Change can be hard, but it is inevitable.
With that in mind, I am announcing that next week’s Whitman-Hanson Express will be my last in the role of editor – I am retiring from full-time journalism after nearly 40 years of working for community newspapers.
Many of you may be aware that I’ve been dealing with Parkinson’s nearly as long as I’ve been at this paper, and lately the symptoms have begun to intensify. It’s time.
As a generally introverted person, this had always been an unexpected path for me to traverse, but I came to love it, and refused to give it up, even as coworkers over the years and newspaper gigs, left the profession for more lucrative careers, but there’s another major reason why I stayed.
I come from stubborn stock – the family tree is full of bull-headed Irish from both sides of the religious/political divide in the auld sod – and I was raised by reticent Yankees from northwestern Connecticut.
None of us has ever liked throwing in the towel.
My grandfather, Norris Seelye, “retired” from dairy farming at 83. At least, that’s when he sold the last of his cows. The Shetland pony had expired of old age a few years before. Dad discovered this when he encountered his father heading to the pasture with a shovel on one shoulder on a hot and humid summer morning in 1983.
Asked where he was going with that shovel, my grandfather merely replied: “Pony died.”
I can only imagine the negotiations involved in convincing him to put the shovel down, while my dad called a local friend in the contracting business to come to the farm with a backhoe to bury poor Smokey, who had nearly been forgotten amid the goings-on.
When I was trying to think of the best way to announce my retirement, I thought of Norris – affectionately called grampy by my brothers and me. We’re not blood relatives – my father was adopted – but I doubt many people could nurture grandchildren to the point where it wasn’t clear where nature left off and nurture began.
So, here I am, faced with the same decision Norris had to make a little while before I began my career, and at a younger age than he called it a day.
Still, for years after he retired, he’d put on his work clothes in the morning, pull on his heavy Wellington-style barn boots and start meandering around the place, puttering. When he got tired, he’s stop and scan the sky, “looking for airplanes.”
I can see myself a bit in this picture.
Friends in need
This is only fitting, especially as I have promised my publisher Deb Anderson, that I would stick around for a bit and write the odd meeting story, even when the meetings are not odd themselves.
I can’t thank Deb enough for all she has done for me since buying the Express from Josh Cutler before he made his foray into politics. While I’m at it, thank you, Josh as well for giving me that chance when it was much needed.
You gave me a fresh start after I was laid off so my former publisher opted to have one less squeaky wheel in the newsroom — and he could redecorate it with what he’d been paying me, he decided.
But it is Deb Anderson’s generosity and support that has made the most difference, in the past five years or so, especially. As my Parkinson’s progressed and my medical needs changed, you gave me a way to earn a paycheck and the insurance I needed, while putting off your own retirement.
Your editorial support has also been deeply appreciated, as you have backed me when you could and corrected me when it was called for, a much-appreciated sounding board and wind at my back for those tough decisions.
I hope you can arrange your own exit while you can still enjoy your piece of heaven in Plympton, where it is so quiet, one could begin to think the world just went away.
Here’s to many years of being Ms. Debby to your grandkids and being a friend and ally to humming birds and your grand-dogs, too, whether or not the latter eat your furniture.
Getting here
I never had a plan when I started my career, and I don’t really have one now. In fact, I had never really planned anything about my life, and about two weeks before my graduation from Litchfield [Conn.] High School, which is now incorporating into a regional school. Eerie, isn’t it?
I had a mailer from Post College in Waterbury, Conn., which offered Journalism as one of its associate degree programs. That sounded interesting to this post-Watergate era student.
When I graduated there, I transferred to Bowling Green State University in Ohio. After graduation, I was among a group of J-School interns working one or both major party nominating conventions as an Associated Press photography interns. Cost prohibited me from doing both unpaid internships, so I worked at the Democratic National Convention that summer of 1980, because it was in New York and was close enough for my dad to drive me. The Republicans were convening in Detroit.
I had the opportunity to send photos to delegates’ hometown papers all over the country and chat a bit with photo editors. The last night, after hearing Jimmy Carter’s acceptance street from the photographers’ scaffolding tower in the middle of Madison Square Garden, I was handed a huge camera lens, advised of its $3,000 price tag and advised: “Don’t drop it.”
That was really the start of a career where I found that “Don’t drop it” can apply to so many things.
It computes
Computers, for one.
At Bowling Green, I had a two-minute introduction to a CompuGrapic – word processer, I guess. The professor actually let us turn it on and off as he marveled that we would soon be able to “cut” and “paste” copy without having to actually tear a paragraph from one page and tape it to another.
My first job, split between the State Line Free Press in North Canaan and Falls Village, Conn., and its big sister the Torrington Register-Citizen, reporters’ favorite feature about CompuGraphic was the ability to post interoffice memos on the command bar. Usually, the message was, “Take a chill pill,” when things got tense in the newsroom on composing days.
I can trace my career in terms of hardware.
The typewriters used in college gave way to CompuGraphic units the size of small Volkswagens. The Free Press used Apple IIe’s with their annoying absinthe-green screen and eternally blinking cursor. When the Fitchburg-Leominster Sentinel & Enterprise brought in C-Text computers, we cursed the need to do math. You had to calculate how the column inches of a story would stretch over a number of columns. I was not a fan.
Then it was back to Apple, as the iMacs arrived at the office, along with the publisher’s rain on our parade when he told us we were all getting aqua. None of the company’s trademark choice of red or orange or blue.
I was leaning to orange just to be different. The internet arrived and a choice of Mac or PC for page design through the Quark software system.
It crashed a lot no matter which software you chose.
Here at the Express, I had to learn another production software on both Macs and PCs.
The places I went
The reporting itself has been largely the same wherever you go, town boards and committees struggled with budgets from North Canaan and Brooklyn, Conn., to Leominster, Southbridge, Whitman and Hanson here in the Bay State. Graduations, elections, land use disagreements and the like rolled by.
The kindergarten pupils whose photos I would take at school events in North Canaan are middle-aged now.
But there were also the rare opportunities to cover something really cool – covering the Oct. 26, 1994 senate debate between Sen. Ted. Kennedy and former Gov. Mitt Romney in Holyoke, and with the small team of coworkers from the Sentinel & Enterprise dispatched to Hartford for the Oct. 6, 1996 presidential debate between President Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.
At the former, a cousin who worked advance for Kennedy asked me if I was covering it for my college paper. I was 36 at the time, but he might have made the connection because the event was held at Holyoke Community College. Still…
We were wide-eyed babes in the woods at the presidential debate, even though we were stuck in the vast media overflow room and watched it on TV, like everyone else. I had been fascinated, watching the Arabic characters on a Saudi reporter’s laptop fill the screen from right to left, and was blown away by the organized chaos of the spin room after the debate.
The Sentinel & Enterprise had also granted me two leaves during the fall of 1993 and January 1994 to volunteer on Red Cross disaster relief efforts in the Midwest floods of 1993 and the Valencia, Calif. Earthquake a few months later in return for a story or two.
Assigned as a public relations volunteer at both. In Quincy, Ill., it was rather routine stuff by that time of the relief effort, that had begun in April 1993. But on the day Gov. Jim Edgar was visiting the destroyed town of Hull, I was on hand – and first was nearly overcome with heat exhaustion, and then, when the governor’s helicopter arrived, the flying dust stuck to my face, arms and any other exposed skin where I had liberally applied sunscreen.
It was humbling.
Last, but not least, I thank the Whitman and Hanson communities. You have trusted me with your truths in good times and bad. You’ve offered me the occasional pat on the back or thank you for a job well done enough times to make up for the brickbats coming my way for the errors that happen when human beings report the news.
They, happen, too, and it always helped when a call for a correction recognized my sincere efforts to get things right.
If I had to sum up these past 40 years, I’d say any career can be an adventure, and you never know what will make you laugh at yourself.
Now I know why my grandfather had been reluctant to let go, but if he were here today, I believe he’d be the first to tell me – it’s time.
What’s next?

WHITMAN — No injuries were reported as the Whitman Fire Department quickly extinguished a house fire that started in a pet snake enclosure on the second floor of a home on Morgan Road Sunday night.
Whitman Fire responded to a report of a house fire at 12 Morgan Road, a two-story wood frame house at about 10:45 p.m., Sunday, July 27, according to Fire Chief Timothy Clancy, who said a faulty electrical connection was a likely cause.
The residents made it safely outside before Whitman firefighters arrived on scene. The occupants of the home advised firefighters that the fire was based in the second-floor bedroom.
Under the command of Capt. Jason Mahoney, Whitman firefighters stretched a line through the front door to the second floor, finding a small fire in a pet snake enclosure, before swiftly extinguishing the flames. The fire did not spread to any other rooms in the house.
A python was found alive in the room, and it was removed by Whitman firefighters, who returned the pet reptile to its owners.
Clancy said the snake was found “very much alive” in a corner of the same room where the fire began and a firefighter managed to get it into a cloth bag. There had been no need to call the Animal Control Officer.
Chief Clancy then called the Whitman Board of Health, the Whitman Electrical Inspector, and the Massachusetts State Police assigned to the State Fire Marshal’s Office to the scene for inspections and to assist in the investigation.
The initial investigation by the Whitman Fire Department and Massachusetts State Police determined that the occupants had been at home during the evening, when they smelled smoke and eventually discovered the fire in the second-floor bedroom. An occupant of the home attempted to extinguish the fire with a fire extinguisher, before closing the bedroom door and exiting the building.
Inspectors determined that the home was equipped with working smoke detectors at the time of the fire.
All Fire Department units cleared the scene by 1 a.m.
Mutual aid was provided by the East Bridgewater Fire Department, including East Bridgewater Tower 1 and Fire Chief John Dzialo; Hanson Engine 1 and Fire Chief Robert O’Brien; and Abington Engine 4. The Whitman Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Rehab Unit, Halifax Ambulance and Whitman Police also provided assistance at the scene. Rockland Engine 11 provided station coverage for the duration of the incident.
“I would like to thank everyone who helped respond to this incident and commend them for their professionalism,” Chief Clancy said. “We’re glad that no one was hurt as a result of this fire, including the pet snake. We were able to quickly put out the flames before they spread elsewhere throughout the house preventing further damage to the property, which is always good news.”

Few people achieve an internet presence by 10 months old.
But for little Castiel Kelly. there is little choice, whose devoted aunt, Mekailia Gabbert of Whitman, is using platforms like GoFundMe – as well as TikTok (castielvscancer), Instagram (castielvsneuroblastoma) and Facebook (Castiel Crushes Cancer), to ensure that her precious nephew has a fighting chance against Stage 4 High-Risk Neuroblastoma. She and a team of friends are also working offline to plan fundraising events in the community to help him and his family.
A social worker had sat with his parents about a week into Castiel’s treatments and told them their uncovered medical expenses, including travel and related expenses, typically costs families between $100,000 and $200,000 for this type of cancer, according to Gabbert.
The GoFundMe Goal is set at $100,000. The last time Gabbert checked, the fund had reached nearly, $34,000.
“We just don’t want this to ruin them completely,” she said of her aunt an uncle, Michae and Leidiane Kelly of Weymouth. A basket raffle will be held at the Whitman Knights of Columbus on Aug. 9, for which a lot of businesses have contributed.
“It’s what you do for family,” Mekailia said of the fundraising work. “I’ve always been very blessed with the people in my life – they show up for me. … and this has been a group effort.”
Her friends, calling themselves Castiel’s Crew, have helped hand-deliver more than 250 letters to local businesses in Whitman, Abington, Weymouth and the Bridgewaters, seeking donations door prizes. They also donated to events already held, as well as working to write those letters to businesses, picked up raffle tickets and have helped get T-shirts printed and are wearing the shirts.
“They’re stepping up every way that they can,” she said
“Castiel is a very loved little boy, and most of the people who are doing this haven’t met him … because he can’t have visitors,” she said.
Mekailia’s parents have also gone the extra mile for their nephew who, she jokes, they may love more than their own kids.
“They’re very hands-on,” she said. “[They] always know what’s going on medically, always knowing what his parents need, and that allows me to focus on the fundraising part.”
Diagnosed on April 30th at just over 7 months old, Castiel had endured “intensive chemotherapy, six surgeries, blood transfusions, emergency room visits and multiple infections” Gabbert stated in a press release to the Express this week.
“He had a couple symptoms like fatigue, and loss of appetite – a few of those generally concerning, but, where he was a baby, he got brushed off a lt,” Mekaiia said. “His parents got brushed off. It wasn’t until a lump formed on his neck and one on his head, that the family was taken a little more seriously. Even still, trying to get in for a scan of those was difficult.
After waiting a few days, Castiel was scheduled for an ultrasound.
“They got a call almost immediately after the ultrasound was done.” Mekailia said Monday, July 21. “They weren’t even off the [hospital] property yet, I don’t think, and they were told to go to Children’s Hospital. They drove straight there [and found that] there was a medical team waiting for them in the lobby. … It was awful, obviously, probably the worst-case scenario to have doctors there, waiting for you.”
Less than 24 hours after the ultrasound, the family received the devastating diagnosis – Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. After a biolpsy and blood work it was also determined to be-risk, as well, which is worst-case scenario.
Mikailia went right to work to help her family.
“They’re bouncing back and forth,” she said of her uncle and his family. Originally from Weymouth, where her uncle Mike grew up there. He and his wife Leidy, had moved to Nashua, N.H., not long ago for work, and must now drive to Children’s Hospital whenever Castiel needs care.
“The out-patient [care] is where it gets really expensive – with the back and forth,” Mekailia said. “If the Boston House or the Ronald McDonald housr doesn’t have a room for them that night, then it’s a lot of either driving all he way back to Nashua or paying for a hotel – and then there’s the medical bills and everything like that.”
Despite all the medical care he’s been going through, Castiel is a “sweet. Happy baby,” his proud aunt said, but she noted that the last couple of weeks have been the hardest so far. “He hasn’t been so much of his happy self of late.”
The 10-month-old has been through four rounds of chemotherapy, seven surgeries, with an eighth scheduled for Friday, July 25, being done to go after his primary tumor, which is right beside his kidney, according to Gabbert. From there, another round of chemotherapy is planned, as well as an appointment with an audiologist, because the specific type chemo he has been getting is known to damage hearing.
A full body scan is also being scheduled at that time to figure out if the tumors are responding to the doses of chemotherapy.
Besides raising some awareness of the disease, as well as raising funds to help Catiel’s parents, who have another child with special needs. .