November 18, 2024, 5:30 PM
Holyoke Public Library Community Room
A House in Holyoke Through Time: The Lovering School
with Robert Comeau
Join us for Robert Comeau’s third annual talk on A House in Holyoke Through Time. This year, Bob explores the varied history of 250 Pleasant Street, which was home to a private school for children in the Highlands and later a private residence. Free and open to the Public.
Polish and Eastern European Immigration in the Industrial Era- Holyoke & Western Mass
Saturday, October 26, 2024
1:00 PM
Holyoke Public Library Community Room
Missed the talk? View the recording here.
Thank you to Holyoke Media for recording this event!
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people from Poland and other Eastern European countries immigrated to Western Massachusetts in significant numbers. Many in the upper Pioneer Valley farmed the rich soils in Franklin and Hampshire Counties; others came to work in the mills and factories in Holyoke and Chicopee.
Join us as Robert Forrant, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, brings his expertise in the history of labor, industrialization, and de-industrialization in New England to the topic of Polish immigration to the area. The talk also explores the hostility encountered by early generations of Polish immigrants to the U.S. and the often difficult conditions of life and work in their new home.
Free and open to the public.
(Left: Robert Forrant; Right: From the Grzesik family photograph collection at the Holyoke History Room.)
The Massachusetts Academy of Ballet will again offer a special preview of their annual Nutcracker Ballet with our historic Library as a backdrop. The brief performance--complete with costumes and music--was a huge hit last year! Free.
10:00 AM: Take-and-make gingerbread house kits (while supplies last!)
10:00 AM - 11:30: Enter to win a set of 4 tickets to the full Nutcracker performance on Dec. 14
10:00 AM: Storytime in the Children's Room
11:00 AM: A Nutcracker Preview
11:20 AM: Instant Portraits with the dancers from the Ballet (while supplies last)
11:30- ?: Seasonal Crafts in the Children’s Room
DIY Holiday cards and Crafts in the Teen Room (drop in all day)
Missed the talk? View it here. Many thanks to Holyoke Media for making this possible.
Missed the talk? View it here. Our thanks to Holyoke Media for recording it!
Considered by many to be the greatest American architect of the 19th century, Henry Hobson Richardson and his firm were commissioned to design more than two dozen railroad stations, many along the east-west line of the Boston & Albany Railroad. Only one, his 1885 Holyoke Passenger Station, was completed in his lifetime on the north-south line between New York and Montreal (the Connecticut River Railroad). When rail passenger service to Holyoke was abandoned nearly 80 years later, the station was altered into automobile parts and machine shops.
It sat empty for decades until local businessman David White bought the building in 2021, "tired of listening to people complain 'Someone should fix it before it falls down.'" His takeout restaurant and Choo Choo's Ice Cream shop will open on the site this Spring. Dave's friend Will Melton will tell the story of Richardson and this architectural commission.
This is Will Melton's third history talk for Holyoke Public Library. He retired in 2015 after four decades in university and museum fund raising to devote time to gardening, his mandolin ensemble, and history studies and writing. Liberty's War, An Engineer's Memoir of the Merchant Marine 1942-45, which he published in 2017, is available from U.S. Naval Institute Press, our library, and the C/W MARS library consortium.
Blue Ghost: A helicopter pilot writes home from 1968 Vietnam
As a child, Holyoke native Tom Pueschel (1945-2019) dreamed one day of flying. What he didn’t know was that he would learn to fly, during his 423 days as helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. His letters home, published in 2023, capture “a raw, unfiltered journey that navigates not just the perils of war but the emotional and ethical turbulence that comes with that.” Join us in on November 9 in the Community Room at 4:00 PM as Tom’s brothers and sons read from his letters and share stories of his life. A recording of this event is available here.
A House in Holyoke Through Time: 159 Chestnut Street, a talk with Robert Comeau
The elegant building at 159 Chestnut turns 155 years old in 2023. It was once the home of James Newton of the entrepreneurial Newton brothers and later the Holyoke Club. It is currently the Holyoke Day Nursery. Come learn about the biography and residents of one of Holyoke’s oldest homes in this second annual “House through Time” presentation by local historian Robert Comeau. In the Community Room.
Missed the talk? View it here.
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