News!
Barbara Luksanen Gill Scholarship Awarded
The Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives awards the yearly $1,000.00 Barbara Luksanen Gill scholarship to a graduating Sandwich High School senior who has been accepted into a college/university and who exemplifies, through written essay, an understanding of the vast history of Sandwich. Money for the scholarship is acquired through donations and fundraising. This year, Kelly Broder, a senior at Sandwich High School, has been awarded the Barbara Luksanen Gill scholarship. Ms. Broder was chosen from amongst the applicants and will receive a $1,000 scholarship. While at Sandwich High School, Ms. Broder has been a member of the National Honor Society, the Rho Kappa Social Science Honor Society, has compiled an impressive academic career and been an active volunteer participant in several community service projects. This fall Ms. Broder plans to attend Boston University to study Journalism.
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Barbara Luksanen Gill was a native of Sandwich as were many generations of her ancestors. She worked at the Sandwich Town Archives for a total of 40 years and retired in 2016 after many years, having assumed the position of Town Archivist.
About the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives
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The purpose of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives, also known as FOSTA, is to provide funding support to the Archives for the preservation of the Town’s historical manuscripts and photographs and assist in various ways to extend the Town Archives’ usefulness and accessibility to the community. The support includes programs, equipment purchases, environmental maintenance and fundraising for the Barbara Luksanen Gill Scholarship.
Archival Monthly Newsletters
April 2023 Newsletter
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Welcome to winter again, or shall we say, our delayed winter? Does anyone remember that some years ago there was a movie out called “The gods are crazy?” Well that is the way I feel about this weather. Of course it seems to us that the weather broadcasts out of Boston forget about Cape Cod. Oh, they mention us in one big lump of “Cape and Islands.” They don’t even say Upper Cape or Lower Cape. So, I depend on the little drawings in the Cape Cod Times read on line thru the generosity of the Sandwich Public Library, to give me a clue as to the expected weather on Cape.
Have you checked out FOSTA website lately? www.fostasandwich.com Joanie Osgood has posted a new oral history done a few years ago by Bill Daley, of “Aunt Caddy” as she is known to all, (Catherine) Ellis Currier. Aunt Caddy is the aunt of our FOSTA member, Kathy Ellis, and a presence in Jarvesville forever. Carolyn Crowell, who lives in Cape Heritage Nursing home since she lost a leg and Aunt Caddy, and Charlotte French Hart are the last of their class to survive. They are all 96 and still sharp! Good genes.
Joan has arranged with Tales of Cape Cod to loan us their old oral history tapes and FOSTA has funded what I call the remastering (fixing up) of these old tapes
so we are able to bring them to you on our website. What a gift they are! Just fascinating old stories of life in Sandwich almost 100 years ago. All this is possible through your generous donations to FOSTA. The re-mastering of these old tapes takes time and money.
As I mentioned last month, we will be kicking off our annual fund-raising campaign soon which enables us to bring all this history to you. We are going to try a money saving email campaign to those of you who have been kind enough to supply us with your email. Postage is expensive these days as I am sure you know. While we do not have charge card links for donations, if you do not wish to send a check, you can use pay pal. All that will be explained in our appeal material.
Additionally, it is time for our beloved long-time archivist Barbara Luksanen Gill annual scholarship kick off as well. The application form is available in the office of the Sandwich High School Guidance Department. While the amount of the scholarship is not large, Barbara insisted that it be given directly to the wining Sandwich high school student and that he or she could use that money in any needed.
We appreciate your support to save and preserve Sandwich history.
Kaethe O. Maguire
March 2023 Newsletter
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Welcome to winter again, or shall we say, our delayed winter? Does anyone remember that some years ago there was a movie out called “The gods are crazy?” Well that is the way I feel about this weather. Of course it seems to us that the weather broadcasts out of Boston forget about Cape Cod. Oh, they mention us in one big lump of “Cape and Islands.” They don’t even say Upper Cape or Lower Cape. So, I depend on the little drawings in the Cape Cod Times read on line thru the generosity of the Sandwich Public Library, to give me a clue as to the expected weather on Cape.
Have you checked out FOSTA website lately? www.fostasandwich.com Joanie Osgood has posted a new oral history done a few years ago by Bill Daley, of “Aunt Caddy” as she is known to all, (Catherine) Ellis Currier. Aunt Caddy is the aunt of our FOSTA member, Kathy Ellis, and a presence in Jarvesville forever. Carolyn Crowell, who lives in Cape Heritage Nursing home since she lost a leg and Aunt Caddy, and Charlotte French Hart are the last of their class to survive. They are all 96 and still sharp! Good genes.
Joan has arranged with Tales of Cape Cod to loan us their old oral history tapes and FOSTA has funded what I call the remastering (fixing up) of these old tapes so we are able to bring them to you on our website. What a gift they are! Just fascinating old stories of life in Sandwich almost 100 years ago. All this is possible through your generous donations to FOSTA. The re-mastering of these old tapes takes time and money.
As I mentioned last month, we will be kicking off our annual fund-raising campaign soon which enables us to bring all this history to you. We are going to try a money saving email campaign to those of you who have been kind enough to supply us with your email. Postage is expensive these days as I am sure you know. While we do not have charge card links for donations, if you do not wish to send a check, you can use pay pal. All that will be explained in our appeal material.
Additionally, it is time for our beloved long-time archivist Barbara Luksanen Gill annual scholarship kick off as well. The application form is available in the office of the Sandwich High School Guidance Department. While the amount of the scholarship is not large, Barbara insisted that it be given directly to the wining Sandwich high school student and that he or she could use that money in any needed.
We appreciate your support to save and preserve Sandwich history.
Kaethe O. Maguire
February 2023 Newsletter
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We all know that old cliché about New England weather, “If you don’t like the weather? Wait a minute.” Well, of late that could not be truer. I watch the TVs news every early morning and by the time it is over, interrupted by too many ads, I am so confused of where that snow to rain line actually is!
It seems the weather is a daily surprise. At least we are not buried in snow as we were in 2015. That is about the best news I can muster weather wise.
Part 3 of the remembrances of Leavitt Crowell that he wrote and mailed to his cousin, Carolyn Crowell, in the late 1990s will be up on the FOSTA website and in the Sandwich Enterprise soon. For March Joan Osgood has prepared an article on World War One and Sandwich.
On a brighter note, FOSTA has completed the digitizing of the old Village Broadsider, the bible of town news for many of us for decades. We were able to complete this task with a grant from the Community Preservation Committee, using CPA funds. You can see these historic newspapers here at the FOSTA website. This has been a project long wished for by FOSTA but did not move ahead on account of lack of funding.
This small group of volunteers work hard to preserve the historic assets of your town and to make those assets available to the public for free.
By the way, we will be releasing our annual appeal for funding help very soon. We hope you will be able to be generous. Every dime goes to the preservation of your Town Archives.
Kaethe Maguire
January 2023 Newsletter
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It does seem like January may be coming in like a lamb temperature wise, but after spending Christmas in Concord, MA where winters are harsh compared to Cape Cod, I am ever vigilant to grab that scarf and gloves just in case. I know it was cold here too, but the winds made the 12 degrees in Concord feel like minus 12! I could not live there in my old age now!
Well, if you have seen the New Enterprise of Friday, Dec. 30th you saw the FOSTA, yes, it is FOSTA which is applying for the CPA grant, not the Library where the Archives are housed, to digitize the Sandwich Enterprise from its first issue in 1997. This has been on my wish list for ages. Not only are these pages full of solid Sandwich News, but they also include years of John Nye Cullity’s Cedarville Journal, a treasure chest of information about Sandwich. It will be fun to re-read all those stories. We have had quite a few old Sandwich newspapers digitized now and they are all available for free through the FOSTA website and the SPL site under “Archives”.
By the way, we are looking for a couple of Sandwich history loving people to join our small group of Board Members for FOSTA. We have had great success, and all the work is truly a labor of love as the cliché goes, but we do need a bit more help in order to properly function and spread the responsibility to keep our organization vital and up to date.
If you are interested, you can contact me at Kaethe@comcast.net. We meet on the third Tuesday of the month in the Macknight room of the Sandwich Public Library at 1pm and I provide a goodie for munching and you can feel free to bring a beverage. I would suggest you go to our website at www.fostasandwich.com for a better introduction to who we are and what we do.
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Wishing everyone a safe and healthy New Year.
Kaethe Maguire