Once or twice a year we have a program called “Street Smarts”, where we focus on the history of a certain part of town. On Sunday we held a Street Smarts presentation about the neighborhood around the Women’s Reformatory.
You may not think “Women’s Reformatory” and “neighborhood” would go together but it actually was the case at one time. Framingham residents Ellen Walker and Martin Mulvey grew up on the prison grounds because their parents worked at the prison and they shared their surprisingly fond childhood memories.
Our fabulous volunteer, Ronnie Cronin, who clocked many hours of research and is also a childhood friend of Ellen Walker, started off the presentation with a brief history of how the The Sherborn Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for Women became the Framingham Women’s Reformatory (dropping “prison” from the title).
Ellen and Martin then spoke about what their childhood was like with acres of fields used by the reformatory for their own vegetable gardens and livestock. Martin remembered realizing why the fence was so much higher around the field with the bull in it (there to “service” the female cows) after he hopped over it. He also recalled playing in the giant bales of hay and eating all the strawberries he and his friends wanted while on the way to the apple orchards. Ellen told us about playing inside the prison with the superintendent’s niece and interacting with the inmates, who were never referred to as prisoners during their “temporary stay”. She was even in a play with the inmates and recalled how lovely and lady-like they all were. She never had a bad experience with anyone inside the reformatory. Below is a photo of Ellen in a prison production of an unknown play.
What I found most interesting was hearing about the Superintendent, Miriam Van Waters who sounded like a remarkable woman. She was a pioneer in criminal rehabilitation. She cared deeply about the inmates, the staff working at the Reformatory and their families.
Below is a photo of Miriam Van Waters and Eleanor Roosevelt during Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit to the Reformatory.
It was such an interesting program and I really felt enlightened by Ellen and Martin’s stories. A big thank you to them and everyone who attended and shared their memories as well.
Michelle McElroy
Operations Manager