The Hanson Public Library is pleased to announce that a Letter of Intent has been submitted for the 2023-2024 grant round of the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program. The Board of Library Trustees has appointed a Planning Committee and hired a consultant to work with the Library Director over the next few months to complete the documents necessary for the full grant application, due on May 31, 2024. For more information about the planning process and grant application, please visit hansonlibrary.org/building-project. This page will be updated with documents and information as we proceed.
We are also very excited to welcome back longtime New England musician/author Matt York to the Library on at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, May 18. He will perform the songs of Johnny Cash and tell stories about Cashs career spanning from the 1950s to his death in 2003. He’ll discuss Cash’s emergence as a groundbreaking artist in the 1950s, his marriage to June Carter and many of his career highlights.
York was recently nominated for the Boston Music Award for Best Country Artist and his album Gently Used was just named one of the Patriot Ledger’s best albums of 2022. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Hanson Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Preregistration is required for this event, so please visit our website or contact the Library to sign up.
Here’s a few other events that we’re looking forward to this May. Please visit our website, hansonlibrary.org, to sign up and learn more about these and other upcoming programs. If you have any questions, please contact us by email at info@hansonlibrary.org or by phone at 781-293-2151.
Beginner Yoga – 10 a.m., Saturdays. Namaste! Yoga is back at the Library! All classes will be led by a certified instructor from Whitman Wellness Center, with a cost of $10.00 per class payable at the Library Circulation Desk prior to each class. Sponsored by the Hanson Public Library Foundation. Ages 16+, preregistration required.
Fun with Sugar & Shears Pop Up – 10 a.m., Wednesday, May 17. Sugar & Shears, a local bake and craft subscription company, will be at the Library for a storytime and craft! Come enjoy Wake Up It’s Spring! followed by crafts based on the book. They will also have their subscription boxes available to sell after the event. Ages 2-6, preregistration required.
Mindful Journaling & Sketching Class. 5 p.m., Thursday, May 18. Join Miss Kate (Children’s Librarian & Certified Yoga Teacher) in a quiet space at the Library and settle in. We will provide a notebook (or feel free to bring your own) as we embark on a journey of self-discovery using a 3-step format. During the class, you’ll be guided in a brief meditation, followed by writing or sketching in response to a prompt, ending with an opportunity to share and discuss (sharing is always voluntary). Studies show that a regular mindfulness practice can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and stress, and improve sleep. Reflective practices like journaling and sketching can help one make sense of what might emerge from mindful meditation. In this busy and often conflicting time, a chance to decompress and use mindfulness really aids in self-care. Ages 10+, preregistration is required.
Makerspace Challenge. 5 p.m., Tuesday, May 23. Get creative using supplies from our Makerspace Cart! Choose from a variety of items, including wheels, propellers, gears, spools, plastic tubing, wooden dowels, craft tubes and boxes, and foam and wooden shapes, and make a fun creation using your imagination. Made possible by donations made in memory of Ellen Gustafson to the Hanson Public Library Foundation. Grades 2-5, preregistration is required.
Book to Movie Discussion Group. 6:30 p.m., Thursday, May 25. Made a resolution to read more this year? Join our book-to-movie discussion group! This month we will be reading, watching, and discussing “Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi. Copies of the book and movie are available at the circulation desk for anyone who would like to join. New faces are always welcome! Adults, drop in.
Kids Yoga with Miss Kate. 10 a.m., Wednesday, May 31. Join Miss Kate for a spring themed kids yoga class! We will act out our stories using yoga poses, learn breathing techniques to calm our busy minds, and finally make a springtime craft to take home. Ages 3-7, preregistration is required.

HANSON – Is it time to change Massachusetts’ official state seal and flag?
Activists and historians have been displeased with the state seal and motto for decades, but it took until 2021 for the state to create a redesign commission.
Hanson voters, on Monday, May 1 will be asked, through article 37 on the annual Town Meeting warrant to adopt a resolution in support of the Special Commission’s work in redesigning the state flag and seal that may, “better reflect our aspirations for harmonious and respectful relations between all people who now call Massachusetts home.”
The article, sponsored by Marianne DiMascio, of Indian Head Street, would require the town clerk shall forward a copy of this resolution to state Senator Michael Brady, D-Brockton, and representatives David DeCoste, R-Hanover, and Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, requesting they support the work of the commission and advocate for a new flag and seal for the Commonwealth.
“There might be some people opposed, but I think, overall, it’s a resolution that really makes sense,” she said. “We’re a spot where there’s a lot of indigenous history.”
Then-Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill in 2021 to change the state flag and seal, but as of last year a redesign was not complete and the commission asked for an extension in July 2022, which would have expired on March 31, 2023, but the legislature has not granted an extension yet.
DiMascio said Gov. Maura Healey’s fiscal 2024 budget gave some funding to the commission and extended it’s work through November.
“The committee is supposed to come up with a recommendation after lots of input and some polling by November,” she said. “[The article] is to encourage the work of the commission and ensure that it is seen through to the end.”
Once the commission presents its findings, it must go back to the legislature to approve it.
“It’s to say, ‘finish the job,’” she said. “It’s been an issue for a long time and it’s finally got a little momentum, so don’t let it die … don’t let the work of this commission sit idly.”
The state’s flag we recognize has only been the official banner of the Commonwealth since 1908, even though Massachusetts has been represented by official flags, with limited purposes, sine 1676. Right now, the state has three official flags, the state flag, a governor’s flag and a maritime flag.
It is only one of three states, including Minnesota and Florida, that depict a Native American in its heraldry, and a survey by the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) placing our state flag at 38th in design quality among 72 flags representing the United states, its states and territories and Canadian provinces.
Designed in 1898, the current flag, which is also the state seal, the indigenous man stands under a colonist’s sword-bearing arm. On the seal Latin words below the image read [in English]: “By the sword, we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”
Currently imagery from the natural world, such as the state bird or flower are preferred, according to a report in the Boston Globe in Juy 2022, which quoted Executive Director Donna Curtin of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth as saying, “The seal uses imagery that is problematic and exclusionary in so many ways. It really doesn’t reflect a vision of the Commonwealth that anybody today can connect with.”
Part of the objection, as outlined in Article 37 of Hanson’s annual Town Meeting warrant, is that the figure on the flag as what he is wearing are based on actual people.
“The proportions of the body of the Indigenous person on the Flag and Seal were taken from the skeleton of an Indigenous person unearthed in Winthrop, the bow modeled after a bow taken from an Indigenous man shot and killed by a colonist in Sudbury in 1665, and the facial features taken from a photograph of an Ojibwe chief from Great Falls, Montana, considered by the illustrator to be a “fine specimen of an Indian,” though not from Massachusetts,” reads the proclamation which the article supports.
Aside from a violent history of relations between colonists and Massachusetts tribes, it also notes that indigenous people were legally prohibited from even entering Boston from 1674 to 2004, when the colonial law was finally repealed.
DiMascio is philosophical about the potential reaction to the article at Town Meeting.
“I think some people might see the benefit,” she said. “There might be people who say we shouldn’t change it, but it’s gone through different changes in the years we’ve had it. It’s not been the same for all these years.”
While she is working to get the work on the flag’s imagery restarted, DiMascio said she is neutral on the kind of image that should replace the seal.
“I leave that up to the commission to do that,” she said. “It’s a bipartisan commission … and I think one of the very important things is that there are Native American leaders who are working with them to provide their opinion about what [the design] should be.”

HANSON – The town’s fiscal 2024 spending plan is akin to “McGyver budget,” as Hanson’s financial team has worked to avoid layoffs as they balance the books.
Interim Town Accountant Eric Kinscherf provided a budget update to the Select Board on Tuesday, April 12 – the day before an April 18 joint meeting was proposed between the Whitman and Hanson boards and School Committee about the district’s budget and its effect on the towns’ financial outlook.
“If everything passes as is now on the warrant article, and with our current budget, we’ll probably have about $30,000 to $40,000 in free cash left from about $859,000,” he said. “That’s pretty tight.”
There is $1.6 million in stabilization right now, he said, noting that $98,000 of the $725,000 in ambulance receipts, which are counted on to replace Fire Department equipment are also being used to help balance the budget.
Kinscherf does not recommend using stabilization at all to balance the budget because bonding agencies look for communities to have funds in such an account totaling more than 5 percent of the total budget.
“That’s the town’s reserve fund in case an emergency comes up,” he said. Noting Hanson’s stabilization fund is now at 5 percent or a little below.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett stressed that Kinscherf was saying that the town was dipping into free cash to balance the budget predicated on an assessment increase of 3.75 percent for the schools.
“We can probably just barely make it,” he said of that increase, which works out to about $500,000 more than last year.
If a higher assessment should be approved, he said Hanson would have to cut $425,000 from the budget with little free cash to help.
“If that school budget passes as is it’s not going to be very a pretty situation for the town of Hanson,” Kinscherf said.
“That would mean no capital improvements whatsoever and, I might add that we are using one-time ARPA money for some of the articles in addition to free cash,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said to Kinscherf’s confirmation. “We’re tapping every avenue we can think of, so we’d be looking at some personnel layoffs. There’d really be no other options.”
Kincherf said it would be almost impossible to cut that much from the budget without getting into personnel.
“We’re not suggesting that that’s what this board wants,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “What this board wants is the 3.75 percent assessment.”
She said she was hopeful a three-way joint budget meeting could help calibrate the numbers.
Select Board member Ed Heal, like some of his Whitman counterparts, expressed concern about the use of one-tie funds to balance budgets. Kinscherf said there is about $250,000 in one-time funds being used to balance Hanson’s municipal budget, including free cash and overlay surplus. Other one-time funds are being used to pay for other articles on the warrant.
“I’ve uncovered every rock,” he said. “This is like a MacGyver budget.”
In other business, the board voted to appoint Joseph Gumbakis as Veterans Service Officer for an annual term beginning Tuesday, April 18.
Departing Veterans Agent Timothy White said a long process was followed to make the appointment and he was thankful for Gumbakis’ acceptance of the position.
Part of his duties there was doing outreach to families of deployed service members, including with rental assistance. He was a recruiter during his active miliary career for which he received a Gold Recruiter award and served two tours of duty in Iraq where he earned a Bronze Star.
“We interviewed a lot of candidates,” White said. “He’s been working at the National Guard as a case manager in the family programs office. … Although he doesn’t do the exact same duties as a veterans’ agent, the family programs are very similar.”
Gumbakis is also working on his second bachelor’s degree in information technology.
“What impressed us was his knowledge, skills and abilities can be used to expand on the position, which is, as White put it, “Outreach, outreach, outreach.”
White said Gumbakis will be a great ambassador for the town.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she was happy White was leaving the town in good hands.
“We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything you’ve done,” she said.
Weeks thanked Gumbakis for his service and, noting that he has big shoes to fill, said he hoped he would make the position his own.
“I’d like to thank the town for having me,” Gumbakis said. “I look forward to serving the commnity and veterans at large.”
White said he will be training Gumbakis, who started this week, having spoken to the Rockland Town Administrator, where White will be serving next, to enable him to ensure there is smooth transition for Hanson.

HANSON – There’s always another story inside the pages of those history books, often featuring people you never expected.
For Melrose author Jane Healey, there have been more than one untold story within the more well-known histories of World War II, fueling her storyteller’s muse for a third journey into the genre of historical fiction about that period with “Goodnight from Paris,” published on March 7.
Like her previous books, “Beantown Girls” and “The Secret Steelers” – both of which have been bestsellers and/or editors picks for historical fiction, her latest book offers a glimpse into the remarkable difference women made during the war years of 1939-45.
On Thursday, March 30, Healey discussed her latest book, the story behind it and her writing process at the Hanson Public Library. The talk will be broadcast on Whitman-Hanson Cable Access TV.
A free-lance writer for Boston Magazine and other publications after leaving a tech career, about 20 years ago, Healey had begun to scratch the fiction-writing itch she had long felt. That led to her first book, “The Saturday Evening Girls’ Club,” about a group of Jewish and Italian women in Boston’s North End. in 2017.
“I had always wanted to write a bigger story,” she said. “I had always wanted to write a WWII story, since my grandfather was in WWII.”
She researched and wrote about Red Cross “clubmobile” girls she had leaned about, which led to “Beantown Girls” being published in 2019.
“That was kind of my breakout book,” she said.
When her publisher was looking for something else for Healey to write during the COVID-19 pandemic, Healey thought of ideas she had filed away about women who worked for the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, whose ranks, incidentally included a secretary named Julia Child). That idea became “The Secret Stealers” in 2021.
When researching that book, Healey had come across stories about Drue Leyton- Tartiére from a couple of different sources.
“Goodnight from Paris” tells a familiar tale of the risks assumed by the resistance in France, as they helped downed allied fliers escape from behind German lines and back to England. Like famed American chanteuse Josphine Baker, who received the high honor of being inducted into the Panthéon – France’s mausoleum of heroes – after her death, Healey’s story revolves around real-life American actress Leyton-Tartiére.
The spark for the book came when Healey saw a story about Canadian pilot Lauren Frame, who had received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur [Legion of Honor] from France in 2020. Researching the story Healey came across the story of the woman living in the French village of Barbizon who sheltered and helped him and members of his bomber crew for seven weeks – Drue Leyton-Tartiére.
“To this day [when Frame was in his 90s], he praises the women and men of the French Underground, and in particular, Drue Leyton- Tartiére,” a speaker in the program about Frame said.
“What’s different about this [novel] is that it’s biographical fiction, inspired and based on a true story,” Healey said. “Tonight, I’m going to talk about who she was, how I learned about her and the history behind the novel – but I promise you, I’m not giving away any spoilers.”
Healey sketched a profile of a Hollywood actress, born Dorothy Elizabeth Blackman in June 1903 in Kenosha, Wisc., to well-off parents. After marrying young and having a son, she left her family and reinvented herself in the film industry – eventually following French actor Jacques Tartiére back to Paris before the war. Medically unqualified for the French army during the war, Tartiére joined British forces as a translator and was later killed during the war. Drue had refused the advice of friends and relatives to return to the U.S., staying in France for the duration.
“In the 1930s, she was a star on-the-rise in Hollywood,” Healey said, noting Drue was often described as “the next Greta Garbo.” After some rolls in “Charlie Chan” movies with Warner Oland and bit parts in other films,
One of Healey’s source materials was an out-of-print autobiography penned by Leyton-Tartiére in 1946, that she “bought for too many Euros” on eBay.
In 1942, Germans in occupied France began rounding up American expatriots following Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into the war. One of them was Drue, who had been broadcasting a radio show for France Mondiale run by the French Information Agency, back to the states up to that point, using the name in which she starred in movies – Drue Leyton. She had occasionally done broadcasts with legendary American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the first American broadcasters to be kicked out of Nazi Germany.
Leyton-Tartiére, along with several other American women in France, were first interned at the monkey house of a zoo on the outskirts of Paris using her married name Tartiére – the Germans had planned to execute Drue Leyton as soon as they occupied France – before being moved to a model concentration camp in the mountains of southern France, aimed at placating the international Red Cross inspectors. She faked an illness to receive a medical release and returned home to Barbizon, where she had farmed food for friends in Paris before her arrest, and was asked to rejoin the underground.
“It was so wild,” she said of the zoo story. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this story.”
But she resisted writing “Goodnight from Paris” at first because WWII novels is a crowded genre and she wasn’t initially interested in doing another one. But Drue won her over.
Healey said she found it more difficult to write a novel based on a real person that it would have been if she invented someone out of whole cloth.
“Out of the four books, this was the hardest ones, by far, because it’s a real person,” she said. “I didn’t want to take too many liberties. I wanted to honor her story.”