The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

arts

New issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk is here

“Pollinate,” a sculpture by Nancy Selvage

The latest issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk has just hit the virtual stands — check it out! The deadline for the next issue is October 31, so get busy with your pen, keyboard, paintbrush, camera, or what have you.

A note to contributors: if you’d like to have your photo and a brief biography appear at the bottom of each of your pieces (past issues, this issue and in the future), send them along to lincolnsquirelnews@gmail.com. Have a look at the bottom of “My Little Generator” by Andy Payne (June issue) to see an example.

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Three events coming up at the library

The Lincoln Library Film Society is back with screenings at the library starting with Kedi on Thursday, Sept. 16 at 6 p.m. The film follows seven of the thousands of cats that roam Istanbul who live between two worlds, neither wild nor tame, and bring joy and purpose to those people they choose to adopt. Movies will be screened on the third Thursday of each month using the club’s new AV system purchased with funds from the Friends of the Lincoln Library and the Ogden Codman Trust. Due to the pandemic, food will not be permitted.

Residents are invited to a watch party with Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, on Wednesday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. After the video presentation, there will be a live community conversation on diversity, equity and inclusion led by former State Rep. Byron Rushing and Salem State University professor Roopika Risam. All are invited to participate in the discussion (you need not have read the book in advance). Click here to register. Presented by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and public libraries across the state in recognition of the National Book Festival.

The library presents an evening with photographer Dmitri Kasterine, author of Who How When Where, on Thursday, Sept. 23 from 7–8:30 p.m. Kasterine was a still photographer for director Stanley Kubrick, and his subjects have included James Baldwin, Mick Jagger and Queen Elizabeth II. For Zoom information, email lrothenberg@minlib.net.

Daffodil bulb sales benefit SSEF

South Sudanese Enrichment for Families invites residents to purchase daffodil bulbs for fall planting to support sending South Sudanese children to preschool. Preorder at SSEFBoston.org by September 12 and pick up bulbs on October 23 at the Lincoln Mall. All to make your yard beautiful and support educational equality.

COA&HS offers art exhibit and more

“Older, Wiser and Better,” an art exhibition via Zoom, will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. Instructor Janet Schwartz will present work focusing on hard and soft pastels by local artists including Carol Bull, Milt Davis, Liz Lane. Gerri Malcolm, Blanche Richlin, and Joan Seville. Email Amy at gagnea@lincolntown.org to sign up to attend the show.

Join naturalist John Calabria in discovering nature that surrounds us in Lincoln. All are welcome on the monthly “Noticing” walks on September 14, October 5, November 2, and December 7 from 1–2:30 p.m. Please preregister to receive walk location and weather cancellation updates. Choose  footwear and clothing appropriate for the weather conditions. Click here to register (email  llct@lincolnconservation.org or call 781-259-9251 for help with registration). Sponsored by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and the Lincoln Council on Aging & Human Services.

For a full list of COA&HS activities in September — including clinics, exercise classes, regular meetings of interest groups, and online chats with town officials — see the COAHS’s calendar page or September newsletter. Call 781-259-8811 or email gagnea@lincolntown.org for Zoom links and other information.

Ride to support disadvantaged pet owners

Phinney’s, a Lincoln-based nonprofit that helps low-income people in Massachusetts keep their pets, is gearing up for its eighth annual Phinney’s Ride, a biennial fundraiser to help those living with HIV and AIDS care for their pets. To celebrate the nonprofit’s 25th anniversary, Phinney’s invites everyone to participate by performing any type of ride between September 1 and November 1. Tag @PhinneysFriends and use #phinneysride on social media when sharing photos of their rides.

The registration fee is $20 with a pledge to raise $200 or more. Individuals may also form teams with family, friends, and coworkers. Everyone who registers will get a personalized web page with photos and their bio where they can direct their ride sponsors. This year also marks the introduction of the Phinney’s Ride “Couch Potato Hero Certificate,” which gives those who don’t want to ride the option of showing their support with a donation of $100 or more. To learn more, visit phinneys.org/ride.

Chipmunk addendum

Due to a mysterious technical glitch that’s now been resolved, one of the submissions for the last issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk did not appear when the issue was first published last week. “Painting Oak Leaves” (a story and painting by Mary Ann Hales) is now on the Chipmunk home page at chipmunk.lincolnsquirrel.com.

Reminder: the deadline for submitting material for the next issue is August 15. We’re planning a “summer” theme, so send us your photos and paintings of summertime flora or fauna, a reminiscence about a summer in your past, fiction with a summer-related theme, a piece about a summer-related book or movie you enjoyed, or whatever else strikes your fancy. Click here for information on how to submit, or contact Alice Waugh at lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com.

The latest issue of the Lincoln Chipmunk is here

Click on over to the Lincoln Chipmunk to see creative writing and visual arts by your fellow Lincolnites.

The deadline for submitting material for the next issue is August 15. We’re planning a “summer” theme, so send us your photos and paintings of summertime flora or fauna, a reminiscence about a summer in your past, fiction with a summer-related theme, a piece about a summer-related book or movie you enjoyed, or whatever you like. Click here for information on how to submit.

We’re also looking for help in promoting the Lincoln Chipmunk to encourage more Lincoln residents of all ages to submit creative work. You don’t ave to be a subscriber to submit, so tell all your neighbors, friends and family who have a connection to Lincoln. Contact Squirrel/Chipmunk editor Alice Waugh at lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com or 617-710-5542 if you have ideas or questions.

Lincoln author’s history of the Civil War in the Southwest is a Pulitzer finalist

By Maureen Belt

Megan Kate Nelson holds a copy of her award-winning book at Lincoln’s iconic Ponyhenge.

It was a little after 1 p.m. on Friday, June 11, and Megan Kate Nelson was sitting in her Lincoln kitchen direct-messaging a friend as Columbia University broadcast a livestream of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize ceremony.

Nelson and her correspondent each had an entry for the esteemed award that recognizes excellence in American journalism, literature and music, and were sharing witty color commentary for each announcement as if they were watching the Oscars. “We didn’t have any expectations of any awards or prizes, ” she said. 

Nelson’s husband Dan was upstairs working from home and their Siamese/ragdoll cats, G-Ball and Ding-Dong, were chilling in the living room. The livestream announced the candidates for the prize in history, the category for which Nelson’s publisher submitted her 2020 work, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West.

“I knew Scribner submitted the book,” Nelson said. “That was all I knew.”

The prize went to Marcia Chaitlain for her book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Then followed the announcement of two other finalists, or writers whose work the prestigious jury deemed Pulitzer-worthy. Megan Kate Nelson was one of them.

“I screamed,” Nelson recalled. “I screamed so loud that my cats just took off. They ran upstairs and ran under the guest bed. I just kept screaming and screaming and my husband came down. He didn’t think I was being murdered, but he was like, ‘What? What happened?’ It was all very dramatic.

“I was still DM-ing with my friend and I was like, maybe I had a fever dream.” 

This was no dream. Like the content of her book, it was reality verified by a quick online search. Nelson was indeed named a Pulitzer finalist, and the organization’s website dedicates a full page to accolades about her research, writing, and scholarship. 

“A lively and well-crafted Civil War narrative that expands understanding of the conflict’s Western theaters, where pivotal struggles for land, resources and influence presaged the direction of the country as a whole,” the Pulitzer committee wrote about her book.

A week after the big reveal, Nelson is still wrapping her head around it. The good news hadn’t completely sunk in, even after receiving of a congratulatory letter on official Columbia University stationery. 

“I’m not going to believe it until I see it,” she said via a Zoom interview with the Lincoln Squirrel. 

Following her passion

Nelson has taught at local universities including Harvard and MIT, and Dan is a lawyer in Boston. But in 2014, she said she “took a leap of faith” (or some might call it, “followed her passion”) and left a tenure-track university position to write full time. 

“I just decided I wanted to write,” Nelson said. “Writing is what I love to do most — writing and researching.”

She hitched a bike to the back of her BMW 3 series and drove from Lincoln, where she and Dan have lived since 2009, to Littleton, Colorado, where the two attended high school together. (They met as high school seniors who were both accepted into Harvard’s Class of 1994, and began dating when he was in law school and she in graduate school.) 

Based at her parents’ house, Nelson worked every day poring over archives, diaries, letters, and rare book collections at public, university, and manuscript libraries. She compiled research into her blog, Historista, and then journeyed south to learn more about Civil War soldiers, Native Americans, and other historical figures.

Nelson rode her bike along the Rio Grande and other routes that would have taken a toll on the BMW. “You see so much more on a bike,” she said, adding cycling also helped offset the flavorful and filling local cuisine.

She even connected with the manager of Ted Turner’s ranch. The Valverde battlefield and the ruins of the Union Army’s Fort Craig are deep in the rugged terrain of the cable mogul’s Armendaris Ranch, which spans 923 square miles in southern New Mexico. The ranch manager had little faith the sedan could handle the terrain and suggested she try again another time.

Nelson chose to tell the little-known history of the Western theater of the Civil War though the eyes of nine players, some major and others with lesser-known supporting roles. One is John R. Baylor, a Texas legislature and officer in the Confederate Army. Another is Louisa Canby, the wife of Union Army Col. Richard Canby and a nurse who tended both Confederate and Union soldiers. A third is Apache chief Mangas Coloradas, whose request for peace was met with brutal betrayal.  

Much of the history of New Mexico Territory (what is now New Mexico and Arizona) and its importance in the Civil War did not make it into standard-issue textbooks or the growing plethora of thick hardcovers devoted to the minutia of Bull Run and Gettysburg. What little is known was shared locally, and even then, mostly to kids on school field trips.

“If you are a Civil War history nerd, you’re not going to go to New Mexico,” Nelson said.  “The Western theater of the war was functionally erased.”

Nelson, who grew up in the area and received her Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Iowa, was astonished to learn that soldiers from Colorado were called up by the Union Army to New Mexico Territory to fight Native Americans as well as Confederates . 

“Whenever you find out something you don’t know, It’s like, ‘How did I not know about this?’” Nelson said. She attributes the omissions in U.S. history accounts to military historians who focused primarily on the Eastern theater of war “because that’s where the action was.”

In 1861, both the Confederate and Union armies had their eyes on New Mexico Territory. Northerners wanted to keep the region free of slavery and knew that securing it would be a win President Lincoln. The Southerners planned to expand slavery and grow profits by exporting cotton from Western ports. 

“That was what was at stake — control over the entire region,” Nelson said.  

Both sides recognized the benefits of a major thoroughfare to California’s gold mines and were equally eager to eliminate or remove Native Americans, Nelson added. Southerners planned to enslave them while northerners planned to imprison them on reservations. 

“People don’t want to hear that part of the story,” Nelson said. “It’s why people don’t like to talk about it. It’s a hard truth.”

History has always been a side interest of Nelson’s, but her true devotion is to “unloved and strange places.” It was her research on one such place — the largest blackwater swamp in North America — that put Nelson on an indirect path to Civil War’s Western theater.

Nelson spent the early aughts researching the impact of human interaction on culture, habitat, the environment, and industry at the Okefenokee Swamp. She was captivated by the ruins, some dating back to the 1700s, that she found surrounding the swamp along the Florida-Georgia line. 

“And what creates the most ruins in the American landscape? The Civil War.” She followed this new passion for ruins to the lesser-known battle fields in the American West, and the rest is Pulitzer history. 

Nelson isn’t sure if Pulitzer finalists receive the gold medal designed by Concord native Daniel Chester French, or if she and Dan get to attend the awards gala at Columbia University this fall. “I would absolutely go if I was invited,” she assured.

Meanwhile, her new literary distinction is making headlines among noted historians. Just this week, Doris Kearns Goodwin personally persuaded Nelson to participate in a documentary. Scribner is updating the covers of not just The Three-Cornered War, but the upcoming book it inspired: This Strange Country: Yellowstone and the Reconstruction of America. New jacket covers for her earlier books, Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (2012), and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (2005), will also tout the honor.

Nelson is just one of several award-winning historians and novelists in Lincoln — see the exhibit on the second floor of the Town Hall to learn more. Her books are available at the Lincoln Public Library, though there is currently a long waitlist for The Three-Cornered War. They can also be purchased at the Concord Book Shop and Amazon.com. 

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Juneteenth films and online exhibit

In honor of Juneteenth and its history, the Lincoln Public Library is offering two films and an online special display about the new state and federal holiday. Online Special Displays will be an ongoing project to highlight the library’s collection and various websites that patrons may find informative, as well as and streaming video available through its Kanopy subscription.

Friday, June 18 at 12:00 p.m.
Into the Fire, 1861-1896 — an episode of the PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013) featuring Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Learn more and view the trailer on Kanopy here. Register for the film screening on Zoom here. Please contact Kate at ktranquada@minlib.net with any questions.

Saturday, June 19 at 12:00 p.m.
Miss Juneteenth (2020). Learn more and view the trailer on Kanopy here. Register for the film screening on Zoom here. Please contact Robin at rrapoport@minlib.net with any questions.

Riverfest 2021 activities this weekend 

Sudbury, Assabet and Concord Wild and Scenic Rivers (SuAsCo) is offering free guided group activities on and along portions of the three rivers on June 19 and June 20 during the 22nd annual Riverfest celebration. Activities will include cycling, paddling, nature and history walks, and many children’s activities including fishing lessons, a Snakes of the World presentation, and an exhibit on reptiles that live along river banks.

One guided boating group will depart from the canoe landing parking lot on Route 117 in Lincoln, and others will launch from sites in neighboring towns. Multiple community activities will be held at the historic Old Manse in Concord. See a complete list of this weekend’s events. For more information about the Wild and Scenic Rivers and River Stewardship Council, click here.

Summer concerts at Codman Pool

The following free summer concerts will take place on three Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at the Codman Pool, courtesy of the Parks and Recreation Department. Click here for details. Concerts will be cancelled or rescheduled for rain; check LincolnRec.com for updates.

  • July 14 — Kat Chapman Trio
  • July 21 — Knock on Wood
  • July 28 — Marc Berger

Summer concerts at deCordova

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum has announced a new outdoor Summer Performance Series that explores different traditions, histories, and arts that inspires social justice.

Performances will take place on the lawn at deCordova at 6 p.m. Tickets are $35 fo adults and $15 for children; click here to purchase. Please bring a picnic blanket or chairs if desired. In case of rain, performances will be rescheduled for a Thursday in August. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Lincoln Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Lincoln resident graduates from Cotting School

Zoe Clapp, daughter of Pamela Clapp of Lincoln and Andre Clapp of Somerville, graduated from Cotting School in Lexington on June 5  as a member of the school’s 127th graduating class. Zoe received the the school’s Award for Improved Adaptability, given to recognize a graduate who has shown an increased willingness to try new things, no matter how challenging they may be. The Cotting School enables students with special needs to achieve their highest learning potential and level of independence. 

DeCordova hopes to add tent for special events

An aerial view of the current employee parking area (red arrow in top image) and a drawing of how the deCordova plans to reconfigure the area (click image to enlarge).

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is proposing to reconfigure part of its parking area and walkway to create a new open space for special events.

What is now a two-way driveway between the lower visitor parking lot and the horseshoe-shaped upper employee parking area will become a one-way vehicle-only roadway to be used mainly for deliveries, said Kord Jablonski, the deCordova’s business director. The existing boardwalk will be replaced by a sidewalk and a handicapped-accessible ramp.

Staff will park in the visitors lot and the current staff lot will be “reimagined and reconceived” as an area with crushed stone or pavers in the  idle to accommodate a tent for special events in warm weather, Jablonski told the Select Board at their May 10 meeting. There will also be two new seating areas to take in views of Flint’s Pond. Those views have been enhanced by removal of some of the brush, in cooperation with the Conservation and Water Commissions, he noted.

Depending on the outcome of grant applications and town approvals, the work should begin in late September or early October, Jablonski said.

As with similar public-facing organizations, visitation dropped significantly as a result of the pandemic but has bounced back more recently, he told the board. Using timed ticketing, capacity limits and Covid-19 protocols, the sculpture park grounds reopened last May after a fairly brief shutdown, and the indoor museum galleries reopened in October. 

In the 12 months ending March 31, 2021, admissions were up by 86% over the previous year. The rise was even more striking for younger visitors; children’s admissions rose by 237% to 28,163, compared to 76,121 for adults (a 60% increase).

The integration of the deCordova with The Trustees of Reservations was completed in November 2019.

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Eighth-grade car wash on Saturday

To benefit their upcoming graduation, the Lincoln School’s eighth-graders will host a car wash on Saturday, May 22 from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. at Town Hall (rain date: May 23). Since the class can’t have dances or bake sales, this is an important end-of-year activity for them. Click here to prepay for a car wash ($20) and/or make a donation. You  may also pay in case on the day of the car wash. Names of those who preregister will be on a list that the students can check off when cars arrive.

“Kibbles and Nibbles” online cooking class

Lincoln-based nonprofit Phinney’s is launching “Kibbles and Nibbles,” an online cooking class, hosted by Cordon Bleu pastry chef Mika McDonald, on Sunday, May 23 from 7–8 p.m. on Google Meet. She will guide attendees in creating oat cake and Parmesan cheese crisps that can be both enjoyed by pets and people so those watching can follow and cook alongside her. A minimum donation of $10 secures a spot in the class, which has limited space and is designed for all ages and experience levels. To register, go to phinneys.org/kibbles-nibbles, where the ingredients and kitchen tools for the class are also listed. 

Diversity performance next week

Lincoln’s METCO Coordinating Committee presents “Living the Legacy of METCO” on Tuesday, May 25 at 6:30 p.m. This live performance on Zoom by Dialogues On Diversity, a social justice theater company, is aimed at Lincoln School students in grades 5-8 as well as their family members, as well as the broader community. The 45-minute performance gives the history and context for the country’s oldest racial educational integration program and examines the social activism of urban and suburban Boston families in the 1960s. Contains sensitive images and language that may not be suitable for younger audiences. Made possible by a grant from the Lincoln Cultural Council. Click here for the Zoom link (passcode: 050455).

Outdoor classes and events for seniors

The Council on Aging and Human Services is starting to host in-person events again. There are a host of outdoor exercise classes in the Pierce House tent in addition to those offered on Zoom, and the Knitter’s Group is on Tuesday, June 1 at 9:30 a.m. on the Bemis Hall lawn. See page 9 of the May COAHS newsletter for details, or call 781-259-8811 x102 to sign up.

Talk on philosophical basis for Modernist architecture

The Lincoln Historical Society, in collaboration with Friends of Modern Architecture, will host a presentation of “As the Twig Is Bent, So Goes the Tree… A Shared Philosophy: New England Transcendentalism and European Modernism” by Lincoln resident and FoMA President Dana Robbat. The meeting and talk are on Saturday, June 12 from 4:30–5:30 p.m. The Lincoln Historical Society will hold its brief annual meeting in advance of the presentation, which will highlight the age-old social ideals of New England’s Puritan and Transcendental philosophical heritage that provided fertile ground for the arrival of the philosophically aligned European Modernists who arrived at Harvard and MIT in the late 1930s and subsequently had a profound effect on Lincoln’s built and natural environments. Click here to register and get the Zoom link. For more information, email lincolnmahistoricalsociety@gmail.com.

Mandatory outdoor watering restrictions now in effect

Details of the Stage 2 watering restrictions now in effect (click image to enlarge).

Because Lincoln continues to draw more water from the Charles River Watershed than allowed by permit and continues to exceed the mandated residential use of 65 gallons per person per day, the Water Department is required to enforce Stage 2 outdoor water use restrictions from May 1 through September 30. Drought declarations by the state supersede the Lincoln restrictions. Higher restrictions may be imposed in response to state drought declarations.

During Stage 2 and above, Water Department staff will be monitoring all sprinkler use in town and will stop to remind residents of the new restriction policy. A first offense will result in a $100 fine, and subsequent violations will result in a $200 fine. Anyone with questions may contact the Water Department at 781-259-2669 or bolanda@lincolntown.org. For more information on water conservation and what residents and communities can do, visit the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs drought page and water conservation toolkit.

The Lincoln Chipmunk wants YOU!

The Lincoln Chipmunk — the town’s online showcase for creative writing, artwork, and photos — is preparing its next issue. Everyone with a Lincoln connection is warmly encouraged to submit their work for the next issue before the deadline of May 31, 2021. You can see previous issues at chipmunk.lincolnsquirrel.com.

NEW: Send us your photo (head and shoulders) and 2-3 sentences about yourself for our new author bio feature!

Questions? Contact editor Alice Waugh at lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com or 617-710-5542.

Jessica May is the new artistic director at the deCordova

Jessica May

Jessica May has been named to a newly created role as the new managing director of art and exhibitions and artistic director of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She succeeds John Ravenal, who had been executive director since 2015.

The announcement was made last month by The Trustees of Reservations, which forged a partnership with the deCordova in 2019 after years of financial difficulties at the institution.

In her new role starting April 12, May will provide the direction and vision for art and exhibitions overall at The Trustees, including serving as chief curator for the deCordova. Additionally, she will manage curatorial work at Fruitlands Museum and oversee the “Art and the Landscape” program, the Trustees’ site-specific commission of new art inspired by their landscapes.

Ravenal was responsible for managing everything at the deCordova, including maintenance to fundraising. “No one can replace John Ravenal — he was amazing,” May said. “I’ll have a really strong partner to be responsible for the operational aspects, and The Trustees has an extraordinary fundraising team. In many ways I’ll be free to be super-focused on the artistic program across the board. I’m hoping we’ll be able to build on the amazing legacy at the deCordova also add some of the strengths that The Trustees offers.”

In 2019, Kord Jablonski was named business director, overseeing the day-to-day operations and management of deCordova including the visitor experience, stewardship and resource care, enterprise, engagement, education, and public programming.

“This is like a dream come true for me,” said May, who has a background in art history and curation and did her doctoral dissertation on Walker Evans. She was previously the deputy director and chief curator at the Portland Museum of Art for eight years.

“One of things I’ve been very touched by in the past few weeks is how deeply the affection for the deCordova is felt all over the place,” May said. “They’ve done such incredible work of telling stories about art both indoors and outdoors. It has such a special place in the history of art in New England. It plays a really important role in the modern museum community as well as in Lincoln, greater Boston and Massachusetts.”

“While we have long been an organization caring for and protecting important cultural sites, only in our recent history have we leveraged the power of contemporary art to engage and excite our audiences and to activate our places,” said Jocelyn Forbush, acting CEO and president of The Trustees. “With the addition of deCordova and Fruitlands, our work has been expanded, and Jessica will ensure that this work will be of the highest curatorial standard.”