We're one of the lucky towns coming through a world-wide pandemic with our local newspaper intact. The Lakeville Journal has been serving the Salisbury community since 1897, but in 2019, it was at a crossroads. Its founding template made financial survival dependent on advertising and paper sales, but that wasn't working in the digital age. Thanks to the doggedness of its publisher, staff and board members, and the acumen and generosity of supporters, our paper was saved and will hopefully continue to foster the free flow of information and opinion in our community for another 125 years.
To remain vibrant, a newspaper needs not only readers but contributors. With that in mind, and with the encouragement of publisher Janet Manko, I've started a column in the Lakeville Journal called Hidden Histories. It will highlight little-known stories, lives and places that contribute to the richness of our community, revealing sometimes surprising aspects of our local heritage. Research is based on findings I discovered while writing this site and also while writing my novel The Latecomers (Little, Brown 2018), a tale of New England life in the last century, inspired by the Holleywood house.
The first Hidden Histories column runs today. It tells the story of Fredrick Bauer, once a big name in town who has since been all but forgotten despite the fact that he not only gifted Lakeville a pond, a park, the historic train depot, and the former railroad right of way which now serves as access to the Town Grove, but funds for maintaining the properties. You can read it here. Or pick up a hand-held issue wherever local newspapers are still (thank heavens) sold.
To remain vibrant, a newspaper needs not only readers but contributors. With that in mind, and with the encouragement of publisher Janet Manko, I've started a column in the Lakeville Journal called Hidden Histories. It will highlight little-known stories, lives and places that contribute to the richness of our community, revealing sometimes surprising aspects of our local heritage. Research is based on findings I discovered while writing this site and also while writing my novel The Latecomers (Little, Brown 2018), a tale of New England life in the last century, inspired by the Holleywood house.
The first Hidden Histories column runs today. It tells the story of Fredrick Bauer, once a big name in town who has since been all but forgotten despite the fact that he not only gifted Lakeville a pond, a park, the historic train depot, and the former railroad right of way which now serves as access to the Town Grove, but funds for maintaining the properties. You can read it here. Or pick up a hand-held issue wherever local newspapers are still (thank heavens) sold.
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