This photo by James Peavey shows what was
    probably the biggest "event" in Hopedale, in
    March 1950. Click here to see the story.

    Thanks to Tom Bair at the Upton History Museum for this
    bill sent by Draper Corporation. Adjusted for inflation,
    $9,066 in 1929 would have the value of about $136,770
    now. Receiving payments for bills was probably about to
    get difficult, with the stock market crash just a couple of
    months in the future.

Hopedale - March 2020


February ezine - Hopedale in 1920, Part 2  

March ezine - Hopedale in 1920, Part 3   

Hopedale in February 2020  

Hopedale in March 2019  

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No, not in Hopedale. Lewis Hine child labor photos.

Early birds - Hopedale Pond - March 1.

March 4.

From the Hopedale Bulletin Board Facebook page.

March 5

    March 5 - 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

    From History of Massachusetts Blog -The name ‘The
    Boston Massacre” is only a recent nickname. Paul Revere
    nicknamed it the Bloody Massacre in King Street (the
    former name of State Street) after the deaths and during
    the early 1800s it was known as the State Street Massacre.

Adin Street

Hopedale Pond, March 6.

From the Milford Daily News, March 7. Click here to see articles.

March 7 - The G&U track bed looking toward the Hopedale Street bridge.

Then and now - the Maroney's Grove fireplace/shelter.

    Here are more of the words that were
    first in the Merriam-Webster in 1970.
    .

    Here's a fascinating page with the title, Inside the Colorful,
    Hypnotic World of Textile Mills, with photos taken in mills in
    New England and Pennsylvania  that are still in business.

Thank you, DJ.

    Unloading rails, ties and ballast near the Sacred
    Heart parking lot to extend the G&U tracks to Milford.

Posted on Facebook by Don Howes.

The 1918 flu epidemic - see what happened in Hopedale.

Here's another page about the epidemic in Massachusetts.

    Most flu deaths in Hopedale in the 1918 epidemic occurred in
    September and October. Probably those deaths with pneumonia
    given as the cause were actually caused by the flu.

    The Toilet Paper Apocalypse. That's one term I've heard to
    describe it. This picture, taken on March 16, is from Price
    Chopper in Hopkinton. There were empty spots on all the
    other shelves, but the paper aisle was the only aisle that
    was wiped out, so to speak.

    Pictures above and below were sent by Miriam Grillo
    Loiselle. Miriam also sent others from the 1960s
    and1970s, including one of a soapbox derby race, one of a
    blueberry pie eating contest, one of Father O'Brien, and two
    class pictures. Click here to see them.

    The lawns have been continually
    getting greener for the past week or
    more, but on the 17th I looked out to
    see them all white. I guess it would
    be too much of an exaggeration to call
    it the St. Patrick's Day Blizzard.

    March 17 - I took this picture about two hours after
    the ones above, and by then the green was
    showing again.

March 18

    Wash your hands. How germs spread - an interesting
    simulation. Thanks for sending, Ted. For those of you who are
    more interested in playing games than worrying about viruses,
    he also sent this Where's Waldo, and the one below that.

    The Swift Family mausoleum (often referred to as the Judge
    Swift tomb) at St. Mary's Cemetery in Milford. After hearing a few
    days ago that  it was no longer there, I asked Anne Lamontaigne
    and Mike Danello what had happened. They said it had been
    found to be deteriorating and the cost of repair would have been
    around $100,000.

    Yes, that's the judge and family to the right. Thanks to Anne for
    the three photos.

Here's some good advice from a Facebook posting.

From the April 2020 issue of Smithsonian.

    Here;s a little of the history of toilet paper, and what was used before that wonderful invention,
    sent by Mike M.

    In the early 1900s, Wisconsin’s Northern Paper Mills reportedly boasted of its super-refined
    toilet paper, which was free of minute wood pulp splinters left over from the papermaking
    process.

    By 1943, its toilet paper was advertised as “soft and oh so gentle.’’ Not so the products of the
    distant past. The Romans used a sponge on the end of a stick, according to British writer
    Richard Smyth’s history of toilet paper. The use of corncobs is apparently no myth. In an old
    poem attributed to the writer James Whitcomb Riley about the demise of the outhouse, the
    author recalls the discomfort of using one in winter:

    The torture of the icy seat would make a Spartan sob

    For needs must scrape the goose-flesh with a lacerating cob

    That from a frost-encrusted nail hung pendant by a string.

    My father was a frugal man and wasted not a thing.

    When it came to paper, anything handy might be used, including pages of literature. Smyth
    quotes a verse from an anonymous author:

    There was a young fellow named Chivy

    Who, whenever he went to the privy,

    First solaced his mind,

    then wiped his behind

    With some well chosen pages of Livy.

    Work next to the Sacred Heart Church parking
    lot on the G&U extension to Milford, - March 23.

    A little snow fell on this spring day of March 23. It's
    warm enough so that it's melting on the streets. The
    snow was gone by the next morning.

Site of the now razed Swift mausoleum.

Below - Signs of the times.

Visiting at Atria by phone and window.

    Every day for the past week, Hopedale Street by the pond has
    looked like this, lined with the cars of Parklands walkers.
Takeout and delivery only.

    Above, left - from Greene Street.

    Above, right - By Sacred Heart parking lot,
    looking toward Milford.

    Both pictures taken on March 30.

Click on the headline to see the article on this site.

 Click here to see it on The Globe site   

    April 14, 1970 -  A tragic drowning in Milford - the Cyr brothers, by Mike Cyr.
    Warning - it's a every bit as sad as the words "tragic drowning" suggest.