WHITMAN — Heavy rain may have prevented some residents from attending, but the Whitman Council on Aging held an open house from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 5 to highlight the center’s new hours and the programs it offers.

The COA will now be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and  from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays, “regular” hours of from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. will still be in force on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The senior center will also be the town’s new location for processing passport applications.

Town Administrator Frank Lynam, who stopped by with Assistant Town Administrator Lisa Green for the event, lauded the change in hours.

“I think it’s wonderful that Barbara is reaching out to the community and offering our services for people seeking passports,” Lynam said. “Obviously, the intent is to serve the public, but also to give an opportunity to showcase our lovely facility and invite people who are young seniors to become familiar with the building.”

The open house, and a growing list of Tuesday evening programs are intended to demonstrate the benefit a senior center can provide — and there is some thought being given to change the name of the Whitman Council on Aging.

The Toll House Center has been suggested, but is not popular with some town officials. Barbara Garvey, Whitman’s Council on Aging Director Garvey and Green jointly suggested Tuesday that the Town Park Center might be an option.

In the meantime, upcoming Tuesday evening events will feature meet and greets with Police Chief Scott Benton and Fire Chief Timothy Grenno on Jan. 10 and a program on real estate tax exemptions with Assessor Kathy Keefe on Jan. 31. In February, a chowder supper is among the programs planned.

Both Garvey and Hanson Multi-Service Senior Center Director Mary Collins have noted the difference in the way Boomers approach aging — and, according to statistics, 10,000 of them have been turning 65 every day since 2011.

“It’s a huge problem,” Garvey said recently. “We’re trying to capture the Baby Boomers, the young seniors. They’re working, they’re caring for their grandchildren, they’re playing golf. It’s a different lifestyle than their parents led.”

She said it appears that Boomers view senior centers as a place “for very old people, and that’s not them.”

First time

One of those seniors with a younger, independent outlook stopped by the Jan. 5 open house for a tour and review of services offered — and made an appointment to discuss legal concerns during attorney Ronald Whitney’s monthly legal advice sessions at the COA.

“I just didn’t think it was time yet to come to the senior center,” a 76-year-old Whitman resident said as she enjoyed refreshments from Trio Café. “I thought I should see what’s going on, see if there’s some programs that I’m interested in.”

She had looked it up on her iPad to see what was offered in case she might someday need the services and decided to attend the open house. The weather almost dissuaded her, but she kept to her plan.

“I think this is a great idea,” she said of the open house. “Uusually I don’t even bother to go out on a rainy night, but I said to myself, ‘Get out, go. You said you were going to go over there.’ So I made myself come.”

According to the National Council on Aging (NCOA), 70 percent of senior center participants are women, half of those live alone. They also have higher levels of health, social interaction and life satisfaction, but have lower levels of income. Their average age is 75 and they visit their center one to three times per week for and average of 3.3 hours per visit.

Retiree Edward Dinardo is one such frequent visitor to the COA. He stopped by the open house to see what it was all about, and gave the idea high marks.

“It’s a good idea for people who have to work and can’t make it here during the day,” Dinardo said of the new Tuesday evening hours.

He said he likes the monthly “brown bag” food program, which supplies a bag of groceries to seniors, helping them stretch their food budget, and has enjoyed playing bingo and cribbage tournaments there in the past.

“We’re trying to change our programming so that it will interest younger people,” Garvey said, noting that a recent evening program on Medicare aimed at people approaching retirement was very well attended, including  those who had not been at the center before.

“We haven’t been open in the evening, but I’m thinking about maybe rearranging hours so that folks that aren’t available during the day would be able to participate and benefit,” Garvey said.

Services

Aside from a social outlet, senior centers connect older adults to services that can help them stay healthy and independent, and according to the NCOA, more than 60 percent of centers are focal points for services through the Older Americans Act. Those services include health, fitness and wellness programs; public benefits counseling; information and nutrition programs among others.

Garvey said events such as paint nights and the possible development of a bocce court are being considered at her center, and Whitman is one of the first towns in the area to offer pickleball, which lost some of its participants when the Abington Senior Center built three new pickleball courts. An Eagle Scout candidate, however, conducted a project to improve the Whitman pickleball courts adjacent to the Police Station last summer.

I see bingo attendance declining,” she said, but new games being offered have begun to draw interest. “Craft classes are well attended, I’m just trying to hone in on what’s successful and what’s not.”

A questionnaire about programs people would like to see is in the works. Every resident 60 and over also receives the Whitman Council on Aging newsletter.

HANSON — The community is mourning the loss of Hanson Public Library Director Nancy M. Cappellini, a loving person who made friends with colleagues and made her friends feel like part of the family.

Cappellini died at home Sunday, Dec. 18 after a long illness [see obituary, page 13]. The library was slated to be closed Thursday, Dec. 22 to permit the staff to attend her funeral.

“Nancy Cappellini was a positive, welcoming presence for everyone who came to the library,” said Library Trustees Chairman Jennifer Hickey. “She was a joy to work with. Everyone liked Nancy and the energy that she brought to every interaction.”  Hickey said to Cappellini, running the library was more than a job — she truly cared about the patrons, staff, Trustees and the Foundation.

“She will be sorely missed,” Hickey said. “Nancy became a good friend to me over the years, and I am heartbroken at losing her.”

The Board of Selectmen also honored Cappellini, observing a moment of silence in her memory Tuesday night.

“I know she’s had a great impact on a number of people — seniors and our kids in our town,” said Selectmen Chairman James McGahan. “I know that she’ll be sorely missed.”

Many of those who knew and worked with her in town government echoed that sentiment.

“She was such a special, uplifting person,” Town Clerk Elizabeth Sloan said. “It’s such a loss. She was such a presence in that library and even in Town Hall when she was here.”

Administrative Assistant to the Board of Selectmen Meredith Marini said she will remember Cappellini as a pleasant person with a ready smile.

“She had a great outlook on life,” Marini said. “It’s heart-breaking, she’s definitely too young to be gone.”

Those who worked closely with Cappellini were deeply shaken by the news of her passing, said Senior Center Director Mary Collins, whose facility shares the same building as the Hanson Public Library.

“It was a very family-like atmosphere,” Collins said of the library. “Each one of them (staff members) said to me that’s because she created that.”

Collins spent part of the day Monday with the library staff.

“It’s so personal,” Collins said of the loss. “I just feel truly that she was a woman of integrity and compassion and she always had what was in the best interest of the patrons in mind.”

Cappellini was always looking for ways to improve the library’s services and involve more people in programs, including the founding of the monthly Book-to-Movie group. She was also an advocate of agriculture, including a farm babies petting zoo in the annual summer reading program kickoff events and working to help form the town’s Agriculture Committee, on which she served as its clerk. She also served on a past reuse committee for the Plymouth County Hospital site.

“I think she was one of Hanson’s treasures, and hopefully people had an opportunity to know her,” Collins said.

Library friends and colleagues also spoke of their friend.

“I worked with Nancy serving as Library Trustee for five years, and I always admired her grace, humor, and patience,” said Trustee Helen Levesque wrote on Cappellini’s condolence page at the Keohane Funeral Homes website.

Library staff and trustees in Whitman were also saddened by Cappellini’s loss.

“Nancy was a wonderful woman,” said Whitman Public Library Director Andrea Rounds. “She was really well-respected in the library field and we’re so sorry to hear about her passing.”

Rounds said her Hanson counterpart will be truly missed.

“She was one of the most welcoming people,” agreed  Michael Ganshirt, administrative assistant to Whitman Town Clerk Dawn Varley and a Whitman Library trustee. “Every time you went in the library, she always came out and said hi and spent some time with you. The town is going to miss her greatly.”

Ganshirt, who is also president of Whitman and Hanson Dollars for Scholars, said Cappellini was supportive of that cause and “anything that anyone else did,” he said.

Whitman Public Library Senior Library Technician Mary Casey said Cappellini  had the remarkable ability to make one feel part of her family.

“She exuded such grace, compassion and warmth,” Casey said. “She met everyone with her radiant smile and had the ability to put everyone at ease.”

Casey recalled a Mass. Library Association conference dinner in May, during which Cappellini just happened to sit next to her.

“I had an extraordinary evening with her because … she was just a fun person, a very down-to-earth person, funny and just very graceful,” Casey said. “She was just a real lady.”

HANOVER — Hanson native Laurie Fusco — who is also a mom and advocate for youth with autism — and her son Kevin, 15, who has autism, joined several families for Pizza with the Police last Thursday and a viewing of “Be Safe: The Movie” at the South Shore Children’s Museum in the Hanover Mall.

Fusco was instrumental in bringing national advocate and educator Emily Iland, M.A., co-producer of “Be Safe: The Movie” to educate both officers and youths with autism and other disorders on how to safely interact with one another.

The group enjoyed pizza, watched the movie and then played games that helped role play and enforce behavior modeling students saw on the video first. Officers and guests were able to sit together and intermingle in an undisturbed,  non-threatening environment.

Iland who has an adult son, 34, with autism was first made aware of the need for education more than 20 years ago when her son had experiences with officers.

“I was very worried about him when he was out driving, because he has autism.” Iland said. “I wasn’t sure how he would do in meeting the police. It is as important to teach the police how to interact and understand how to interact with people with disabilities.”

In reviewing her efforts over the last 20 years and the education of 5,000 officers she realized it was still not enough.

“We have to also train our young people”, she said. “I discovered there were no tools to aid with teaching. I decided to do something about it.”

The movie was made by and for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, according to a press release about the program about which Iland is so passionate. The DVD is a video modeling tool using games, activities and lessons to reinforce positive and safe behaviors when dealing with law enforcement.

Iland recently worked with Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald and Hanson Chief Michael Miksch in February training 50 officers and deputies on autism.

She joined forces with producer Joey Travolta who has a movie training studio and works with individuals with cognitive disorders, autism, ADHD, and various mental health disorders.

They created “Be Safe: The Movie” using specific techniques to educate youth on the autism spectrum on how to interact safely with police officers.

State Rep Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, and Hanson police along with officers and police chiefs from several south shore communities attended the event.

“We teach individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder not to run, fight, or reach for the officer’s belt, or equipment,” Iland said. “In return for the officers — the event allowed a casual meeting with youth in their communities who may have a disability  — the officer can hear how they talk, communicate and can even offer mentoring skills to help them develop skills to grow positively within the community.”

Key behaviors which are enforced through the movie are that an officer must be able to see your hands. The organization handed out self-disclosure cards in which families may want to fill out with their information and specific accommodations.

“They can’t just reach into their pockets so we use the correct model on how to behave and ask for help,” said Iland.

As past president of the Autism Society in Los Angeles Iland is an award winning author, is an adjunct professor of Special Education at California State University, Northridge.  She is the author of Experience Autism training for law enforcement and is actively involved in initiatives and policies related to autism and safety, according to her bio emilyiland.com.

HANSON — Pastor Kristian Skjerli of Calvary Baptist Church, may not have planned on leading a church, but since he was a teenager he knew he had a calling to serve God in his community.

“It’s something I knew God was calling me to do back when I was 17,” he said. “It just took a little bit of a winding road that I didn’t expect. But it was a good road.”

Skjerli, 56, was approached to become senior pastor at Calvary Baptist about a year and a half ago, while serving as a deacon and member of the search committee to fill the vacancy in the pulpit after the Rev. Jeffrey Lavoie left to found The Well Community Church in Halifax.

“The thing that we want to make sure of, is yes we’re here to serve the needs of the community — whatever that is,” Skjerli said during an interview at his church Thursday, Dec. 1.

The church is a center to administer vouchers for families in need to contact the Salvation Army — the Hanson Senior Center fills that role for the elder population. The church also has begun an annual Thanksgiving dinner for dementia patients as well as an occasional thank you breakfast for the region’s first responders.

The church works with the Hanson Food Pantry as a collection location, as well as hosting a monthly support group for families who have lost children to addiction and is reaching out to determine how it can assist a program at East Bridgewater’s Covenant Community Church.

A group of Calvary Baptist members with trades backgrounds are joining forces to help people in need of minor repairs on their homes but can’t afford to hire a repairman. Residents purchase the material and the group performs the labor.

Calvary Baptist is also becoming involved as a participant in the Hanson Holiday Fest. Church member Jamie Bevelaqua is leading community outreach initiatives.

“The goal is to extend the hands and feet of Christ — that we are, literally, those hands and feet — so that as there is a need people can sense that we’re reaching out not only because we’re nice people, but because we have a message that drives us,” Skjerli said. The church also supports 39 mission projects around the world, as a way to aid its global community.

It’s the type of community outreach to which Skjerli has always been called.

“I started public speaking when I was 12 through a mission down in New York [City],” he said of a Baptist church group he belonged to that volunteered at an Episcopal mission, ministering to the homeless.  “I started sharing my faith and scripture as simply as a 12-year-old could.” Skjerli recalled.

Their mission was to provide information about services available to the homeless and to “give them hope because of Christ.”

“You have to look at things through their eyes,” he said. “Walk beside them at least, and feel what they feel, to get an idea of who they are.”

He recalled one man, a journalist from Los Angeles named Thomas O’Brien, who had struggled with alcoholism, and moved to New York for a job he was unable to find.

God’s love

“I asked him what the hardest thing was on the street, and he said, ‘Knowing that nobody cares about me. That — if I were to die today — nobody would know,’” Skjerli said. “I was able to share God’s love with him and that transformed me into recognizing the deepest need of people is to understand that somebody loves them, and God’s love is real and we understand it as we talk about this time of year through Christ.”

As a teen, Skjerli also helped found a program in his home church in the Brewster, N.Y., area to pick up kids and families who had no transportation on a church bus to provide rides to church and Sunday school.

“My heart was beginning to expand then, and my mind toward the needs of a community,” he said.

Born in Stamford, Conn. and raised in Danbury and in Brewster, N.Y., Skjerli, he and his family have lived in Scituate since 1994 — moving to care for his wife’s ailing parents. He graduated from Word of Life Bible College in upstate New York and at Cedarville College in central Ohio where he studied liberal arts and a Bible major.

His first ministry experience was as a teacher in a Christian school in Danbury. Eight years later they moved to Massachusetts, joining New England Baptist Church in East Bridgewater, where he was again asked to teach in a church-run school, doing so for 10 years.

While he never had the opportunity to go to seminary, Skjerli has preached at church and in a home church setting in addition to working with kids and learning sign language while at New England Baptist, which brought them to Calvary Baptist seven years ago. Skjerli now plans to continue study toward a master’s degree in counseling. It has been an unusual journey to the position of pastor, but one the church elders felt was strong enough in Biblical and pastoral knowledge to earn him the job.

“I have a strong Biblical education … I have a lot of experience in the pulpit,” he said. “Ministry has always been a part of my fiber.”

Skjerli served as a deacon under Lavoie and, as chairman of the deacons, the “leadership kind of fell into my lap when Jeff left,” due to a difference in philosophy. Skjerli then shared ministry with others trained in ministry while the search committee did its work.

When the time came to decide on whether to call three final candidates to serve as a guest minister so the church could get to know them, one of his fellow deacons asked Skjerli he would first consider being the new pastor.

He felt the decision needed thought and prayer, but accepted the post after undertaking a two-and –a-half hour question and answer session that ordained him.

“They needed to know who I was,” he said. He then preached a Sunday as a candidate pastor before being overwhelmingly winning votes from the congregation.

HANOVER — A proposed horticulture curriculum at South Shore Regional Vocational Technical School has taken another step forward.

Science Department Chairman Matt Fallano gave a PowerPoint presentation to the SSVT District School Committee during its Wednesday, Nov. 16 meeting, outlining how the program would start by offering a landscaping program. No vote was taken on the proposal.

Scituate member John Manning, of the Capital Projects Subcommittee, reported that Fallano and the group has toured facilities at a couple vocational schools that offer horticulture programs. School officials have met with counterparts at Silver Lake and Upper Cape regional schools regarding the cost and logistics of starting such a program.

All specializations would cover botany as well as soil properties and sciences, according to Fallano, who noted that small engine maintenance would also be covered.

“Right off the bat, if you’re starting to think what kind of jobs [are students being trained for], you can imagine what sort of background could be used or applied for,” he said.

The landscape and turf management program would include instruction on safety, design and estimation, maintenance and installation as well as turf management practices. Arboriculture, or tree sciences, would involve safety, equipment standards, tree climbing, tree maintenance and removal. Floral design and interior landscaping would teach greenhouse management, production and floriculture business operations.

“We would never start off with all three of them, so what we’re looking at is the soil sciences to begin with,” Fallano said. “You would not get this type of training at any other normal sending school. It’s perfect for a vocational-based school.”

It would eventually be a training ground for students interested in careers such as hardscape designers or architects, greenhouse and grounds workers, arborists, nursery or turf grass mangers and even farm managers.

“There’s a big push for small farms in the local area,” he said. “Having a resource that those farms can reach out to has been a [goal] for this area.”

There is also no feeder program for local horticulture businesses and a program at SSVT can also lead to college degrees. Students can also graduate with licenses or the bookwork for a license test when they are 18. That can boost earning potential.

Fallano also touched on the credentials the district should look for in a program director and committee concerns about accreditation. Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas Hickey is also looking toward grants to help fund the program startup.

Committee Chairman Robert Molla of Norwell indicated the start-up cost estimate would be included in preliminary fiscal 2018 budget figures when the committee meets again on Wednesday, Dec. 21.

In other business, Principal Margaret Dutch reported the MCAS performance of SSVT students in the Class of 2018 has been akin to moving mountains, describing how it translates to a graph.

“Because we are a regional school, we do not educate anybody until they get to grade nine,” Dutch said. “We take our students as they come from the eight sending towns, and wherever else they come from, and we try and get everybody on the same page and get them ready in less than two years to be successful on MCAS.”

The current junior class had 51 students who had failed the exam in grade eight — the first “mountain” on the grade chart, Dutch said. As sophomores taking the MCAS exam at SSVT, the same class had shown vast improvement.

“We [had] decided there was something we needed to do in order to make sure we didn’t have 51 10th-graders failing the MCAS,” she said. Targeted remediation and working with teachers to address problem areas for those students made that improvement possible. The high point of the scores curve last year — the second mountain — showed an increase in higher scores over the class’ grade eight marks.

“We’re not trying to compare ourselves with anybody else or what anybody else is doing because we are a unique entity,” Dutch said. “We are very proud to know that our teachers, with targeted intervention, can move mountains.”

Whitman Committee member Daniel Salvucci reported on some of the innovative vocational school projects highlighted at the recent Massachusetts Association of School Committee conference. The projects were tiny houses built by Southeastern Vo-Tech in Easton; an applications project at Assabet Valley to show teachers how effective a lesson plan was by symbols scanned by a free app on a teacher’s smartphone; a veterinary program offered at Norfolk Aggie and Massasoit as well as the new Essex Agricultural and Technical High School’s teacher mentoring program.

Salvucci said the tiny house project was popular with students because of the size.

“What they liked about doing it is that you had carpenters and electricians working so close together that they taught each other, and they worked together,” he said.

The committee also recognized Abington Graphics Communications senior Ryan Glynn as November Student of the Month and English teacher Allison Provost as Staff Member of the Month.

“Ryan is a focused, high-achieving student in class, but is also a great and caring person,” one of Glynn’s teachers wrote.

Another nominated Glynn as a “great overall citizen of the [SSVT] community” another noted he is a well-liked student-athlete saying, “No one had had a bad thing to say about Ryan.”

Assistant Principal Mark Aubrey said Provost was the student’s honoree for Staff Member of the Month after only two months as a teacher at the school. She had been a student teacher at SSVT about 10 years ago.

“When students nominated her they spoke of her being ‘very helpful, patient and kind, is that not something we want from every person in our lives, not just our teacher,’” Aubrey said.

There is no early release day at the high school Friday, Dec. 2. Lunch served that day will be: Cheese pizza, tossed salad, carrot sticks with dipping sauce, chilled and fresh fruit and milk.

HANSON — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Nov. 15 voted 3-1 to approve a request by the Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Mass., to use Camp Kiwanee for a one-day conference at a reduced rate. Selectmen Bill Scott voted against the discount based on his concern over the group’s intent of charging participants a registration fee.

“We had asked that any deviation from the rates of usage of Camp Kiwanee — any reduction in the rate — be brought forward to this committee,” said Selectmen Chairman James McGahan in the meeting broadcast on Whitman-Hanson Community Access TV. Selectman Kenny Mitchell was absent from the meeting due to illness.

The WAA submitted their request in a letter to selectmen, outlining their purpose and explaining that the alliance holds biennial conferences and workshops in intervening years. The coalition of 12 watershed groups’ regional conference was last held at Plimouth Plantation, which waived a fee in return for publicity as an event partner, in 2015.

They are seeking a similar sponsorship from the town to use Camp Kiwanee from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., March 16, 2017. The usual one-day conference rate for Camp Kiwanee is $1,000. The WAA requested a 50-percent discount.

Many conference attendees either work or volunteer for nonprofits with small budgets, the letter explained. It also offers reduced registration rates for students and low-income participants.

Two participating organizations, the Taunton Watershed and the Jones River groups, have connections to Hanson.

Town Administrator Michael McCue created a form for a discount request, which WAA representatives filled out, including backup information about the program and participating agencies.

“This would be a positive advertisement for Camp Kiwanee,” McGahan said.

“They charge a fee for people to attend, they’re not considered a nonprofit organization,” Scott said. “They generate funds from outside groups. I think it’s a good idea what they’re trying to do but I just wonder if we’re setting a precedent.”

McGahan and Selectmen Bruce Young suggested the registration costs might be a mechanism for covering the cost of the event and asked McCue to advise them if there is any reason to believe the fees are a profit-making device.

In other business, the board approved revisions to the complaint and service animal policies.

The only change to the complaint policy is that persons filing a complaint be the offended party or a parent or guardian. The service animals policy is a new one, allowing admission of service animals to town property for handicapped persons who need them. Under the guidelines, therapy animals are not considered service animals.

Selectmen also voted to place a Board of Water Commissioners vacancy, created by the Nov. 1 resignation of Mary Lou Sutter on the May 20, 2017 Town Election ballot, because the appointment made to fill the post was a short-term one.

Selectmen and Water Commissioners then voted 7-0 to appoint William Garvey of 66 Morton St., to fill the vacancy for now. If Garvey wishes to remain on the board he would have to run for election in May.

A South Shore Vo-Tech graduate, Garvey has an HVAC trade certificate, an applied science degree from Massasoit Community College in HVAC service and design and work experience in the field and has served on the Indian Head and Maquan Priority Repair Committee.

WHITMAN — Sometimes a muse finds their writer — and won’t let go until their story is told.

For retired Falmouth nurse Terri Arthur, British nurse Edith Cavell was one of these muses.

“Edith who?” one might ask.

Cavell’s work, dedication to humanity and determination to save the lives of about 200 British soldiers in German-occupied Belgium during World War I, led to her Oct. 12, 1915 execution by firing squad when the Germans caught up with her. The only woman so executed by the enemy during that war, Cavell’s death became an emotional recruiting tool for the British Army and launched a letter-writing campaign by American women’s groups to President Woodrow Wilson that is now recognized as a first step toward American involvement in WWI.

“Her death was [headlines] in every country all over the world,” Arthur said. “When they saw the headlines on Edith Cavell … [women’s groups] took her on as a cause celebré and they inundated Wilson with letters.”

In a way, Cavell’s stated life’s goal may have foreshadowed the circumstances of her death.

“Someday, somehow, I’m going to do something useful, something for people,” Cavell once wrote. “They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.”

But who was Edith Cavell?

That question took Arthur on a journey of coincidental events that led her to write “Fatal Destiny: Edith Cavell, World War I Nurse,” [2015, $19.95, HenschelHAUS Publishing], a book so well received in Britain that she was asked to adjust spelling and syntax for a British edition.

Arthur’s visit to the Whitman Public Library’s Local Author Series on Monday, Nov. 10 traced both Cavell’s story and how she came to write it. The Friends of the Whitman Public Library fund the series.

“It’s time to resurrect Edith,” Arthur said. “She has a message for us today. She showed courage and strength at a time when it was very difficult to do.”

Arthur began her talk with an anecdote of how DNA left in bloody fingerprints by ancient native peoples who constructed New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon settlements helped answer some questions about possible connections to other Anasazi dwellings in the region.

“The person I’m going to talk about today also left her fingerprints in history, but she’s been basically forgotten, like those builders were forgotten,” Arthur said. “It’s time to bring Edith back.”

The centennial of Cavell’s execution was observed last year and the centennial of WWI is ongoing through Nov. 11, 2018.

For Arthur, the journey began with one of those nursing-related gifts many nurses receive and are never sure what to do with: a book titled “Postcards of Nursing” by Michael Zwerdling. She finally leafed through it on a stormy night and ran across postcards depicting Edith Cavell, some of which depicted her death and images of the Grim Reaper. She read an outline about Cavell in the back of the book and was “blown away.”

“How is it that I, as a nurse, had never heard about this nurse?” she said.

It launched her on a search for information, which led her to others whose response was “Edith who?” Even during a trip to the UK, where she made a special trip to the memorial statue to Cavell in Trafalgar Square, Arthur was unable to find anyone staffing tourist gift shops nearby who had heard of Cavell, either.

Arthur then made a side trip to Cavell’s burial site in  Norwich where, as fate would have it, the city’s cathedral was holding a 90th anniversary service for Cavell the next day — Oct. 12, 2005.

A BBC reporter caught the sound of Arthur’s American accent and asked what brought her to the event.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m a nurse and I believe that what Edith Cavell did really represents nurses in every country,’” Arthur said, adding the next thing she new, she was being interviewed for BBC-TV news.

Arthur was hooked.

“I don’t know who got who first,” Arthur said. “I don’t know if I got Edith Cavell first or if she got me first, but after that, I was hooked.”

Arthur’s research took her from the Imperial War Museum, where she was able to purchase copies of Cavell’s letters, to Belgium, the Royal London and the Brussels Hospital named in honor of Cavell as well as the Tir National Prison where Cavell was executed.

Before she began writing, however, Arthur also had take classes in creative writing techniques such as finding the voice of a narrative and setting the pace.

The eldest daughter of an Anglican minister, Cavell studied nursing at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel about the time of the Jack the Ripper murders, because that section of London was where she felt she was needed. She worked there until she was asked to begin a nursing school in Brussels in 1907. She had worked in Belgium before as a governess.

When WWI broke out in August 1914, Cavell was visiting her family in England but felt it was her duty to return to Belgium. The Germans occupied Belgium, reaching Brussels by Aug. 20, 1915. Since September 1914, Cavell had been helping smuggle British soldiers into the Netherlands after initially caring for two wounded British soldiers who had sought her out. She took them in despite signs posted by the Germans all over Belgium warning of the fatal consequences of helping allied soldiers escape.

She was arrested with 33 others on Oct. 5, 1915 after a German spy had infiltrated the underground, was tried for treason by a German court martial on Oct. 7 and executed on Oct. 12, 1915.

After the war, she was exhumed by the British and returned to England for a state funeral in Westminster Abbey [a rare film clip of which may be viewed at iwm.org.uk] and reburied at Norwich Cathedral. Her pallbearers included soldiers she had saved.

Since writing her book, Arthur has been the only American invited to participate in anniversary ceremonies for Cavell in both Norwich and London.

With 47.7 percent of America’s popular vote backing Hillary Clinton and 47.5 percent for Donald Trump, youths seem to be just as divided as adults by the 2016 presidential election.

Whitman-Hanson Regional High School students took part in the annual National Student Mock Election on Friday, Oct 28, in which they gave the win to Trump, with 282 votes to Clinton’s 253 — with 208 votes going to third-party candidates. Libertarian Gary Johnson received 173 votes and Jill Stein of the Green-Rainbow Party garnered 35 votes.

The national Scholastic Student Vote held last month, meanwhile, picked Clinton, with 52 percent of the vote to Trump’s 35 percent and 13 percent for “others.” In Massachusetts, the split was 65 percent for Clinton, 24 percent for Trump and 11 percent for others.

Johnson received the third-highest vote totals in the Scholastic voting, as well as at W-H.

On the four ballot questions, W-H students rejected another slot parlor by 141 votes and crushed the proposed expansion of charter schools by 505 votes. They approved Question 3 for better treatment of farm animals by 491 votes and approved the elegalization of marijuana by 309 votes.

The National Student Mock Election in Massachusetts is coordinated through the JFK Presidential Library.Results from Whitman-Hanson have been sent in to be calculated along with others from around the United States.

Lydia Nelson’s business law students and students on the Mock Trial Team have been working for weeks with curriculum materials, materials from the Secretary of State, news sources, and fact-checking websites to create legitimate resources for the school.

The school news broadcast daily information sent by the students.  Information was placed on the school network’s share drive for easy access. Posters were made and placed around the school. The results were tallied and submitted to the JFK Presidential Library.

Scholastic magazine touted the track record of its mock election as an accurate barometer for the real thing.

“Since 1940, the results of the student vote have usually mirrored the outcome of the presidential election,” according to Scholastic. They have only been wrong twice — picking Republican Thomas E. Dewey over President Harry S Truman in 1948 and Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960. In both those elections, the margin of victory was extremely close — for Truman it was 1,012,125 popular votes over Dewey and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 1948; for Kennedy in 1960 it was only 112,827 over Nixon.

WHITMAN — It’s a paradox of sorts that — while most of us may know someone living with a form of dementia — it’s a condition that can be isolating and lonely for them and their loved ones.

The Rev. Colette Bachand-Wood, priest of Whitman’s All Saints Episcopal Church knows of that isolation as both the daughter of a dementia patient and a member of the clergy ministering to patients in nursing and hospice facilities.

“I really began to be interested in how we as spiritual communities respond to, and help care for, people who have members of their families experiencing Alzheimer’s and dementia,” Bachand-Wood said. She also wrote a book, “Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia,” [Morehouse Publishing, 2016, 111 pages, $14], which began a conversation in her church as to how those services can be offered.

Certified in several types of training to work with dementia patients and their families, Bachand-Wood has trained a six-member team of her church members in dementia awareness and has begun a dementia-friendly ecumenical worship service at All Saints from 10 a.m. to noon on the third Thursday of the month. The church, known as “the little brown church at the park,” is located at 44 Park Ave., in Whitman.

“What I find is that people become so isolated when they have this disease,” she said. “If you’re a couple who’s been married 55 years and you used to love going to church where everybody knew you. Your faith is really important to you, but now the wife has Alzheimer’s and it’s just too hard to get out of the house … what if I get to church and she starts acting up?”

It can also lead to isolation and tremendous stress for care-givers as well.

Bachand-Wood linked up with Dementia-Friendly Massachusetts, taking their training program, as well.

“I put all my experiences together and now have created a workshop for churches of any denomination for creating dementia-friendly congregations,” she said. All Saints is, as far as Bachand-Wood is aware, the first church on the South Shore, if not in the state, to achieve designation as a dementia-friendly congregation.

Her team at All Saints has taken three sessions over four months in which they learned what dementia is — as well as its forms, such as Alzheimer’s — as well as how to interact positively with dementia patients and the “dementia experience.” The latter involved creating experiences similar to the physical manifestations of dementia: bags of popcorn in shoes to mimic nerve pain, earplugs and semi-obscured sunglasses for hearing and vision loss and tying fingers together to hint of the frustration of arthritis and other loss of dexterity. Then they were asked to perform daily tasks with annoying noises played in the background.

“I had no idea until I did that how isolating and frustrating it can be,” Bachand-Wood said.

One of Bachand-Wood’s care team members, who also do community outreach at nursing homes, is Regina Gurney, who was partly inspired by Bachand-Wood’s book. Gurney also led a special needs Girl Scout troop when she was younger.

“It was just something I wanted to do,” Gurney said of joining the care team. “I like helping people and these are people that, while they have some people who care for them, not enough people know about dementia to relate to them.”

The team is trained to aid spouses if a problem crops up, to reassure them there is no need for embarrassment or worry. A professional home health aid from North River Home Care will also be on staff during services.

“There are people out there in our community that have stopped going to church because it’s too much work, they’re afraid they’re going to be embarrassed,” Bachand-Wood said. “To sit and pray would be so helpful for them — to be reconnected to their faith, so they don’t feel so alone and isolated — that’s really who I’m hoping to reach.”

The service can also be used as a drop-off for spouses to give them a respite. Services are followed by an engaging activity and a snack.

The dementia-friendly service depends on tactile and colorful devices as well as music to communicate with patients who often have lost verbal skills.

“We use things that are very familiar to people,” Bachand-Wood said. The Lord’s Prayer and hymns such as “Amazing Grace” often make a connection as do the tools and icons associated with communion.

In her book, Bachand-Wood writes of a woman whose verbal communication was limited to repeated phrases, but when Bachand-Wood began to set up an altar for a bedside communion, the woman held up the chalise and clearly said: “Remember me.”

“It was such a really great lesson,” Bachand-Wood said. “People with dementia are still inside … they’re in there. How can we help them reconnect with faith?”

Crosses, candles and color — key for dementia patients with failing vision — help restore that connection.

Music helps with that because research shows what dementia patients do remember are “emotional memories” of feelings experienced during the turning points of life. Music, too, is often part of those experiences.