Memory surfing
Town by town, website collects stories for history 'portrait' -- and Quincy is next
Family photographs usually stay tucked away in scrapbooks, shoe boxes, or picture frames that are seen only by friends, relatives, and maybe a few co-workers. The Massachusetts Memories Road Show is setting out to change that, town by town.
This ambitious local history project -- sponsored by the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities -- has created an online database where people can share their family photos, and the stories behind them, with the world.
Taken together, those family memories will form a community photo album in cyberspace, and eventually "a self-portrait of Massachusetts" will emerge, says Joanne Riley, director of the Massachusetts Studies project at UMass-Boston.
So far, Massachusetts Memories Road Show has traveled to Dorchester, Norwood, and Roxbury to gather photos and stories. This weekend, it's Quincy's turn.
At each event, people get their photos and documents scanned on the spot, so they don't have to part with their originals. The digital copies are then indexed by name, date, and location and added to the online database. Participants can also contribute to an oral history video project and talk about their family's history -- where they emigrated from, where they settled, and why -- on camera.
So far, hundreds of images have been collected, and profiles of various towns have begun to take shape. The organizers plan to hold scanning sessions in all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Once complete, the project will allow Massachusetts residents to view local history online in a way that is both broad and deeply personal, with familiar names, faces, and places. It will be something that families can use as a point of reference for generations, with each family having the option of being a contributing author of that collective picture.
Quincy residents are invited to bring their family photographs and documents to the Thomas Crane Public Library on Saturday so they can be scanned into a computer and added to the website, massmemories.net.
Quincy public schools will be getting involved later this year. Sixth-graders will learn how to scan and archive photographs, and similar photo-scanning events will be held at every middle school in the city.
Paul F. McCarthy, 82, a Dorchester native and longtime Quincy resident, plans to contribute some family photos that were taken around his neighborhood in Wollaston. He picked out two photos that were taken in 1992: one of his granddaughter, Christine Caples, on the corner of Fenno Street and Quincy Shore Drive; and the other of his late wife, Alice McCarthy, in Caddy Park with Black's Creek marshes in the background.
McCarthy has already contributed other photos to the project, and his contributions are among the 390 photos that can be viewed online at the Mass. Memories Road Show website.
The oldest date to the 1860s, and the more recent photos were taken last year. There are Little League team photos, wedding photos, newspaper clippings, marriage certificates, vaccination records, and military records.
A 1945 photo shows Frank Cofsky standing outside his business, American Lunch, at 1212 Washington St. in Norwood. He stands proudly on the sidewalk, dressed smartly, his shirt collar open, and his left hand in the pocket of his jacket. A Pickwick Ale sign hangs in the storefront window. He opened his restaurant and bar in the 1930s, and it was a neighborhood institution in South Norwood. A florist is now located there.
There's a political advertisement for Norwood resident George A. Sullivan Jr.'s 1960 bid for the 2d Norfolk district seat in the state Senate. It shows him and his family in a photo, with the slogan: "I represent those building the STATE of the FUTURE (not the vested interests)."
There's a black and white photo of Agnes Wellbrock, taken in South Weymouth on a sunny day in 1922. She is wearing a long patterned dress and wide ribbon tied around her waist and standing outside on a wooden bridge or dock in South Weymouth.
Quincy library director Ann McLaughlin recently learned that her father was featured in the Mass. Memories Road Show collection. She started browsing through the collection and paused when she came across one particular photo: a black and white image was from a booklet about the William G. Walsh American Legion Post 369 in Dorchester.
It showed 13 young men in uniform standing at attention, with white rifles at their sides, and the caption read: "color guard preparing for 1949 Memorial Day Parade in Dorchester. Group is led by color sergeant William J. McLaughlin."
She recognized one of the men immediately -- it was her father, William McLaughlin. It was a pleasant surprise, because no one from her family had contributed any photos. The Walsh Post photo came from McCarthy.
Now McLaughlin is thinking about submitting some images to the online database.
"It's great to keep these stories alive," she said.
Connections like these will happen more often as the photo collection continues to grow, according to Mass. Memories Road Show organizers.
Said Riley: "That's the kind of thing we'll be seeing more of."
Quincy photos can be shared with the Massachusetts Memories Road Show on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room at the Thomas Crane Public Library in Quincy Center. 