David Drake

Oops!  This probably doesn't happen to any of you but I forgot to mention one item that I meant to mention in my last post.

Most weeks the Needham Times has a poll question of the week regarding various issues in town.  This week the question is: "How do you pronounce DeFazio (as in DeFazio Field)?  Is it duh-FAY-zee-oh or duh-FAH-zee-oh?"

For extra credit, do you know who the field is named after?

Carolyn Campbell (Kay)

I suspect it's Peter's father, Vic DeFazio. No?

David Drake

Needham – Wellesley Football Rivalry

Needham was first settled in 1680 with the purchase of a tract of land measuring 4 miles by 5 miles from Chief Nehoiden for the sum of 10 pounds, 40 acres of land, and 40 shillings worth of corn. It was officially incorporated in 1711.  Wellesley was settled in the 1630s as part of Dedham, Massachusetts. It was subsequently a part of Needham, called West Needham. On Oct 23, 1880, West Needham residents voted to secede from Needham and the town of Wellesley was later created by the Massachusetts legislature on April 6, 1881. The first Needham Wellesley football game was played in 1882.

The following trivia questions will be answered here on the Message Forum next weekend after the Needham Wellesley football game on Thanksgiving.  You can answer here or just wait to see the answers.

1. How many games has each team won?
2. Were there years when no game was played?
3. Were there years when more than one game was played?
4. Were there any tie games?
5. If there were tie games, how many ties and when was the last tie game?

Peter Carre

Wellesley have won 59, Needham have won 54 and there 9 ties.

Yes.  (years 1888, 1904, 1914, 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920) Extra credit?

No

Yes

There have been 9 ties, and the last one was in 1963 (a game in which I played).

Go Rockets!

David Drake

Needham – Wellesley Football Rivalry

Wellesley won the 2013 game yesterday (and the 126th game in the rivalry) by a score of 22 to 6.  The answers to the trivia questions are shown below after each question and include the results from yesterday's game.

1. How many games has each team won?  Welllesley has won 60 and Needham has won 57.
2. Were there years when no game was played? Yes; 1888, 1904, 1914 & 1917 to 1920.
3. Were there years when more than one game was played? Yes; in 1943 two games were played.
4. Were there any tie games? Yes.
5. If there were tie games, how many were ties and when was the last game? There were 9 tie games and the last one was in 1963 when we were Juniors at Needham High.

Peter Carre answered the trivia questions and did a great job!!  He answred 3 questions correctly and got 2/3 of the first question correct as you can see from his post below.  He also gets extra credit for getting all the years correct when no game was played.  He gets even more extra credit for playing for the Needham High Football Rockets when he was at Needham High.

David Drake

Hint #1 on where the reunion will be held:

The Needham High School Class of 1965 50^th reunion will be held in Needham.

David Drake

Hint # 2 on where the reunion will be held:

How well do you know your zip codes?

The Needham High School Class of 1965 50^th reunion will be held in the 02492 zip code area.

Jeanne Mahoney (Leffers)

Since Zip 02492 excludes Needham Heights it looks like the Sheraton Needham is out of the running.  Hmmm--I am guesing the Needham Golf Club where the class of 1979 is having their reunion tonight I believe.

David Drake

Jeanne is correct.  The 50th reunion next year will not be at the Sheraton in Needham.

Henry Digiorgio

So nice of Les and Sally to host the 50th Reunion!

David Drake

Hint # 3 on where the reunion will be held:

There have now been 149 classes that have graduated from Needham High School.

To the best of our knowlege, none of these classes has ever held a reunion at this location.

P.S. While Henry's guess is consistent with all three hints, the reunion will not be held at Les and Sally's house.

Les McKechnie

Whew.....  :-)

Carolyn Campbell (Kay)

If not the golf club, maybe someone got nostalgic? We're having a prom in the high school gym with crepe paper and all

David Drake

Hi Carolyn,

It is nice to hear from you again.  I like the way you wrapped several guesses into one post on the message forum.  The Golf Club was rebuilt several years ago and several classes have held reunions there but we will not be holding our reunion there next year.  We do hope to gather those interested in playing golf together but more on this in future emails.  A prom in the gym is a cool idea that no one mentioned previously.  I expect that we will have some dancing and I will leave the crepe paper to the decorating committee.  We also plan to have a tour of the relatively new high school for those who would like to see it.  However, the reunion will not be in the High School gym or any of the other High School buildings.

Leslie Kennedy (Glynn)

O. K. here goes my guess...How about Powers Hall ? What can I say. I just had one glass of wine !!

David Drake

Congratulations Leslie!  You guessed where our reunion will be.

The 50th reunion of the Needham High Class of 1965 will be held in the James Hugh Powers Hall at the Needham Town Hall on Saturday, September 26, 2015.  The location is beautiful and classy and a perfect location for the 50th reunion of the 100th class to graduate from Needham High School.  Over the next few days, we will be posting photos of the James Hugh Powers Hall (which didn't exist 50 years ago) and also a history of the Town Hall on the message forum.

David Drake

The following document is a History of the Needham Town Hall and the James Hugh Powers Hall.  This document was prepared by Gloria Greis, Executive Director of the Needham Historical Society, and I thank her for letting me share this with all of you.  Pictures of the space now known as the James Hugh Powers Hall are also being posted today.  In the 1950s the second floor space was partitioned for offices and a hung ceiling was installed.  Two of the older pictures show the space above the hung ceiling from the balcony which was used for storage from the 1950s until the hall was refurbished in recent years.  We will have our 50th Reunion in the Hall on September 26, 2015.

History of the Needham Town Hall and the James Hugh Powers Hall

For Needham’s first 130 years, town meetings were held wherever there was space.  Most often, this meant the parish Meeting House, the town's only public building, and the center of both religious and political authority.  Once the Sunday service concluded, the minister would step down from the pulpit and the town Moderator would take over.  In 1834 a state law formally separated town governance from the affairs of the church.  For the next few years, town meetings took place in a variety of locations, including private homes, the taverns, and the assembly room built above the general store.

In 1838 an appointed committee looked into erecting a “town house” as a location for conducting town business.  The result was a large room added to the town poorhouse on the dividing line of Needham’s East and West Parishes.  It took twenty more years before the Hall had seats or a clock, but this arrangement lasted until the Parishes separated in 1881, and Needham lost the building to Wellesley.  The poorhouse/town hall later became the clubhouse building for the Wellesley Golf Club and was demolished a few years ago.

The split with Wellesley was both an economic and emotional trauma for Needham, as the incorporators of Wellesley explicitly stated that the reason for the split was their desire to no longer be tied to the less affluent, more rural half of town.  As a result, the last few decades of the 19th century became a time of transition.  The town center migrated from its old location at the intersection of Nehoiden Street and Central Avenue, to the new railroad junction at Great Plain Avenue.  Over this same period, Needham’s economy became less agricultural, as the railway brought new merchants and businesses into town and as the knitting factories of Needham Heights grew prosperous.

The new town center needed a focal point, but for the next two decades the town was unable to agree on a plan for a town hall, so temporary municipal offices were established in rented rooms above the General Store on Great Plain Avenue.  Finally, in 1901, Town Meeting recognized the increasingly urgent need for “proper and fitting accommodations” from which to conduct town business.  This new Town Hall was completed in 1903 as a civic monument to Needham’s Twentieth Century identity.

For its first 50 years, the Town Hall’s large second-floor hall was the community’s meeting place,  not only for Town Meeting and official business, but also for celebrations such as the Bicentennial in 1911, trade fairs, military recruiting, theatrical and dance performances, and balls.  These functions scattered to school gyms and auditoriums after the second floor was partitioned for office space in the 1950s.

By 2009 the Town Hall was in need of repair and critically short of space.  Town Meeting approved the cost of a renovation and expansion, much of it paid for with Community Preservation funding.  A large addition to the building created office and meeting space and allowed the second floor “Great Hall” to be returned to its original function as a meeting and event hall.  As part of Needham’s Tercentennial celebrations in the fall of 2011, the Great Hall was dedicated as the James Hugh Powers Hall, in honor of Mr. Powers’ long and energetic service to Needham.  The Hall now serves as the site of town services, meetings and celebrations, including the Needham Bank Great Hall Concert Series, helping to expand the cultural and economic life of Needham. As it enters its second century, Needham Town Hall is more than ever the civic and emotional heart of our town.

Margaret Weekes (Allen)

Great history! Thank you, Dave!  With this and your Civil War history, you really have a second important career as a historian.  I hope you continue in this field.  I look forward to reading more of what you write.

I was hoping we'd be at the Town Hall. This is wonderful news!

Jeanne Mahoney (Leffers)

Congratulations Leslie--I did not even know of the transformation at the Town Hall!  David, thanks for the history of Needham's government.  Great job and I learned a lot!  I recall studying it as a 4th grade student at Dwight School (which was near that former center) and being so proud to have my report donated to the Needham Historical Society at that time.  What a wonderful venue for our historic class!  It will serve to reconnect so many of us living away whose famlies no longer are in Needham to keep us grounded there.  Jeanne
 

David Drake

NHS ’65 Reunion - Hotels

The NHS ’65 Reunion Committee has secured blocks of rooms at the three local hotels listed below.  Room descriptions and amenities are subject to change and are not controlled by the Committee.  The block is for the nights of Thursday September 24 to Sunday September 27, 2015.  There is a limit of rooms available at the rates posted at each hotel and the rooms will be reserved on a first come first serve basis. When making your reservation, you should mention that you are attending the Needham High School 50th Reunion to obtain the discounted rate!

Gunnard Johnston

Good history lesson, Dave.   Learn something new every day.   My parents performed as chorus line dancers in the 1961 Sestercentennial -- or Semiquincentennial or Bicenquinquagenary if you prefer;  or my favorite: the Quarter-millennial, which offers some depth perception to the passage of time.   As someone before us once said:   "A day is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day."

My best regards to all former classmates -- and even to friendly "interloper", Steve Marini.

Jeanne Mahoney (Leffers)

Gunnard,  Nice to see your post.  You are part of our class even though you moved on.  It is fun to catch up with those whose made our memories of Needham rich.  Our 39th reunion shared with Class of 1964 was fun for that reason.  Best to you--Jeanne

David Drake

Hi Gunnard,

Our reunion committee met the day you posted on the Message Forum and I shared your post with the committee.  Kevin Tracy and I talked about the good old days at Stephen Palmer way too many years ago.  Thanks for your post and I hope you will be able to make the reunion next year now that you are closer to Needham.

Dave

Gunnard Johnston

Thank you, Jeanne, for your generous heart.   Though I have not been so active in Needham or class affairs -- or even with classmates -- those memories from childhood never fade away.   And Needham is still in my bones and blood.   As a young teenager almost ten years ago my son wrote a 200 page book that was part Harry Potter and part CS Lewis, and featured Pollard Junior High School.  Of course, my son never told me about this ahead of time;  I had to read it in his pages myself. 

And thank you, Dave, for your encouragement.  I hope I can attend, too.   Stephen Palmer ...  I took my wife and son to see that historical place, after cruising by Pollard, of course.   They can change it into an apartment building but the memories remain forever.   I remember walking around the building on the ledge that stands about six feet off the ground, and doing this with somebody else.   Kevin Tracey?   Danny Rider?  Paul King?  

Kevin Tracey

Gunnard,

I remember on more than one occasion that we tried to "walk" around on that ledge.  I, for one, never made it.

Kevin