Join us for Massachusetts Lafayette Day on May 19, 2022 beginning at 10:30 AM at the Lafayette Monument, followed on a luncheon and speaker at the French Consul’s Residence in Cambridge. For more information click HERE.
Massachusetts Lafayette Day, 2022
by Alan R. Hoffman
For the first time in three years, the Massachusetts Lafayette Society was able to celebrate a live and complete Lafayette Day. It was the 88th such celebration since the Massachusetts Legislature passed a statute in 1935 requiring the governor to issue a proclamation each year on May 20, the anniversary of Lafayette’s death, declaring the day “Massachusetts Lafayette Day.” While Fayette County (Lexington) Kentucky is the oldest county named for Lafayette (1780), and Fayetteville, North Carolina is the oldest city or town (1783), Massachusetts has the honor of commemorating Lafayette on an annual basis for a longer time than any other US jurisdiction.
The celebration on May 19 began at the Lafayette monument on the Boston Common. After a short welcoming speech by me entitled “What would Lafayette do?”, the Proclamation was read in French and English. The reader of the French Proclamation was Enoch (Woody) Woodhouse – Yale class of 1952 and a French major – who was decorated as a Tuskegee Airman for his service in World War II. Harvard Professor John Stauffer, our keynote speaker for the afternoon luncheon, read the Proclamation in English. The laying of the wreath by Consul General Arnaud Mentré and Lieutenant Colonel Woodhouse followed, and a moment of silence, just as the bells of a nearby church struck eleven times.
Our group traveled across the Charles River to the residence of the French Consulate in Cambridge where we enjoyed a delicious lunch including a crab cake appetizer, a superb salmon dish, and an extraordinary chocolate dessert. We were joined by a number of MLS members who could not attend the Boston ceremony, including Marvin Gilmore, another nonagenarian veteran of World War II, who received the French Legion of Honor medal in Boston in 2010 when he was a sprightly 85 years old. He is still sprightly at 97.
Professor Stauffer enthralled the audience with his lecture, “Lafayette, Charles Sumner and James McCune Smith.” John has graciously agreed to publish this speech in the next Gazette, so you will have an opportunity to read it in October. We also said a fond farewell to the Consul, who will complete his term in Boston in August.
I can report that it was one of the most delightful Lafayette Days ever.
Click HERE to see pictures from Lafayette Day.