May 14th - May 20th

May 20, 1830

May 20, 1830 - Ralph Waldo Emerson in Brookline

May 18, 1864 - Edward Wild and the "African Brigade"
May 16, 1929 - William Wellman's Wings wins Academy Award

May 19, 1984 - Larz Anderson Auto Museum

May 20, 1830
Ralph Waldo Emerson in Brookline
Ralph Waldo Emerson, then a young pastor at the Second Church in Boston, moved with his wife Ellen and his mother Ruth to the old Aspinwall House on Aspinwall Avenue. (The house, shown below, stood from c1660 to 1891 where the Billy Ward Playground is today.)

The old Aspinwall House on Aspinwall Avenue, shown more than half a century after Ralph Waldo Emerson, his wife, and his mother occupied four rooms there in the spring and summer of 1830.

Emerson described the lodgings in a letter to his brother William: 

“I expect mother in town Thursday or Friday & she will go to Brookline & take possession of our lodgings at Mrs. Perry’s — (in old Aspinwall House where Uncle Ralph lived one summer long ago) where we have a parlor & 3 chambers one for mother one for wife & one for you when you will come & welcome. “ 

It was hoped that the new home would help Ellen recover from tuberculosis, with Emerson’s mother there to keep house. Emerson, however, found it inconvenient “traveling four miles out & home daily” to and from his position at the church. In September, after only four months in Brookline, they moved into Boston. (Ellen would die of tuberculosis in February at the age of 19.)

May 18, 1864
Edward Wild and the "African Brigade"

Edward A. Wild

Brigadier General Edward Augustus Wild of Brookline arrived in North Carolina to begin recruiting formerly enslaved men for a Union Army unit that became known as Wild's African Brigade. A Black recruiter working with Wild reported that the freedmen were "greatly elated at the idea of being made soldiers."

The new troops were organized as the 1st North Caroline Colored Volunteers. Wild, according to a biography written by two grandsons of his sister Laura, was also concerned about the families these new soldiers left behind and gave "much time and labor to the care and provision of Negro families."

Edward Wild, a doctor like his father Charles, grew up in his family home, still-standing on what is now Weybridge Road. He lost an arm early in the Civil War, which made it impossible to continue his medical career after the war's end. He engaged in mining and railroad work in the West and in Columbia, where he died in 1891.

May 16, 1929
William Wellman's Wings wins Academy Award
The motion picture Wings, about American pilots fighting for the French in World War I, was awarded the Best Picture award at the first Academy Awards. William "Billy" Wellman, the director, was born in the house at 4 Perry Street, still-standing today. 

Wellman had himself been a pilot in France, joining other American pilots on the French side before the U.S. entered entered the war and being credited with shooting down seven German planes.

William Wellman as a pilot in France and the house in Linden Square, Brookline where he was born

Wellman was not invited to the awards ceremony, reportedly because of tensions between him and the studio. He was nominated for Best Director three times in his career but did not win. He did win an individual Oscar (shared with Robert Carson) for Best Original Screenplay for the 1937 version of A Star Is Born. 

The Perry Street house was built in 1843 and first owned by his grandfather. His family moved to Newton when he was young and he attended Newton High School. 

May 19, 1984
Larz Anderson Auto Museum

The Larz Anderson Auto Museum, then known as the Museum of Transportation, returned to its original home in Larz Anderson Park after a five-year hiatus. The museum, which opened in 1952 under the auspices of the Veteran Motor Car Club of America, had relocated to Museum Wharf in Boston in 1979, but closed three years later amid financial difficulties.

The return of the museum to Brookline and the former carriage house of Larz and Isabel Anderson was brought about by an arrangement between the museum and the Town of Brookline, owner of the carriage house. Under the terms of the agreement, the museum would install a new roof and heating system, helping preserve the building as well its collection of cars.

The carriage house was built in 1888 as a stable and later housed the Anderson's growing collection of automobiles. It was inspired by the Chateau de Chaumont-Sur-Loire in France and designed by Edmund M. Wheelwright, the city architect of Boston.

The carriage house of the Larz and Isabel Anderson estate, now the Larz Andeson Auto Museum