Plympton-Halifax-Kingston Express

You are here: Home / Archives for Tracy Seelye Express Editor

Halifax’s Aubrey is new SSVT head

By

HANOVER — The job title and office are new, but South Shore Tech Principal Mark Aubrey, 49, is a familiar face at the school where he has been a teacher or administrator since 1999. Following a lengthy interview process, he stepped up to the principal’s office to succeed Margaret Dutch, who retired at the end of the 2017-18 school year.

“This is where I belong,” Aubrey said. “I’m a believer that, if you’re a good teacher you can teach anywhere, but to be a great teacher you have to be in the right place.”

The son of a Greater Lowell Tech graduate, Aubrey — who was born in Montana while his father served in the Air Force — is a believer in the benefits of a vocational education.

Like his WHRHS counterpart Dr. Christopher Jones, he did not set out after graduating from high school to become a teacher. Aubrey initially wanted to become an architect, but his experience as a youth sports coach made him realize that teaching and connecting

Sharing their gift of faith: McEwans’ courage vs. cancer offers inspiration

By

WHITMAN — Less than a month before his death from cancer on May, 15, 2013, Dr. John F. McEwan was thinking of the pain of others in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, assuring their friends and loved ones that faith would help see them through a dark time.

Such events, much like chronic illness “remind us that life is precious and our lives can suddenly change in a moment … you do have the opportunity to evaluate what is important in your life and how you choose to spend your time,” he and his wife Margaret wrote in an email to family and friends on April 20, 2013 — five days after the attack.

An organ donor, he wanted to share that life with others after he was gone, just as he had in his career in education. At first, the family was told that his cancer made that impossible, but a call from the New England Organ Bank advised them that his corneas could and would be used to help two blind people — who could now see the world through his eyes.

“This was the final gift of John’s legacy,” Margaret P. McEwan wrote in a May 18, 2013 email.

It turned out to be a premature coda to that legacy.

Those emails, written faithfully — in every sense of the word — to help inform and bouy the spirits of others during the illness faced by the retired Silver Lake and W-H superintendent of schools, have been used as the framework of a new book by his widow, “Every Day Is a Gift: A Couple’s Cancer Journey,” [201 pages, trade paperback, 2018 SDP Publishing ISB 978-0-9992839-8-1 eBook ISBN 978-0-9992839-9-8], for which she shares author credit with him. The book is locally available at Duval’s Pharmacy in Whitman as well as online through Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble and SDP Publishing Solutions.

“It all started because he was working at W-H and he had so many people … interested in his progress that I sent out emails the entire time he was being treated,” Margaret said in an interview at her home Thursday, June 21. The emails were frequently passed along to friends the initial recipients thought might be interested in reading them. Several people who read the emails later urged her to consider writing a book.

“People were very interested in knowing how things transpired,” she said.

The title is a nod to an inspirational sign John had received as a gift from his Administrative Assistant Michelle (Kelley) Lindberg while he worked at WHRSD.

“When I was trying to think of a title for the book, I thought, ‘That was always our philosophy,’ because we felt very fortunate in our marital relationship,” Margaret said. “That’s the way he was.”

John was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma in 2008, when he had a spot on his scalp examined. While not a textbook “outdoorsman,” he did like working in his yard and never wore a hat when doing so, Margaret said.

“John always said ‘Things don’t happen for a reason — you find a purpose for why things happen.’ I finally thought that maybe I wrote all these emails so that I could compile them and make a book about his journey,” she said. Also included in the book are letters he wrote to W-H staff even before his diagnosis, to illustrate his long-held positive outlook to readers.

“He really believed that you really needed to do what you could in order to bring joy into other people’s lives,” Margaret said.

John McEwan began his career as an English teacher and later as a principal at Silver Lake Regional High School, W-H superintendent from 2001-09 and the first lay president of his high school alma mater Cardinal Spellman.

“It was something he took great pride in being able to do because he was very committed to trying to give back,” she said of the Spellman position.

Initially given a prognosis of six months to a year, John lived for five years in his cancer battle and never stopped working until his health forced him to give up the Spellman presidency in March 2013.

They had also done the traveling they had planned for their retirement years — to China, Rome and the Amalfi coast, a Baltic cruise, the Canadian Rockies and Yellowstone — during his illness.

“We attribute that to fortunate proximity to hospitals in Boston where they do clinical trials,” she said of her husband’s long-term battle.

When she got to work on the book, Margaret had one main request to the publisher, referred by her friend, Kathleen Teahan, whose book, “The Cookie Loved ’Round the World,” they published: “Do not edit the emails.” John was an English teacher, she reasoned, and if he dangled a participle — leave it dangling.

She said people who knew John say they hear his voice in his writing. Her accompanying narrative took about a year to write, submitting it on his death anniversary of May 15, 2017 with the goal of publication this May 15 to mark his fifth anniversary year, and was successful in reaching that goal.

“The idea was to provide other people with hope and give purpose to whatever their journey is,” she said. “You hope that in living your life — even if it’s under a cloud — you can find joy every day. … It’s work, but he always said you can choose your attitude.”

The book is also a gift to the couple’s grandchildren, who were very young, the oldest being 8 and 6, when John died so they could get to know their grandfather.

The writing process also helped Margaret grieve and she had Dana-Farber’s Director of Bereavement Services Sue Morris, PsyD, and IMPACT Melanoma Executive Director Deb Girard read advance copies for feedback on the book.

“Margaret captures the essence of living well with cancer,” Morris said. “A must read for families and clinicians.”“I believe anyone finding themselves on the cancer journey can identify the roads that Margaret and John traveled together and find tidbits of solace, grace and hope to journey down their own roads,” Girard wrote.

W-H named its performing arts center in John’s honor in 2014. Margaret McEwan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in food and nutrition, was a registered dietitian and first female vice president of Shaw’s Supermarkets, from which she retired as vice president of corporate communications in 2004.

But is it safe?: Officials urge caution on ponds, prep for new snow

By

After several days of frigid weather, people have been venturing out on ice-covered ponds and bogs to play hockey, figure skate, fish or run all-terrain vehicles. While ATVs are generally not permitted on public land in any weather, local fire chiefs warn that outdoor ice is never “100-percent safe.”

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) agrees that “the only ‘safe’ ice is at a skating arena” because frozen bodies of water can be dangerous.

“With the cold weather we’ve had, a lot of people want to get out on the ice,” Hanson Fire Chief Jerome Thompson said Tuesday morning. “We get a lot of phone calls [but] we can never say that the ice is 100-percent safe because there’s several factors like currents, waterfowl being on it or fish  or stumps … all kinds of different things can affect it.”

“There’s always a concern for ice thickness,” said Whitman Fire Chief Timothy Grenno. “There’s many areas that have open water.” Like Hanson, Grenno’s department does not make general statements concerning the safety of ice on ponds in town.

“We just tell people to use their best judgment and, if there’s open water, then the pond should be deemed unsafe.”

Thompson referred to MEMA’s ice-thickness guidelines that suggest four inches of ice for fishing, five inches can hold a snowmobile and eight to 12 inches a vehicle and 12-15 inches for a pickup truck. His department does not check ice thickness on area waterways.

“You need to keep in mind that, just because it’s eight inches in this spot, it might not be eight inches in that spot,” Thompson said. “We recommend if you do go out, you don’t go it alone. You should always have somebody with you and you should pay attention to your surroundings.”

Generally, ice that forms on moving water (rivers, streams, and brooks) is never safe, according to MEMA. Ice freezes and thaws at different rates and the thickness of ice on ponds and lakes can vary depending on water currents, springs, depth, and natural objects such as tree stumps or rocks. It can be a foot thick in one area and just inches thick a few feet away. Daily changes in temperature also affect its strength. Because of these factors, no one can declare the ice to be absolutely safe.

Fire Chief Jason Viveiros doesn’t believe there is any safe ice on Monponsett ponds.  Because those ponds are fed by springs, the water temperature varies and ice thickness is affected by underwater currents.  Areas of open water were still evident on Tuesday, despite the record low temperatures.

MEMA offers the following tips to follow before venturing out and what to do if you or someone you are with falls through the ice.

Before going
on the ice

• Look for slush, which can indicate that the ice is no longer freezing so you face a greater risk of falling through.

• Beware of snow-covered ice. Snow can hide weak and open ice or cracks.

• Test the ice strength. Use an ice chisel to chip a hole through the ice to determine its thickness and condition. If it is two inches thick or less, stay off.

• Never go on ice alone. Another person may be able to rescue you or go for help if you fall through.

• Keep pets on a leash when walking them near bodies of water so that they don’t run onto the ice.

If someone falls through the ice

• Do not go out onto the ice to try to rescue a person or pet.

• Reach-Throw-Go: Try to reach the victim from shore. Extend your reach with a branch, oar, pole, or ladder to try to pull the victim to safety. If unable to reach the victim, throw them something to hold onto (such as a rope, jumper cables, tree branch, or life preserver). Go for help or call 911 immediately.

• If you fall in, use cold water safety practices: Try not to panic. Turn toward the direction you came from and place your hands and arms on the unbroken surface, moving forward by kicking your feet. Once back onto unbroken ice, remain lying down and roll away from the hole. Crawl back toward land, keeping your weight evenly distributed.

• If you can’t get back on the ice, use the Heat Escape Lessening Position (HELP): Bring your knees up toward your chest. Cross your arms and hold them close to your body. Keep your legs together. Try to keep your head out of the water. Do not try to swim unless a boat, floating object, or shore is close by. Swimming in cold water cools your body and reduces survival time.

Helping a victim when out of
the water

• Get medical help or call 911 immediately. The victim needs help quickly to prevent hypothermia.

• Get the victim to a warm location.

• Remove the victim’s wet clothing.

• Warm the center of the victim’s body first by wrapping them in blankets or putting on dry clothing.

• Give the victim warm, non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated fluids to drink.

• Place the victim in a warm shower or bath with their arms and legs out of the water to warm the core of the body.

Thompson said his department has not had to yet deal with burst pipes or other frigid weather problems, even as they responded to a Mutual Aid fire call in Pembroke on New Year’s Day.

Heavy turnout gear keeps firefighters warm on cold-weather calls, but there is also a rehab truck available through the Department of Fire Services to provide a heated area in which firefighters can warm up. The Highway Department can also be called in to sand and salt, helping to reduce the likelihood of falls on the ice.

Towns are also keeping an eye on weather forecasts to determine how they should approach a severe winter storm forecast for Jan. 4.

Preparations for Thursday’s storm were well underway on Wednesday, when Viveiros told the Express he had been in several meetings to be sure the town is ready to help its citizens.  If there is a widespread power outage, the Halifax Elementary School will be opened as a warming center where people can go if they are without heat.  Should the power stay out for several days, Halifax and Plympton will go to Silver Lake Regional High School. 

“I think we’re as ready as we can be,” Viveiros said.

“Right now, they still don’t know what it’s going to do,” Thompson agreed. “I’m sure that MEMA will be giving us some updates as we get closer. We check our equipment daily, so we’re all set.

Fire departments also work closely with senior centers to obtain lists of elderly residents who may need assistance in weather emergencies.

Former State Rep. Teahan launches new cookie book

By

WHITMAN — It’s not often that a children’s book author draws a large adult audience for a story time reading, but Kathleen Teahan’s new book “The Cookie Loved ’Round the World” is not your average children’s book.

The story of the chocolate chip cookie’s beginnings in Whitman also brought out local history buffs, former Toll House Restaurant waitresses and past customers of the restaurant that burned down in 1984. Children attending sat at Teahan’s feet, munching Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, from packages handed out by library staff as she and her illustrator Larisa Hart spoke at the Monday, Aug. 21 event in the Whitman Public Library’s Community Room.

After her talk they waited in a long line to purchase copies of the book to be signed by Teahan, a former English teacher and state legislator, and Hart, who is a former Whitman-Hanson Express graphic designer.

“Who remembers when the Toll House was standing in Whitman?” asked Youth Services Librarian Stephanie Young as some of the older audience members raised their hands.

“I didn’t grow up around here, but actually, it burned down before I was born,” she said to some laughter as she introduced Teahan.

“It’s very exciting to be back in Whitman,” Teahan said, recalling when the library was located in Town Hall. “Before I talk about the book, I’d like to talk about the cookie — how many people in this room like chocolate chip cookies?”

Almost every hand in the room shot up at the question.

“Looks like just about everybody,” she said. Teahan also provided some chocolate chip cookies factoids:

• The largest ever baked was a 40,000-pound biscuit made in 2013 in North Carolina as a fundraiser for a folk art museum;

• Americans eat 7 billion chocolate chip cookies every year — the number one variety;

• The chocolate chip cookies was first baked in Whitman in the 1930s.

“Whitman is a very special town and a town we should all be proud of because of that,” she said. “It also has a lot of other things we should be proud of.”

Her book is a “fictionalized history” narrated by Teahan’s real-life Aunt Ann, who grew up in Whitman and worked at the Toll House. Teahan’s research took her to historical societies, universities, libraries and personal information with which she was familiar.

Hart followed with a brief talk on the illustration process.

“We just met a couple years ago,” Teahan said. “It was the luckiest thing that could have happened.”

Hart compared their partnership to meeting a new kid in school who became your best friend.

“When you make a book it’s not just you working on the book,” Hart said with a laugh. “You have other people who work for the book company, so every illustration had seven versions of it.”

She told the children that, while they may color some pictures quickly, bigger and more detailed pictures could take more time.

“That’s what I learned while doing this book,” Hart said. “You can work on something and work on it for a long time, but if you believe in yourself … your perseverance will pay off.”

As she read the book aloud, Teahan interjected background information on the story and how she came to write it. For example, as children, Aunt Ann and her brother would sell daily newspapers and their grandmother’s homemade doughnuts to help the family pay bills after their father lost his Fall River shipyard job during the Great Depression.

“No matter what was happening, they didn’t give up,” Teahan said of the family’s resilience. “I bet you guys don’t give up when things are tough — you just keep trying and practicing and eventually you get it.”

The book also relates one version of the story behind Ruth Wakefield’s invention of the Toll House chocolate chip cookie. There are evidently at least three versions, Teahan said.

A batch of cookies ordered for a wedding reception was jeopardized by a shortage of walnuts, as the food supply was often undependable during the Depression. Wakefield substituted small pieces of Nestlé bittersweet chocolate, which she had on hand — but the morsels did not melt in baking.

“Everybody in the kitchen gave two thumbs-up to the cookie,” Teahan said adding that Wakefield’s request to Nestlé for chocolate that was easier to chop up led first to scored bars and eventually to today’s bag of semi-sweet morsels.

“The Toll House is on the front of the bag so everybody who buys this gets to see something about Whitman,” she said as she held up a package of morsels. “They also get the recipe. So Mrs. Wakefield put Whitman on the map.”

Even noted war correspondent Ernie Pyle was a fan, writing in 1938 that “Ruth Wakefield can cook ‘by ear.’ Or by taste, I suppose you’d call it. She can taste a strange dish, and come home and recreate it with every ingredient in proportion.”

Pyle’s columns, and Nestlé advertisements, advocating the inclusion of the Toll House cookie in packages to WWII troops overseas helped spread the cookie’s fame.

The book concludes with the project by a 1996 project by third-graders at a Somerset school, which won Official State Cookie designation by the state Legislature.

Biting back against tick threats

By

He started off by saying that even the Dalai Lama hates ticks. While that is difficult to verify, it could be true — but Buddhist teaching frowns on the killing of any living thing.

By the end of entomologist Larry Dapsis’ talk “One Bite Can Change Your Life,” at the WHRHS Performing Arts Center Wednesday, June 28, one could assume few came away with a Buddhist outlook on the issue of ticks and the infectious diseases they help spread, but they had some advice on how to prevent being bitten.

“This is a beautiful summer evening, and I can’t think of a better way to spend it than by having a very robust discussion of infectious diseases,” he said.

The talk, sponsored by the Plymouth County Beekeepers Association focused on protecting oneself, one’s yard and pets from pathogens that cause Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis relapsing fever and Powassan virus carried by ticks found in the region. Dapsis holds degrees in environmental science from Fitchburg State University and in entomology from UMass, Amherst. He has worked with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Service for six years and 24 years in the cranberry industry with Ocean Spray before that. He stressed that, prior to joining the Cooperative Extension Service, he had little experience with ticks.

“I had a very vertical learning curve,” he said. “To address that, I read everything I could get my paws on, and talked with a ton of people. I had to figure out what the landscape really looked like.”

Even the word “tick” elicits a visceral response from people.

“When I say people hate them, I mean everybody hates them,” he said invoking the Dalai Lama. “When a gentle soul like the Dalai Lama turns his back on a form of life on this planet, that is a headline.”

Dapsis said the Dalai Lama had tweeted out his disdain for ticks a few years ago. True or not, who could blame him?

The six New England states rank in the top spots on most lists for the incidence of Lyme disease in the United States over several three-year average studies.

“If there is any question that we are living at Ground Zero with this problem, this should take it off the table right away,” he said.

While Barnstable County used to regularly rank at the top for Lyme in the state, Plymouth County has overtaken Barnstable in that statistic.

Part of the credit for Barnstable’s improvement has been its aggressive work against the Lyme vector.

He has advocated the hiring of an entomologist for Plymouth County, and that position has been budgeted with the expectation that one should be hired by this fall.

During a question session after his talk, Dapsis was careful to point out he is not qualified to answer medical questions, but focused on how the insects spread diseases. While he focused on deer ticks, Dapsis noted that climate change has brought more aggressive pests such as the Lone Star tick — which hails from Texas as the name implies — and the illnesses they carry.

“We’re seeing plants and animals where we never used to see them before,” he said, noting that three years ago, the first established population of Lone Star ticks was found on the Massachusetts mainland at Sandy Neck Beach Park in West Barnstable.

Samples from the six-mile stretch revealed that Lone Star ticks “own that area” which is in a migratory bird flyway.

The concern with the Lone Star ticks is that they can see prey and run toward it, unlike the blind deer tick that has to “quest” for hosts on the end of vegetation.

“This is an aggressive biter,” Dapsis said of the Lone Star, known for laying eggs in clusters of thousands which hatch into hard-to-see nymphs that stick together. “Within minutes you can get overwhelmed with hundreds of bites and the older stages are also very aggressive. … They can run with spider-like speed. If they can see you, they’re going to chase you.”

The main danger of the Lone Star tick is that it spreads diseases such as erlichiosis and other illnesses, an http://www.tickencounter.org/images/Amblyomma_americanum.jpg can trigger a red meat allergy.

That includes any foods, including marshmallows, made with red meat or its components.

“This can range from hives to anaphylactic shock,” he said.

Once attached to a host, all ticks secrete a glue-like material to hold themselves in place until its feeding cycle, which can last for days if not detected and removed, is complete.

That cycle includes the secretion of anticoagulants into the host to ease feeding on blood as well as agents to deaden nerves to help prevent detection.

Some animals like mice, rabbits and birds known as competent hosts can harbor the Lyme disease bacteria and transfer it back into the tick population. People are among the incompetent hosts that cannot infect a tick, but are a food source for the insects.

How to protect yourself?

Dapsis advocates the liberal use of insect repellent since the highest rate of Lyme is among children ages 5 to 9 and in the senior population, who have the time to be outside. New England winters are not harsh enough to harm ticks in the winter and synthesize glycerol, a natural anti-freeze, to protect them from the cold.

Repellants are the first line of defense.

Dapsis is not a fan of all-natural products because they are not always EPA-registered. Products with DEET, eucalyptus oil or, to his preference — permethrin — which is used for treating fabric and footwear.

“It’s a real attitude adjuster,” he said. “This is the most effective tool in the box.”

Products like K-9 Advantix or Frontline or tick repellent collars can help protect your pet from the vectors. Check with your vet to determine what is best for cats.

Removing a tick should be done with pointed tweezers, grasping the insect at the head easing it out backwards.

“If you crush that tick, you just might give yourself a nasty infection,” Dapsis said. “A tick gut is full of microbes.”

Most people flush the tick down the toilet.

Instead, keep the tick, date it, and if possible send it to a lab such as the entomology department at UMass, Amherst (see tickreport.com) to determine what microbes it might be carrying. You may not test positive for an illness a tick carries, he said, but it is a “starting point for a conversation with your doctor.”

Tale of a storied cookie

By

The Toll House cookie is now the subject of a children’s book currently in preorder status and due for publication in June.

“We’re getting excited because [publication] is getting close,” Whitman native and author Kathy Teahan said Monday. “It’s just such a huge part of the history of Whitman and Ruth Wakefield is such an amazing woman for fulfilling her dreams.”

Based on the true story of how Wakefield created the now-famous cookie at the Toll House Restaurant, “The Cookie Loved ’Round the World” relates “how … a cookie took hold of the people of Whitman, the state of Massachusetts, and the rest of the country,” according to the presale page of East Bridgewater based SDP Publishing Solutions (sdppublishingsolutions.com/bookstore).

A portion of the sales will be donated to groups dedicated to fighting world hunger, but Teahan has not yet decided which ones.

“We are blessed to have so much food, for the most part, in this country, but there are still a lot of people struggling both here and all over the world,” she said, adding her book touches on the issue in places. “I’m hoping to educate kids and have some of the money from the profits go toward helping that issue.”

Teahan said she wrote the book to inspire young people to follow their dreams.

“The story about Ruth Wakefield and her cookie expresses how hard work and perseverance can make good things happen,” she said.

Teahan said the way the cookie, included in packages from home to overseas troops during WW II, was inspiring in the way it became an international hit.

A retired teacher and state legislator, Teahan worked as a salad girl at the Toll House Restaurant after the Wakefields sold the restaurant — one of her summer jobs to pay for college. Two of her aunts had also worked there and Teahan uses one of them as the book’s narrator.

She has always been interested in writing, having her eighth-grade classes write picture books for third-graders during her teaching days at the Gordon Mitchell Middle School in East Bridgewater. Teahan also taught English at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School.

Teahan began work on the book by “jotting down things that I knew” and doing online research. John Campbell and the Whitman Historical Society and former Toll House waitresses were also key resources.

Drawing conclusions

The book is illustrated by former Express graphic designer Larisa Hart of Duxbury. It is Hart’s first outing as a book illustrator but says it won’t be her last.

Brimming with ideas for her own book eventually, Hart says she’d take on more projects like this one “in a heartbeat” and related how the opportunity came about.

“Kathy came into the office one day,” Hart recalled. “I’m not sure how she met [Express Newspapers owner-publisher] Deb [Anderson], but she knew Deb and she was saying she needed an illustrator for the book.”

The plan was that Teahan’s son, Bob, would illustrate. When his work schedule interfered, she needed a new illustrator and mentioned it to Anderson while the two were discussing plans for their 50th high school reunion. Teahan and Anderson graduated W-H together in 1965.

“I mentioned that my son wasn’t going to finish the illustrating process because he didn’t have time,” Tehan said.

Anderson knew that Hart was also an artist and suggested her to Teahan, a suggestion Hart says changed her life. After Hart sent some samples of her work to be reviewed by Teahan and the book editor, she started a new artistic adventure in which she had to translate the story to full-color drawings.

“I really loved her work,” Teahan said of sample sketches Hart provided for her to review. “She’s such a good person and her pictures are wonderful.”

Hart said the author and editors provided direction, which she let “steep” to help her  figure out how to incorporate the directives into a picture.

“Each illustration goes through almost seven phases starting from a thumbnail sketch and different sketches to line art and to colored art,” she said of the 16 illustrations she did. “It was pretty intensive.”

While illustrating the book, she was also starting a very technically exacting new job.

“It was a lot of work, but it was well worth it,” Hart said. “I got better and was more confident as I went along on each of the pictures, so it’s been amazing.”

It has also translated into a new skill for its illustrator.

The Wacom tablet on which she is working, allows Hart to paint in images with a pressure-sensitive stylus for a watercolor effect.

“I’m able to make a realistic-looking watercolor painting using layers and layers of color in the illustration,” she said. “I’ve [also] worked with editors before, but not as critiquing my art — they’re lovely to work with and Kathy has been so gracious, so supportive.”

Teahan is self-publishing through SDP Publishing Solutions because she had doubts about the potential popularity of the book, but added the initial feedback she’s been getting is encouraging.

“I feel like it was meant to be,” Teahan said. “Our history for such a long time didn’t include the women who made such a huge impact and did so many outstanding things.”

Teahan, who now lives in Harwichport, is also planning a memoir of her term as a state legislator and other children’s books as future projects.

Author honors heroic sacrifice of WWI nurse

By

WHITMAN — Sometimes a muse finds their writer — and won’t let go until their story is told.

For retired Falmouth nurse Terri Arthur, British nurse Edith Cavell was one of these muses.

“Edith who?” one might ask.

Cavell’s work, dedication to humanity and determination to save the lives of about 200 British soldiers in German-occupied Belgium during World War I, led to her Oct. 12, 1915 execution by firing squad when the Germans caught up with her. The only woman so executed by the enemy during that war, Cavell’s death became an emotional recruiting tool for the British Army and launched a letter-writing campaign by American women’s groups to President Woodrow Wilson that is now recognized as a first step toward American involvement in WWI.

“Her death was [headlines] in every country all over the world,” Arthur said. “When they saw the headlines on Edith Cavell … [women’s groups] took her on as a cause celebré and they inundated Wilson with letters.”

In a way, Cavell’s stated life’s goal may have foreshadowed the circumstances of her death.

“Someday, somehow, I’m going to do something useful, something for people,” Cavell once wrote. “They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.”

But who was Edith Cavell?

That question took Arthur on a journey of coincidental events that led her to write “Fatal Destiny: Edith Cavell, World War I Nurse,” [2015, $19.95, HenschelHAUS Publishing], a book so well received in Britain that she was asked to adjust spelling and syntax for a British edition.

Arthur’s visit to the Whitman Public Library’s Local Author Series on Monday, Nov. 10 traced both Cavell’s story and how she came to write it. The Friends of the Whitman Public Library fund the series.

“It’s time to resurrect Edith,” Arthur said. “She has a message for us today. She showed courage and strength at a time when it was very difficult to do.”

Arthur began her talk with an anecdote of how DNA left in bloody fingerprints by ancient native peoples who constructed New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon settlements helped answer some questions about possible connections to other Anasazi dwellings in the region.

“The person I’m going to talk about today also left her fingerprints in history, but she’s been basically forgotten, like those builders were forgotten,” Arthur said. “It’s time to bring Edith back.”

The centennial of Cavell’s execution was observed last year and the centennial of WWI is ongoing through Nov. 11, 2018.

For Arthur, the journey began with one of those nursing-related gifts many nurses receive and are never sure what to do with: a book titled “Postcards of Nursing” by Michael Zwerdling. She finally leafed through it on a stormy night and ran across postcards depicting Edith Cavell, some of which depicted her death and images of the Grim Reaper. She read an outline about Cavell in the back of the book and was “blown away.”

“How is it that I, as a nurse, had never heard about this nurse?” she said.

It launched her on a search for information, which led her to others whose response was “Edith who?” Even during a trip to the UK, where she made a special trip to the memorial statue to Cavell in Trafalgar Square, Arthur was unable to find anyone staffing tourist gift shops nearby who had heard of Cavell, either.

Arthur then made a side trip to Cavell’s burial site in  Norwich where, as fate would have it, the city’s cathedral was holding a 90th anniversary service for Cavell the next day — Oct. 12, 2005.

A BBC reporter caught the sound of Arthur’s American accent and asked what brought her to the event.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m a nurse and I believe that what Edith Cavell did really represents nurses in every country,’” Arthur said, adding the next thing she new, she was being interviewed for BBC-TV news.

Arthur was hooked.

“I don’t know who got who first,” Arthur said. “I don’t know if I got Edith Cavell first or if she got me first, but after that, I was hooked.”

Arthur’s research took her from the Imperial War Museum, where she was able to purchase copies of Cavell’s letters, to Belgium, the Royal London and the Brussels Hospital named in honor of Cavell as well as the Tir National Prison where Cavell was executed.

Before she began writing, however, Arthur also had take classes in creative writing techniques such as finding the voice of a narrative and setting the pace.

The eldest daughter of an Anglican minister, Cavell studied nursing at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel about the time of the Jack the Ripper murders, because that section of London was where she felt she was needed. She worked there until she was asked to begin a nursing school in Brussels in 1907. She had worked in Belgium before as a governess.

When WWI broke out in August 1914, Cavell was visiting her family in England but felt it was her duty to return to Belgium. The Germans occupied Belgium, reaching Brussels by Aug. 20, 1915. Since September 1914, Cavell had been helping smuggle British soldiers into the Netherlands after initially caring for two wounded British soldiers who had sought her out. She took them in despite signs posted by the Germans all over Belgium warning of the fatal consequences of helping allied soldiers escape.

She was arrested with 33 others on Oct. 5, 1915 after a German spy had infiltrated the underground, was tried for treason by a German court martial on Oct. 7 and executed on Oct. 12, 1915.

After the war, she was exhumed by the British and returned to England for a state funeral in Westminster Abbey [a rare film clip of which may be viewed at iwm.org.uk] and reburied at Norwich Cathedral. Her pallbearers included soldiers she had saved.

Since writing her book, Arthur has been the only American invited to participate in anniversary ceremonies for Cavell in both Norwich and London.

Taking time to Honor Veterans

By

Veterans were honored in Halifax Friday morning with a brief but solemn ceremony outside the Halifax Town Hall on Route 106, and the Third Annual Veterans Breakfast held earlier in the week,  showing the town’s gratitude for service to country.

Selectmen Troy Garron and Kim Roy took part in the parade behind the Halifax Police Dept. Color Guard, Boy Scouts and Fire Department.  The procession took them across the way to the monument dedicated to Halifax’s fallen at the intersection of Plymouth St. and South St. where a wreath was laid in their honor.  From there, the procession went back at where a wreath was also placed on the large rock on the Halifax Town Green, a gift of the Halifax Grange #253 in 1949, engraved with “Honoring Those Who Served.”

David Walsh, Commander of the Halifax VFW Post 6258, praised veterans and their service to their country.

Halifax veterans were also treated to the Third Annual Veterans Day Breakfast at the historic Pope’s Tavern on Monday morning, November 7, put on by the Halifax Council on Aging.  COA Director Barbara Brenton was pleased with the turnout.  “The dining room was full.  We served about 22 breakfasts.”

In addition to the good meal and good company, Greg Brasso, host of the WATD radio station’s “Veterans’ Voice” Thursday night program, spoke for almost an hour, answering questions from the veterans there, giving them ways to navigate through the process of applying for and receiving state and federal benefits, programs, and services for which they might be eligible.

Brenton is looking forward to next year, when the senior center might have additional capacity to serve even more!

Driving us buggy Gypsy moths begin egg-laying

By

Motorists may have noticed lately that they’ve been driving through flurries of moths on the region’s roadways — the latest stage of what entomologists are calling the worst gypsy moth infestation since the early 1980s.

Those moths are now laying masses of beige eggs before they die off, leading experts to fear a worse infestation next year.

Hanson and Kingston are among the state’s communities seeing spotty damage from the moths that, in their caterpillar stage, can irritate more than one’s nerves. Tiny hairs on the caterpillars can cause skin irritations for some with allergies.

There may not be much one can do to combat them at this point, however.

“It seems like the consensus is that, because we’ve had two very dry springs in a row, the fungus Entomophiaga Maimaiga … needs a lot of moisture to get going and it has to happen early enough in the season — a nice, wet April and May,” said Tawny Simisky an extension entomologist specializing in woody plant entomology with the UMass, Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. The fungus is a natural enemy of the gypsy moth caterpillar that winters over in the soil and is most effective when it can get into the caterpillar population at an immature stage.

“Although we did see some of the fungus this year and we’ve had more reports recently about the fungus, it didn’t get kicked up into the population soon enough — or early enough — back in April and May,” Simisky said. “We didn’t have enough rain to have the fungus do enough damage to the gypsy moth caterpillars.”

Now the male moths are flying about seeking females with which to mate, as the females do not fly.

“They [caterpillars] were able to eat quite a bit,” Simisky said, noting her office has received a lot of reports about defoliation. “Unfortunately, we do not map it, but I do have some lists of towns [where damage has been reported].”

spotty damage

Besides Hanson and Kingston, there have been reports of spotty damage in, but not limited to, Sturbridge, Monson, Uxbridge, Brimfield, Charlton, Northborough, Westborough, Plymouth, Carver, Wareham, Sharon, Winchendon, Framingham, West Bridgewater, Braintree, Rowley, Georgetown, Ipswich, Newbury, Boxford, Topsfield, Gloucester, and Wrentham have reported continued and elevated caterpillar activity paired with defoliation this spring.

“Defoliation (mostly oaks) was observed by motorists driving in certain areas on Route 3 (Plymouth area), I-495 (Acton, Littleton, and Worcester areas), and the Mass. Turnpike (I-90) near Charlton. However, there have been multiple reports of gypsy moth caterpillars having fed on pines and spruce this season,” according to the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment’s periodic Landscape Message. A lot of calls were also received concerning the sound of caterpillar waste — known as frass — falling from the trees.

“It’s psychologically difficult for people to deal with, it seems,” Simisky said.

what to do?

What is a homeowner to do?

Some extension services across the country have suggested soap and water as an acceptable method for removing egg masses within reach. But Simisky said that is not a very effective method, instead recommending horticultural oil applied by a licensed company.

Simisky said each cluster laid by gypsy moths contains 500 or more eggs.

“Where folks are seeing a lot of egg masses being laid right now, that’s a likely sign that next season they’ll have a lot of gypsy moths again, unless we have a wet spring,” she said. “I’ve been advising folks to make their management plans now.”

The horticultural oils suffocate the egg masses, while soap and water requires one to scrape the egg masses into a container of the solution.

“That is really, I think, futile, labor-intensive work,” Simisky said. “You have to be able to reach every single egg mass and getting good coverage with those horticultural oils can be difficult, too.”

That’s where a Massachusetts-licensed pesticide applicator is important in targeting host trees that are covered in egg masses early next spring.

According to UMass entomologist Dr. Joseph Elkinton, Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.), a low-toxicity pesticide option that only acts on moths and butterflies may be sprayed on susceptible host plants (such as oak) when gypsy moth caterpillars are still small and feeding. The compound is created from a naturally occurring bacterium that is relatively safe for other beneficial insects, but can harm pollinating butterflies.

“It is derived from a bacterium specific to that group of insects and is considered to be safe for people and pets,” Elkinton stated in a recent article. “There is nothing that can be done now to manage the adult moths.”

Wrapping trees in foil — as was the common “remedy” for saving trees from caterpillars in the 1980s infestation — is also considered ineffective today, Simisky said.

When Maura went missing

By

In 2011, an out-of-work journalist named  James Renner began searching for Maura Murray.

While he didn’t find her, he has drawn his own conclusions about her disappearance and, in the process of writing a book, he has found himself while getting “lost” in the case.

The book, “True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray,” [Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 280 pages, $25.99 hardcover] goes on sale Tuesday, May 24.

“It’s been a long time coming, for sure,” Renner said last week. “I hope the book eventually brings some sort of closure to Maura’s case. At the very least, I think it will advance the story and bring up some new clues and information.”

The same week Facebook was launched in 2004, Murray disappeared. Renner has termed the case one of the first unsolved mysteries of the social media age.  In fact, he leaned heavily on a small army of Internet sleuths — which he dubbed My Baker Street Irregulars, after the poor street kids who fed information to Sherlock Holmes. Renner’s Irregulars lived online, reading blogs, surfing sites and even trolling him. They helped pose questions, interpret information and notice overlooked clues.

The trolls also second-guessed him, sniped at his plans to write a book and, in one case, cyber-stalked him. Maura’s father Fred did not cooperate with Renner on the book.

At the time Murray vanished on Feb. 9, 2004, Renner was a reporter for alternative weeklies in northeastern Ohio. By 2009, the fallout from his coverage of an Ohio state senator at the center of a sex scandal had cost him his job and he was looking for a new story.

True crime seemed a natural draw for him.

At age 11 he had fallen in love with the photo of missing Amy Mihaljevic. The obsession led him to his career as an investigative journalist and a struggle with PTSD. By 2011, Renner told his counselor he was ready to delve into another mystery.

The new mystery he was ready for was Maura Murray. While conducting his investigation, there were mysteries in his own life to confront: the truth about his grandfather, the violent tendencies his son was beginning to display and Renner’s own impulses.

Chapters in “True Crime Addict” jump between Murray and Renner’s own demons — “Being a true crime addict is not a good thing and  I learned this the hard way,” as he says.Renner spoke about the book with the Express by phone from his Cleveland home on Friday, May 13.

Q: Why the Maura Murray case?

A: “I was looking around for a big case, something national. I was a reporter in Cleveland for about seven or eight years and I had written about some famous cases from the northeast Ohio region. I looked around for a while — I’m always drawn to the cases that are difficult, if not impossible, to solve. What I find interesting is that it’s actually kind of a double mystery. Number one, what happened to Maura, but number two is, what was she doing in the White Mountains to begin with? I think if you can find the answer to one of those questions, you’ll get very close to the solution to the other question. I think I have an answer as to what was she doing in the White Mountains. I believe she was running away, I believe she was looking to start a new life and to put the people that treated her wrongly in her rear-view and not look back.

Q: It seems certain that people will read it expecting some kind of break in the case. What do you want readers to get out of it?

A: “I think there are quite a few new pieces of information in the book and new clues. I think the takeaway here is that Maura, like everyone else, was very complicated. She had her secrets, she had her skeletons and the question is whether or not those contributed to what happened. I think for sure they did. There were some things that hadn’t been reported — the fact that when she disappeared, she was in trouble for credit card fraud and identity theft.”

Q: What were your reasons for being so frank about your own family’s past?

A: “I wanted to explore why I was so fascinated with these true crime cases and what led me into that career as a true crime writer. That made me take a good, hard look at my own life and, of course, looking at it objectively now, I can see that the story about my grandfather and who he was — what he did and how I learned about all that when I was 11 years old — certainly had an impact. All these bad guys that I’ve been chasing after since I was 11, they’re my grandfather. I could never go after him, so I looked elsewhere. As I was uncovering Maura and her personal demons I thought it was only fair to share mine as well.”

Q: How do you think Maura’s case has been handled?

A: I think the police did their due diligence. When they found her car up there, it certainly looked like a DUI. The car had run into a snow bank, there was wine spilled on the inside … they see that kind of thing all the time, so I think they treated it correctly at the time. Now, a day later when the owner hadn’t come to collect the car and they start to put together that it was Maura who was driving, then it becomes a missing persons case. The [N.H.] State Police were actually in the air with helicopters. … The family’s always been critical of them, but I think they did all right.”

Q: How do you assess your methodology? Would you have approached it differently if you had it to do again?

A: “Looking back I think it happened organically, the way it was supposed to. These pieces are always different. The family could have been more helpful. Fred was the first person I contacted indirectly and he made it clear through family members that he did not want a book written about this case, so that was always a difficulty. But over the course of a few years I did manage to speak with every member of the Murray family except for Fred.”

Q: You describe this as the first major missing person case of the social media age — has social media really been any help or does it do more to hinder cold cases like this?

A: “It’s certainly a double-edged sword. Social media is more helpful to these cold cases than anything, the fact that you can reach practically every person on the planet. You can get the information out to anybody and they can, in turn, find you. It’s a wonderful tool for journalism. With that also comes the anonymity of the Internet and that allows these dangerous people to mask themselves and threaten you from afar. It’s the worst of the worst and the best of the best.”

Q: How can social media be better used in crime investigation?

A: “I think police should be using social media. In fact over the last year or two, the U.S. Marshals have reached out to me and asked me to help them with getting some of the cold cases they’ve worked on out into social media through Reddit and Twitter, online message boards and things like that. So I know bigger agencies are really paying attention to it and trying to use it as a tool for investigation, too. It’s remarkable what’s possible with it.”

Q: Your title: “True Crime Addict” — does it still apply? Toward the end of the book it seemed you might be turning away from all that.

A: This is the last big crime story I’ll work on, at least for the foreseeable future until my kids are grown up. It does take you to a dark place and what I’ve discovered through the course of this book is the fact that I was addicted to true crime, not just true crime, but “addict” extends to my own life, the fact that I learned through the course of this that I was an alcoholic, I was addicted to prescription medication. These true crime stories are and addiction, just like anything else. Once you realize that it’s unhealthy, then you need to start taking action and get it out of your life.”

Q: What’s next for you?

A: “I’m concentrating on novels and screenplays. I’m adapting my first novel (“The Man From Primrose Lane”) into a television series right now. It’s a murder mystery about an out-of-work reporter who tries to solve an old cold case — write what you know.”