Pastor Genese to serve as guest celebrant at Blackstone Quaker Meeting House

The second in a series of Ecumenical Services sponsored by the East Blackstone Quaker Meeting House and Cemetery Historical Association, inc. will be held on Sunday, June 4th at the historic Meeting House at 197 Elm Street in Blackstone. Matt genese, Associate Pastor at Valley Chapel (Church of the nazarene) in Uxbridge, MA, will serve as guest pastor. Music will be under the direction of organist John Staples, and special music selections will be performed by members of Valley Chapel. The service will begin at 2:00 p.m.

Pastor genese serves as Valley Chapel's Associate Pastor of Worship and Online Community. An accomplished professional musician, Pastor g has extensive pastoral experience as well service as a missionary in eastern Europe. For the past several years, Matt has taught Bible at Whitinsville Christian School where he is a highly regarded teacher. He and his wife Cydney have three children.

will be held on Sunday, november 12th. The Association's Christmas Caroling Service will be held on Friday, December 8th.

The Association recently held its Annual Meeting of members. The newly elected Officers for the Association's 2023-2024 year are:

Ellery Wood, President; Jonathan Steele, Vice President; Secretary, gretchen greene; and Treasurer, Beverley Kelly ryan. in addition, Ann Durham was appointed chair of the House & grounds Committee; and Audrey Frechette was appointed Assistant Secretary.

Ecumenical services are sponsored yearly by the Association which was formed in 1954 for the purpose of preserving and maintaining the historic Meeting House and burial grounds. Membership in the Association is open to all persons interested in the preser- vation of the Meeting House and cemetery.

For information regarding the Association and its workings, or regarding membership in the Association, please visit the Association's updated website at http://www.blackstonequakermeetinghouse.org/.

Women and children have always worked. But throughout much of history, their jobs were often domestic –around the home, the farm, or the neighborhood.

The industrial revolution changed that. Women and children began to work outside the home, and sometimes even far from home. They were cheap labor for America’s expanding industries. The 1870 federal census showed 1 out of 8 children were employed, a number that would rise to 1 in 5 by 1900. And these were children as young as 10, sometimes even younger.

At the start of the twentieth century, the political winds began to change. Hiring children became less acceptable and companies like Hopedale’s Draper Corporation rewrote their own history to hide their workers’ past.

Join historian and Hopedale Women’s History Project founder Linda Hixon to learn more about women and children in the working world and how their labor helped shape this country.

Ms. Hixon’s presentation will be held on Saturday, June 10, from 11 a.m. to noon at the Samuel Slater Experience, 31 ray Street, Webster. The event is free; registration is requested at Eventbrite.com.

Women and Children on the Time Clock is sponsored in part by the Webster Cultural Council.

About Samuel

SLATEr ExPEriEnCE

Samuel Slater Experience opened last year to tell the story of Samuel Slater, the beginnings of the American industrial revolution, and Slater’s impact on mill towns such as Webster, Massachusetts. Described as “Disneylike,” Samuel Slater Experience employs state-of-the-art 4-D digital technology with immersive video and interactive exhibits to recreate two time periods: the early 1800s and the early

1900s. For more information and tickets, visit: www.samuelslaterexperience.org.

The June 4th service will be followed by three additional services this fall. The first, on Sunday, September 17th, will be led by reverend Bill Vis, retired CrC pastor and member of the Pleasant Street Christian reformed Church in Whitinsville; and the second