WHITMAN – Sometimes wishes do come true.
And wishes came true Tuesday, Aug. 29 for John Hornstra, winning bidder on the Peaceful Meadows ice cream stand, barns, home offices, equipment and more than 55 acres of land. But the wishes of town officials, N.E. Wildlands Trust and loyal Peaceful Meadows customers hoping to keep the Whitman tradition going came true, too.
The town had the opportunity to right of first refusal on the sale should it have gone to a non-argricultural use, under the state’s 61A regulations on farming land. Whitman Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter was happy that it won’t be necessary.
“I’m thrilled that John Hornstra won the bids,” she said. “I think it’s going to be great for Whitman.”
Select Board member Justin Evans agreed it was a great turn of events for the town.
“It’ll be great to get cows back in the barn and really bring this place back,” he said.
“Everybody in town is … they’ll be ecstatic when the word gets out that we got it,” new owner John Hornstra said. “I honestly can say it’s a passion of mine. I’m the luckiest person in the world that I enjoy my business every day that I work, and I get to have my son work with me [who’s] 23, so it’ll be a great project.”
It’ll be known by a different name – Hornstra Farms – but Hornstra thinks people will see enough familiar about the future he has in mind for the iconic Whitman property.
“I’m glad to have it, and I hope I can continue what they did here and maybe have some cows, eventually here, and bring back a working dairy farm to Whitman,” Hornstra said of his winning bid. “Eventually, they’ll be back,” he said of the bovine bevy that had always been a popular attraction at Peaceful Meadows.
“The gentleman who built this in 1961 was a big inspirational person in my life,” Hornstra said. “I saw how successful this was, and that’s why I wanted to do it in Norwell.”
The immediate plan is to do some work on the barns, but he may try to keep the dairy store open during the holiday season in keeping with tradition before that renovation work is done and it reopens in the spring. There’s a lot of structural work to do in the barns, and one of them may come down, to be replaced by an all-automated, robotic barn where people can have their ice cream and see the cows being milked.
“We’ve got a ways to go,” he said of plans for a reopening date. “We’ve got a lot of fixing up and stuff like that – upgrading and stuff like that – but hopefully before Thanksgiving, but we’ll see.”
Soon some of the trademark red Holstien cows of the Hornstra Farms herd will also return a bucolic touch to the property, the fourth-generation farmer said after making the winning $1.75 million bid for the entirety of two property lots at 94 Bedford St.
Since Hornstra has no immediate plans to negotiate for Peaceful Meadows ice cream stand recipes (his Prospect Street, Norwell farm already makes their own old-fashioned ice cream, so we don’t know what to tell the person who reached out to auctioneer Justin Manning about the fate of Peaceful Meadows’ peanut butter sauce.
He said that, when the first information was posted about the pending auction, the JJ Manning website received more than 500,000 views, 175,000 clicks, 27,000 emotions and about 4,000 shares.
“I think that it’s a day that is going to bring conclusion to what is the final chapter for the family,” Manning said before the auction Tuesday morning. “I think they’ve gotten to the point where they’re more than ready to pass it on, to end it. They need that closure. I think that maybe it’s a little sad for them, maybe a little sad for the town, and the people who came to get ice cream, but who knows what is going to be the next chapter here at the property.”
Hornstra said his plan was to purchase the two lots in their entirety, which is why he did not enter a bid for them separately.
“We work with John Hornstra so we’re very supportive of his bid,” said Scott McFaden of the Wildlands Trust, on the non-profit land conservation trust’s presence to support Honstra. “We’d like to see it stay in permanent farming, because we’re about land preservation.”
McFaden said the Hornstras ran a big risk on the day.
“There were people here who, most likely would have tried to convert it to something else,” he said. “I’ve talked to some town officials informally and they were very supportive of seeing it preserved.”
Hornstra agreed that he had support “everywhere.”
“Part of the reason I went to $1.75 [million], was I didn’t want to disappoint everyone on the South Shore,” he said. “It was a lot of hyped media stuff and Facebook stuff, and I couldn’t bear the thought of somebody else getting it. I’m one of those people who always wants to do the right thing.”
After placing his winning bid, Hornstra first spoke to members of the family selling the property, before speaking with the press.
He said he came prepared to pay $1.5 million – having to go $225,000 over that.
“I went a little farther than I had to,” he said. “I saw my son standing next to me – I’m trying to support the next generation, so we went a little farther than we wanted to.”
Manning said on Monday it was a “coin flip” of the chances the property would remain in agricultural use, noting that real estate developers and a software company were among those interested.
As competing bidders approached Hornstra to congratulate him, one was heard to say he was “glad a farmer got it.” Hornstra, which also bottles milk for door-to-door delivery, already has Whitman customers on its client list.
He said the barns [which, like the other buildings and equipment included for sale at auction], being purchased “as-is” needed some work.
In his pre-auction instructions to prospective bidders, Manning said the first two parcels [94 Bedford St., divided between the ice cream stand, and other buildings and a second lot of the 55 acres behind it] would be auctioned separately.
All separate property lots were sold to the highest bidder, subject to the entirety, which is how both sides of the road were ultimately purchased by two separate bidders when bids were received greater than the individual bids. There would be no rebids of the individual lots.
Bidders were also cautioned that they were expected to have done their homework before the auction date.
Peaceful Meadows provided a lot of information down to the last five years of tax returns.
“With tons of information comes informed buyers,” Manning said. “If you are not an informed buyer, if you don’t know about this property and you didn’t go through all the information, and didn’t go through the properties, then don’t bid on the properties.” All properties are sold as-is.
Closing is slated to take place on or before Sept. 29, unless otherwise agreed upon by the seller in writing or if the buyer of the farm and ice cream stand went to a non-agricultural buyer, triggering the town’s right of first refusal under 61A.
As the bidding for the first two parcels as an entirety became competitive, Hornstra said he was just trying to decide where he was going. He held back from bidding on the two lots individually to get both as an entirety.
He looked at his son – who will be the fifth generation working the farm.
“He kind of rolled his eyes and I said, ‘OK, here’s $50,000 more, let’s see where it goes,’” he said.
Hornstra said he was not much interested in the other side of the road, bought as an entirety by a late-arriving group of Asian women, who said they had no specific plans for it, but wanted to preserve the land.
Peaceful Meadows to be sold
WHITMAN – Peaceful Meadows is slated to go under the auctioneer’s gavel for sale on Tuesday, Aug. 29 – and that prospect has been the talk of the town, and beyond for several days.
Real estate sales firm JJ Manning Auctioneers of Yarmouthport, has been contracted to hold an auction of properties owned by Peaceful Meadows along Route 18/Bedford Street in Whitman. The properties are at 67, 81 and 94 (lots 1 and 2) Bedford St.
“After many successful decades in business, beginning in 1962, the family has chosen to divest of these valuable assets through auction,” the firm’s website described the reason for the sale, further stating that the properties will be “offered individually and in the entirety to the highest bidder, regardless of price.”
JJ Manning President Justin J. Manning, said no other property the firm has handled before has engendered so much interest.
“I’ve never seen our Facebook [page] blow up like I have with this property,” he said. “I think between Friday and right now, we’ve had more than 350,000 hits on this. It’s absurd. It dwarfs anything that we’ve ever listed – there’s a lot of passion about this one.”
Two others running close behind were Foxboro State Hospital and a Nashua, N.H. rectory of the Sisters of Mercy.
Manning said he met with the three sisters who are the owners/decision makers of the property.
“At this point, they have worked really hard to continue the legacy that their parents started, and have been very proud of and have done well by it and [they] understand the following that has continued to provide a nice living for their family,” Manning said. “At this stage in their lives, they’re all very ready to move on. No one wants to continue running the business and [they] have other life expectations at the moment.”
Select Board members Justin Evans and Dan Salvucci said, while they didn’t know the particulars of the sale, Whitman’s Facebook pages have been filled with conversation about it all weekend.
“They want to retire,” Salvucci said. “That’s a lot of land down behind there.”
Town Administrator Mary Beth Carter recalled that her first job was at Peaceful Meadows, but stated that the town has not received official notice of the sale.
“Once the Town receives official notification of the impending sale of the properties it will review and consider its options,” Carter said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “We are so sorry to see Peaceful Meadows close and we thank them for the many years they have operated their business here in town.”
Carter said the assessor was visiting Peaceful Meadows on Monday, because it is agricultural land and the town wants to make sure it is coded correctly.
“Peaceful Meadows Farm has been a Whitman landmark since 1920, with the Hogg family opening Peaceful Meadows Ice Cream in 1962. The news of the upcoming auction of the multiple Peaceful Meadows properties in late August has been a topic of conversation among residents since the news was announced,” Carter stated. “The Hogg family has provided delicious ice cream treats as well as many other dairy products and baked goods which have been sold at their dairy store. Peaceful Meadows Ice Cream has been an iconic family destination for so many Whitman residents as well as residents from many surrounding towns. The Town has not received any formal notification since the news was announced late last week.”
The land is described as: “four assessor’s parcels on Bedford St. (Rt. 18)
Sale 1: 94 Bedford St. (Lot 1): Ice Cream Stand k/a “Peaceful Meadows Ice Cream” w/ barns, home/offices, Equipment;
Sale 2: 94 Bedford St. (Lot 2): 55+/- acres of agricultural land;
Sale 3: 67 Bedford St.:a single family home; and
Sale 4: 81 Bedford St.: a two-family home.
A final plan concerning how the property components will be sold will be forthcoming, but Manning said there are, indeed, four components.
“It’s too early right now for me to tell you exactly how it is going to happen, but I can tell you that there will be at least four rounds of bidding for those four different components,” he said, indicating there is a possibility of combinations of properties.
The website stipulates that pre-auction offers must be tendered on a signed JJManning approved purchase and sale agreement and accompanied by a 10 percent certified deposit in certified or bank check or by confirmed wire transfer in order to be considered.
Up to a 2 percent Buyer’s Broker Commission is offered with a mandatory 24-hour broker pre-registration.
A viewing date of the properties up for auction is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 22 with the auction slated for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29.
Manning said that some sales use the term “highest and best” for choosing a buyer.
“In auctions, there’s only highest,” he said. “Ultimately, everyone is bidding under the same terms, everyone is bidding using the same purchase and sale agreement, so it only comes down to who’s the highest.”
He did say interest has been strong already, with similar ice cream companies, agricultural companies showing intertest since the posting on June 6 or 7.
“For those who have been hoping it will continue on as Peaceful Meadows ice cream, that’s only going to apply if the high bidder has that intent,” Manning said. Buyers who have a kennel, equestrian or landscaping-related business would be free to make their own business decisions after purchasing the property.
The ice cream stand/dairy farm are only one component of the sale.
“It depends on who is the high bidder, and it could be a different type of business,” he said.
Manning said his firm has a “basic outline” for how the sale will happen and they are working with the sellers’ attorneys to make sure everything is done properly.
“When a property’s been in the hands of a family for so long, it’s almost like it has no history,” he said. He likened such a situation to the sales they had handled of Lakeville and Foxboro state hospitals, where deeds were hand-written.
“You just want to make sure there’s nothing that’s going to interfere with having a clean, straight-forward closing and clear title,” he said. Then further information may become clear. There may be financials regarding the ice cream shop that will be available to potential buyers willing to fill out and sign non-disclosure agreements.
He said that he understands there is also a recorded subdivision plan that is expected to show how the ice cream shop and dairy barn are divided from the 50+ agricultural acres.
“This is just some pieces that we don’t have,” he said. When more information is available, it will be posted on jjmanning.com.
JJManning Auctioneers has been engaged in the marketing and sale of high-end commercial and residential real estate at public auction throughout the U.S., with a focus on New England. During this period, the firm has conducted over 16,000 auctions totaling more than $5 billion dollars for private individuals, corporations, estates, financial institutions, attorneys, builders/developers, government agencies and others.
Geoff Diehl announces candidacy for governor
Former state representative Geoff Diehl has his eye on a higher office.
The Whitman Republican, in an address to an Independence Day “Freedom Festival” in Hadley on Sunday — hosted by the GOP Patriots group which supports the Trump-Pence conservative agenda — announced a candidacy that will focus on the impact of over-taxation and reckless government spending.
“I’ve served in the legislature and seen, first-hand, the impact government regulations have on businesses they don’t necessarily understand but want to control,” Diehl said. “The pandemic response of a total shut down of the economy, followed by arbitrary federal, state and local regulations only made it harder for the small businesses to stay alive, especially in the restaurant and hospitality industries. And I remain mystified how the big box stores like Home Depot remained open while your local hardware store was forced to close. Let that chapter of our state’s history remain a powerful example of what can never happen again.”
Diehl last ran for state-wide office in 2018, in an unsuccessful challenge to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. He told the Hadley audience that, having been furloughed from his job at a healthcare company while helping his wife KathyJo keep their performing arts studio going, gave him an insight into what small businesses face.
“Making sure Massachusetts is creating the best scenario for job growth is the key to a strong recovery because keeping people on enhanced unemployment is not the answer,” Diehl said.
He also proclaimed his total opposition to the Transportation Climate Initiative signed onto by Gov. Charlie Baker.
“The last thing working families in Massachusetts need is added cost to commuting, food and goods that are already being hit by the inflationary effects of massive federal spending,” he said. “All the original New England states have failed to join in the ‘cap and trade’ scheme and even environmentalists discount the projections for emission reduction.”
He also supports “Backing the Blue” and “making sure local school boards are given the funds and control to determine the best curriculum for their students,” in order to turn more decision-making to the local level.
Call for local clinics
WHITMAN — A state policy change due to take effect March 1 would eliminate delivery of new vaccination doses for local fire departments and boards of health. It is meeting with near-universal criticism amid local officials and public safety personnel.
“It is highly premature to cut off the line of local vaccine doses, especially at this critical time,” said Whitman Fire Chief Timothy Grenno on Thursday, Feb. 18. “It cuts off a literal lifeline for many residents.”
Cutting off the supplies to the local clinics — operating for several weeks — showed a “gross lack of forethought” and is a waste of municipal time, energy and resources, he argued.
As state legislators, educators and representatives of more than a dozen Plymouth and Norfolk county police and fire departments and health boards looked on, Grenno sounded the alarm over the state’s mass vaccination program at the expense of local clinics. Holding a press conference at the Whitman Knights of Columbus on Bedford Street, officials expressed concern that the vulnerable elderly are especially being left behind.
“Since the Cold War, municipalities have been asked to plan and prepare for emergency situations,” said Grenno, who also serves as Whitman’s Emergency Management Agency director. “As a result, local leaders are uniquely qualified and trained to handle a situation such as the distribution of vaccines.”
State Sen. Mike Brady, D-Brockton, attending along with state Rep. Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, and state Rep. Kathleen LaNatra, D-Plymouth, said he planned to meet with state Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders’ office later in the day to readdress the change.
He said regional legislators sent a letter to the Baker Administration expressing disagreement with the vaccination policy change because local communities have the personnel to handle the situation.
“Our chiefs today aren’t saying that the mass vaccine sites aren’t working, they’re saying that they need it here, locally,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said the Baker administration counted on local health officials from the beginning of the pandemic and is now shutting them out.
LaNatra added that Kingston and Plymouth have been in talks with Mass DPH for a long time with “no straight answers” to set up a regional vaccination site at the Kingston Collection.
“We need to put this back local,” she said. “Our chiefs, our boards of health, know their community. They know who is housebound.”
LaNatra, whose first-responder husband has been able to receive his second dose of vaccine, but not all have been able to do so.
“It’s a big lack of supply and every other week they’re changing their mind,” Brady said of state officials.
“We’re not against the mass sites, we’re not against the pharmacies that are having these [clinics] as well,” Abington Fire Chief John Nutall said. “There’s definitely a need for that, however, they cannot cover all of our residents.”
He said the state cited a question of equity as a major factor in officials’ reason for the policy change, but noted a supply had been approved for a private health spa located in an exclusive country club.
“We’re not allowed to question why these decisions are made,” Nutall said. “It is time to question what is going on, so that we can get the vaccines to our residents that we know best.”
Grenno said there is no doubt that there is a need for regional vaccination efforts, especially in larger areas or areas more adversely impacted by COVID-19, but said they must work in connection with locally led health boards and first responders. It is especially crucial during Phase 2 of the distribution, when seniors ages 75 and older are inoculated.
Whitman has more than 950 residents over age 75, and Grenno’s department offered to help transport them to a mass vaccination site with all proper precautions.
“We’ll register you, we’ll hold your hand, we’ll walk you in, we’ll get you vaccinated and we’ll bring you home,” he said the department told them.
Less than 25 of them accepted that invitation because of fear or mobility problems, he said.
Four Whitman clinics had been scheduled, which would have vaccinated more than 500 of them. The clinics have all been cancelled because the state is denying the vaccinations.
“These individuals are the ones who should be asked to drive the least distance and be given the greatest access to quick and efficient vaccination sites,” Grenno said. “They’re our neighbors helping each other … local clinics for the oldest and sickest population, offer a familiar, a comfortable and convenient location when people need it the most.”
Mass sites are difficult for some to get to, involve long lines and staffed by unfamiliar people, while at local clinics they would be greeted by local fire personnel and health agents and involve shorter lines.
Whitman-Hanson Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said vaccinations for teachers and students are also a concern, especially since teachers would run the risk of missing a school day to travel to a mass vaccination site.
“It was surprising to me that our schools aren’t being used as mass vaccination sites,” Szymaniak said. “Our school nurses are available and ready to work with our local health agents and fire chiefs to provide vaccines not only to our 65-and over populations, but sequentially, our teachers.”
He noted teachers have been moved down the priority list for vaccines.
He argued the change reflects either a significant policy change by the state or a major vaccine supply shortage coming to the state from the federal level.
“Either way, it is an issue that should be discussed and addressed,” he said.
Grenno also expressed concern about the status of the state’s online vaccination registration at VaxFinder, which crashed due to heavy demand at about 8:30 a.m. Feb. 18. The state’s 211 information line also went down that morning.
He said Whitman registers its elder residents, noting a lot of senior residents don’t even own a computer.
“We are prepared to provide local vaccine clinics,” said Medway Fire Chief Jeff Lynch, who is president of the Norfolk County Fire Chiefs Association. “We’ve done extensive planning, we’ve done significant investment in equipment and training for our firefighters.”
Lynch said fire personnel stand ready to bring the vaccine to homebound elders, but as of now, he is not aware of the plan to serve them.
Hanover Town Manager Joe Colangelo said his town has already invested $500 in federal CARES Act funds to build up a program to test residents and merge to vaccinations. Hanover Fire Chief Jeff Blanchard added that town’s frustration is palpable.
“We are prepared to do vaccinations, but we have no vaccine,” Blanchard said.
Abington Board of Health member Marty Golightly has vaccinated more than 200 75+ residents and has a plan in place to vaccinate shut-ins, asking only for the supplies to take care of his town’s own people.
Communities represented: Whitman fire and police departments, schools and town administrator, Hanson Fire Department and Board of Health, Abington Fire Department and Board of Health, Hanover Fire Department and Town Manager, Cohasset Fire Department, Duxbury Fire Department, East Bridgewater Fire Department, Halifax Fire Department, West Bridgewater Fire Department, Medway Fire Department and Board of Health, Plympton Fire Department State Representative, Canton, Stoughton Board of Health, Brookline Fire Department and Middleboro Fire Department.
Sail into a Pilgrim mystery
Who is digging up the Pilgrims and why?
A new mystery novel asks that question through an historical “what-if” and a fictional grave-robbing case, as readers of author Rick Pontz’s “103 Pilgrims,” discover how decisions of our ancestors affect our lives today.
So far, real life is affecting the art.
Plymouth’s quadricentennial celebration has been pushed to 2021, but the book, published to coincide with the 400th birthday has gone forward according to plan.
He said for visitors to the area, the book [$17.95, paperback, Hugo House Publishers, Austin, Texas] takes people around the town. Characters “dine” at real local restaurants or tourist things like whale watch boats and ferries. He promises his second novel will be using same kind of interactive scene referencing as Plymouth has delayed almost all the 400th anniversary events until next year.
There is still a 400th anniversary to tie into in 2021 — that of the first Thanksgiving, as linking with the city’s history has always been Pontz’s aim.
“That was the intent,” said Pontz about his debut detective novel set — naturally — in Plymouth has been on sale in the city and the founding Pilgrim settlement in 1620 following “a rumor that there’s more than 41 signers of the Mayflower Compact — but no one knows because the original Compact doesn’t exist. Or does it.”
Enter protagonist Tony Tempesta, retired Plymouth cop and uninsured private “advisor” who looks into problems for clients seeking a “solution.”
The novel’s opening chapter set aboard the Mayflower offers the what-if scenario of a stowaway on the ship.
“I was reading about the number of people of people on the Mayflower and ‘I thought, boy, that would really throw a monkey wrench into everything,’” he said.
The plot posits the effect of a stowaway, if there was something different about the stowaway and why would someone want to hide the person’s existence.
“About a year and a half ago, I said, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to get this thing published,’ because of the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims,” he recalled. He felt the publicity surrounding the event might help him sell the book.
What he describes as a “desperate” effort to get it published was fruitless until September 2019.
“The deal I made with them was that, if they published the book, and set it up and get everything prepared, I’m a shameless self-promoter and I would go out and promote it like you wouldn’t believe,” Pontz said. “I have been doing that.”
The Cape Cod Guide has printed an article about the book and Plymouth information centers have placed rack carts with his book on it and the See Plymouth website [seeplymouth.com] offers the links for three sources where the book can be purchased, as well an article about the novel. While it is sole nationally, Pontz has done about half his promotion in the Plymouth area.
Available on amazon.com since Feb. 11, the coronavirus interrupted plans for book signings set up in Plymouth, beginning in May, including an event that was to coincide with a wine tasting at the Plymouth Bay Winery. He is working on setting up some virtual author talk events, but has not done any yet because of the way the coronavirus caught everyone off guard.
Born in Holyoke, and a former Plymouth resident for 25 years after his family had moved to Michigan when he was about 6 years old, Pontz said many people he knew there hail from families who have lived there for five to seven generations. He attended Northeastern University before moving to Plymouth. His grown children still live in the Plymouth area.
“Therefore, I was considered a newbie,” he said in a recent YouTube interview for his publisher. “During the time I lived there, I heard all types of stories about people’s families, the history of the area, some of the nuances, some of the mysteries, some things that were said to be true but were never really written down.”
The novel, 12 years in the writing, Pontz began writing down things that reminded him of the area and stories about Plymouth that people told him over the years.
“I realized they didn’t make mush sense even after I put them together, so I tried to rewrite them,” Pontz said in the YouTube interview. He began to recognize that he “wasn’t a very good writer.”
He decided some creative writing courses were in order. Classes through Arizona State University and online programs near his Phoenix home — and reading other authors — put him on the path to finding his process.
When he is ready to write, Pontz said, he has a beginning in mind and knows how it is going to end.
“The stuff in between is the interesting part to me,” he said. “When I read [novels], I see the beginning and I always wonder what’s going to happen next.”
Just as reading a good book can keep you awake, reading late at night, Pontz said writing one has the same effect. It often leads to rewrites.
“The book was written at least three times from beginning to end, and then I began rewriting again after I went back to school,”
he said. He is in writing classes again during the process of writing his follow-up novel.
Also set in Plymouth, it is titled “Blood on the Rock.”
“I’m actually trying to rewrite the book a little bit to include the ‘failed’ celebration, how hard that they worked to make it happen,” he said, noting that Hanson’s 200th anniversary year has also been impacted. “The whole area’s been working on it.”
Plymouth held its first planning meeting for the quadricentennial 11 years ago, and started “pumping money into it” — $40 million worth — six years ago.
Taking the mystery out of writing thrillers
HALIFAX — Mystery writer Edwin Hill is developing a following.
Most of the dozen or so people attending his talk about his second Hester Thursby novel, “The Missing Ones,” had already enjoyed his debut novel “Little Comfort,” and were happy to hear this newest work, too, strays into the realm of the creepy.
“Let me just ask, real quick — and there’s no wrong answer to this — who has read the first book?” he asked. Hands were raised around the room at the Holmes Public Library Saturday, Oct. 5. “A lot of you have already been introduced to the characters. … I have some repeat offenders who have come to see me before, which I really appreciate.”
Thursby, a Harvard librarian who stands all of four-feet nine inches tall, takes care of her 3-year-old niece, her non-husband Morgan Maguire and a Bassett hound named Waffles. She works on missing persons cases in her spare time.
Or, worked in missing persons cases.
“The Missing Ones” makes clear early on that Hester no longer does that kind of work, in fact she’s been avoiding working at all as she struggles from PTSD after a harrowing experience in the first published book.
Picking up 10 months after the end of “Little Comfort,” Hill was determined to reference things that happened in that book while writing “The Missing Ones.”
“Hester had made some pretty serious mistakes in the last book and I wanted her to acknowledge that,” he said. “I also wanted to show she had feelings of having been in a life-or-death situation.”
Hill referenced older books and TV series where the hero is shot in the shoulder in one storyline and it is never referred to again.
“I wanted the books to work together,” he said.
It opens on two small islands off the coast of Maine, loosely based on the real island of Monhegan. The prologue relates a ferry boat accident that caused a 4-year-old to go missing for a time and the island’s constable is at first credited with saving the boy. While he is dealing with town gossip about how that incident played out, another child goes missing.
“I always tell stories from multiple points of view,” Hill said. “In ‘Little Comfort,’ there are five points of view … In this book I used four point-of-view characters.”
He credited readers with suggesting story line changes, including more for Hester’s “not-quite husband” Morgan to do.
A failed attempt at publishing a book in the early 2000s left him discouraged until he found the kernel of an idea in the Christian Gerhartsreiter — AKA Clark Rockefeller — a professional imposter who kidnapped his daughter and was later convicted of murder. By 2012 Hill was back to writing with an agent by 2014 and selling it two years ago.
“You’ll see the seeds of Clark Rockefeller in there, but it’s not completely based on that,” he said.
A library is another source of his inspiration.
Hill’s grandmother, Phyllis Hill was the librarian in Whitman from the 1940s to the late ’60s.
“For a while, she was going to be a chef,” Hill said of Hester Thursby’s day job. “Then I thought she might be a psychiatrist — a lot of mystery series have psychology at their core — but there are a lot of people doing that, and they do it very well, and I thought let’s do something different.”
He said librarians are really curious people, who have resources available to them that are not available to the average person, especially in 2010 when he wrote “Little Comfort.”
He started with a lighter touch, writing that Thursby’s caseload featured whimsical cases such as long-lost prom dates or lost dogs.
“The novels are not light,” he said. “They wound up becoming much darker as I worked on them over time.”
One whimsical touch he retained was making Hester “clinically messy” and Morgan a “neat freak,” along with their caring for Morgan’s twin sister Daphne’s headstrong 3-year-old daughter Kate.
“The novel went through three or four different changes and stopped being funny,” he said. “It’s not funny at all, it’s a psychological thriller.”
“The Missing Ones” carries that theme over, as well. Hill read an excerpt from the book’s first chapter and answered audience questions concerning the researching, writing and publishing process, the challenges of writing a second book, and his third book. Set in Boston, primarily in Jamaica Plain, that book involves a for-profit university and is due out in December.
To flesh out the characters of three individual preschool children, hill put out a Facebook request to parents about what they noticed about their kids as they aged from 3 to 4.
“People were really generous with things they shared,” he said, including how they start to grow into more solidly and that they developed little obsessions.
“They listed off all these different things their kids had been obsessed with — bugs, and counting, Thomas the Tank Engine, and poop and peeing on trees,” he said. “If you have three 4-year-old [characters] they can end up merging together in your mind if they aren’t disinct, so I just assigned each kid an obsession.”
Warm welcome home
BLESS THIS HOUSE: Brian Austin, left, of the New England Carpenters Training Council presented veteran Paul Skarinka with a framed photo of a message from an apprentice inscribed on a partition stud blessing the family’s new home as his wife Jennifer looks on. (Photo by Tracy Seelye)
HANSON — Paul and Jennifer Skarinka received the keys to their new home on Tuesday, April 2. The occasion, exciting for any young couple, was different than most — is a mortgage-free, injury-specific house built through Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors for a veteran injured in action.
“It’s beautiful,” Jennifer Skarinka said. “It’s a dream home.”
“Wow,” Paul, a Plympton Fire Department firefighter-paramedic, said after his family, including children Lilliana and Noah, toured the house. “The carpenters, the Foundation, everyone did an incredible job and it was well worth the wait. It’s truly incredible.”
It was delayed a few months due to record-low temperatures, record flooding, microbursts that knocked out power for nine days, three nor’easters, delays caused by a moratorium following the Merrimack Valley natural gas explosions — and vandalism — but the Hanson community joined builders, trade union representatives and Allen to welcome Skarinka, 39, and his family to his new home.
Skarinka, an Army veteran who lost a leg and sustained severe injuries to his left arm when his unit came under attack on a mission in Sadr City, Iraq in September 2004, said he and his family are thankful for their new home and the help of Hanson police and fire departments after the project was vandalized over the winter.
“I’m just excited,” he said. “I was nervous about moving in — it looks so nice. We’re really going to enjoy this and take a minute to kind of sit back and relax, take it one day at a time and soak it all in.”
Jennifer Skarinka said the house means her husband will be able to find comfort at the end of his working day.
“There’s no more stairs,” she said. “Taking care of other people is strenuous on his body and he gets tired [by the end of his day]. Unfortunately, in the house we were at before, he couldn’t use his wheelchair. …Now he can wheel around without having to worry about bumping into things or getting stuck. It makes me happy that he can live a somewhat normal life.”
Allen, a five-time NFL Pro Bowler, said his foundation is a way to give back to those who defend our country.
“Someone told me a long time ago, you don’t have to have a uniform on to serve your country,” Allen said. “I feel like I’ve been blessed in my life with family and work and all that. I’ve gotten a lot from this country — the ability to be free and play football and live out my dreams — so I think it’s the least we can do to show our gratitude and pay our debts forward.”
Veterans go through an application process and other veterans’ organizations “lead the way” to his program, Allen said. Skarinka also had the good fortune to be a friend of Alex Karalexis, a 1992 W-H graduate and Hanson native, who is executive director of Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors. Veterans have say in where they want their homes to be located and work with architects and designers in creating their homes.
Allen said the vandalism was horrible, setting the project back weeks and costing money.
“We haven’t had that issue before,” he said. “But I think the way the community reacted …”
“This has been a very special project and the community has been behind us from start to finish with all the hiccups that we had in between,” Karalexis said. “The high school football team raised money, local businesses raised money, had signs at the doors and things of that nature.”
The Skarinkas had originally planned on moving in for Thanksgiving or Christmas before the vandalism to windows in the home.
“All that did was galvanize the resolve of everybody who took part in this projects,” Karalexis said of the vandalism and natural disasters that delayed the move-in day. “It really made me proud to be part of this community.”
“This was a wonderful event this morning,” said state Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, whose district includes Hanson. “It’s an amazing show of community for Hanson, but also the broader community, Homes for Wounded Warriors — all the folks who played a role in building this home. As other speakers have said, they built a home, but they also built a community here, that’s what’s most wonderful about this.”
Other Hanson officials present included Veterans Agent Timothy White, Town Administrator Michael McCue, Police Lt. Mike Casey, Fire Chief Jerome Thompson Jr., Deputy fire Chief Robert O’Brien Jr., Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak and Assistant Superintended George Ferro. Several officials from the Plympton Fire Department also attended, wearing their dress uniforms. Several representatives of building trades organizations also attended.
“It’s a great feeling to be able to help out a deserving veteran in the community,” said Harry Brett, of Hanson, business manager of the Plumber’s Union.
“It’s just an honor to be involved in something as meaningful as what this wounded warriors project is all about,” John Murphy, of Braintree, with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. It marked the first Jared Allen Foundation project undertaken in New England.
Brian Austin of New England Carpenters Training Council presented a framed photo of an inscription left by a second-year apprentice on an interior partition stud: “June 7 2018 — To our Warrior and his clan, Thank you for all you have done for our nation. It has been an honor to build this fortress for you all and may many great memories be made in this home. One nation under God.”
The inscription was discovered as repairs were being made two weeks after the windows had been vandalized.
“Minor road bump,” New England Carpenters Training Council representative Paul Gangemi, said of the vandalism to windows in the house. “The important ones they missed. It didn’t stop [us], we kept moving forward.”
The house featured five-foot-wide corridors and five-foot turnaround space almost everywhere inside. Gangemi said his organization had about three dozen volunteers from the council worked on the project.
“All the trades did a good job,” he said. “The painters were all apprentices — you go through that huse, it looks like a professional painter’s job.” rough the spread
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Halifax man charged in Hanson crash
A Halifax man faces charges in connection with a rollover crash in Hanson Tuesday night that caused serious, but non-life threatening injuries to his passenger and himself.
At approximately 8:30 p.m., Oct. 23, Hanson Police received numerous 911 calls reporting a motor vehicle crash in the area of 863 Monponsett Street (Route 58). Upon arrival the officers found that a 2014 Chevrolet Cruze had struck a utility pole and rolled over. The vehicle was traveling south when it crossed the northbound lane striking the pole and rolling over.
The vehicle sustained extensive damage in the crash. A small fire was extinguished by a passerby prior to the first responders’ arrival.
Hanson and Halifax Fire also responded. The road was closed for a short time and National Grid restored power.
The operator, Brian Alden, 36, of Halifax and his passenger Kelly Doherty, 31, also of Halifax both sustained serious but non-life threatening injuries in the crash.
Doherty was transported to South Shore Hospital by Halifax Fire.
Alden initially refused treatment and was taken into custody. Alden was charged with OUI liquor second offense, OUI liquor with serious bodily injury, operating after revocation of license, operating to endanger, and marked lanes violations.
Alden requested treatment later at the police station and was transported to Brockton Hospital. He was later transferred to Boston Medical for further treatment.
He was held on $1,000 bail and was expected to be arraigned Wednesday, Oct. 24 on the above charges.
Your average tough-as-nails … librarian
WHITMAN — The most common image that comes to mind with the phrase “missing persons detective thriller” involve Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade or Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer — hard-bitten tough guys who chain-smoke cigarettes and wear felt fedoras and their .38 in a shoulder holster.
A new novel with Whitman roots in its title, “Little Comfort,” introduces a different kind of detective hero.
She is Hester Thursby, a Harvard librarian who stands all of four-feet nine inches tall — that’s four-feet nine and three quarters inches tall — who takes care of her 3-year-old niece, her non-husband Morgan Maguire and a Bassett hound named Waffles. She works on missing persons cases in her spare time.
Hill is scheduled to talk about his book at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 27 at the Whitman Public Library. He plans to read three excerpts from the book, centering on the three main characters and how they are introduced in the story.
“Hester is tough, she’s smart, she’s resourceful (unlike Rambo, she’s also articulate), but she definitely isn’t feisty,” author Edwin Hill says of his protagonist in his promotional materials. He said he is drawn to characters, especially in movies, that are faced with challenging situations with only their own resolve to make it through.
“I like difference,” he said of Hester’s size. “I wanted something to make sure she never blended in.”
It was an Agatha Christie novel he read on a car trip as a kid that hooked him on mystery novels.
“From that moment on, I wanted to be a mystery writer and it only took me 35 years to figure out how to do it,” he said. A failed attempt at publishing a book in the early 2000s left him discouraged until he found the kernel of an idea in the Christian Gerhartsreiter — AKA Clark Rockefeller — a professional imposter who kidnapped his daughter and was later convicted of murder. There are also facets of the Charles Stuart case in “Little Comfort.” By 2012 he was back to writing with an agent by 2014 and selling it two years ago.
His debut novel, released Aug. 28, traces Thursby’s latest case, a handsome, ruthless grifter whose life goal to be accepted as part of the wealthy class who owned the summer lake houses he grew up cleaning. Sam Blaine uses a secret he shares with Gabe DiPuriso, based on an incident out of Gabe’s foster child past.
A library is another source of his inspiration.
Hill’s grandmother, Phyllis Hill was the librarian in Whitman from the 1940s to the late ’60s.
“Librarians are really central to a community,” he said. “They really were then, too. She created all kinds of programs at the library that people would take part in and she really helped influence people’s futures.”
Mrs. Hill died in 1994 at the age of 99. Her grandson recalled how people came from all over to her funeral and talked about the influence she had on their lives and how she had always welcomed them.
His parents still live in Whitman, where his dad grew up.
While the book also takes the title from Whitman — once known as the Little Comfort section of Abington — but the story is set in Somerville where he grew up. Hill has a Google alert set up on his home computer for the phrase Little Comfort and has collected some unusual headlines.
“I just loved the name,” he said. “I always knew that my first book was going to be called ‘Little Comfort,’ because it’s such a perfect title for a mystery novel. Then I had to work it into the actual story.”
Backstory
The saying goes that one should write what you know and, just as Robert Cormier set his novels, such as “The Chocolate War,” in Fitchburg and Leominster where he lived and edited the local newspaper, Hill leans on his grandmother’s career in the town of his family’s roots for inspiration.
“When I was drafting, I wrote a lot of scenes of [Thursby] at work, but I really wanted the character to be very isolated, it’s central to the plot that she feels very isolated,” Hill said. “I actually ended up putting her on leave.”
In this novel, the first book in a series, she doesn’t go into work to achieve that feeling of isolation. But the Widener Library and her job there will feature in the second and third books in the series. The fifth book in the series is going to be set on the South Shore.
He said readers should be aware this is a story that involves violence and sex.
“This is not a cozy mystery,” he said. “It deals with some uncomfortable situations.”
A hint can be found in Hill’s inclusion of Hester Thursby’s idea of relaxation — retreating to her own top-floor apartment in the multi-family house she owns with Morgan to watch VHS tapes of her favorite movies. Her top 10 titles include “Alien,” “Jaws 2,” “Halloween” and “The Shining” as well as “The Little Mermaid.”
“She loves movies where women overcome extraordinary circumstances,” he said.
He also includes Crabbies — those crabmeat and cheese on an English muffin bites often served at family get-togethers — as part of a suggested menu for book club events. Macaroni and cheese also features as a food of choice for many characters in the book. Whitman groups may also appreciate his suggestion of chocolate chip waffle cookies, which are a tip of the hat to Hester’s beloved canine.
“Anything where you can get crowd sourcing is great,” he said of the recipes.
Does Hill see any of himself in his characters?
“When you write a book of fiction like this, I would say every character is you because they come out of you, and then no character is you at the same time,” he said.
A vice president and editorial director for Bedford/St. Martins, a tech book division of Macmillan, Hill worked on his book early in the morning before work, and in the evenings, at home. But his professional connections would not have helped with a mystery novel, and he was careful not to blur the lines between his profession and avocation in any case.
“It was a long process,” he said of getting published. “You have to be resolved, you have to have grit and you have to be prepared to work through hearing, no.’”
After the major hurdle of finishing a book, comes the work of finding an agent, a publisher and, finally, an audience for your book.
That’s where Hill finds himself now. He has hit the road to visit bookshops and libraries in Brookline, Belmont and Whitman as well as New York City and Austin, Texas. On the day he spoke with the Express, he had just done an interview about the book with a Florida-based podcast.
Diehl: Bring on Warren
By Tracy F. Seelye
and James Bentley
Express staff
Proclaiming it “our moment” and staking out the theme that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren “has let us down,” state Rep. Geoffrey Diehl greeted supporters at the Whitman VFW Tuesday night to bask in his Republican primary win.
His margin of victory was 54.8 percent of the vote compared to 27 percent for John Kingston and 18.1 percent for Beth Lindstrom.
“While Warren has spent the last six years building a national political profile for herself, I’ve been fighting for you, and most importantly, listening to you,” Diehl said after greeting supporters with hugs as the song “This is My House,” by Flo Rida.
He is casting Warren as an out-of-touch person using Massachusetts as a stepping-stone while ignoring the benefit of the GOP tax cut, the need for immigration control and support for law enforcement, and failing her constituents on the opioid crisis.
“I will make the fight against opioid addiction a priority,” Diehl said. “We’re losing about 2,000 people to opioid-related overdoses here in Massachusetts each year. What has Senator Warren done about it? Nothing.”
He also took the opportunity to again underscore that the ballot initiative he backed to repeal automatic gas tax hikes a few years ago has saved Massachusetts residents $2 billion. In Whitman, his hometown, voters gave Diehl 1,361, according to unofficial tallies at the close of polls with Kingston receiving 76 and Lindstrom 65 of the 25.3 percent of 10,684 registered voters casting ballots. In Hanson, with 21 percent of the town’s voters casting ballots, Diehl had 789 votes to 107 for Kingston and 57 for Lindstrom.