Author: K.C. DeWall

Postcards from Falmouth: Greetings from Camp Cowasset

Posted on by K.C. DeWall
Before there was Wild Harbor Estates in North Falmouth, there was Camp Cowasset, a girls’ summer camp.   
 
According to The Book of Falmouth, the camp offered horseback riding, sailing, swimming and crafts to about 100 girls each summer, including Robert Frost’s daughter.  The campers slept in tents, and were required to bring “two pairs of black serge bloomers and six pairs of black stockings.” Activities also included dinner at the “French  table,” where only French was spoken and where Madame Mensendieck stressed correct posture, which  was thought to bring “health and poise to the growing girls.”
 
Featured in the Falmouth Historical Society’s Legendary Locals of Falmouth, the camp was owned and managed by Beatrice Hunt, or “Miss Bea,” from 1915 to 1962.  In fact, the Historical Society acquired a collection of Camp Cowasset memorabilia in 2016.  The collection includes the personal diary of camper, Miriam Thomas, who describes “her struggles with horseback riding and hijinks with her cabin-mates.”
 
Nous ne pouvons pas attendre l’été! 
 
Do you know anyone who was a Camp Cowasset camper? Contact us!
 
To see more historical postcards of Falmouth, visit our digital collection.
 

Teaticket Inn: Best Cooking on Cape Cod

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

“Long before there was Falmouth there was Teaticket.  ‘Tataket’ was the name the Wampanoag Tribe gave the area.  It translates roughly and appropriately as ‘at the principal tidal stream.'”  The Book of Falmouth

…and some might say that the Teaticket Inn was the “principal” inn for many traveling gourmands.  Owned by Joseph and Margaret (Pherson) Fish, the Inn was “a favorite stopping place” for travelers and drummers [sales people] who made the Inn their “home,” and who “greatly relish[ed] the good things prepared by ‘Aunty’ Fish as she was affectionately called.” In fact, Mrs. Fish was described in The Enterprise as the “best cook on Cape Cod,” who was “reputed to serve a hearty meal and plenty for seconds or thirds or more.”

Do you know any stories about Tataket back in the days of the Teaticket Inn?  Contact us!

#postcardsfromfalmouth

POSTCARDS FROM FALMOUTH: Falmouth Center’s First Post Office

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

Falmouth’s first post office was established in 1795 in the home of the Palmer family (built in 1768). According to The Enterprise, the first postmaster was Jonathan O. Freeman, followed by Joseph Palmer.  (Palmer Avenue is named after Mr. Palmer’s father, the Reverend Samuel Palmer.)  During this time, the mail arrived in town by a stage coach and was heralded by a trumpet.  Residents would “stroll by the postmaster’s home and glance at the front window to see if letters awaited them.” 

The historic postcard, pictured here, of the first vine-covered post office was mailed in 1913 for a penny. At that time, E.C. Swift was the postmaster, and the post office was located in the old Masonic building on Main Street.  The greeting on the back of the postcard reads as follows: “Dear Mother–Time goes so fast the week is [almost] gone.  Every one is well.  Auntie says you must come down.” 

Subsequently, Falmouth’s central post office had several locations around the Main Street area but ended up at its current location at 120 Main Street in 1940. In celebration of the new building, the postmaster, Charles E. Morrison, announced that there would be tours of the building and a parade down Main Street.  The festive occasion was followed by a banquet at the Village School cafeteria that offered an “elaborate menu” from a Boston caterer.  Tickets were limited to 300, and were being sold for $1.50.  The celebration culminated with a dance in the Hall School gymnasium.

Click here to view the full collection of historic postcards.

 

 

 

Postcards from Falmouth is a local history project awarded to the Falmouth Public Library through a Library Services and Technology Act Grant, administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.  The project is based upon the Anita Gunning Postcard Collection and theRobert C. Hunt, Jr. Postcard Collection.

 

Celebrating the Postcard!

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

Starting this October, the postcard celebrates its 150th year and what better way to celebrate than to introduce POSTCARDS FROM FALMOUTH, a special local history project of the Falmouth Public Library that is based upon our historical postcard collection of noted buildings, landmarks, and locations within the town of Falmouth.

Introduced in 1869 as a way of sending a simple message, postcards quickly evolved beyond their practical purpose to become the universal souvenir that brightens everyone’s mailboxes.  Today, however, postcards also provide us with rare glimpses into the past and serve as a way of documenting history.

That is why we jumped at the chance when we saw the opportunity for a grant to develop projects that use historical documents–such as our historical postcard collection–to discover unknown facts and stories about Falmouth during days gone by.  After all, to collect, preserve, and share such resources is what the Falmouth Public Library has been doing since 1792!

Over the next two years, the Library will be working on creating an oral history based upon the two postcard collections generously given to the Library by Anita Gunning and Robert C. Hunt, Jr..   

So take a look at the postcards and be sure to follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

Just search #postcardsfromfalmouth 

We’ll keep you posted!

 

POSTCARDS FROM FALMOUTH is made possible through a Library Services and Technology Act grant,  which is administered through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Library’s Historical Documents are Digitized

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

The preservation of the Falmouth Public Library’s historical documents is now complete.

Through a grant by the Falmouth Community Preservation Fund in 2010 , the Library was enabled to rebind documents and records dating back to 1792.

Recently, the collection was digitized by the Digital Commonwealth, a non-profit collaborative organization that helps Massachusetts libraries create, manage, and disseminate  cultural heritage materials.

The collection may be viewed in full on the Internet Archives.

Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

It is always a pleasure to catalog the works of local authors, and Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama is no exception.  Recently interviewed by Ken Gartner for The Enterprise, Mr. Turkington points out that his book is not simply about growing up in Falmouth; he does, after all, portray life in mid-20th century America, a time in history when families watched television together and  kids ran around freely and played throughout the neighborhood until the dinner bell rang.  Indeed, Before I Forget portrays a time when the pace of life seemed to pass so much slower—perhaps even for noted local runners such as Turkington and Gartner!

However, for those who are interested in local history, Turkington’s chronicles reference many of the unique characteristics of bygone Falmouth: the Fire Station whistle and the raft at Surf Drive Beach, to name just two.  In fact, for those who did grow up in Falmouth years ago, reading Before I Forget will certainly be a nostalgic walk down Memory Lane, as well as Scranton Avenue and Mill Road.  To be sure, whether remembering such teachers as Miss Mullen with her red hair and purple outfits on the Village School playground or reminiscing about Mr. Kalperis (also known as “Kalpy”) and the Lawrence High School track team; Turkington’s memoir not only depicts what it was like growing up during the fifties and sixties, but it also offers a rare glimpse into what it was like growing up in Falmouth, glimpses that may not be included in local history books and therefore often do run the risk of being forgotten.

Best of 2016: NEW Fiction at FPL*

Posted on by K.C. DeWall
FICTION Hawkins The Girl on the Train
FICTION Child Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel
FICTION Baldacci The Guilty
FICTION Connolly A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller
FICTION Lowell Perfect Touch: A Novel
FICTION McLain Circling the Sun: A Novel
FICTION Sparks See Me
FICTION Steel Undercover : A Novel
FICTION Gerritsen Playing with Fire: A Novel
FICTION Atkins The Redeemers
MYSTERY Maron Long Upon the Land
MYSTERY Connelly The Crossing: A Novel
MYSTERY Parker Robert B. Parker’s the Devil Wins: A Jesse Stone Novel
MYSTERY James You are Dead
MYSTERY Penny The Nature of the Beast
MYSTERY Kellerman Breakdown: An Alex Delaware Novel
MYSTERY Cleeves Harbour Street
MYSTERY Evanovich The Scam: A Fox and O’Hare Novel
MYSTERY Evanovich Tricky Twenty-two: A Stephanie Plum Novel
MYSTERY Olson Hidden
SCI FI Cline Armada: A Novel
SCI FI Chu Time Salvager
SCI FI Jemisin The Fifth Season
SCI FI Martin A Game of Thrones
SCI FI Scalzi The End of All Things
SCI FI Martin A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
SCI FI Corey Nemesis Games
SCI FI Higgins Lightless
SCI FI Sandford Saturn Run
SCI FI Abercrombie Half a War
LP FICTION Baldacci Memory Man
LP FICTION Coben The Stranger
LP FICTION Blume In the Unlikely Event
LP FICTION Hawkins The Girl on the Train
LP FICTION Hilderbrand The Rumor: A Novel
LP FICTION Patterson 14th Deadly Sin
LP FICTION Thayer The Guest Cottage
LP FICTION Connelly The Crossing: A Novel
LP FICTION Moyes The Ship of Brides
LP FICTION Clark The Melody Lingers On

*Based upon titles checked out.

NEW Titles on the Social Sciences: Groups of People, Social Processes, and Culture and Institutions

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Check out these titles recently added to the NEW section:

On Social Processes [303’s]

303.48 BIN  Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost its Mind and Found its Soul, by Clara Bingham.

Woven together from one hundred original interviews, Witness to the Revolution provides a firsthand narrative of that period of upheaval in the words of those closest to the action–the activists, organizers, radicals, and resisters…

On Groups of People [305’s]

305.42 WHA  What I Told My Daughter, edited by Nina Tassler.

Tassler has brought together a powerful, diverse group of women—from Madeleine Albright to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from Dr. Susan Love to Whoopi Goldberg—to reflect on the best advice and counsel they have given their daughters either by example, throughout their lives, or in character-building…

305.896 FIR  The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin’s 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

On Culture & Institutions [306’s]

306.0948 PAR  The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, by Ani Partanen.

Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships—parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens.

306.768 STR  Transgender History, by Susan Stryker.

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.

Whether You’re Anxious or Mindful, a Gardener or a Carpenter; These Titles May be Just for You…

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…and they all start with Dewey Call Numbers in the 150′s and are located in our NEW Non Fiction section!

Check out these titles on psychology:

152.46 BOY  The Four Gifts of Anxiety : Embrace the Power of Your Anxiety and Transform Your Life, by Sherianna Boyle, MEd, CAGS.

Unlock anxiety’s powerful gifts!

It’s time to break free from the tight grip of anxiety and live the life you’ve always wanted. The Four Gifts of Anxiety shows you how to tap into the power of your anxiety and reveal its gifts of resiliency, hope, empathy, and purpose. Filled with exercises, meditations, and reflection prompts, this book teaches you how to access these positive attributes…

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­153.35 GRA   Originals : How Non-Conformists Move the World, by Grant Adam.

The television show “Seinfeld” was a flop with its pilot episode. It didn’t conform to the standard family situation comedy that provided some meaningful message. It was a show about nothing. That nothing turned into a ratings success.  Grant…describes successful and unsuccessful unconventional behavior in entrepreneurial, scientific, and other ventures. He cites failures such as Segway and successes such as Disney, Apple, Skype,…the Central Intelligence Agency, Martin Luther King Jr., baseball players who steal bases, and Polaroid. [Showing that successful] innovators often take a new rather than a familiar perspective.

155.4 GOP  The Gardener and the Carpenter : What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children, by Alison Gopnik.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, the pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar twenty-first-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong…

Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way. Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and to be very different both from their parents and from each other. The variability and flexibility of childhood lets them innovate, create, and survive in an unpredictable world.

158.1 TIP  Becoming Wise : An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, by Krista Tippett.

Tippett, recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the host of the acclaimed NPR radio show “On Being”…, is used to taking on the big questions and discussing them with some of the most influential voices in religion, philosophy, and science. This book focuses on turning elements of various spiritual traditions…into actions.

158.12 WIL   Growing Up Mindful : Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience, by Christopher Willard, PsyD.

Introducing mindfulness into the lives of our children and teenagers is perhaps the greatest gift we can offer. Mindfulness builds emotional intelligence, boosts happiness, increases curiosity and engagement, reduces anxiety and depression, soothes the pain of trauma, and helps kids (and adults) focus, learn, and make better choices. If that weren’t enough, research now shows that mindfulness significantly enhances what psychologists call “flourishing”–the opposite of depression and avoidance…Growing Up Mindful helps parents, educators, and counselors learn how to embody and share the skills of mindfulness that will empower our children with resilience throughout their lives.

*This posting is part of a Catablogging@FPL series on Melvil Dewey’s classification system and features new titles that represent the ten main classes of the Dewey Schedule.  Follow along!