CAPTION: New CNC rep and Keller Williams realtor Grace Bloodwell and her dog, Belle.

As Friends of City Square’s new representative to the Charlestown Neighborhood Council, Grace Bloodwell looks forward to taking a more active role in the square mile she has called home for the past five years.
“I’m really excited to learn from everyone on the board,” said Bloodwell, the youngest council member at age 28. “I think it’s going to be a great opportunity, and I am really looking forward to getting involved with the community.”
A native of suburban Philadelphia, Bloodwell relocated to Winchester with her family circa 1992 and graduated from Winchester High School in 1999. “I came from your average American family, except my parents were the best,” said Bloodwell, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard in 2003. Always athletic, Bloodwell played soccer, basketball and basketball in high school and softball and ice hockey in college.
After completing her undergrad degree, Bloodwell indulged her lifelong fascination with boating when she went to work for a wealthy Palm Springs couple as their personal assistant and first mate of their 86-foot luxury yacht. She returned to the local area a year later and found work as dockmaster and assistant hotel manager of the Boston Yacht Haven in the North End.
Bloodwell was still an employee of the Yacht Haven when she moved to Sullivan Street circa 2004 and landed a job in real estate. “My mother told me to get my real estate license when I was in college,” Bloodwell said, adding that she had some previous real estate experience as an employee of the Yacht Haven. For Bloodwell, real estate was something of a family trade given her maternal family’s involvement in the business for three generations and her paternal grandfather’s role as founder of the commercial firm, Bloodwell Realty.
Soon, Bloodwell landed a job with Gibson Real Estate, working alongside owners Ken Stone, Steven Ozer, Duncan Gillespie and Rosemary Kverek.
“I probably wouldn’t be in real estate if I hadn’t walked into that office and met those people,” Bloodwell said, adding that the Gibson principals were eager to share their knowledge of the business. “They knew Charlestown and were established. It was a special group of people to learn from.”
After Gibson closed, Bloodwell, Stone, Ozer and Jay Johnston launched Net Share in early 2007. Unlike traditional real estate agencies, the fledgling Thompson Square firm originally “plugged itself as a consumer-friendly agency based on its lower commissions and buyer rebate program,” according to the Dec. 31, 2008, edition of the Patriot-Bridge. The firm reverted to the traditional real estate model before eventually closing last December in the face of a changing marketplace.
Today, Bloodwell and Stone work as realtors at the Main Street office of the international firm Keller Williams. “It’s great and I love everyone I work with,” Bloodwell said.
While Bloodwell enjoys working in residential estate because the job allows her to interact with neighbors and have a self-described “pulse on the Town,” she said she most appreciates the hands-on, do-it-yourself aspect of renovating a house. A short while back, she and her husband, Harry McCaul, bought the unit above their Pleasant Street condo, renovated it and resold it. (McCaul, a 1990 Winchester High School graduate, didn’t know future wife and fellow Winchester alumnus until several years after their respective graduations).
Following the advice of her close friend and governor of the Friends of City Square Park Ken Stone, Bloodwell joined Friends of City Square three years ago and has served as its secretary ever since. “I like that it’s something tangible,” she said of the park itself. “I enjoy working with everyone on the board, and you get to work outside.”
Of Bloodwell, Stone stated: “I know and work with Grace at the Charlestown office of Keller Williams Realty and before that Net Share Realty and I have to say she is a great person to know and work with. When she walks into a room with her smile you can’t help to feel that everything is okay. When Grace gets involved in something she sees it through to the end. She is always willing to help. It might be coaching girl’s basketball or sitting on community boards like the Friends of City Square Park and starting next month the Charlestown Neighborhood Council. I look forward to having years of friendship with her and Harry.”
Bloodwell is also the owner of a “poodle-Chihuahua rescue mutt” named Belle and a founding member and vice president of Friends of the Charlestown Dog Parks, a fledgling group dedicated to finding an appropriate play-space for canines in the neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Bloodwell remains as athletic as ever, coaching girls soccer and basketball and coed track at Cambridge’s Matignon High School since 2006.
“I enjoy helping the girls with athletics and also with other elements of high school life—the dramas, the failures, the successes, and all the humor that goes with it,” Bloodwell said. “And it keeps me in shape.”

An upcoming fundraiser at the Warren Tavern will support the construction of “The Children of the Famine Memorial” in honor of the countless Irish children who were buried at St. Francis de Sales Cemetery after fleeing their starving homeland between 1845 and 1850.
As the next step in its Irish Renaissance Project following the release of the 2006 documentary “The Green Square Mile: Story of the Charlestown Irish,” Charlestown Historical Society has partnered with St. Francis de Sales Parish to erect an 8-foot Celtic cross and secondary stone in the cemetery located on the north slope of Bunker Hill.
According to CHS Vice President Ed Callahan, Deveney and White Monument Co., the Dorchester firm that designed the Charlestown Firefighters Memorial, is currently finalizing plans for the memorial. Doug MacDonald, a Charlestown native and mason by trade who helped with the Firefighters Memorial, has also agreed to help lay the foundation for the memorial.
The idea to use a Celtic cross was the brainchild of lifelong Charlestown resident Pauline Carrier. St. Francis de Sales Church pastor] Fr. Mahoney’s thoughts were a dignified but not overly elaborate cross would be the way to go,” Callahan said.
The project also garnered the support of Warren Tavern owners Thomas Devlin and Patty O’Sullivan, who offered use of the Main Street establishment for the fundraiser. Musician Jackie Dalton, once a staple of Old Sully’s on Union Street, will perform at the event.
State Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty, who was instrumental in helping to finance the production of “The Green Square Mile,” has offered to assist with fundraising efforts and will donate proceeds from his March 13 St. Patrick’s Day event at the Knights of Columbus Hall for the memorial. ”It’s my pleasure to help with such a noteworthy cause,” O’Flaherty said.
Callahan said the memorial would be unveiled on Sunday, Sept. 13, in conjunction with the 150th Anniversary “Remembrance Mass” at Saint Francis de Sales Church. This event celebrates the 1859 establishment of the church and honors those buried in the cemetery, as well as everyone whose memorial services were held at the church. To commemorate the occasion, “Green Square Mile” screenwriter Dan Casey is assembling a souvenir book that will catalog the names of those buried in the cemetery.
“It’s amazing how many people grew up near there and don’t know the history of the graveyard,” Callahan said.
While the memorial committee is well on its way to raising the $36,000 needed to erect the cross, Callahan is quick to point out profits from “The Green Square Mile” would have paid for the project in full had it not been for pirating of the movie.
“Under normal circumstances, we could have cared less [about the pirating],” Callahan said,” but the [CHS board] felt very strongly that if any money were generated by “The Green Square Mile,” we would put it to good use.”
Callahan continues, “We want to use [the profits] for a useful purpose, and we couldn’t think of a better use than this.”
“The Children of the Famine Memorial” fundraiser takes place at the Warren Tavern, 87 Warren St., on Sunday, March 8, at 3 p.m. The suggested donation is $20 per person. For more information of to make a donation, call Ed Callahan at 617-242-4252.

Overview:

On the eve of the fall harvest of 1845, Ireland’s population stood at 8 million people. Roughly 3 million subsisted on small holdings of land large enough to plant a small field of potatoes that would sustain a family until the next harvest. Other crops such as wheat, oats, and barley were grown and sold to pay rent. The average adult male consumed about 14 pounds of potatoes a day, and the Irish people developed a near total dependence on the potato as the primary source of nutrition.
In 1845, a fungus known as “phytora infestans” arrived in Ireland via the hold of a ship from America and it rapidly infected the Irish potato crop with a vengeance. Other European nations were affected by the blight, but the Irish dependence on the potato produced near famine conditions. All the while, cash crops and livestock were removed from Ireland by the boatload bound for England.
Hopes were high for the harvest of 1846, but the crop failed once again. Starvation and disease, including typhus and dysentery, ravaged the Irish population. In a meager response to this impending disaster, the British government initially imported stores of American Indian meal and initiated a public works program that compelled destitute and starving people to build roads that went nowhere. Between 1846 and 1855, at least 500,000 Irish men, women and children were evicted from their homes often under particularly heartless and brutal circumstances. The potato crop failed again in 1847, and the British Government adopted a policy of non-interference with market forces and required the Irish to pay for support of the poor. Conditions had deteriorated so dramatically and the mortality rate had risen so substantially that the year 1847 became known forever to the Irish people as “Black ’47.”
Historian Kerby Miller outlines the situation quite dramatically in a single sentence: “As starvation and disease devastated Ireland, thousands of panic stricken people embraced emigration as their only escape from destitution and death.” Miller estimates that 1 million people died of starvation and disease, while 1.5 million emigrated to North America.


The voyage:

The “Famine Emigrants” were among the poorest of the poor in Ireland, and in Europe, they possessed few marketable skills and were tremendously in need of charitable assistance. Because of their extreme poverty, those who could muster the fare set forth for the United States on British sailing vessels that were so decrepit and disease ridden. As passengers, the famine Irish were packed into steerage decks that were claustrophobic and filthy beyond description. These ships were also called “coffin ships” because of the extraordinarily high death rate of the Irish passengers. The steerage deck was located immediately below the main decks on these vessels, and steerage passengers had extremely limited access to the main deck. Passengers were often locked into the steerage for deck up to 20 hours a day. On many ships, toilet facilities were virtually non-existent and cooking facilities hardly adequate to provide food for the hundreds of poor souls packed on board. The smells emanating from these holds was overpowering, fresh air and potable water was in desperate supply. And the voyage to North America often took up to 10 weeks to complete. Most of the famine Irish had never set foot on a sailing vessel and suffered desperately from seasickness and gut-wrenching fear. In bad weather, the steerage compartment was sealed tight in an impossible attempt to keep seawater from seeping in with the passengers trapped in near total darkness. Sleeping arrangements were so tight, that most adults could not lie down and fully extend themselves. Whole families were often crammed into these bunks sleeping either on wooden boards or fetid mattresses.
Without adequate toilet facilities, the steerage holds became incubators of disease. Disease carrying lice became rampant and typhus, dysentery, cholera and a whole host of other maladies wracked the passengers who were already in a weakened condition as a result of the famine. The elderly were often the first to die, and many of them were horrified of the prospect of being buried at sea. In Ireland, being buried in consecrated Catholic burial ground along with generations of their ancestors was considered one of their few consolations. At sea, the deceased were unceremoniously slipped over the railing into the Atlantic as soon as they were discovered dead in their wretched living conditions.
So shameful had become the condition of these passenger ships, that the Times of London, no apparent friend of the Irish peasantry editorialized as follows: “…the worst horrors of that slave trade which it is the boast or ambition of this empire to suppress, at any cost, have been reenacted in the flight of British subjects from their native shores…The Blackhole of Calcutta was a mercy compared to the holds of these vessels. Yet simultaneously, as if in reproof of those on whom the blame of all this wretchedness must fall, foreigners, Germans, from Hamburg, and Bremen are daily arriving in America, all healthy, robust and cheerful…Nor so we see any way to escape the opprobrium of a national inhumanity except by taking the earliest and most effectual means to rectify past errors and prevent their recurrence.”


The reaction:

How many typhus-ridden Irish men, women and children washed up on Charlestown’s docks and piers is unknown. But given the reaction to their presence by Charlestown’s native community, we can surmise that the number of famine Irish entering Charlestown must have been substantial. Charlestown residents responded to the famine in two entirely different ways. The first inclination of the town’s native population was to help and the second was to condemn.
In early 1846, a group of Charlestown’s most prominent citizens banded together to form a committee for “relief of the sufferers from the famine in Europe.” In a press account of their meeting, the word “Ireland” never appears. Abraham R. Thompson and Richard Frothingham Jr. led the meeting. A whole host of Charlestown “gentlemen” served on this committee. The only two Catholics to participate were the ubiquitous Patrick Denvir and William McElory, who owed a business in City Square. Their inclusion on this committee was no doubt a reflection of their high status among the Irish of Charlestown.
The parishioners of St. Mary’s Parish also organized relief efforts and they forwarded $361.65 to Bishop Fitzpatrick in March of 1847 for famine relief. The Bunker Hill Aurora reported that the citizens of Charlestown had obtained more than $15,000 in cash, business and other relief for the “Committee for Relief of Ireland.” Whether or not this committee was the same as the group noted above is not certain. More help came when a group of Boston businessmen, led by John Forbes and his brother Captain Robert Bennett Forbes, petitioned Congress for the use of a naval vessel to transport food and supplies to Ireland despite the fact that the United States was at war with Mexico. Congress approved the petition on March 5, 1847, granting the use of the USS Jamestown from the Charlestown Navy Yard to Captain Forbes for “…the purposes of transporting to the famished poor of Ireland and Scotland such contributions as may be made for their relief.”
In response, the Boston Committee collected about $3,000 from the churches to supply and outfit the ship. The Navy provided the equipment and countless businesses provided the food and supplies. On March 17, members of the Laborers Aid Society volunteered to load the ship without pay. These men who worked “all along the shore” were mostly Irish born. The Charlestown community alone donated 50 barrels of rice, 50 barrels of cornmeal, two barrels of bread, 60 barrels of beans, four barrels of peas and four boxes of clothing.
Yet even while these humanitarian efforts were underway, there was growing concern that too many destitute Irish men, women and children were arriving at the Charlestown docks.
In the Feb. 27, 1847, edition of the Bunker Hill Aurora, there appears a rambling editorial that states in part: “In addition to the heart rendering accounts from Ireland, of poverty distress and misery, although there is some reason to think that these statements are exaggerated, the feelings of the country are almost daily touched by scenes and descriptions, in our own midst. Almost every vessel, which arrives from Europe, particularly from England, comes filled with emigrants, in a condition of poverty and disease, more dreadful than the famine from which they escaped.”
That William W. Whieldon, owner and publisher of the Aurora, thought that the reports from Ireland regarding the famine “exaggerated” is remarkable. Whieldon who seems to have had a pathological hatred of Catholicism assuredly wrote the passage outlined below, in May of 1847 as a rallying cry for natives to meet to discuss the “…great disease of foreign paupers in our City….
“It is quite time that something of an efficient nature was done in reference to this subject. Our country is literally being overrun with the miserable, wretched, vicious and unclean paupers of the old country. They are not only introducing their wretchedness and disease among us, but if they ever recover from these plagues, they have a worse disease which will overspread the country; in their religion. We think that there is much to fear…”
Also in May, the Aurora reported that a disease called “ship fever” was being transported to Charlestown by the famine Irish. The Aurora reported: “We understand that some cases of ‘ship fever’ have occurred in this City, with fatal results, and it will require great vigilance in our health to prevent its spread among us.” The Aurora also reported this mysterious disease was supposedly spreading throughout New York City. Of the New York situation, Whieldon reported, “The chief tells us that the disease is unquestionably contagious and rapidly increasing throughout the city.” These comments no doubt caused some level of panic throughout Charlestown.
On June 1, 1847, more than 200 Charlestown residents attended the meeting at the Charlestown City Hall to address the emigration issue. The meeting was called by legal warrant on a petition filed by Charlestown resident and future elected official Jesse Mann, who gave a speech lasting about one hour and reportedly acquitted himself “handsomely” and “much to the satisfaction of all present.” The throng, the largest assembly of citizens so assembled in Charlestown in many years, unanimously approved a resolution presented by Mann.
The resolution stated in part: “Resolved Unanimously: That the Overseers of the Poor in the city of Charlestown be, and the same are hereby instructed to make complaint before a Justice of the Peace, under the provisions of the 17th section of the 16th chapter of the Revised Statutes, and to take any and all other steps legal and requisite, to cause any and all paupers, that now, or are, or may be hereafter residing or found in said city, and having no lawful settlement within this state, to be sent and conveyed at the expense of the state, by land or water, to any other State or to any other place…”
At about the same time, the Charlestown City Marshall and other municipal officials refused entry of the bark “Reliance,” packed with 280 Irish men, women and children, after it attempted to dock at Dwin’s Wharf at to the Port of Charlestown. The Reliance had been quarantined upon arrival after a number of passengers had died during the crossing and many more arrived desperately ill. The Reliance was by any measure a classic “coffin ship.” The passengers later disembarked at another port after Charlestown municipal officials made it clear that they were not welcome. If the town fathers were planning to physically remove all known paupers, then we can assume, from their point of view, that it would make little sense to allow even more of them to enter the community. There is an indication, that there was a disturbance of some type regarding this resolution. Perhaps Jesse Mann and his followers actually tried to remove Irish emigrants from the community with predictable results.
The June 12, 1847, edition of the Aurora reported the following news item: “Irish Paupers. We understand that several Irish paupers, a few days since, applied for admission to our Almshouse, but on being told that, if they went there, they would immediately be sent to Ireland, they left the City. Several others, who were already here, we are told, have absented themselves, without leave. At this rate, we shall hardly be able to put up a ship load.”
Close scrutiny of Whieldon’s writings indicates that he was extraordinarily preoccupied with disease. In his view, the Irish people and their religion were diseased. The notion that Irish emigrants might be disease ridden was hardly new to Charlestown in 1847, as one of the principal arguments made against the operation of the Catholic cemetery on Bunker Hill Street concerned the deep fear that disease would spread throughout the community. The cemetery was a very busy place in 1847, and there is little doubt that Whiledon and like-minded citizens witnessed a habitual parade of keening woman climbing over the Bunker Hill Street to bury their children.
For in 1847, a large number of Irish children died in Charlestown and were buried on the side of Bunker Hill. A review of the Charlestown Vital Records compiled and edited by Roger D. Joslyn indicates the deaths of at least 41 Irish children are recorded for “Black ’47.” Bridget Noonan, age 1, died of cholera, as did Michael Sullivan who was only 11 months old. Margaret Kenney, Mary Ryne and James Walsh all died of typhus fever. Scarlet fever took the young lives of Daniel Corson, Ellen Dean and Denis Phelan. Others died of consumption, lung fever, dropsy, dysentery and cholera. One can’t help but wonder how many deaths went unreported. At the time, it was not an unusual occurrence for destitute parents to simply leave the corpses of their children on the stairs leading up to the cemetery and hope that the Sexton would bury them. This practice was taking place even at the advent of the Civil War.
The flow of Irish emigrants into the community was overwhelming, despite the protestations and official resolutions of the native community. By September of 1847, Whieldon and the Aurora would attack the issue of Catholic voting rights. So many famine Irish settled into Charlestown that they dramatically increased the percentage of the Catholic population, overtaxed community institutions and set the stage for even further tension between themselves and their Protestant neighbors. The Irish population on Warren Street had swelled to such a degree that it became known as “Dublin Row,” a place “where the town’s old residents were horrified to find any quality of filth, rubbish, misery and degradation.”
In regard to the famine its impact on Charlestown’s history, historian James G. Blaine II stated: “The Famine years of the 1840’s began a process that transformed Charlestown from a Yankee and Protestant community to an Irish and Catholic community by the end of the century.”

The 19th Charlestown Appreciation Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, May 1, at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 75 West School St. Cocktail hour begins at 7 p.m., dinner will be served at 8 p.m., and the awards ceremony starts at 9 p.m.
The purpose of the awards’ ceremony is to recognize those who have helped enrich the quality of life in Charlestown, but have done so in such a manner that their deeds have gone unheralded and, in most cases, unknown to the general public.
The committee is looking for nominations for the 2009 award recipients in the following categories:

Organization: Incorporated non-profit, Charlestown-based group that primarily serves Charlestown and whose goals are geared toward the betterment of the community.
Business: Charlestown-based business that supports and enhances the quality of life in the Charlestown community.
Public Servant: Person who performs service within his/her job capacity but goes beyond that job description in service to the betterment of the Charlestown community.
New Resident: Person who has taken up residency in Charlestown and whose deeds have contributed to the quality of Charlestown life.
Senior: Charlestown resident, 55 years or older as of Jan. 1, 2009, whose deeds have gone unheralded.
Youth: Charlestown resident, 18 years or younger as of Jan. 1, 2009, whose deeds have gone unheralded.
Alumnus: Former resident who has not forgotten their roots and whose actions enhance the quality of life in Charlestown.
Unsung Hero: Charlestown resident whose deeds have been performed within the community and has gone publicly unrecognized. The deeds resulted in the enhancement of the quality of life in Charlestown but cannot have been performed as part of his/her job performance. There is no age restriction for this category.

To submit a nomination, forward a 25 words or less description to include name of award, name, address and phone of both the person being nominated and person submitting the nomination to CCAS, P.O. Box 35, Charlestown, MA 02129 or email to: PLooney40@verizon.net or Kathygio@comcast.net. The deadline for nominations is March 27, and winners will be selected by March 31. For more information, tickets or to have a nomination form sent to you, call 617-699-3501 or e-mail CharlestownAwards@comcast.net.

CAPTION: John Donlon is seen in Brazil in 2006 following his participation in an Ironman Triathlon.

When John Donlon of Charlestown runs Boston Marathon on April 20, he will benefit the American Liver Foundation and honor his father who suffers from the iron-overload disease hemachromatos.
Donlon, a 38-year-old Sudbury native, ran his first Boston Marathon in 1994 as an unregistered “bandit.” In 2003, he ran his first race in support of the Liver Foundation’s Run for Research, although it wasn’t until a year later that he learned that his 68-year-old father suffered from a non-life threatening disease. Since that time, Donlon has run the Boston Marathon to support liver disease every year with the exception of 2006 when he bowed out of the race to take part in his second Ironman Triathlon in Brazil instead.
This year, Donlon hopes to raise $4,000 to support the Run for Research. He has pledges for half this amount to date.
“For the American Liver Foundation, it’s the single biggest fundraiser of the year,” Donlon said. “Typically, it raises around $1 million towards research and awareness of liver disease.”
To view John Donlon’s athlete profile, visit http://www.fastloop.com/my/index.php?action=profile&uid=2. His fundraising Web page is also available at http://go.liverfoundation.org/goto/jd.