can see other upcoming  events on our events page.

Last night we had our monthly History Roundtable Discussion.  This month’s topic was Sarah Clayes (also known as “Cloyce”) and the race to save her house which is located on Salem End Road.

Abandoned 10 years ago, the house is currently owned by a bank as part of a bundle mortgage which, as ridiculous as this sounds, is one of the major factors keeping anyone from being able to purchase the house.  The cost to purchase the house is unknown but repairing the damage due to the elements and vandals will add a considerable amount to restoration (or even just to making the house livable) once it’s bought.

Some of you might be wondering “Who is Sarah Clayes, and why would anyone care about saving this house?”  To sum up a tremendous story:  Sarah and her two sisters (Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey) were accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trails.  Both of Sarah’s sisters were hung and while she was jailed and awaiting her execution, Thomas Danforth (a  judge in the Salem witch trials) felt sympathy for her and offered Sarah and her husband Peter refuge in Framingham.  The home they built is the structure we discussed last night.

About 50 people came to discuss what they think should be done, possible next steps and just what having this home in Framingham means to them.  Along with concerned Framingham residents, there was Glen Mairo (Danvers Historical Society Trustee), Elizabeth Hanahan (Towne Family Association President), Dianne Rappaport (author of  The Naked Quaker:  True Crimes and and Controversies from the Courts of Colonial New England), Ginger Esty (Framingham Selectwoman and married into the Eastey – now “Esty” – family)  and Janice Thompson (Director of Institutional Advancement at the Boston Athenaeum) who has a clear vision of turning the house into a museum with a library for people to conduct historical research.

I was so impressed by the amount of people that not only knew about Sarah Clayes, but who cared so much about saving her home and the outpouring of community cooperation to do whatever they can to help with this effort.  The Metrowest Daily News wrote a nice article about last night which you can read here.   We will of course keep you posted on any developments with the Clayes house. Hopefully things will start to happen because the house doesn’t have much more time.

Michelle McElroy
Operations Manager

Jay Lander, Attorney for Ms. Harriet G. Ward, presents Executive Director Annie Murphy with check representing Ms. Ward’s bequest to the Framingham History Center.

This morning, Attorney Jay Lander presented me with a check representing a bequest from Ms. Harriet G. Ward to the Framingham History Center.   Harriet was a member of the FHC, but I don’t think we ever met.  Mr. Lander, who was Harriet’s attorney and knew her very well, described her as very interested in history, a silversmith, a collector, and a wonderful caregiver to her parents, aunts and extended family.  With this gift, her care giving is extended to our community.  It was totally unexpected and could not have come at a better time.  While we have been gaining so much momentum around local preservation and programming, our annual fund has been hit by the economic downturn. It will allow us to continue our work uninterrupted while we also strive for sustainability.

According to Mr. Lander and others who knew her, Harriet was unassuming, liked to have a good time, and did not take herself too seriously — all traits I truly admire.  I also admire her thinking of how important it is to give locally when considering planned gifts.  The Framingham History Center depends on planned giving in addition to annual giving and I hope that you will consider this important community organization when you sit down with your estate planners or advisers.  You can’t imagine how grateful we will be.  If you have any questions about our Planned Giving Program, please call me at 508-626-9091 or email me at director@framinghamhistory.org.
- Annie Murphy
Executive Director

Welcome to our first Framingham History Center blog post. There has been so much going on around here that this will serve as a bit of a catch up.  First – I’d like to thank the McCarthy School students who performed as part of our Very Victorian Christmas program in December.  Their singing and dancing was fantastic and brought the most important ingredient of the season to our program – children.  It was wonderful having the students and their parents at the Village Hall and the whole McCarthy School community should be proud.  Thank you.

Our Shopper’s World Roundtable drew close to 100 people – all eager to share their memories, Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins, and some great information about the iconic mall.


Ruth Colson and Dorothy Yetsina reminisced about working at Jordan Marsh for over 30 years and what a great employer it was.  They told us about their group of former employees – The Jordaneers - and how they have an annual reunion.  They were actually meeting for lunch on the day of the roundtable.

Bruce Leish read excerpts from “The Day it Rained Fish” (1978) by Sidney Shurcliff – the landscape architect for SW.  Apparently opening year (1951) had a few rough spots.  In a cost cutting measure, the necessary gravel and hardtop for the parking area was cut in half and by April of that year unsuspecting shoppers came back to find their cars “mired to the hubcaps!”  Who knew that the first mall east of the Mississippi was originally slated for Peabody but the developer, Huston Rawls, could not secure the zoning change necessary for its construction.  In Framingham – a better location – the ‘“promotion” of a zoning change had been so carefully advanced by Huston that the desired change had been actually adopted.”  To view an excerpt from Shurcliff’s book discussing the original design of SW, click here.

Elbert Tuttle spoke about his father representing the downtown merchants who were worried that SW would draw customers away from their shops while on the other side of the political spectrum, Julian Hargraves’ father represented Huston Rawls and knew him quite well.  Julian spoke about going to see the prototype for SW in Washington state with his father before the much larger SW was built.

Did you know that on George Washington’s birthday, Shopper’s World gave out cherry tree seedlings free of charge?  Perhaps this is why Framingham is abloom with cherry blossoms each spring.  If anyone knows of a tree that survived from an SW seedling, I’d love to know.

We will have a full Shopper’s World exhibition this summer once the windows are completed at the Edgell Library and would love to hear from you if you have other stories, memorabilia, etc.

That’s all for now,

Annie Murphy
Executive Director