Medway & Millis
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Vol. 6 No. 5
Postal Customer Local June 1, 2015
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A New Hose Tower for Niagara
A Changing of the Guard at the Medway VFW He was chosen as the Grand Marshall of the Medway Memorial Day Parade this year, born in Medway in 1925 and a veteran of the U.S Army during World War II. He and his wife, Ruth, raised seven children in this town, and they now have seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. And since 1946, Larry Landry has volunteered, at some point or another, for every position there was at the Medway V.F.W.—but none so long as he held the position of Quartermaster, or Chief Financial Officer. In that role, Landry ran the day-to-day operations of Post 1526 for 25 years, until this past April, when the 89-year-old relinquished his seat to John Larney. Larney, a VFW member since 1981, has stepped into Landry’s shoes as Quartermaster for the 300-member strong VFW Post on Holliston Street. Numbers have dwindled, as World War II veterans pass on, and younger veterans don’t seem to be taking their place. “It’s changed quite a bit,” says
By J.D. O’Gara
Shown are Lawrence and Ruth Landry, who recently were honored in Medway’s Memorial Day Parade, as Larry was Grand Marshall. In April, Larry handed the day-to-day operations of VFW Post 1526 to John Larney, shown, inset.
Landry, who was the head of the Medway Veteran’s Business Association when he took over for Mr. Gordon Crosby a quarter century ago. “We had almost 600 members at one time; it’s down to 300 now.” Landry notes that the biggest influx of members
came when the Milford VFW folded and many of the members came over to Medway. Later, the Hopedale post did the same.
VFW continued on page 6
April saw the addition of a custom-fabricated replica of the historic Millis Niagara building’s hose tower. The original structure, which survived both a 1938 fire and later getting struck by lightning in the 1950s, was removed in 1978 when the Niagara Building was converted to Millis Town Hall, says Nate Maltinsky, of the Millis Historic Commission. Local builder Bob Fogarty fabricated the new hose tower. “The project took about twoand-a-half years,” says Maltinsky. “Bob Fogarty coordinated everything, including the crane, to get it in, and all the prep before that that made it all possible. He’s very good at what he does.” When original bids for the job came in very high, at about $40,000, Maltinsky says he convinced Fogarty to bid. “When you’re doing jobs for the public sector, it’s more complicated, there’s more paperwork, insurance papers, etc.,” says Maltinsky, “and if you haven’t done it before, it’s difficult to do until you know what to expect.”
“I wasn’t entirely set up to do state-type projects,” says Fogarty, “so I kind of had to adjust my insurance to meet the requirements. The job had gone out to bid a number of times.” Once he got going, says Fogarty, “It went in better than I ever could have expected. You try to plan things out to work a certain way, and it couldn’t have gone any better. It probably would have been in three months ago if we didn’t get that awful winter.” Fogarty says it was “kind of neat” to manufacture of portion of the building in his shop on Forest Road, a move that saved a lot of time, he says. He had to adapt the design to fit an old building, which isn’t always square. The project cost about $24,999, says Maltinsky, with Marc Prufer from Gusman Prufer drawing up the plans and overseeing the work pro bono. Maltinsky also donated his time and coordination as project manager, which he has done since Jeff Hardin passed away. CPA funds were used to fund the
TOWER continued on page 7
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