Damaged in a storm and carted off for storage until repair money could be found, a statue of St. Joseph has been returned to a place of respect in the Lynn cemetery that bears its name thanks to the dedicated efforts of a local family.
Pat Calnan mustered relatives and friends to use their construction contracting skills to repair the statue and return it to St. Joseph’s Cemetery. The project was a relatively simple one for master craftsmen who have spent decades in their trades. But it was also an act of love on the part of people who call Lynn home and are committed to preserving its treasures.
The Calnans are by no means the first local family to take on at no cost the challenge of restoring a local example of historical architecture in need of repair or a building or monument threatened with permanent and irreparable damage.
Public efforts to dedicate tax dollars to restoring local treasures like the North Common Street public library and High Rock Park have been successful and represent multi-million dollar investments in unique Lynn gems.
But dozens, maybe hundreds, of other symbols of the city’s past are damaged and threatened with decay. Their only salvation may be at the hands of charitable and committed individuals like Pat Calnan.
The Angell fountain on Broad Street sits on the traffic island at the center of one of the most beautiful one square blocks in Lynn. With the former Oxford Club on one side and Central Congregational Church on the other side across Broad Street, the island is a miniature outdoor museum featuring the fountain and two signs from the 1930s erected to celebrate Massachusetts’ 300th anniversary.
The fountain is a masterpiece of masonry work fittingly located just yards away from Gregg Neighborhood House where kids attending summer and after school have adopted the fountain and take time with teachers and counselors to pick up trash accumulating on the traffic island.
The city recognizes the deterioration slowly destroying the fountain and the Community Development Department has plans to restore it. But making plans means spending money and the fountain needs a benefactor to take on its restoration and to make it a showcase for demonstrating how a Lynn treasure thousands of people drive or walk by every day can be restored and preserved.
Only a short distance from the fountain and located just behind Central Congregational is a cemetery offering a glimpse into the city’s origins and its founders. Time has erased names and lifespans from many graves and sunk them into the ground. But dedicated efforts by only a few people could restore and preserve the cemetery for future generations.
A few helping hands, spending a few hours on a restoration project, can preserve a piece of Lynn history and, in doing so, pay the best possible tribute to the city.