thank you all for coming i'm so pleased we have a big turnout tonight thank you there's a lot to do i'm elizabeth gibson i'm the president it's been a great year with the historical society we've had some terrific programs and tonight we i do not have a formal agenda tonight because my printer was not working so let me just tell you the pinch i know well included the election of officers and directors followed by the presentation of the david r johnson preservation awards will be giving out three of those the distribution of the historic house plaques there are two of those and we will conclude with a celebration honoring richard b betts a longtime member of the fahy and i will i attended the meetings that we had we have four people step down from the board this year and we are replacing two people will continue and two that we have to know my numbers are a little off let me start again we have four people stepping down montero are stepping down from the board this year and i just want to say thank you to all four of those people for being on the board at this time is joining us for the first time thank you very much can i have a motion to close the nominations to the board second all in favor thank you all very much and our bylaws call for a vote by the members of attendance can i have a vote to accept the slate of officers or the slate of board members that i just mentioned all in favor opposed abstain thank you all very much and congratulations to the appreciate the other thing we need to do is elect officers and the officers will be continuing all four officers will continue this year i have agreed to continue as president angelo frenzy has agreed to continue as vice president thank you very much has agreed to continue as treasurer thank you al allison like has agreed to continue as a recording secretary and athena has agreed to continue as corresponding secretary so can i have motion to accept the nominations for the board for the officers of the organization second all in favor of  electing the officers please say i opposed abstained ok well thank you all very much and there's just one other thing i'd like to do before i pass the meeting on to joe and that is i would like to ask sheila swelling and lois farrel to come up please because i just wanted to present you with a small token  now actually don't i actually don't know what i'm going to do without them but you know we will manage so now without any further ado i'd like to turn the meeting over to joe to hand out the  hello everyone i'm joe cornish i am the chair of the committee that awards the david our johnson preservation award and i've been doing this for many many years now and i am going to read these because i don't want to miss a word because they were so well written our first award goes to victoria and jefferson hasi this couple embody the heart and soul of the historical society we cannot begin to list their contributions and the compliments for organization from such a course in ten year celebration neighborhood tours numerous publications and hundreds of hours of volunteer time we thank jefferson and victoria this husband and wife for their contributions as well as their preservation of the samuel orlando mead house now one hundred eighty years old and this is an image of their wonderful house and we are standing right in the middle of the water there so their house is located behind us and it's so unique it's one of the last real estate some belmont that still intact in terms of open space but also it's still in the same family from the date of its construction which is our second a word goes to arlene levy arlene is a landscape historian and preservation consultant she has been active on the boards of historic new england the cultural landscape foundation the stewardship council of the emerald necklace conservatory conservatory and is an appointee to the maintenance and management oversight committee for the mighty river restoration project in boston in brookline since one nine hundred eighty one arlene has served a number of capacities for the national association of own state parks arlene and her husband knew called belmont home for over fifty years we would like to honor arlene for her long tenure on the belmont historic district commission where she is greatly missed by her colleagues we think arlene for all of her accomplishments on the time on the commission especially the mclean hospital open space preservation efforts to preserve the town hall complex and the triple record or so please help me a rock they have been called friends of preservation for as long as i've lived in bell mine their support to numerous preservation causes in town include the passage of the demolition delayed by law they redesigned of the underwood pool and the passage of the community preservation act we honor them tonight for their contributions as well as the preservation of their queen and style home on school street at night the school s i'm glad you're sitting close by because we now turn over to our plaque celebration and our first plaque goes to the bartlett house the hundred ninety six partly house preserved by the paulson's go i'll give you a little the house is in our belmont park neighborhood and belmont park is the area of school st myrtle street in golden street and it's an interesting neighborhood and it was developed in eight hundred ninety six and the lots were sold  separately so you don't have you see several similar houses of architectural design but none of them are right next door to each other ninety school street the bartlett house was built in eight hundred ninety six for kerry and wilbur bartlett wilbur bartlett was a real estate developer and he and his brother had bartlett brothers and company real estate development located at thirteen school st in one thousand nine hundred five the house was sold to george and margaret wilson george was a lawyer in not oldest but the longest tenure rather than some of the house so congratulations and thank you for your wonderful job preserving the house concord have this house has an interesting history it's one of our best preserved georgian style houses in belmont and it's quite large in eighteen zero five this house served as a tavern  that time the concord term pike was established and it was hoped that that would be a well traveled route unfortunately it wasn't because of the steep hill you had to climb where the belmont women's club is today but the house today is still a very well preserved example of georgian style architecture and they'll be getting a new plaque on their house soon that you can thank well welcome everybody i'm so pleased we have a full house tonight and fitting for just a what an occasion to wrap up our annual meeting in honor richard betts who passed this this year earlier this year and and  understand i was out of town at the time that there was that the funeral was sort of on this rainy store no not rain snow we stormy windy day and and i was sorry to have missed it and it's been in my mind to find a way to really celebrate to come together and share our memories and stories and i have to say that there's i've been connect with the historical society for many years now and no matter where i go in belmont if i say i'm with the historical site you will say to me you know richard betts and of course i'll say yes and there hasn't been a person that doesn't have a story about richard betts every time he starts and they want to tell me their story about richard so i thought tonight while we're all gathered here we could each tell  story about richard betts and thank you to many that have already sent in some submissions that aren't able to come so some little antidotes or little favorite memories that they may have had so i'm going to share those throughout my power point presentation and then of course we'll get to some display boards and open it up in and listen to you know have a chance each other to share our own favorite stories of richard but just for those who who aren't as familiar with which it was kind of a it's it's been a process like i said since he's passed on which has been many months now i've had in my mind to put something together how how to best on or him how to how to make an occasion and so it's it's really been a process for me in trying to put this all in something that's manageable and i want to think of elizabeth gibson our president for always being supportive of my efforts and sort of somebody that can bounce some ideas off of so i appreciate that elizabeth also phil hughes who see here tonight you just are is our program chair and coordinator who who agreed to have me come in and facilitate tonight so thank you phil for his set up and and also for audrey martin long time companion to richard and a lot of the material you see that i've been able to corporate into the both the presentation the powerpoint and the display boards came from her collection and so i thank you for that and for lending this and for being a part of this and for being a part so supportive of richard and then also i want to thank jefferson because he was my first first submission from the the time i had a month months before it was even publica and thinking of how to capture and how every cent of the stories jefferson no went up on his computer type something out came down and said here's my richard story and i said great i got one so that was that was the how i began so i'm going to start again we're going to try to go through the power point i think i'm i'm going to interject some of these if they go with the slides probably the easiest way to do it but but let's just take a look at what so remembering richard well isabel and charles betts both his parents many of you may have known them charles betts former selectman very active in town for many years so talking about him i've gone through scrapbooks of research from back to newspapers and so i put a little quoted says this distinguished gentleman helped shape guide the destiny of the town for more than three decades and really amazing that he was such a contributor just like richard saying something he ran a contracting business bet's brothers builders belmont with his with his brothers and so they for many years well respected in business he was a charter town meeting member served as a water commission selectman for several terms at a row he's original original member of the all saints church very active in church life and just he was also given some honors throughout the community for his many years of service in particular by the lions club so that's a little bit about charles isabel switzerland he had lost his wife he was a widower and he went for a little vacation in europe and from there it over to england to switzerland where he met this wonderful charming isabelle and brought her back here and they married and they went on it continued to have two other children richard being one of them so they interviewed isabel in the newspaper and this is what they said about her this charming and talented girl gain the admiration and friendship of all who knew or she's refreshing a little bit of old england and that sort of sums up she again she was very active she was a graduate of the academy of music from london she was a piano teacher in belmont for many years very active in the red cross i bet women's club dramatic club you name it she probably had her hands in the pie red cross volunteers so just in amazing couple they lived over on street so that's sort of a little bit about richard's parents that's where they they grew up over the neighborhood and slade street night in my newsletter i had interviewed richard and he remembers when they first moved over the slade street there was only about four or five houses on that whole street and just growing up in that area being a fruit farm and and just childhood memories of that that area of belmont so there they are and again from the newspaper in one nine hundred forty five it says this quote there are no nicer neighbors than is a ball and charles betts one sixty five slade street they help to make this a nice town i don't really find five people in a fine example of of his pairing and how he grew up so now we get to richard so we see here he's aged ten with his brother so he had a brother like i mentioned and he had three step siblings as well but here he is with his brother and dog muggins and also when his football jersey you're wearing number ninety nine so it's fun fun fun childhood memories class of one nine hundred forty five belmont high school we see as picture in the yearbook is pet peeve history teachers oh so yeah so let's kind of a funny and he says i'm an i'm only an average man but by george i work at it harder than the average man so that was his his high school  there and then another picture out of the yearbook with a guidance counselor trying to figure out what you want to be what do you want to do something while tell you i don't know that be hard to keep up with him from there on but and there's another picture of him so right after the high school he went he served one year in the navy so we're looking at him his uniform there naval richard in the navy uniform well he he went on to marry another how belmont high school graduate and she was in the the band so that's a little bit about he met they met when they when she worked actually for the tone in the health for the board of health and richard worked also for the town they met there went on to marry barbara also just like richard very active in town we see seventeen years she's she's a town meeting member she's a member of all saints church she's the president the woman's council member of the vestry very again very active couple is barbara that appeared in the paper about that and that in that issue what it says when barbara betts died last friday a little bit of what makes belmont such a pleasant place was lost flags were flown at half mast this  month this week sorry for a moment of silence before the selection is meeting and so if you read some of the text of the article it's it wasn't and they said it wasn't because she was married to richard betts it was because barbara herself really did a lot for the town very active and very faithful and town so a little bit about his early life when we know richard was the building inspector for many years and we see him addressing  a group of citizens in the town hall and the first newspaper article also see here being awarded for noor northeastern university and there were many students that got their start under richard betts they had a good good working relationship with north eastern in the co op students and there's other articles and i have in on the poster boards it said that went on to highlight some of his pupils and say how they excelled after they had worked under him for for quite a while so we see these being honored by northeastern university he was a graduate of there and also down there in the lower corner there he's giving a daniel butler school and waverley giving a historic lecture to the i think it's a fifth students maybe over the butler school at the time where he was active in participating sharing the local history as only richard could do so nice nice way that he's participating in the community and being awarded in the knowledge for  well this is a familiar scene for many years over forty years he worked for the town in the engineering office and you see him here at his desk and see him talking about the northeastern students there in the in the graduates and in the picture there it's kind of fun because you probably recognize the the current head of the office of community development mr glenn clancy standing in the back row there as a young starting out with the town and also tom presumed as many of you knew him tom he's in the picture in the background there with some of the northeastern students and the secretary on the other side of the desk is none of the nancy fe and does she was for many years richards secretary when he worked in the building office they're so nice looking at that so i have a couple of little submissions from from from nancy faith and the way clancy that i'd love to share probably just now and so nancy i did you know i was talking to about just just chatting about richard in general and and so she's she had a funny story and she said well you know after he lost his wife for a while and he was trying to sort through that he decided well i'm going to meet people again how am i going to get back and dating  people again so i guess he he signed up for a dating service or something and so she knew that so he came in the next year or days later and he said well how did it go he said i don't think it's going to work out nancy and she said why and he sent me an email and i'll just i'll just read it because it's a well written it's i think you'll enjoy it so he says a my first two years of employment for the town of belmont were under town engineer richard betts i was responsible for supervising two co op students there was also an assistant town engineer in the office and we were small the busy office and much of the time was spent the field performing engineering work on friday afternoons after a particularly hectic week mr betts would come out of his office and call us all over oh would come a deck of cards or some other magicians prop and he would perform for us and he was good we all stood there baffled as he would do these tricks so close that you think that you should be able to figure out how we did it but you never did a true show when mr betts he would perform regularly enough to keep you wanting more but not often enough that it became routine i remember telling new co op students about the act of preparing them for the special day mr betts would step out of his office and call us all over the students of course couldn't imagine this the stately dignified town  er performing magic tricks for the office until it happened and as always mr betts did not disappoint that's a great story honoring god richard and just sort of his is his  magic side which we'll get to learn a little bit more about and a little bit now here we see mr betts being awarded and this is a resolution made this is during the jubilee time at belmont many of you probably remember the activities in the festivities that richard organized and was part of that whole event and you see him there is being given the honor of being grand not marshall of the parade but also in the bottom of the of the proclamation there i typed out the information saying richard b bad shot from this day forward b also known as the official town historian so from this day forward to october eighteenth eight hundred eighty four richard betts was actually nineteen eighty four had wadda ya thank you for that that will be even more amazing but so richard was then truly name that it when he was just recognized for the job he would already have was doing which was to be mr history and mr belmont really so we see him there at the old boundary stone so that's official telling a story now another resolution that i cut out of the paper and try to make here was fifty years of service to the town  belmont and that's at the town meeting and he's being on or there accepting a round of applause from fellow town meeting members for his years of service fifty years of service all by the way and so i couple that with most recently on may fourth two thousand sixteen many of you were town meeting members were there present in the audience when richard was also given this proclamation it was written we read in memorial to him on or in his many contributions to the town and it was accepted by audrey so that's sort of a then and now awards that lifetime really of awards that richard deserve well deserved and then we look a little bit in his family i mention he had some siblings so these are his is brother and now in the back row and two sisters in the front other brother i think is that was not the photo may have been the deceased at this time his house and woods road just went up for sale so if anybody is interested put in an offer that  think the open house was what last weekend was it or just under agreement already but i didn't take one so that's so so when i heard that i went over took a quick picture of that assigns a nice lots of visits lots of time spent that woods road with richard and then picture of audrey and richard and ipswich so that's a nice place where he spent a lot of time in the summer months ok so a lot of you associate with a historic design this should be very familiar to you you know richard like the backbone of the historical society many years he joined actually in the sixty's and he was he served as president twice two different terms not consecutively but two different times so i thought this was fun episodes and volumes when put together so i i pulled out a few of them i pulled out the ones that he was actually featured on the cover and of course the one that we wrote to celebrate his eighty fifth birthday and also streets of belmont here is  know where the columns are and then with a belmont meteorite so as newsletter editor thought we'd take a look at richard there again we just did some historic house plaques and a historic plaque program richard received the historic plaque and on the door you see the plaque and also back in one thousand nine hundred seventy six amazing this is another version of the plaque program i guess it predated our version and this is women women of rotary standing with richard as part of the bicentennial year and they're probably was given at this time but more likely than not so that's kind of him participating in activities and of course wellington station kind of interesting moving here from in the one nine hundred eighty s and richard in the in the picture right in front of all saints church in his trench coat there is zero degree temperature the december fourteenth after everything else to go wrong and he supervising the moving from the underwood estate down to a two common street where it sits now and then he's posed here with other members of historical society who were involved in the wellington station moon author so we've taken a look at richard as an author we're familiar with many of his books and publications  i find interesting footsteps was dedicated to his mother and streets of belmont to his father so very touching inscriptions in both those books and then we see he gave a presentation about the streets book and then also he was involved with the belmont images of america project so we know richard as an author and then finally some special events that he participated in which is kind of fun the christmas t the one book one belmont ring the bell of the lafayette  society place in park music festival and of course the trolley tours around town if you hadn't taken a trolley tour that was a favorite and you notice that he's people have been commenting on my jersey my sweatshirt and they said where do you get we' presentations and doing functions together so it's kind of our little special uniform that we used to wear so there's richard doing all those things and finally some of some other events again with his uniform sweater down here in the corner he's doing some something good pace and park he's up in the classroom he's at the christmas tee we're having some game show some extravagant game show and then finally the historical sites themselves on richard with a lifetime achievement award i think a lot of you in the audience tonight were there for that occasion where he was given that lifetime achievement award from the belmont to this day i want to talk aside that was in two thousand and eleven that he received that award so that's probably a little review of all the things that you you might you know say yeah well you know i knew that i knew that i knew that so now i have a whole series of slides the next next batch that are called did you know because these are things that you may not be aware of so let's to get those so did you know that forest faithful service of the town of belmont the highway garage made its building off waverly street was named in richard's honor and he designed the building and the plaque that you see there that bronze plaque is affixed to the wall  i took a little field trip over there last week and asked if i could rephotograph that so i did that and looking at the highway building there so that's called the richard b betts highway garage did you know so that's a that's number one let's see ok did you know his association with with magic you know we heard mr clancy's a little tale of how we'd pull out a deck of cards and and entertain the co op students but really his fascination with became started in one thousand thirty seven to ten years old for christmas his somebody gave him a gilbert misto magician set and that's that was it after that he put on shows in his attic for the neighborhood kids in charge of two cents a ticket so then it age fourteen he became misto the magician and performed around local little organizations and groups and after he was married he continued to perform with his wife in the act and i think he used to tell me i think they're called the box girl the boxer girl and that she became the boxer girl his little stunt to prop and  girl so they perform together and so he was served the night of magic by that time and he was a member of the society of american magicians for more than fifty years that's mind boggling and  amazing i have one of the one of the poster boards that i've they put together has more about his career in magic and it's fascinating and he himself wrote some articles in their publication and so you can read some of the interesting  adventures he had from his years and years and years and magic and really participating in that and he in his own words he says i also magic a great deal as a young boy i stuttered quite badly and i actually began performing magic as a means of forcing myself to speak in front of people and slowly conquered the problem so amazing that magic was something that he really got into and used to  overcome a really severe problem was stuttering so that's our next second did you know ok here's a here's another blast from the past and many many for maybe even the historical society you'll recognise mr leo stab because leo stab appeared at the annual meeting and nine hundred eighty six to give a little lecture on belmont springs as the hermit from belmont springs and so people were pretty taken aback when this man appeared and i don't know if they went through the whole show or whatever before he realtor's true identity as none other than richard betts spelled backwards betts and leo because he is richard was honored he received the community achievement award for distinguished public service from the belmont town club in one nine hundred eighty eight there's probably award that there's probably not an award that he didn't receive let's put it that way but this is just another example of  really his far reach into the community i think i mean from the lions club to the to the masonic to the to the historical side of the dramatic club i mean richard was it was just part of the belmont fabric so that's just  him did you know richard is listed in who's who in the east and who's who in government and then in one thousand nine hundred eighty three they began a series of articles i guess the newspaper and initiated some kind of interviewing that they wanted to pick very important people v i p s and they started with none other than richard betts so he was the first one to be chosen to be highlighted in interviewed as part of these  distinguished people that were being honored from the belmont community so they in their own words they say somehow our first v i p demonstrated the eclectic taste of profile people become tone engineer richard betts a magician engineer historian and renaissance man was the first person profile so very very aptly profiled ok this is a this was mind boggling to me because did you know as i certainly didn't that richard was immersed himself in the world of sebastian miniatures and we have a whole board here up in the front devoted to that interest that he sebastian miniatures collecting but not only did he collect them he became a certified appraiser and contributor to their publications and was very involved in the sebastian mr miniature posing as marc anthony george will george washington with cannons and then i think that what's called old pot something about takes a looking at bunker hill and so he's there at bunker hill so the good story i want to tell on this little sebastian miniatures is so audrey decided now to a two thought that they could do something together in the sebastian minister minute miniature one of these events but i get why did richard had already picked out i mean it takes a lot to own to richard but i guess that to go is what did it so let's have a great sebastian minute you story ok lifelong member of all saints church we've talked a little touch a little bit on that but really he was not just a member but but held  he was a junior warden a senior warden member the vestry a sunday school teacher was very active in the all science community as well and he what a surprise wrote a book he said he's the church historian also the town a story but he wrote a book on the history of all saints church which we have a up here with the all saints church board so it's a pretty comprehensive from you know beginning to end of the church community and so amazing  very very active and committed to that community a parish parish a story ok did you know first job of the town now richard had some some interesting jobs because i interviewed him in a series that we had done several years ago and i knew that he was a paper boy for the belmont herald over in cushing square and he caddied at oakley country club they paid him in candy bars or something but here is his first job with the town and the town recruited him while he was in high school because of the war there was some they needed some meter readers to come in through the community in belmont so they went over and picked out some what they thought were responsible kids to come in and do the meter reading so really he got his start meter reading with the like department and so the story goes he used to tell me that he knew that you know where everybody lived whose doors were unlocked who had the dogs that you want to avoid and where the cutest girls in town when this is what this is what the meter reader stuff will and that's what they chatted about so that's a human first dog of the town did you know that richard was a summer resident of little neck and ipswich for more than eighty five years his family began going there that he was a two year old something like that and they went up there and fell in love with the place bought a little cottage up there richard also and after a while on his own cottage up there so you seeing him love the photo in the boat  isn't that great so he's enjoying some summer and of course the ipswich clams which you know made the place famous and if you also not another surprise but he also wrote a history of a little neck so he researched in there and wrote a pretty comprehensive book on the history of little neck and that's also depicted on one of the the boards here that i put together these are as you can figure out pretty much themed so that his it which time in summer months we spent joyfully in very pleasantly at his place up there on the water so great and put a lot of research and i think tom like your connection with him comes from i know you would submit a little story about fifty five years and so you know richard from from being on cottages are houses near each other on the neck so yeah so it's a great great to see another did you know which i like i didn't know until tonight every christmas eve richard would dress up as santa and visit the buchanan family and are they here in the audience of somebody up in the members of the in the family and thank you for coming great to have you notice your pictures or whole bunches of pictures of the of the family in the kids year after year kind of time lapse photography if we could put them all it would be fabulous but so sean and christian always look forward to by santa and that was none other than richard bets on christmas eves and they had a funny story also they submitted the family submitted a poem one time who was it when you asked asked about the ranger what did he say what did you tell the story for something about what do they eat what do you do with a reindeer or something what happens to the reindeer and richard without without thinking we the adults were trying to recover from that but no he was invited back the next year because i had the photos to prove it so they did but that didn't end the tradition i don't know how it did on the tradition but kind of kind of things but he had a in his spare time was compiling scrap books and so richard every week or i don't know month he would take out of the papers newspapers he would clip out articles that years ago and i'm planning to highlight that collection in the upcoming newsletter so the june june newsletter will feature this collection of scrapbooks that richard compiled over many many decades they were all in the of course he's an engineer now they're all carefully index of mine i am sure so amazing so it's really fun when you when you take them down off the shelves and just open them up you know some of the volunteers fill told me a story that something he volunteers in the classroom on tuesday night so when it's slow he'll just pull a book out and start to look through it and it will it's just you know from from political contests advertisements what town meeting  did selectman no notes i mean you name it and he he would painstakingly cut these all out and and fix them into scrapbooks a series of those so so that will be upcoming to look forward to that of the jew newsletter will be featured highlighting his connect  collection and in his own words he says i don't like to live in the past that's not good but i want to make sure the past is isn't lost that it's recorded somehow so that's really he was about really collecting and what what a legacy that he's left in these materials i mean the books the publications his in his building up the files of the newsletters and now the series of scrap books that you'll hopefully come to the classroom and take a look at it but just amazing the investment and a lasting legacy that he's left by him by his passion really to record this for our benefit so there we there we have a last look at richard great photograph i love this photo of him but so just honoring richard and so i thank you for just me to put together this little presentation what i'd like to do for the rest of the time is is to maybe open it up a little bit i have a lot like i said some submissions that we could share but i would like to hear from you now in your own stories and and just to maybe get a conversation going of of you know what