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Tag Archives: Linda Thomas

Officer Genard a study in trust

By Linda Thomas
Hometown Weekly Correspondent

Ernest Hemingway once offered some simple advice for trusting people: “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them,” he wrote.

This likely would have been a difficult concept to embrace, though, for a young girl...

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Walpole patriot Armand DuBois reminisces

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent PFC Armand DuBois, a 25-year-old 60mm mortar gunner, found himself lying on a bunk in an underground cell in an old French prison in August 1944, contemplating his shattered right arm. The pain felt like he had been slammed with a baseball bat. D-Day was only a couple months earlier,...
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Marie Maciejko, WHS students’ ‘other mother’

By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent When Marie Maciejko (pronounced “ma-cheko”) was growing up in Westwood in the 1950s, a tinny jingle piercing through the humid air in summer would set mouths watering. The ice cream truck was about to turn the corner, and that meant a rambunctious rush to find Papa Joe in his garden. Papa Joe,...
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Westwood’s Berardi still driven

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent Amidst the fear and adversity from immigrating to America, a young boy from Abruzzi, Italy found inspiration for a better life in the joy of a silver dollar — a fortune to a child and a pathway to his dreams. On August 8, 1955, 16-year-old Luciano “Louie” Antonio Berardi and his...
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The guiding hands of Dolores Efthim

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent All it took was a story about one young American soldier returning home from the war in Iraq to spark an idea that would have a profound effect on other veterans. As terrifying as the war was for this soldier, one thing frightened him even more — how would his...
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Russell Downes reflects

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent He was a young soldier, scared to death and unsure he’d get out alive. “When you see somebody shot beside you and he goes down, you try to help him — but he winds up dying,” Russell Earle Downes said of his time as a hospital corpsman during the Korean...
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Westwood’s Police Chief Silva is gold

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent Nothing thrilled a then 16-year-old Jeff Silva more than getting the chance to do a ride-along with a Texas state trooper. Maybe he didn’t know it then that police work would be the path he’d choose. But you could tell. It was in his blood. He’d seize every moment — school...
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Citizen Feroli at home in Westwood

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By Linda Thomas Correspondent for Hometown Weekly Publications Eavan Monahan Feroli took a chance 15 years ago when she set sail and discovered life beyond the shores of her native Ireland. Yet, as she ponders her favorite quote, “A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for,” this self-proclaimed...
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Sherborn Man in blue, heart of gold

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By Linda Thomas Hometown Weekly Correspondent This man in blue is doing more than policing a community — more than running after kids for drinking beer in the woods. He’s running with them. Sherborn police detective James Godinho donned his uniform and ran alongside students as part of April’s 1-mile Raiders Rock: Run, Roll or Walk event...
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