WARWICK – This year’s Warwick Old Home Days celebration honored local residents and organizations for being part of the town’s more than 100 years of history.
“In 1909, the Boston Post Newspaper held an unusual publicity stunt. They sent canes made of ebony and capped with gold to 700 small New England towns with instructions that they be given to the eldest citizen of that town and passed on after their death,” said Selectboard member Brian Snell Sunday, August 29. “The Boston Post folded 60 years ago, and the cane tradition continues…”
The Old Home Days ceremony honored Agnes Hamilton (Thomson) Piscopo, who was born June 12, 1926, as Warwick’s oldest living resident.
While some towns have lost the original canes, and have commissioned smaller canes to pass on to each recipient for the special designation, Warwick is one of the fortunate communities to still have its original gold cane. The cane is kept in the town safe for posterity, Snell said, and Warwick’s golden cane recipients are gifted an enamel pin commissioned by the Women’s Guild or Warwick Historic Society.
Piscopo was born and raised on Staten Island as the second of four children and the only daughter of Scottish immigrants who came to the U.S. on their honeymoon. She studied nursing at Wagner College, and was a nurse in the Marine Hospital on Staten Island. After World War II, she met her husband John, an Italian Navy man, through a fellow nurse. They married in 1949 and remained together for 64 years until John’s passing.
Most of Piscopo’s career was spent as a public school nurse and teacher in a small town outside of Ithaca, New York. She also obtained her MA at Cortland State College, NY. As a New Yorker at heart, she still follows the New York Yankees and the Giants, “a lifelong habit that has not changed despite her move to Massachusetts,” Snell said.
Both Piscopo and John were active in their local Baptist church, and were avid travelers. They visited all 50 states and the homelands of their ancestors in parts of Europe together. They frequently visited Piscopo’s family in Puerto Rico, where their grandchildren were born and raised. Most recently, Piscopo traveled abroad to visit her daughter in Ecuador at the age of 92. Her great-grandchildren now reside in town after her grandson, Ben and his wife, Laura purchased and now operate Chase Hill Farm.
For 100 years, the Warwick Women’s Guild has promoted and encouraged “any enterprise that was deemed for the best interest of the town,” Snell said during a second presentation Sunday. Every woman in Warwick is automatically a member of the Guild, which was founded in 1921.
“In its early years, a major concern for the Guild was the health and enjoyment of the children in Warwick,” Snell said. “Financial help was given to support dental clinics, health clinics and for the yearly town Christmas party.”
In recent years, ongoing projects of the Guild include contributing to the town’s college scholarship fund, distributing holiday fruit baskets to elderly residents, giving flowers and a visiting town residents known to have been hospitalized, giving assistance to folks in temporary difficult circumstances, providing refreshments for the Memorial Day celebration, and every month collating and mailing the Community Newsletter. The Guild has also undertaken many larger one-time projects —including making two town flags; one for the State House Hall of Flags; and one for Warwick.
“They undertook refurbishing the Town Hall dining hall, which included floors and walls and decorating; and purchasing the red folding chair trollies,” Snell said Sunday. “And it was the Warwick Women’s Guild who spearheaded the effort to establish the “Welcome to Warwick” sign with informational pendants here on the town common.”
In this 100th year, Guild members wanted to do something special for the town. To mark this milestone, the Women’s Guild undertook restoration of the town’s historic directional sign and had engaged Clyde Perkins Jr. for the project. The project has been completed, and a small brass plaque affixed to the signpost acknowledges the restoration of the sign, and the 100 years of service to the town by the Warwick Women’s Guild.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.