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

The British are coming! (Lincoln Through the Lens)

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The Lincoln Minute Men march past the First Parish Church on their way to Concord early on Patriots Day morning. Photo by Rob Jevon

Readers may submit photos for consideration for Lincoln Through the Lens by emailing them to news@lincolnsquirrrel.com. If your photo is published, you’ll receive credit in the Squirrel. Photos must be taken in Lincoln and include the date, location, and names of any people who are identifiable in the photo. Previously published photos can be viewed on the Lincoln Through the Lens page of the Lincoln Squirrel.

Letter to the editor: “blatant disrespect” from church building committee

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To the editor:

We have watched Margaret and Warren Flint Sr. and other Lincoln citizens work hard to preserve the unique character of the town of Lincoln. As participants of the Flint Realty Trust, we gave land to the church for a small addition to the Stearns Room and an uncovered terrace. The scope of this proposed reconstruction has extended far beyond the original intent that accompanied the request for land from the trust.

The resolution of the Stearns Room renovation will be precedent-setting for the future of the town of Lincoln. For generations, the town’s character is what has attracted new residents and kept generations of families, including ours, living in Lincoln. New residents should come and enjoy Lincoln’s unique beauty—one that sets it apart from surrounding towns. Being “true to the values of Lincoln,” as stated by the First Parish Building Committee, has not been the aesthetic put forward by the building committee and architects.

We are most disturbed by the blatant disrespect the building committee has shown towards this aesthetic, given the building’s prominent position in the heart of Lincoln’s Historic District. The new Stearns Room is to have many large unshuttered glass windows, unlike its restored neighbors, and no longer echoes the design of the sanctuary as the present Stearns Room does.

The building committee has designed the new Stearns Room to have a glossy metal roof that does not reflect the New England historic look. The original church roof would have been wooden shakes and is now tastefully modernized to dark, conservative shingles. As part of the historic district viewshed, we cannot see this proposed metal roof as appropriate.

The Planning Board has not yet voted on the metal roof but has approved other features of the plan. The Planning Board is scheduled to vote on the metal roof on Tuesday, April 28. As citizens of Lincoln, please let the Planning Board know your views. Please tell them that metal roofs do not belong in the Historic District. We do not want the aesthetic integrity of the classic Greek Revival white church or the Historic District to be compromised. Please ask the Planning Board to require the new Stearns Room to have a shingled roof matching that of the sanctuary.

Our family always looks forward to coming home to Lincoln and our farm. We have loved showing new Flint descendants where our family has lived and worked for 12 generations. We hope that through town residents, the Historic Commission and the Planning Board, Lincoln will continue to be guided forward while being good stewards of our past.

Sincerely,

Margaret Flint Weir
A trustee of the Flint Realty Trust and eldest child of Margaret and Warren Flint Sr.
Lexington Park, MD

David L. Weir
Formerly of the Historic Preservation Team at George Washington’s Mount Vernon and grandson of Margaret and Warren Flint Sr.
Annapolis, MD

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to news@lincolnsquirrel.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Lincolnites raise cancer research funds aerobically

runLincoln resident Allison Wiggin Paolisso is running in Monday’s Boston Marathon to raise money for lymphoma research, while Patricia Levy and her sixth-grade son are coordinating Lincoln’s first Pan-Mass Challenge Kids Ride on Sunday, May 3. Lincolnites are also invited to participate in Emerson Hospital Auxiliary’s annual 5K Run/Walk for Cancer on May 30.

[Read more…] about Lincolnites raise cancer research funds aerobically

Letter to the editor: impact of Stearns Room addition

Editor’s note: Fitzgerald is commenting on the April 16 letter from Margaret Flint.
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To the editor:

As a former member of the Historic District Commission, I am surprised that the commission has not publicly voiced stronger objections to the significant expansion to this addition. It will be clearly visible not only to neighbors but to those passing through the area. It may also have an adverse impact on both the privacy and value of abutting properties.

The expansion may also increase the capacity of the facility that may generate more traffic problems and impact parking in a part of the center that is already often short of parking space. It is frequently difficult to find a parking spot to get into the library conveniently during its hours of operation. Bemis Hall also has too few spaces. What consideration has been given to that issue?

Sincerely,

Eleanor Fitzgerald
12 Juniper Ridge Rd.

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to news@lincolnsquirrel.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Farrington hopes its nature programming will blossom

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Children enjoy the green open space at Farrington Nature Linc.

By Alice C. Waugh

A century-old Lincoln facility originally built to offer rural respite to undernourished city girls has reinvented itself and hopes to expand its programs that connect low-income urban children to the natural world.

Lincoln is known for its farms and conservation land, but Farrington Nature Linc is a bit of a hidden gem with its own particular niche, said executive director Wendy Matusovich. “There are many nature programs in Lincoln, but none of them have exactly the same lens as we do, which is to focus exclusively on kids from urban communities who don’t otherwise have access to nature. So few people in the Lincoln area know what we really do or what we are,” she said.

“Now and then we’ll get a child who’s afraid to sit down or run barefoot on the grass because they don’t know what’s there,” Matusovich added. “They don’t know what it’s like to be quiet in nature.”

At the rear of Farrington’s 75-acre property just north of Route 2 sits a 1912 brick dormitory. In his will, Charles Farrington, who died in 1907 and posthumously created Farrington Memorial in honor of his parents, asked his trustees to purchase a “healthy and beautiful locality to which children may be sent for a longer or shorter time to recuperate their health and draw new life, physical, mental and moral, to meet the responsibilities that may come to them.”

After World War II, the City Missionary Society hosted a variety of programs on the property, and from 1977 to 2004, Gould Farm ran a community residence for young adults with mental illness. However, after they left and another tenant for the dormitory couldn’t be found, Farrington lost the occupancy license for the building. It’s no longer in use and has fallen into disrepair, with floors strewn with chunks of fallen plaster and bits of parquet. To return it to its full overnight functionality, Farrington would have to rebuild it from the inside to bring it up to code, which would cost several million dollars, Matusovich said.

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A boy makes friends with a calf at Farrington Nature Linc.

Since 2002, the property (now called Farrington Nature Linc) has been managed as a summer and after-school educational site hosting visits by Boston-area groups of children for single-day and multi-day nature experiences. Kids get the chance to hike through Farrington’s 75 acres of woodlands, fields and ponds; look for tadpoles and frogs in their pond and vernal pools; learn how plants grow in Farrington’s garden; and meet farm animals loaned to Farrington in the summer by Codman Farm.

Farrington Nature Linc is aiming to serve more kids and offer programs at during the school year as well as the summer. In 2014, it ran day programs during school vacations for the first time, with snowshoeing, sledding and hot chocolate in February and salamander searching, art projects and “frog chorus” in April. It also piloted a summer overnight camping experience with the help of a grant from the Clipper Ship Foundation. As a result, 121 children experienced night hikes, campfires and star gazing for the first time.

Also on the Farrington property, which was once a working farm, are the original 18th-century barn and farmhouse, which is now rented to tenants and also used for Farrington’s office. With proceeds from grants, donations and fundraising events—including a family spring hike on April 18 and the Fairy Festival on May 16—the board (which includes Lincoln residents Brooks Mostue, Susan Taylor, Sandra Bradlee and Jane Tierney) hopes to winterize the barn to allow indoor programs during the cold months and add staff time. Staff noticed during the first February program that while the kids had winter coat, many did not have snow pants or waterproof boots, so they also plan to build up an inventory of winter gear for their young visitors.

“The board is committed to helping Farrington grow into a year-round organization,” Matusovich said. To that end, it hopes to eventually rehabilitate the dormitory building and also boost its endowment, which currently supports only the summer programming. It also hosts birthday parties, family hikes and other activities that are open to all. The actual cost for a summer day visit to Farrington Nature Linc is about $6 per child, but Farrington has a sliding scale, so most groups only pay $1 per child and Farrington subsidizes the difference, Matusovich noted. Eighty percent of the children who visit qualify for the federally subsidized lunch program

Matusovich herself was further inspired after hearing Richard Louv speak at a conference last year. Louv is founder of the Children and Nature Network and author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder who urges kids to swap some of their screen time for green time. “It was an amazing day that gave me the state of the current research, which I hadn’t taken the time to delve into yet,” she said.

Letter to the editor: maintain “quality of life” near church

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Editor’s note: The Planning Commission continued its April 14 hearing for the First Parish Church to April 28 at the request of the church, which still needs approval for its drainage and landscaping plans and the roof material for rebuilding the Stearns Room. It has already won zoning approval for the proposal.

To the editor:

I would like everyone involved with the new Stearns Room to imagine themselves living on the corner of Lincoln Road and Sandy Pond Road, a 1/3-acre lot. Now imagine the proposed Stearns Room replacement right next door: a higher ridge line, a metal roof, the new building extending back many feet beyond what is there now, with added windows overlooking their lot. I would like everyone involved—the Planning Board through site review, the First Parish Building Committee, the congregation—to imagine how profoundly the design will alter the quality of life of those living on the corner.

Since they moved to town, time has not been kind to these neighbors. Traffic has multiplied; their view of the conserved Chapin Field—to which they contributed—has already narrowed, and now there is the threat of a building project that will restrict their property even more. If you lived there, would you want that? Or would you rather work to find compromise, to meet the needs, not just the wants, of both the congregation and the neighbors?

Quality of life is why we live in Lincoln. Let’s keep it.

Sincerely,

Margaret Flint
Lexington Road

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to news@lincolnsquirrel.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.