Draper shop main door on Hopedale Street.
    1980 on the left. 2015 on the right. Click here
    for the "Last Worker Leaves" article.

    Neighboring town pictures for January - Town and village signs. In years past, when the textile industry was
    booming, people often identified more with the village they lived in than the town. When asked where they lived,
    many in Grafton, for instance, would be more likely to reply, Fisherville or Farnumsville than Grafton or even South
    Grafton. These days, Hopedale people might say they live in Laurelwood or Pinecrest, but it's probably pretty rare
    for anyone to say they live in Spindleville or White City.

    In a few cases, there are villages which are in towns of the
    same name. Upton is one example of this, and Hopedale
    is another. The village of Hopedale is conveniently located
    right in the middle of the town of Hopedale. The picture on
    the left, below, is across from the post office and the one
    on the right is on Freedom Street. There's another near
    the intersection of Hopedale and Dutcher streets. When
    they first went up, a minor controversy resulted. Click here
    to read about it.

    Formerly called Milford Products, now Milford
    Tire - it's on South Main Street in Hopedale.

    That strip makes a good point. When did "No problem" start replacing
    "Your welcome?" Hard to believe we old geezers are responsible for it.

Hopedale in January 2015


Hopedale history ezine for January 1 - Just Trying to Help   

January 15 ezine - The Harrison Block, 1984   

Hopedale in 2014        Snow, January, February

  Hopedale in December              HOME


.

Click here to see articles on the repair of the Freedom Street bridge.

    Site work has been going on recently on the lot where
    the Hopedale Garden Nursing Home used to be.

Hopedale Pond - January 2

    January 3 - A skater went through the ice in the cove along
    Freedom Street. Here he is coming off the pond, removing his
    skates, and getting into the ambulance to warm up.

    January 10 - Update - When I was taking these pictures, I couldn't
    tell how wet he was. I thought he'd gone through in the cove where
    it's not deep. No fun, but not terribly dangerous. Today I was out
    on the ice talking with some of the guys who were fishing. Two of
    them had been there. They said it hadn't been the cove - he'd
    gone through up near the Gannett home. One said he saw a
    "whoosh" of water come up and the guy had gone under, briefly.
    When they got to him he didn't appear panicked and wasn't really
    trying to get out. He was just treading water. They found a stick on
    the shore (and one said something about a rope but I didn't quite
    catch that.) Anyway, they managed to get him out and he calmly
    skated to shore.

    Here's the reason for the carnations on the pond. On December 19,
    Jacob Philips of Hopedalet died at the age of 20. At a gathering at the
    Community House on December 30, his mother asked the friends and
    relatives there to scatter the flowers on the pond in Jacob's memory.

January 3

January 4 - Warm and raining. Nobody on the pond today.

    Above - Atria-Draper Place, the assisted living facility that now occupies
    the building that for many years was the Draper Corporation Main Office.
    Below you'll see the regulations you were expected to observe if you were
    working there in the Draper years. The subway, mentioned in the second
    paragraph, refers to the tunnel that connected the shop to the office.  C.F.
    Butterworth lived in the house across from the library. The paper is from
    John Butcher's collection of Hopedale history items.

January 6

    Council on Aging New Year's breakfast at the Community
    House, provided by Atria-Draper Place - January 6.

January 7, 4:14 PM  - 19 degrees.

    Somehow the name Dutcher didn't make it into that article, but Dutcher was Dorothy Horne's
    maiden name. Contrary to what is stated in the second paragraph, Glendon and Dorothy
    weren't members of the Draper family. The Dutchers and Drapers were in business together,
    starting in 1854, but there was no family connection.. I think it's safe to say that most of the
    money left to the Hopedale High School Alumni Association and at least five other organizations
    and institutions came from the sale of the Dutcher temple  shown  below.   The Dutcher Family   

The source of the Dutcher fortune - The Dutcher temple  

    I took this picture through my car windshield at a little after 10 AM at
    the intersection of Hopedale and Freedom streets. I was on my way
    to an appointment for a tooth crown job.

    A little after taking the picture at the Hopedale-Freedom intersection, I was
    sitting at the dentist's office looking out at some highway department activity. I
    mentioned to Dr. Park that if I still had my camera in my pocket, I'd be taking a
    picture of what was going on out back. He picked up his phone, took the
    picture you see above, and emailed it to me. Nice job on the crown, too.

    We only got an inch of snow today, and the hockey players
    were back at it this afternoon. It was darker than it looks in the
    picture when I took it at five. The temperature was a much-
    more-comfortable than the last couple of days twenty-seven.

January 9

    The LifeFlight copter at Milford Hospital, with some of the new construction in the
    background. January 11

    From the UMass Memorial website - LifeFlight was New England’s first hospital-based
    air ambulance. Since its founding in 1982, LifeFlight has transported more than 27,000
    patients in a geographic area that extends from Southern Connecticut to New Hampshire
    and from Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York. The LifeFlight program began at
    the University of Massachusetts Medical Center on September 15th 1982.

    Thanks  to  John Butcher for the picture. (And the Draper pictures below, also.)
    Here's a sentence from an article on the Super Bowl that year.

    The Patriots took the then-quickest lead in Super Bowl history after linebacker
    Larry McGrew recovered a fumble from Walter Payton at the Chicago 19-yard line
    on the second play of the game.

    And there's nothing more in that game worth bringing up.

    Umm...Congurations??? That doesn't inspire much confidence in that site. Yes, I
    know. Plenty of typos on this site, too, but I have higher standards for other people.

    Yes, back to the ice again. Tuesday, January 20. Looks about
    as good as it gets, and should be okay through the weekend.

    Well, that turned out to be a bad prediction. Until the weekend,
    not through the weekend, it should have been.

Brook next to the Dutcher Street entrance to the Parklands.

Parklands - "First Fireplace" picnic area.

    What's going on with the mill pond by Route 140? Click here for
    more pictures, past and present..

    The town line goes through the middle of the pond. Hopedale is
    on the left and Milford is on the right.

January 22

Click here to go to a history of the Community Bible Chapel.

Snow at last - January 24.

    The Father Reilley Parish Center at Sacred Heart
    Church. Click here to go to a page of articles on
    the building and dedication of the center.

    Click here to go to Cheryl's page
    where you can order the book.

    Here it comes! I'm just giving you people
    in sunny Florida something to laugh at.

    Blizzard of '15. We had an overnight guest who stayed so she could get to work at
    Draper Place by six this morning. I got up at five and had the snow blower going a
    few minutes later. Probably woke a few neighbors. She was able to leave here in
    her 4-wheel drive by 5:45. I took the picture above looking out the front window at
    about six.  I don't think I'll bother to clean out my car until this is over.

    Inman Street, 11 AM, January 27. About 22 inches of snow had fallen,
    although a bit tricky to measure because of the drifting. Three pictures
    below of my house and path along the side on the afternoon of the
    27th. The snow was deep, but light and cleaned up pretty easy.

Christmas cactus and January snow.

Winter wonderland - January 27, 9 PM

Memorial School science fair - January 30 - Community House.

Parking lot behind center of town - January 31.