Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Muse | Page 17

People and Happenings
Trustee Announcement
The Friends is pleased to announce that James F.
Hunnewell, Jr., of Chestnut Hill, Mass., was elected to the
Friends of Mount Auburn Board of Trustees this past March.
As a LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) accredited registered
architect with 36 years of experience in
the Boston area, Jim’s professional back-
ground and interests are congruent with
Mount Auburn’s mission to carry out
preservation initiatives. He is currently
a principal at Briar Properties, LLC, and
has previously worked for many years at
Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott.
Jim Hunnewell
His projects often feature significant
elements of historic preservation or adaptive re-use and
renovation, and have included 14 library projects.
Jim has had a long-term interest in Mount Auburn and
its mission, which led to his involvement in the Cemetery’s
Meadow Extension Architect Selection and Planning Com-
mittees. In addition to his activities at Mount Auburn, he
also maintains affiliations with The Boston Athenaeum,
Peabody Essex Museum, Gore Place Society, the Emerald
Necklace Conservancy, and The Bostonian Society. Regarding
his new appointment with the Friends, Jim commented,
“Mount Auburn’s status as a National Historic Landmark and
an iconic cultural landscape makes it well-suited to play an
active role in a wide variety of important civic arenas in-
volving the environment, art and architecture, horticulture, and
preservation. As an architect with a preservation background,
I look forward to working with the Friends to help shape
and strengthen that role.”
Forthcoming Publication of Interest
Sydney Nathans’ To Free a Family (Harvard University Press,
2012) tells the remarkable story of one of Mount Auburn’s
notable residents, freedom-seeker Mary Walker, who in
August 1848, fled her owner for
refuge in the North and spent the
next seventeen years trying to
recover her family. Her freedom,
like that of thousands who escaped
from bondage, came at a great
price—remorse at parting with-
out a word, fear for her family’s
fate. This story is anchored in two
extraordinary collections of letters
and diaries, that of her former
North Carolina slaveholders and
that of the northern family—
Susan and Peter Lesley—who
protected and employed her.
The Horticultural Club of Boston, which was founded in 1911 and is the
oldest “club” of horticultural professionals in the country, chose to celebrate its
100th Anniversary here at Mount Auburn in Bigelow Chapel on October 1st.
Grants
We are pleased to announce that in May we surpassed the
match for the original grant of $132,000 from the Mas-
sachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund (MCFF) towards the
construction of a new entryway into our Visitors Center
in Story Chapel. This entrance will be more welcoming,
accessible, and energy efficient in addition to reflecting the
historic integrity of the original porte-cochere. Without
the generous support of Cambridge Savings Bank ($30,000),
The Lynch Foundation ($30,000), Harold Whitworth Pierce
Charitable Trust ($30,000), Richard Saltonstall Charitable
Foundation ($5,000), and individual contributions ($64,288,
including a lead gift of $40,000), we could not have reached
this goal. We aim to secure the remaining funds of $68,712
within the year and begin work on this project in 2012.
The Friends also received $25,000 in May from the Cabot
Family Charitable Trust towards the construction of the new
greenhouse facility, for which we continue to raise funds.
In August, the 1772 Foundation awarded the Friends
$17,500 for a joint conservation and interpretive project,
which will preserve a selection of monuments commemo-
rating notable African Americans buried at the Cemetery
and interpret their lives through an interactive Heritage
Trail. Mary Walker (see left) is one of the individuals whose
monument and story will be addressed through this exciting
project.
The Anthony J. and Mildred D. Ruggiero Memorial Trust
awarded the Friends $78,155 in September towards a multi-
year effort to restore the Narcissus Path and Beech Avenue
area, making major improvements in the quality of Mount
Auburn’s wildlife habitat.
Fall/Winter 2011 | 15