Strong winds ruled out the usage of tents, but the Town of Marion was determined to get through its first drive-through flu-shot clinic in anticipation of the day there might be an opportunity to administer a COVID-19 vaccine.

            The flu clinic, held for residents on October 8 at the Benjamin D. Cushing Community Center, was the first event organized for the town by Lori Desmarais as its new public health nurse in concert with the town’s Board of Health and Police Department.

            “Lori and Lieutenant (Richard) Nighelli have gone above and beyond,” said Town Administrator Jay McGrail of their efforts organizing the event. “At one point we were backed up all the way out to the screening station. We never had a backup on Route 6. At the end of the day, we will have had over 150 (receiving vaccinations). … Lori’s been here just shy of a month and she pulled all this off.”

            Preparation was key and to that end, a dry run was conducted a week prior for town employees. This event, it is hoped, will eventually be considered preparation for the potential distribution of a coronavirus vaccine. That event, if it occurred in the middle of the winter, would include a two-lane, drive-through tent in which the vaccine would be administered.

            Between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm last Thursday, cars streamed into 465 Mill Street, using the driveway on the left side of the building on the way in and curling around the back before exiting on the opposite side. Senior citizens were asked to visit the clinic between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm and the general public from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

            At the first station on the driveway to the left of the building, pre-registrants were checked off of a list, their temperatures taken and their paperwork verified,” said McGrail. A couple of applicants were sent away.

            At the second station on the opposite side of the building, paperwork was given a more thorough check and copies were taken of insurance cards. It was also determined by staff which dosage was appropriate and a corresponding sticker affixed to their paperwork.

            A four-station inoculation area was staffed with five public-health nurses including Desmarais, recently retired Marion health nurse Kathleen Downey and soon-to-retire Mattapoisett Health Nurse Amanda Stone. “The key is, it’s all hands on-deck,” said McGrail, whose mother-in-law is a licensed nurse and volunteered to assist.

            If someone was receiving a flu shot for the first time, they pulled over to a special area where they could remain under the observation of an emergency medical technician (EMT) for the prescribed 15 minutes to ensure immediate attention in the event of any adverse reaction to the vaccine. Ages 2 and older were eligible to receive a vaccine, and the higher dose was made available to ages 65 and older.

            “Taking steps to protect against other respiratory illnesses is especially important as we continue to fight the COVID-19 virus across the region,” said Desmarais in a press release advertising the event to the community.

            Though they would not be leaving their vehicles, residents were required to facemasks along with short sleeves. They were also asked ahead of time to complete their insurance forms and bring insurance and Medicare cards – but not their pets – in order to expedite the process in the event of crowds.

            Vaccinations were given to all regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, and transportation was made available for seniors through the Council on Aging.

            For more information about this clinic, call the Board of Health at (508) 748-3530 or the Council on Aging at (508) 748-3570.

By Mick Colageo

            Erik Durant has been capturing the human form, facial expressions, and themes that run the gamut from mythology to real-life situations for many years. In his studio works, he can be free to explore subject matter as he pleases. When it comes to commissioned pieces the pressure is on to get it right, but finding out what right is can be elusive.

            When the Celebrate Elizabeth Taber Committee headed up by Judith Rosbe selected Durant to create the statue that will be celebrated and unveiled at 11:00 am Saturday, October 17, in Bicentennial Park across Spring Street from the Marion Town House, he was given a packet of research materials that the group had collected and pictures that were as he described “an amalgamation” of images. “There was little to go on outside what she had done,” he confessed in a recent interview with The Wanderer.

            Taber’s history was researched for the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s “Lighting the Way: Historic Women of the Southcoast” program. In that published biography, we are told that Taber was born in Marion in 1791 and died in Marion in 1888. She was very religious and left Marion for New Bedford when she married Stephen Pitcher, settling into domesticity.

            Yet Taber would know sorrow and loneliness from the loss of all three of her children before they reached the age of 6 and her husband who died shortly after the Civil War. She withdrew from society living a sober, quiet life in her County Street home for many years. But she certainly spent considerable time studying financial matters.

            It is due to her wise investments in railroads and mills that she was able to amass a great fortune, giving a lion’s share to her beloved Town of Marion. She funded not only the building of her preferred Christian faith, the First Congregational Church, but also the library that bears her name, and the Music Hall. Taber also funded the Marion Natural History Museum and founded Tabor Academy. All this earned her the nickname of Marion’s Fairy Godmother. To clarify, Tabor (note “o” not “e”) Academy is named after Mount Tabor in Palestine, not after its benefactor.

            Taber brought education, culture, art, and music to a community that continues to benefit from all her gifts.

            How to capture in a face, in the position of a seated human body that bears age and has experienced the highs and lows of life, how to distill a fleeting gesture, how to bring together all that Taber embodied – that was Durant’s challenge.

            Durant’s public works, with the exception of the squid which rises gaily above the gallery space at the NBWM, are full of emotion. “The committee wanted her to be warm,” he confided, saying that he sought to capture an expression that one might have when alone, sitting on a bench, lost in private thoughts. “Maybe in this sculpture she is thinking about what she has done or what she wants to do next.” He imagined her surveying all she has done in a casual pose, in a candid moment when no one is looking.

            The artist may have struggled a bit seeking, teasing out the person behind the bits and pieces he was able to cobble together of the real person. “How much can you trust the photography?” was a question Durant grappled with during the early sketches and clay models. “She looks so stern in the image.” He knew there was more there than was meeting his eye.

            “There was a narrative, what I was looking at was just the cover of the book,” he said. “People have a concept of a face, even their own, but it might not be the same as what someone else will see.”

            Over the course of about two years, all the elements Durant sought to bring together glacially moved into position.

            Durant knew from local accounts that Taber was seen around town smoking a pipe. Adding that detail provoked a bit of discussion, but in the end, the pipe helped to humanize Taber, pull her out of the historical context into humanity. “When you are given a few sentences about a person you grab onto it; she was a person, she was maybe the type of woman she wanted to be … that can resonate with us today.” He said that there is a misperception that Victorian-age people were all prim and proper. “That pipe made her a regular person.”

            Durant’s Taber is seated in a natural posture, a comfortable position, possibly defying polite edicts of how a woman was to sit when in public once again bringing the idea of a real person to the fore. The statue is life-size of a woman of about 5-foot-4-in height, clothed in period dress but not fussy or formal attire. Durant researched clothing at the NBWM to get a sense of what everyday wear in the 19th century might have looked like. “When you sit down beside her, you’ll be able to look her in the eye,” he said with a smile in his voice.

            According to Tinker Saltonstall, the Celebrate Elizabeth Taber Committee will turn over the statue to the Town of Marion at Saturday’s ceremony. Sippican Historical Society coordinated the fundraising effort and, according to Rosbe, the Elizabeth Taber Statue Committee chairperson, donated $50,000 to the effort. Tabor Academy donated $10,000, and private donors contributed to a total topping $175,000.

            Between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm, Spring Street will be closed to traffic between Cottage and Main streets. Saturday’s event will be held rain or shine.

By Marilou Newell