news

Planning Dept. seeks summer worker

The Lincoln Planning Department is seeking a recent high school graduate or college student for an administrative assistant summer internship. You will work directly under the Assistant Director of Planning and Land Use on office and tourism projects. We are looking for a motivated and creative thinker. Graphic design skills are a plus but not required. Pay is $20/hour for 16 hours per week. Expected schedule is Tuesday and Thursday 8 a.m.–4 p.m. but we can be flexible for the right candidate. The anticipated start date for this position is July 5 with an end date of August 25. The deadline to apply is Thursday, June 30. Please email curtinj@lincolntown.org with your resume/background and a brief statement of why you’re interested in the position

Town offices closed on Fridays for the summer

From July 5 through September 2, town departments located in Town Hall will not be open for business on Fridays. All offices will be open Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m.–5 p.m. Departments that are subject to this change in hours of operation include: Select Board’s Office, Tax Collection, Town Clerk,   Cemeteries, Finance & Accounting, Conservation, Building, Planning, Zoning, and Assessors. In the event of an emergency requiring the immediate attention of one of the above offices, please notify the Lincoln Police Department at 781 259-8113.

DeCordova welcomes volunteers

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is seeking volunteer park ambassadors to help support the myriad offerings hosted by deCordova including snowshoe tours, nature tours, curator and artist conversations, special talks, screenings, and other events. Volunteers will collaborate with staff to provide our visitors a fun and educational experience. Volunteers must be at least 18, and a background check may be required. Click here to learn more and sign up for one day or as many as you like. Responsibilities may include but are not limited to the following:

• Welcoming visitors, checking in guests, and helping answer questions about the park and museum
• Gathering information from visitors for mailing lists and promotional outreach
• Promoting the Trustees of Reservations’ mission and provide membership information
• Assist with light property cleanup, if needed
• Assist with administrative projects such as updating bulletin boards and restocking pamphlets and flyers
• Assist event with setup and cleanup, including lifting tables and chairs
• Communicate effectively with staff and other volunteers

Lincoln firefighters used the jaws of life to free a trapped driver and passenger from a crashed car on Route 117 just east of Farrar Pond on June 11.

The car rolled over and wound up on its side, so firefighters stabilized it with supporting struts and then gained initial access to the people inside through the trunk. They covered the driver with a blanket to protect them from debris while they cut out the windshield, then extricated them and took them by ambulance to Lahey Clinic. The passenger (who had been under the driver) was still trapped, so firefighters again used the jaws of life to open the car’s roof. The patient was then slid out with the help of a backboard and sheet and also taken to Lahey Clinic.

Fire Chief Brian Young said on Tuesday that the accident victims were a man and woman in their 50s or 60s, though he didn’t know their town of residence. Both were conscious when they were extricated but had neck and back injuries. He added that in some cases, posts at the side of the road that are intended to keep cars from flying into the pond or the woods can get bent from the initial impact and act as a ramp, causing the car to roll over.

Photos courtesy of the Lincoln Fire Department’s Facebook page.

The Board of Water Commissioners, in partnership with the Council on Aging & Human Services, has instituted a new water fee waiver program beginning on July 1. Any Lincoln homeowner who meets certain following criteria will be given an annual 100% water base rate waiver or reimbursement. This benefit applies to condo owners even if the water bill is included in the condo fee.

To qualify, the water bill must be for a property that is owner occupied and the owner’s primary residence, and not an irrigation account or in the range of Tier 3 usage (more than 40,000 gallons per quarter.) The homeowner must also be receiving a senior circuit-breaker tax credit on state income taxes, or any one of the following town-administered property tax exemptions:

• Veteran (Exemptions 22, 22A, 22B, 22C, 22D, 22E, 8A)
• Blind (Exemption 37A)
• Elderly (Exemption 17E) — income limit: none; asset limit: $45,183 for a household of two (HH2)
• Elderly (Exemption 41D) — income limit: $35,050 for HH2; asset limit: $64,256 for HH2
• Community Preservation Act Exemption — income limit: $112,160 for HH2 aged 60+ or $89,728 for HH2 under aged 60; asset limit: none

For more information or to receive this waiver/reimbursement, contact Abigail at the COA&HS (781-259-8811, butta@lincolntown.org). Residents who qualify do not need to file an application or complete additional paperwork to receive the benefit. The Assessor’s Department will share when an address receives a qualifying property tax exemption.

Residents receiving the senior circuit breaker tax credit or those who believe they qualify for the Community Preservation Act Exemption should contact Abigail. Once eligibility is confirmed, the COA&HS will contact the Water Department directly and the waiver will be applied to the resident’s account.

Learn about going solar at home

Have you thought of putting solar panels on your roof? Do you want to save on electricity? Ready to capture the 26% federal tax credit for solar? Come to Lincoln Green Energy’s solar presentation on Tuesday, June 21 at noon via Zoom. Presenters will discuss topics including solar system net metering, state and federal incentives, battery storage backup, and MassSave’s ConnectedSolutions program. Great Sky Solar will also be on hand to answer questions. Click here to preregister and get the Zoom link.

Music of the civil rights movement

The Council on Aging & Human Services presents “The Music of the Civil Rights Movement” on Friday, June 24 at 1 p.m. in Bemis Hall. The travelogue featuring musical historian and lecturer John Clark’s Great American Musical Experience focuses on the music of the movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

Buy bouquets to benefit SVdP in June

Stop & Shop of Wayland has selected the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Lincoln and Weston to be the benefactor of its Bloomin’4 Good Program. This program works to provide meals through the sale of floral bouquets. During the month of June, each time a shopper purchases a $10.99 Bloomin’ 4 Good bouquet with the red circle sticker at the Wayland Stop & Shop, SVdP of Lincoln and Weston will receive a $1 donation for the Lincoln Food Pantry.

(Editor’s note: The obituary below was provided by the Concord Funeral Home. The New York Times also published this excellent piece on the day of Sophie Freud’s death. In 2007, the Springfield (Illinois) Journal-Register ran this profile on Freud on the publication of her book, Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family.)

Sophie Freud

Miriam Sophie Freud, 97, known as Sophie, died peacefully on Friday, June 3 at her home in Lincoln.

During the last months in which she fought pancreatic cancer, she often said that the act of living a long and successful life was her way to cheat Hitler, who had intended her to perish in Auschwitz along with her grandmother and contemporaries.

The last surviving grandchild of Sigmund Freud, she was born in 1924, the daughter of Esti Freud, an elocutionist and later speech therapist, and Martin Freud, the oldest of Sigmund Freud’s children. As a child, on her ceremonial weekly visit to her grandfather, she strove to be “the best little girl in Vienna.” Her ambition continued throughout a life in which she continued to be not only “the best,” but also beloved and outstanding in all her endeavors.

In 1938 when the Nazis invaded her home country of Austria, she fled to Paris. In 1941, with the German occupation of Paris, she and her mother escaped on a harrowing bicycle trip to Nice, where she passed the difficult “bachot” exam in French, her second language. Then, after a year in Casablanca, she made it to New York and then on to Massachusetts, where she attended Radcliffe College and graduated in 1945.

She married Paul Loewenstein before earning a B.A. in psychology and later a master’s in social work at Simmons College. While raising three children, she worked full-time in the fields of adoption and child and family services. She later found her real passion, teaching, when she was selected to teach a course at Tufts University. She earned her doctorate at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management and taught at Simmons School of Social Work, heading the Department of Human Behavior. She taught and lectured throughout the greater Boston area and internationally, including in Vienna, where she was given the keys to the city.

Along the way, she lost faith in patriarchal psychoanalysis, explored feminism, and wrote two books, My Three Mothers and Other Passions (1988) and Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family (2007.) After retirement from Simmons,  she continued her scholarship, teaching at Brandeis’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (BOLLI), in which she melded the studies of literature and psychology to address life issues.

She is survived by her three children, Andrea Freud Loewenstein, Dania Jekel, and George Loewenstein, as well as five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She is mourned and will be greatly missed by her many friends and family to whom she was an inspiration and a model. She was deeply troubled by the manmade catastrophes and rise of fascism in this harsh new world and sorrowful for her descendants and all those who must inherit it.

The memorial service will be announced at a later date.