Brian Turner

 According to these Dann Vazquez photos, fluffy white hats are in style this season in Northampton, at least among the statuary. 

I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Brian Turner, a Smith College professor, historian and cartoonist originally from the 16 Acres section of Springfield. 

To view a cartoon about the time he ran for class president at Duggan Jr. High School click here. 

Brian was also a fan of The Diary of J. Wesley Miller and we sometimes exchanged correspondence over it. At one point he told me about a Springfield historical project he was starting with Marsha Montori about an eccentric local writer who was also a teacher at Duggan Jr High in the 1960's:

 The genesis of our research/writing project was the Classical High School Class of 1967 reunion in October 2011.  I met Marsha, my writing partner, for the first time since 1971 and immediately fell to talking with her about our favorite teacher at Duggan, circa 1961 -- Harriette Michaels.  

Marsha had stayed in touch with Harriette and worked with her on her memoirs of her life and marriage  and her teaching and social work, based on interviews and also  "I Remember Herbie" columns that ran for years in the Springfield Journal.  Marsha sent me the files, and I read them with great interest, finding myself especially drawn to the descriptions of growing up Jewish in Norfolk, Virginia, her life-long love for her husband Herb, also a teacher, their ecstatic arrival in Springfield circa 1952, and her hair-raising work with the Chapter One/Title One program to recruit poor children into a federally funded school program.  She had to go into the homes of some of Springfield's most dysfunctional families, and her tales are pretty amazing.  

Well, Harriette's gone now.  And Marsha wasn't sure what to do with the material she had.  But she was in touch with their daughter, and I suggested that we write Herb's story as well, because he was quite a character.  We received access to his World War II letters and letters he sent home from his years in Illinois where he worked toward his Masters Degree while living separately from Harriette and his children thanks to the Post-World-War II housing shortage.  A true love story, with corny Jewish jokes.

Then I convinced Marsha that we need to understand the city into which Herb and Harriette arrived with so much hope in 1952, because the city has certainly changed very drastically since then, as we both know.  This led me in particular to pursue my interest in the "outsiders" of Springfield.   Harriette and Herb were regarded as pretty kooky, even by their friends.  They were pretty left wing, Jews of a nonobservant sort, children of poverty and hard times.  Yet they felt at home in Springfield, so what accounted for Springfield's reputation for tolerance of deviation, I wondered, because they arrived here with that reputation in mind.  

According to Stephen Innes, author of Labor in a New Land, Springfield was always a community of distinct individualists, even at its founding, albeit individualists who started out under the thumb of the dominant Pynchon clan.  But then William Pynchon himself managed to write America's first heretical book!  Now, as you well know, and as you have documented for years now, Springfield has long been ruled by a fairly small coterie of insiders, certain families, certain institutions.  

In this it may not be all that different from many American cities.  But the people who run the city seem to have made some really terrible decisions over the years, and the management of the city has only grown more incompetent, short-sighted and corrupt.  (Casinos, anyone?)  

OK, much of that is J. Wesley Miller's great subject, and yours as well.   But as I do my research, I find myself wondering how the triumphs and challenges and bad decisions of the past contributed to the city's current sad state and whether things might have been different.  I doubt I'll be able to answer that, yet the question haunts me.  

Marsha grew up on Talbot Street; after 1961, I lived around the corner on Birchland Avenue.  But from 1949 to 1961, I lived in what is now Mason Square, so I am drawn to the history of Hill-McKnight, the mixing of the races, such as it was back in the day.  I feel as if I am "going home" when I do this research or write about it. Anyway, I have enough work to do on this project and others to keep me occupied for several lifetimes.  And you have your blog and Miller's Diary.

Let's keep in touch,  

Brian

It's a shame that Brian didn't get those "several lifetimes" he needed to complete his many important historical, literary and artistic projects. 

Flag at half-mast at Smith College in honor of Brian Turner. 

This is the UMass Minuteman during this week's snow storm. 

Here I am at the Hadley Mall the day after.

Finally, I leave you stuck in a recent traffic jam in Springfield.