The June meeting of the Windham County Genealogy Interest Group will be held as a hybrid meeting: in person at the Brooks Memorial Library Meeting Room and via Zoom on Saturday, June 18, at 11 a.m.
The Library of Congress along with the National Endowment for the Humanities has a website called Chronicling America that contains historic American newspapers.
Part of the website includes a U.S. newspaper directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690 to the present. Not all of these newspapers are online, but the directory can provide information about where they are located. The website also includes the digitized newspaper collection, which includes a wide variety of newspapers published between 1777 and 1963.
This free website is searchable by name and date, and includes ways to narrow the search by State, by Ethnicity, and by Language. It is also possible to limit a search to a specific newspaper. Participants will explore ways to use this valuable resource to find information about ancestors.
Windham County Humane Society (WCHS) has been aiding the pets and people of Windham County for over 130 years. “Hundreds of dogs, cats, bunnies, rats, mice, and even a gerbil or two find a safe caring place to temporarily reside until his/her next home is found” WCHS operations director...
The revote to fund the expansion of the Guilford Free Library resulted in the article being defeated. I am very disappointed in that result and want to thank the Library staff and trustees for their incredible efforts to educate the voters about the benefits of the expansion. I also...
On behalf of some of Windham County's more vulnerable residents, the Windham County Heat Fund thanks our generous community for support of our efforts this year. We created the Windham County Heat Fund in 2005 to help people in Windham County who were not able to buy enough heating fuel to make it through the winter. In 2010 the Heat Fund was incorporated as an IRS 501(c) 3 nonprofit entity. At the time, oil prices were escalating, and we thought...
After a two-year pandemic pause, the “By the People: Brattleboro Goes Fourth” parade is set to return this Independence Day with a new route. The town's 49th annual event, scheduled for Monday, July 4, at 10 a.m., will assemble on Flat Street and move north on Main Street to the Common in response to requests from older marchers seeking a shorter length and challenges finding enough volunteers and public safety patrols to monitor a longer distance. The local Benevolent and...
College news • The following local students graduated from the University of Vermont during commencement ceremonies in May 2022: Naomi Besson of Bellows Falls, B.A. in biology; Zoe Schemm of Grafton, B.A. in global studies (Magna Cum Laude); Eleanor Guyon of Saxtons River, B.A. in English; Cole Madden of Brattleboro, B.A. in history; Samuel Stevens of Brattleboro, B.A. in political science; Aaron Claussen of Townshend, B.A. in film and television studies; Annice Pelletier of Grafton, B.S. in human development &
The Vernon Historical Museum will open for the season on Sunday, June 12, from 2 to 4 p.m., with an ice cream social. The event will feature delightful music by Jack Arensmeyer and friends, and old-fashioned, hand-cranked ice cream will be made and served during the event. Please bring your lawn chairs and join the Vernon Historians in celebrating community and local history. Located at 4201 Fort Bridgman Road (Route 142), the Vernon Historical Museum will be open Sundays from...
Putney Foodshelf plans summer pop-up hoursPUTNEY - Pierce's Hall, 140 East Putney Falls Rd., will host the Putney Foodshelf for three pop-up sessions this summer on the second Wednesdays of June, July, and August from 1 to 2:30 p.m. All are welcome to stop by for free fresh produce and other groceries. For more information, visit putneyfoodshelf.org or call 802-387-0838. Manitou Healing Walk: Friday, June 10.WILLIAMSVILLE-The Manitou Project's Healing Walk on Friday, June 10, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., led...
A note of heartfelt thanks for everyone's support on May 6 for the Queer Circus Arts Scholarship Benefit and Performance co-presented by Frog Meadow Farm and New England Center for Circus Arts. This truly fabulous cause benefits LGBTQ+ Circus Students studying professionally and playing recreationally of all ages and backgrounds at NECCA. At Frog Meadow Farm, we are grateful and humbled that what we started on a lark as a pre–Circus Show social dinner with a few friends and guests...
Events such as proms and graduation are important milestones in a young person's life and cause for celebration. By keeping these special occasions substance-free, the community encourages healthy decision-making by teens and supports safe behaviors that result in positive outcomes for events that everyone remembers and wants to remember. West River Valley Thrives (WRVT) has been encouraging this through Sticker Shock, a national program in which youth raise public awareness about the cost of providing alcohol to minors by placing...
Since gun regulation is going to be a struggle, and right now it has maximum public attention and support, we should focus on issue one: outlawing automatic rifles. Focus on that because it's key and, if we succeed, it would take guns off the top of the national agenda. And that would make it more likely that attention could be paid to global warming, currently largely ignored by government and the public. In this country abortion and Trumpism in general...
Landmark College's 2022 fundraising gala, “More Than We Imagine,” was held April 28 in New York City and raised more than $500,000 to support the college's Annual Fund and Imagine Campaign. For the first time, Landmark College's fundraiser was held in a hybrid format - both online and in person - to expand participation in the festivities. The event included a live auction and an online auction, remarks from several speakers, and a video that highlighted how charitable donations directly...
I was raised a Catholic, as was my father before me and I believe his father before him. While I did not attend parochial elementary or high schools, I did matriculate at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. I have not, though, been a practicing Catholic since the age of 25, more than four and a half decades ago. One of the primary reasons I left the Church was because of its paternalistic nature. There are still...
Recently on VPR, I heard it said that in order to identify the bodies of the children slaughtered in Texas, since they were too young to carry identification, it was necessary to have the parents do that unimaginable task. The person speaking also said the weaponry used in the murders would have made a mess of those small bodies. I believe the speaker was himself the father of one of the kids murdered at Sandy Hook. I understand why such...
Brattleboro Selectboard Member Tim Wessel's recent comments suggest that the breach of faith between town government and the populace is wider and of longer duration than previously understood. “Anybody who understands the history of Rescue Inc. and Brattleboro,” said Wessel, “understands that for more the 20 years Brattleboro has been talking about and considering and dancing around the issue of, well, we have this professional fire service, we have a large town with a lot of need, and it might...
Recently, Bill McKibben spoke at the West Village Meeting House. He was, as always, both inspirational and down to earth with his analysis of the climate crisis. It is clear as daylight (when we are not looking through wildfire haze from the west) that the masters of capitalism have made a decision to destroy the Earth's climate rather than make the financial sacrifices it would take to make our energy system sustainable. Rather than choosing to stay in his small...
During the June 3 Gallery Walk, Compassionate Brattleboro presented its 2022 Brattleboro Area Unsung Hero Award to the volunteers and staff members of the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) Multicultural Community Center and other local organizations who are facilitating the resettlement of refugees from Afghanistan in our area. The ECDC Multicultural Community Center was created last fall through partnerships with the ECDC, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) and the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP). Accepting the award on behalf...
The Lydia Taft Pratt Library, located in the community center in West Dummerston, invites everyone to their 2022 Summer Reading Program kick-off event, “Help Rebuild the Underwater City of Atlantis!” on Saturday, June 11, from noon to 2 p.m. In keeping with the 2022 Summer Reading Program theme, “Oceans of Possibilities,” the library staff says the kick-off event “is designed to delight and excite the creative energies of children of all ages, while we have fun with a variety of...
I'd like to correct a misstatement that appeared in the article concerning the recent revote on (and subsequent recension of) the funding plan related to the proposed expansion of the Guilford Free Library. The article contained an interview with an individual who favored overturning the original vote. The individual presented his arguments in a well-formed and thoughtful way. However, he then went on to say, “[T]he people who made the decision to use that money were only two people, Selectboard...
Latchis Arts' Spotlight Series returns this month with the theme “Portraits of the Artist.” The series is presented in partnership with the River Gallery School, which has set up a free community art project in the Latchis Theatre lobby. Stop by anytime the theater is open or while you're waiting for your movie and use the materials provided to make a flower petal to hang on the flower wall in the theater lobby. Spotlight is a curated series featuring films...
Northern Roots Presents Keith Murphy and Yann Falquet in concert Friday, June 17, at 7 p.m. at the Brattleboro Music Center. Keith Murphy and Yann Falquet are described as masters of contemporary Celtic guitar, “representing the compelling textures, harmonies, and rhythms that the guitar has brought to traditional songs and instrumentals since the Celtic music revival in the 1970s,” according to a news release. As singers, they “bring a rich blending of the Franco and Anglo song traditions,” continues the...
The Chapel Hill, N.C.-based multi-instrumentalist duo Violet Bell will co-bill the Stage 33 Live listening room with The Milkhouse Heaters on Sunday, June 19, in a limited-seating 4 p.m. matinee with a special discounted ticket price of $10 in advance through stage33live.com or $15 at the door. The band Violet Bell describes themselves as “re-wilding Americana with a lush, sinuous sound woven from folk, soul, bluegrass, and jazz with notes of blues, world, and classical.” Omar Ruiz-Lopez was born in...
I just want to thank Anna Mullany for her excellent response. A country that ignores its faults allows those crimes to perpetuate insidiously. As a woman I can only contain my rage for so long. We just pretend that women are equal. Women are on their own fighting for their rights, which are falling by the wayside every day. Where are the good brothers, fathers and sons? I'm tired of waiting for permission for my rights from the white male...
In order to not immediately undermine the credibility of her entire piece, I would like Anna Mullany to provide the source for her statement: “One in three women in the military are raped by fellow service members.” And to save time, let's not go with the evasive “anecdotal evidence” reply and provide something reasonably authoritative. Quite frankly, I'm left wondering what it takes to get Ph.D. in public health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Brattleboro Literary Festival invites everyone to join them online on Friday, June 10, at 5 p.m. for their monthly Literary Cocktail Hour with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) director Grant Faulkner in conversation with Storymatic creator Brian Mooney. NaNoWriMo began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Now, each year on Nov. 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the...
Even though it was almost 12 years ago, I still get nervous when it rains. With climate change, the rains are only going to get heavier, loosening the soil even more, eroding the land that sits on the edge of its rivers and creeks. I think about “Vermont Strong,” that slogan we see on the back of pickup trucks like mine. Created as a symbol of our commitment, of Vermonters helping repair our community after Tropical Storm Irene, for me,
Five exhibits will open at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Saturday, June 18, including a group exhibit of art made from felt, a multimedia exhibit of Abenaki art, and solo exhibits by Mie Yim, Beth Galston, and Frank Jackson. An opening party will take place that day at 5 p.m. to celebrate the new exhibits, as well as the outdoor exhibits “Roberley Bell: The Landscape Stares Back” and “Oasa DuVerney: Black Power Wave,” both of which opened...
You take the high road, and I'll take the low. May we all get to Bratt's village, safely, in the morning. Seriously, now. I just had the experience - by myself, with our friends, and with visiting family from afar - of dealing with our roads. I'm not referring to the naturally treacherous frost-heaved dirt roads of March and April. These are rites of passage for locals. I'm talking about the high-priority routes: Route 9 (Western Avenue and Marlboro Road),
On April 30, Mike Pieciak, head of the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation (DFR), announced he was stepping down from the post “to pursue other opportunities.” At the time, Pieciak, a 38-year-old Brattleboro native who now lives in Winooski, wasn't saying what those opportunities might be. All became clear on May 6, when he announced he was running for the Democratic Party nomination for state treasurer. With the departure of longtime state treasurer Beth Pearce, who announced two days earlier...
When reached by phone recently at her studio on Cape Cod, singer/songwriter/guitarist Patty Larkin, who will perform at Next Stage Arts on Friday, June 10, reminisced about a tour she did more than 30 years ago with Windham County entertainment icons Will Ackerman and Tom Bodett. “In 1991, Will and Anne Robinson signed me to the Windham Hill label as a singer/songwriter, and in 1992 Will and I toured with Tom Bodett. It was a hoot!” she said. She explained...
After nine months as interim superintendent of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU), Mark Speno has been named Superintendent for the 2022-23 school year. On June 1, the WSESU Board of Directors announced Speno's appointment for the coming school year. “The Board is looking forward to collaborating with Mr. Speno, expanding on his excellent work supporting students and staff and extending it into effective implementation of policies and continuous improvement,” said the brief press release. Following a short executive session...
Kindle Farm School High School Program Supervisor Kendall Edkins has been hosting weekly metal detecting classes at the school for high school and middle school students. Edkins, of Walpole, N.H., said when he scouts locations to search for artifacts buried beneath the ground, he focuses on the history. “Everything kind of has some history,” he said. Edkins said that Brattleboro has a lot of fields and old homes, and “my personal favorite places to go are like the old foundations,
An unidentified fisherman was rescued on June 2 after falling off a railroad bridge to avoid a fast-moving Amtrak train. Local police and firefighters were called to the elevated tracks that span over the confluence of the Connecticut and West rivers shortly after 1 p.m. after the southbound Vermonter blew its whistle and tried to brake, they reported. “I heard the horn a lot longer than usual,” said Spencer Knickerbocker, who was working nearby at his family's Vermont Canoe Touring...
In April, the Selectboard voted 5–0 to end its contract for emergency medical services with Rescue Inc., setting in motion a new model for EMS that would make it the responsibility of the fire department. But the fire has not yet burned out on that controversy, which has divided the local community, and on Friday, June 3, the Selectboard was served with a legal filing formally alleging violation of a provision of the Vermont statutes regarding open meeting laws. At...
When the Burlington Free Press made its predictions for the Division I baseball tournament, it picked the sixth-seeded Rice Green Knights to upset the third-seeded Brattleboro Colonels. That pick rankled the Colonels and their coach Chris Groeger. “It's pretty evident that we don't get a lot of respect from the North,” said Groeger. “We've held our own against those teams over the years.” And the Colonels certainly did more than just hold their own on June 3 at Tenney Field.