A Tragic Toast to Christmas - wood alcohol deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.

More than 100 people died of a companionable drink in several towns and cities in New England on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1919, nearly half of them in the city of Chicopee, Massachusetts. How this came to happen, and even how it came to be forgotten are both intriguing aspects to the tragedy.

The story of the grisly incident of unknowingly ingesting poisonous wood alcohol and how it played out in one New England city might stand as a microcosm of the conflict created between the legal production and sale of alcohol, those who would prohibit it, and those who would do anything to profit from it, not only in the years up to 1919, but in the tumultuous decade that followed.

Have a look at my new book, A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

******************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

The Old Rugged Cross

As Easter approaches, here is the symbol of Christianity, the faith that began with a death by crucifixion. An ending, a Resurrection, a new beginning, a never-ending circle.

The stonecutter who carved this Celtic cross was an emigrant of Ireland. Leaving forever an impoverished, troubled land, he knew something about a personal resurrection when he arrived in the US and started over.

His new home became Chicopee, a factory town in Western Massachusetts, and that is where this cross stands in front of the Holy Name of Jesus Church. His name was Daniel A. Lynch, and the monument at his gravesite in the cemetery down the street is more simple, if quite as large.

His sons took care of that; they were stonecutters, too. They kept his tools. They kept the faith. This cross from the 19th century remains.