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Town historian June Kennedy has been named the Kiwanis Person of the Year and will be lauded on Saturday, May 13 at the Abbot School, 23 Depot St., immediately after the Apple Blossom Parade. The parades begins at 10 a.m. at the intersection of Graniteville Road and Main Street and ends at Abbot School.
June W. Kennedy grew up in Lexington where, she said, local history and community pride becomes ingrained in the soul. She and her husband Charlie moved to Westford in 1958 where they raised two daughters in what was then a rural community of 6,000 people. Cows wandered through their yard and the nearest grocery was in a neighboring town.
Wanting to help preserve the old-time character of Westford, Kennedy joined the Westford Historical Society in 1965 and later was a founder of the Westford Museum.
Intrigued by one-room schoolhouses, she presented a slide show of Westford’s 10 district schools. She sought out schoolmarms, former students, tales, and photographs until all the pieces fit together. This taste of local history sparked the first series of “Westford Recollections” articles in the Westford Eagle from 1970-1975. During the American Bicentennial Kennedy taped interviews of 50 elderly townspeople. Their folksy tales from the late 1800s to early 1900s made old Westford come alive for her, she said, and warranted sharing, beginning with “The Westford Recollections 250th Anniversary Series” in the Eagle. In 1979, Kennedy authored Westford Recollections 1729-1979, a hard-cover pictorial history, and in 2006 Westford Recollections of Days Gone By, her complete interviews with photos.
As historian at First Parish Church United, Kennedy earmarked special church anniversaries by organizing and outfitting folks in period dress for old-time services, as docents for open house tours and for marchers in the Apple Blossom Parade. A memorable church activity was chairing the Strawberry ‘n’ Arts Festival from its inception in 1976 to 1985, and she continues to organize the festival’s musical entertainment.
Since 1989, as a founder of the Friends of the Parkerville Schoolhouse, Kennedy has served on its Board of Directors and as an elected member of Westford’s Parkerville Schoolhouse Committee. By interviewing 22 Parkerville alumni, she personalized the “Old School Days” history class where she has played schoolmarm for Westford’s third-graders since 1997.
In 2000 Kennedy and her husband received the Massachusetts Historical Commission 2000 Preservation Award for their 35 years of local historic preservation activities. In 2002 Kennedy received the Gordon B. Seavey Appreciation Award in recognition of support to the Westford Schools. In 2010 Parkerville was placed on the National Schoolhouse Register by the Country School Association of America, who announced in 2014 that June and Charlie were being awarded a CSAA Service Award for their Parkerville Schoolhouse contributions.
“It takes a village to retain old-time Westford,” said Kennedy who voiced appreciation for the work of so many other members of the Parkerville Schoolhouse Committee, the Westford Historical Society & Museum, the First Parish Church United, and the Strawberry ‘n’ Arts Festival committee with whom she has worked.
“How rewarding to witness a vibrant Historical Society, a 41st Strawberry Festival, and new schoolmarms teaching at Parkerville Schoolhouse,” she said.
