Stories | Wayland Museum & Historical Society

COVID-19 Stories
During this historic time of COVID-19, we are longing now, more than ever, to connect with one another. As Wayland’s history museum, the Wayland Museum and Historical Society is helping our members document your experiences during this historic event. We’ll keep and post the stories and photos you share so that residents now and in the future can learn about life in Wayland and those connected with Wayland in their hearts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mask Making in Wayland

There have been many efforts in our town to provide medical folks and others with face masks in the face of the pandemic we’ve experienced since March.

Wayland Sews
Click here to read about this amazing group of Wayland residents.

Wayalnd Free Public Library
Their 3D printers, and those from our schools, have produced approximately 80 masks and 100 face shields, a collaboration between Town management and the Library Trustees. This organized effort has delivered Face Shields to the following organizations:

Wayland Police and Fire
Health Department when conducting inspections and one-on-one contact during screenings and clinics
Election workers/ Council on Aging services
Plan to use for workers during Town Meeting
Meals on Wheels driver
Staff at Royal Nursing and Rehab, Traditions of Wayland, and Sunrise Assisted Living

First Parish in Wayland’s Sewing Initiative
Dozens of First Parishioners have fired up their sewing machines to sew cloth face masks and scrub hats, with a focus on serving congregation members and nonprofits and agencies that serve frontline health workers. Approximately 40 sewers have created more than 1000 cloth masks and 50 scrub hats to date. And they are still sewing!

First Parish in Wayland’s Lydia Maria Child Fund, which funds new social action initiatives, has helped to buy supplies such as fabric, thread, elastic, and bias tape. In addition, many sewers have dipped into their personal sewing inventories.

Masks have gone to more than 104 members of the First Parish community as well as the following organizations: Care Mark Hospice, Caritas Communities, The Coolidge at Sudbury, The Commons in Lincoln, Emerson Hospital, Mary Ann Morse, McLean Hospital, MetroWest Medical Center, Newbury Court, Newton-Wellesley Hospital faith-based communities, North Shore Medical Center, Parlin Hospice Residence at Traditions, Pine Street Inn Homeless Shelter, and a faith-based umbrella group for family shelters. The First Parish team also is coordinating with WaylandSews to make scrub caps for Mass General Hospital.

Molly Faulkner
August 2020

Grocery shopping in the time of Covid 19

What used to be a fairly benign and mindless activity has now turned into a major coordination and logistics project. I’m talking about going grocery shopping in the time of Covid 19.

Although my husband and I have been following the governor’s mandate and sheltering in place, every few weeks I realize I must venture out from the safety of our home to replenish our supplies.

Preparation is critical. I collect all of the necessary items for my shopping excursion. I have my homemade mask crafted from recycled 100% cotton pillowcases. (After attempting two alternate designs, I finally found a pattern that is fairly comfortable and will stay over my ears.) I used to bring purple latex gloves, but the CDC does not recommend using them. Since I am afraid to bring additional items which could get contaminated like my purse, I stuff my car keys and credit card into my pockets.

Choosing which grocery store to shop at is an essential part of the preparation process. It was only weeks ago or was it months (like many others, I have totally lost track of time) that I was frightened at a store by numerous shoppers who disregarded the social distance guidelines. On that trip, while masks were recommended but not yet mandated, I was appalled by a young couple with two very young children in their arms browsing the aisles totally oblivious to any potential dangers of contracting the virus.

More from Jo

I take a 35 minute drive to a store that is well managed and where I am comfortable shopping. I understand the importance of limiting the number of shoppers in a store and have no problem waiting in line while keeping a 6-foot distance from other shoppers. When I can enter, I take my cart and carefully clean it with wipes provided by the store. This store has implemented “one way” aisles to manage the traffic flow. My detailed shopping list is created at home and is based on what I remember of the store layout to avoid having to double back to find a needed item. On a recent trip, I did manage to find a small bag of King Arthur flour. Like many other products in high demand, including meat, poultry products and toilet paper, the store has posted signs requesting that you limit the number of items you purchase to 2. At the front check out area, I wait in a marked location to maintain the 6-foot separation from other shoppers. A plexiglass screen separates me from the cashier. Credit cards are the preferred method of payment at most stores. When I finally get to my car, I wipe my hands with sanitizer. Once I finally return home, I carefully wash my hands singing two rounds of Happy Birthday and unpack the groceries. Being cautious as possible, I wipe cans with disinfecting wipes. I also thoroughly wash fruits and vegetables. I don’t know how I should treat other items like cereal boxes and packaged meat so I hope the experts are correct in saying that you probably can’t contract the virus from touching things. After everything has been put away, I again carefully wash my hands and return to the “new normal” of staying home. A final and important note – a big “thank you” to all of the frontline workers in the food supply chain whose efforts enable us to have some normalcy in our lives by having food to eat. This list includes the processors at the poultry and meat packing plants, truck drivers and delivery folks, and everyone working in a store from shelf stockers to check out associates. Hopefully we’ll have a vaccine in the near future to protect us from this deadly disease so we can get back to the “old normal.” We never realized how good we had it!

Jo Martell
May 2020

My experience during Covid-19 outbreak in Mass.

On April 6, 2020 my mother, Shirley Pollitt passed away in the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak in Massachusetts and since she was 93 years old it was an expected event. She moved to Wayland in 1960, lived at 113 Concord Rd. until 2014, when she moved into Traditions of Wayland assisted living, and finally in January 2020, transferred into the Parmenter Parlin Hospice House in Wayland to live out the remaining days of her life. Her time in Hospice was quite tranquil with family and friends welcome 24/7, that is, until March 24 when nursing homes began restrictions for visitors because of the Covid-19 outbreak. Happily, sadly, hospice facilities were not bound by this restriction – and, though given temperature checks each visit, we were free to see my mother throughout her last days. Everything was so strange during this period that my mother’s passing just added to the tapestry of unreality. Funeral arrangements are suspended, at least in-person funerals. Family gatherings and family travel are in abeyance. Yet kind letters of condolence via U.S. Postal Service made their way to our mailboxes, cushioning the feelings of isolation and sadness. Thanks to the Parlin Hospice House and thanks to the U.S. Postal Service!

Frances Pollitt
5/13/2020

The River Floods

The past years have grown,
the memories of childhood return,
the river floods of the cove & floodplain.

A fire or a task, the elements we ask,
of a clearing of nothing yet growing,
my memories last past the growth of today,

A particular particulate matter,
of a river a half mile away, coming
to the doorstep of a country byway,

The stones we threw, as Gaza burns,
true, the teenaged heart has passion,
a width of a mother’s glance and a nation passes.

Most of my memories pass from 1967 till 2020,
a regard of history is engaged,
a phrase or a denial is the rage,

A season of death may be everywhere.
How we guess is in the success we perceive.

Allen B. Hagar
13 Charena Rd.

Scarlet Fever

This is actually a story that connects the current pandemic to a world pandemic of Scarlet Fever that ran between 1820 and 1880. It was rampant in Massachusetts in 1858-1859.

When we bought our house at 9 Erwin Rd. in 1997, we found a headstone in what was then a small detached garage. Our house dates back to 1793 and was built by Thomas Heard. By the mid 1800’s, the Erwin Family owned the house and farm. The farmland became the Heard Farm conservation area that many Wayland families and their dogs enjoy.

More from Karen

The headstone reads Sarah J., Daughter of Robert & Jane Erwin, died May 5, 1858, Age 3 ys, 3 ins (mos?). We wondered why little Sarah was not buried with the rest of the Erwins at the South Cemetery until we found out that she had probably died in the Scarlet Fever epidemic of 1858 that raged through New England. There were 2089 deaths in Massachusetts and unlike Covid 19, 97% were children under 15. In the course of doing a google search on the 1858 pandemic, I learned that it was “ordered that those who died from the illness be buried as quickly as possible”. Therefore we are surmising that little Sarah was buried hurriedly on the farm. The headstone was probably added at a later time. Here are some interesting similarities I came across in my google travels. “The fever was spread through the transmission of bacteria from skin to skin or via saliva. With the epidemic presenting itself again in 1871, Rhode Island town officials had to quickly decide how they would go about treating and attempting to prevent the spreading of the illness. Many schools and places of public gatherings were temporarily closed.” “Health officials declared that all homes where the fever had been present were to be thoroughly disinfected. Anyone who knowingly suffered with the illness or cared for someone else suffering with it and failed to report it to town authorities would be subject to a monetary fine.”

Karen Montague
9 Erwin Rd
April 14, 2020

Zaandam cruise ship

From the now-ill-fated Zaandam cruise ship back to Boston, just missing the worst of it

The morgue would hold three people.

As a passenger last month aboard the cruise ship Zaandam, and as a retired engineer and lifelong boater, I leaped at the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes tour. It was March 5, two days before the end of our cruise. Only five other passengers joined me. The tour included everything from the laundry to the florist’s shop. As we toured the large food storage area, the guide casually mentioned that behind an adjacent closed door was the ship’s morgue.

More from Tom Sciacca

We shouldn’t have been shocked. A cruise ship is like a small city, and people do die unexpectedly. Given that this was a Holland America ship, with a target market of older people (my wife and I are 73), such a possibility was reasonable. But the guide said that the morgue had never been used, and the capacity of three was simply to exceed what anyone could possibly imagine needing in the worst possible circumstances. We had left Santiago, Chile, almost two weeks earlier and were heading for Buenos Aires. When we boarded, we were asked whether we had visited China recently or had respiratory symptoms; we would have been denied boarding if we had. There was hand sanitizer, and the smell of chlorine was everywhere. But no one seemed sick, and judging from media coverage we saw aboard ship, the coronavirus apparently had not reached South America. The general reaction we heard was that the world was overreacting to a localized and isolated problem. As we left the ship in Buenos Aires, about a thousand people were crammed together for at least an hour in the terminal to collect luggage and get a cab. When we got to our hotel, another older couple was checking out, on their way to board the Zaandam for the return trip to Santiago. This was actually the sailing that we wanted when we made our reservations last summer. But I grudgingly changed to the earlier sailing date to get a better cabin. During the few days we were in Buenos Aires, the world seemed to be waking up to the virus threat. News stories reported emptier planes and the evolving horror in Italy. Our flight home was half empty. Still, we made it with minimal hassle. Three days later, after President Trump imposed screening for European arrivals, chaos erupted at the airports. I wondered what was happening to those people on that return cruise to Santiago.. When I tracked the Zaandam’s position, I saw the comforting information that it had left Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile, and was heading north, right on schedule. Over a week later, I happened to see a headline about cruise ship passenger deaths. I was shocked to see it was the Zaandam. I was even more shocked to learn that it was the same group of passengers who should have disembarked nearly a week earlier in Santiago. As of Thursday the Zaandam reportedly has gained permission to dock in Florida, with many details still uncertain. The ship has medical facilities but certainly not the capability of a shoreside hospital intensive care unit. Four have died. The morgue, with a capacity of three, was not big enough after all.

Tom Sciacca
Wayland
April 2, 2020

“The Fugitive”

Should the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of respect for a women’s right to vote be reason to think of all civil rights and spousal equality?

This poem is suggestive of a fugitive’s rights today and yesterday. The agrarian and urban environments helped contribute to the ability of heroines like Harriet Tubman, a woman, help secure freedom for many in Canada. The story is recorded elsewhere, is now the time to remember?

The tempest tossed, the may be lost,
The fugitive a land , not as an island,
Our grange at the hand of the devil
As we become home for one no more.

1850, 1854. A tally of time & the find,
A rhyme of musical combined
With a one who broke glass & found home.

The self-emancipated we know, have known,
Will know again. Frederick and Mr. Walker,
A staff of half & sugar cane.

A proper burial, say goodbye and go away.
Haul the road & build that tunnel,
As a hayloft is well insulated in January.

The going over the top to announce the good news,
The better news, some bitter news, a pill.
Our shattering of leaving and the will to proceed.

Allen Hagar
April 2020

Notre Grange (Our Barn)

Once clean, bright & articulate.
A solar shine of a parent’s pride,
The lady who has now slipped a step,
A barn of a side to reside.

The rhyme of our day is now gone,
As we remember the flowers past,
Daffodil, lilac & forsythia,
Yellow, purple, white & last.

Not gone, but steel gray among us,
The under used utility well,
The ginger snaps and molasses,

A grange as beside her she dwelt,
The nobility of a job well done—move on,
As we witness the passing of a generation.

So if we remember, remember this in time,
An elegant stature, a heart, a leg,
The past is not fast, it reappears, a lass.

A grange, a barn a bird and raccoon held
A court here amidst the storm for winter cold,
The rest has been told before,
As the lonely score or more pigeons flutter away.

Allen Hagar
Wayland

The Vista

Beyond the pond,
the pond we call
the duck pond,

Is a floodplain
the cove
of the Sudbury River,

So rare it is to see
the river come to us,
in sight of the byway,

A sideways glance,
a single trance
the accidental moment.

Like childhood,
to be remembered
& cherished for all Time.

Allen B. Hagar
13 Charena Rd.

Empty Shelves

Early, before the self-quarantine was mandatory, I would see many, many families walking together like an early evening Halloween night filling the side streets, yet separate units.

TV says, don’t hoard as more is coming but I find empty shelves everywhere! Someone is hoarding!

Kay Wescott
April 2, 2020

More from Kay

Waylanders like to walk, hike and ride bicycles, non-powered scooters, skateboards but not so much skates. The Rail Trail is busier than ever. The Library parking lot fills with cars as people come to enjoy the outdoors and move. Wonder if they understand the history of the railroad-related items they see along the way?

So far people are offering to help others!

When I thought I would love to have time at home without interruptions, I thought I would work on my genealogy, organize my photos of four generations and have cuddling time with my pets that have been left alone in the past while I go off to work. None has been accomplished except for my pets. They have benefited. I have had a chance to have “looong” conversations on the phone and laugh with my friends and family.

I have reached out to others via email and Facebook.

I have had time to complete a sentence in my head concerning work while I labor at home for an income. I feel lucky to have an income in these economically challenged times.

I am grateful to have a credit card because “paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet.” And I am actively avoiding germs!

I feel blessed to have volunteers from the Historical Society willing to work at home! Thank you Dottie and Jo!

I am grateful for the beautiful snow that I was able to relax and look at instead of scurrying someplace else – and then it was gone!

I keep thinking I could get the spring cleaning done now so I could enjoy spring … but I don’t do it.

Wish I had my camera with me to take photos during this time.

I look forward to reconnecting with friends square dancing. It is so much fun, and I really miss it.

Why don’t I still find time to read the blogs or viewing the vlogs that I wanted to do?

Did see the best information on bringing food into the house, whether it is from the store, delivered or take home ready to eat. Click here.

I do NOT feel like a prisoner – I love the comfort of my home and there is always something interesting to do!

What are you doing and thinking? Don’t let my observations be the only documentation describing Wayland. You are making HISTORY today, yourself!

Dudley Pond - Walking

One of our typical walking routes includes the shore of Dudley Pond in Cochituate. On this Saturday in mid-March the sun shone and the virus was still more of a theory than a reality. As we rounded the corner of Lake Shore Drive we came across a family enjoying the warmth of the day as they fished from the small pier. Pure happiness.

Susie and Brad Keyes
March 21, 2020

Heard Pond

Heard Pond and the surrounds are a beautifully restful pocket nestled within the meanderings of the Sudbury River.

Brad Keyes
March 22, 2020