INSIDE THIS EDITION:
- MEET THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE LLC EXECUTIVE BOARD: JOE PETTERUTI
- TIVERTON'S FOUR CORNERS WALKING TOUR PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS
- THE CULTURE CORNER: MARTIN HOUSE OPENING DAY ICE CREAM SOCIAL (Jul 7)
- VOYAGE OF MERCY by Stephen Puleo – The USS Jamestown, the Irish famine and the remarkable story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission
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Meet the Newest Member of the LLC Executive Board
Joe Petteruti: Co-Chair, Governance Commitee
“Why I joined the board is simple. My good friend Dave Hanson asked me. We all need good friends. That’s what powers LLC.”
Joe Petteruti was born in Providence and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Brown University.
To fulfill his military obligation, Joe joined the R.I. Air National Guard in 1969. He spent six months on active duty with the U.S. Air Force. For the next six years, he served as a “weekend warrior” at the RI T. F. Green Airport.
In 1970, Joe joined Chemical Bank, New York, NY as a Management Trainee in the Credit Analysis Department. He lived in Manhattan for two years. After his experience in NYC, he spent forty years in real estate finance and administration at various banks in Providence and Boston. His final assignment was at Bank of America, N.A. in Providence where he was a Vice President in the Real Estate Managed Assets Division.
Joe has a son, Philip, and a daughter-in-law, Michele. They have two teenage children, Ben, and Katie. The family lives in Needham, MA. Joe met his partner, Sidney-Leigh Okashige, in 2006.
Joe joined LLC in 2012 and has taken numerous classes, presented in all, and even coordinated one. Sidney introduced Joe to LLC. She has coordinated numerous LLC classes. “We both love the idea of being a member of a learning collaborative and enriching our lives. We have studied such giants as Nelson Mandela, Dante, James Joyce and Ghandi.
Joe just joined LLC’s Board as co-Chair of the Governance Committee and serves on two other committees, Strategic Planning and Finance.
Joe’s grandmother, Bertha Mulvihill, was a steerage class passenger on the RMS Titanic. He has written a book about her perilous and abbreviated voyage across the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912. The book, A Night She’d Remember, is available on Amazon, Book Baby and at local bookstores.
The writing of this book came out of an LLC memoir class in 2017. The coordinator suggested that Joe expand his memoir to become a book. Joe has been an active member of the LLC Memoir class for many years. He has contributed his memoirs to The Lark and recently hosted an LLC Webinar about his grandmother’s Titanic adventure.
Photo credit: Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Tiverton's Four Corners Walking Tour
On May 31, 2024, the LLC Cultural Activities Committee sponsored a tour to historic Tiverton Four Corners in Tiverton, RI. Twenty-five people from all over RI and MA listened and learned from Roz Weir, the tour guide. “Roz and her husband, a preservation architect, are the main reason Tiverton Four Corners exists as it is today. At one point they owned 13 acres around the four corners – so essentially they owned the four corners!” (Celene Healy)
“The tour guide Roz Weir was so informative – and one of the reasons all the antique buildings are still standing in four corners. She and her husband were the guiding force is keeping the historic feel – and all the buildings which are now filled with great shops, restaurants and a picture-perfect village.” (Celene Healy)
THE SOULE-SEABURY HOUSE (1770) – NOW AN ARTS CENTER
THE SCULPTURE PARK
THE MEETING HOUSE
TIN MAN AT METAL WORKS, THE MILL POND SHOPS ON MAIN ROAD
Sheila Brush, Roz Weir, Celene Healy
THANK YOU!
Photos by Liz Siftar
THE CULTURE CORNER
RESCUE MISSION EXTRAORDINAIRE!
VOYAGE OF MERCY
By Stephen Puleo
The USS Jamestown, the Irish famine and the remarkable story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission
“More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.” (Amazon review)
“…millions of people through several generations have the successful Jamestown mission to thank for establishing the precedent that has been part of America’s charitable and philanthropic model for nearly 175 years. The voyage marked the emergence of the United States as a world leader and forever altered the way the country would interact with other nations, governments, and people; after Jamestown, the moral righteousness of providing humanitarian aid for its own sake became marbled into both the national realpolitick and U.S. international relations.” (Puleo, Voyage of Mercy, Chapter 37)