Real-Time Recollections

REAL-TIME Recollections

Historic New England’s A Time to Remember is an ongoing initiative to collect materials that record the extraordinary occurrences of 2020 and beyond. Our members, friends, and staf have contributed photographs, journal entries, and objects that convey the life-altering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, some of which we are sharing here. We encourage readers to submit items that tell their stories at HistoricNewEngland.org/historic-new-england-launches-projectto-document-home-life-during-covid-19/.

Historic New England staff member Elliot Isen photographed this fence at the Boston Common where demonstrators displayed their Black Lives Matter placards after a protest in late May.

Another Historic New England staff member, Kenneth C. Turino, took this picture while shopping at Richland Convenience Store in Nahant, Massachusetts, after it reopened with COVID-19 protocols in place.

“At the end of February 2020, I was mildly aware of a virus that had hit Wuhan, China, hard. ... Through March and April, my reality of being isolated and having limited mobility was sufficient for me. There were enough projects for me to do around the house. ... It was only over the last few weeks that I have started to feel the effect the virus is having on my well-being. I find myself feeling chest pains from anxiety. My hands o en shake. ... There is no cure for the virus. ... I still hold on to hope that eventually things will get be er and that we will get back to a sense of normal. ... I will be able to hug my Mom again. I will be able to laugh at my Dad’s jokes to his face again. ... In the meantime, I will try to focus on the good. ... And I will continue to hold on to hope.”

COUNTERCLOCKWISE﹐ TOP RIGHT A sign in Somali and English at Mawuhi African Market in Burlington, Vermont, photographed by Mary Rizos. A worker wearing a superhero cape at Tockwotton on the Waterfront, a senior living community in East Providence, Rhode Island. The Walpole Clarion publisher Ray Boas encouraged readers to document “sightings” of pink flamingos in the Walpole, New Hampshire, area. Stephen Desroches contributed this photograph of a wedding couple in Provincetown, Massachusetts. U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) in a portrait made by photojournalist Katherine Taylor. © 2020 Katherine Taylor