June 4th - June 10th

June 6, 1903

June 10, 1895 - Formation of Equal Suffrage Association
June 6, 1903 - First pieces of Longyear mansion arrive
June 4, 1930 - FDR's son married at St. Paul's
June 8, 2008 - Dedication of Skyline Park 

June 10, 1895
Formation of Equal Suffrage Association

The first meeting of the Brookline Equal Suffrage Association took place at the  home of Mary Hutcheson Page on Hill Street (now Hawthorn Road). The organization, reported Anna K. Channing, one of the offices of the new organization, "was to work for the political enfranchisement of women; or, as one woman said, 'to extend the refining influence of the home into public life.'"

"As our president reminded us," wrote Channing, "we need not be disturbed by obstacles or criticisms to be encountered, if we have in mind the justice of our cause and the certainty of its triumph."

Mary Hutcheson Page, in whose home the first meeting of the Brookline Equal Suffrage Association was held

Membership in the association cost 50 cents, with 75 men and women having signed up by the time of the first meeting.

 

June 6, 1903

First pieces of Longyear mansion arrive
Thirty railroad cars carrying the disassembled stones of a Marquette, Michigan mansion arrived in Brookline where the mansion was to be reassembled atop Fisher Hill. 

The large home had been built in 1892 on the shore of Lake Superior for timber and mining magnate John Longyear and his wife Mary. Dissatisfied by the incursion of a railroad line along the shore of the lake, the Longyears arranged to have the large home dismantled and shipped to Brookline, in part to be near Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science).

"Each block of stone from the 66-room mansion was wrapped in straw and cloth and numbered and put in wooden crates," wrote John Longyear. The mansion, shown at the top of this post, was redesigned and enlarged in its new location. After Mary Longyear's death in 1931, it housed the Longyear Museum until 1995 when the property was sold to a developer and turned into condos.

Stones from the Longyear mansion waiting to be reassembled on Fisher Hill, as seen in a Boston Globe photo, August 7, 1903

June 4, 1930

FDR's son married at St. Paul's
New York governor and future president Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Brookline for the wedding of his son James to Betsy Cushing, daughter of renowned neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing, at St. Paul's Church. The wedding, reported the New York Times, was attended by more than 500 guests, including "leaders of the medical, political, diplomatic and social worlds."

New York Daily News, June 5, 1930

"The church lawns," reported the Boston Globe, "were overrun with people on the Aspinwall av and St Paul sides. Verandas and steps of neighboring houses were used as points of vantage from which to watch the arrival of guests and later that of the bridal attendants and the bride herself." 

The ceremony was followed by a reception on the grounds of the Cushing home on Walnut Street where about a dozen large tents were erected on all sides of the mansion, including one with a dancing floor over the tennis courts. James and Betsey Roosevelt were divorced in 1940.

June 8, 2008
Dedication of Skyline Park 

Skyline Park, Brookline's first new park in more than twenty years, was officially dedicated. The park, built on Newton Street atop a former landfill, included a synthetic turf soccer field, a playground,  picnic tables, benches, and recreational pathways that connect to the Lost Pond Sanctuary.

Skyline Park as seen from the air. (Source: Town of Brookline Annual Report, 2010)

Preparation for the park involved capping the former landfill to prevent contamination. The landfill contained ash from the town's old incinerator, used to burn household waste until it was shut down in 1975. All Massachusetts municipalities were required by the state's Department of Environmental Protection to cap old landfills.

In 2009, the town's Parks and Open Space Division was awarded the  Massachusetts Recreation and Park Association's Design and Facility Award for the project at Skyline Park.