News & Features
February 2006

Nominations sought for Lucy Stone Award

The Quaboag Historical Society is seeking nominations for the Lucy Stone Achievement Award, given annually to correlate with the Commonwealth’s designated Lucy Stone Day on March 8.

Abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was born and lived the first 25 years of her life on the Coy Hill Road family farm in West Brookfield. She taught in local schools for nine years, and then left West Brookfield to attend Oberlin College in Ohio. Stone was one of the first women from Massachusetts to earn a four-year college graduate degree.

After college, Stone became a lecturer for abolitionist and equal rights groups. She often experienced the jeers, heckling and physical violence of hostile audiences, but she persevered. On Jan. 8, 1870, she became the founder and editor of The Women’s Journal newspaper, a publication focusing on “the interest of women, her educational, industrial legal and political equality.”

Nominees for the Lucy Stone Achievement Award must reside in one of the six towns of the Quaboag Plantation — the four Brookfields, New Braintree and Warren — and should be deserving of recognition for their volunteer efforts on behalf of the local community. Previous winners are Connie Small, New Braintree; the late Paul Walker, New Braintree; the late Gertrude Hill, West Brookfield; Jane Dolan, Warren; Richard Fiske, North Brookfield; Philip Peirce, Brookfield; and Ron Couture, Brookfield.

Letters of nomination must include the names, addresses and phone numbers of both the nominator and nominee, explain the reason for the nomination, and be mailed to the Quaboag Historical Society, P.O. Box 635, West Brookfield, MA 01585-0635. Nominations must be received by Saturday, Feb. 25. The winner will be announced on Lucy Stone Day and will be honored at the Quaboag Historical Society’s annual luncheon later in the spring. The winner receives a $100 U.S. Savings Bond and a trophy. For additional information, contact the Society’s secretary, Marguerite Geis, at (413) 436-9212.