“WATERSHED RAMBLES”
By Don Doucette
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,”
And so it was, during my sixth grade year of Willett School elementary education, Miss Morton encouraged the class to study and recite the poem, In Flanders Fields. This educational and patriotic exercise was conducted during the Memorial Day remembrance period otherwise referred to as Decoration Day.
For several years during that time, several Spanish American War veterans in uniform visited Willett School.
Willett School sits built into a gravel hill aside the Ten Mile River in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Nearby was the picturesque old Watson Dam waterfall with its timber post under pinning.
And the irony of Ten Mile River waterfalls, recently we have enjoyed relaxing at Hunt’s Mill water fall in Rumford very close to Narragansett Bay.
Several members of the East Providence Historical Society, devotees of the URI Master Gardening Program have been planting and maintaining beautiful flower gardens around the historic John Hunt House which overlooks Hunt’s Falls on the Ten Mile River.
And is it not rightly so that poppies bloom there presently as we conclude this year’s Memorial Day period of remembrance?
Fitting, indeed.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile
A Citizen of Ten Mile River Watershed