Final decision to be voted on this summer
By Vicki Greene, Contributing Writer
Marlborough – Officials have recommended that the city’s new elementary school be named after three brothers – Theodore, Andrew and Charles Goodnow – who all perished during the Civil War.
In a June 18 letter to the City Council, Mayor Arthur Vigeant recommended after long discussions and list reviews with the City’s Director of Veterans Services, to name the new school in honor of the brothers. The three men are all buried at Rocklawn Cemetery.
The Council’s Veterans Committee plans to take up the matter at its next meeting to be scheduled in the coming weeks. Committee Chair Councilor Sean Navin said he hopes to have a decision for the full Council’s at its Monday, July 20 meeting.
Navin said he plans to schedule a Committee meeting in the coming weeks to ensure that anyone who wants to look at the list can have the opportunity to comment. The Veterans Committee would then send it to the full Council for a vote.
The City has many veterans organization that make up the Marlborough Veterans Council including the Italian American Veterans Post, the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans. Navin said he wants to ensure that all interested parties have a chance to review the list and comment.
Navin said he has been hearing from residents and city officials that they would like to confirm a name for the new elementary school prior to opening in the fall.
City Councilor David Doucette suggested that if the Goodnow name is chosen, “hopefully we (the City) could reach out to descendants of the family to be at the school’s opening ceremony.”
In addition to the recommendations for the “Goodnow Elementary School,” in his letter, Vigeant recommends the softball field now known as Red Field should be renamed the Demers Field in honor of Lt. Corporal Richard Demers, a United States Marine who was killed in Vietnam. He further recommends that the baseball field behind the 1LT Charles W. Whitcomb School, known as Community Center Field, be renamed Cole Field in honor of Disbursing Clerk 2nd Class Harold Cole, a World War II Naval Reservist who was honorably discharged and later reenlisted and killed in a plane crash.
Cole and Demers are both buried at the Immaculate Conception Cemetery.
