LYNNFIELD — Preserving history is no easy task, but it’s something Kirk Mansfield has been tasked with nonetheless..
While he’s been involved with the Lynnfield Historical Commission for only about two and a half years, he has quickly established himself as the go-to man when it comes to Lynnfield’s history, serving as chair for the last two years.
He became involved with the commission when Steve Richard persuaded him to get involved. A short time later, then-chair Steve Todisco stepped down, opening an unexpected door for Mansfield.
“Steve brought me onto the commission and then pushed me to take the chair after Steve stepped down,” said Mansfield. “I told him ‘I can’t do this. I’ve never been chair of anything.’ But Steve told me he knew I could. He was amazing in convincing me I could and I will always be grateful to him for talking me into it.”
According to the Lynnfield resident, his family has a deep connection to the town. His great-grandparents moved to Lynnfield over 100 years ago after living in western Massachusetts.
“They bought this little dirt road with four or five cottages on it on Pillings Pond. My great-grandfather named the road after himself and he restored the cottages,” said Mansfield, who lives on the pond. “They stayed in the family until the ’70s and then they all got sold off except for one — which is the one I’m living in now.”
Mansfield added that he has always lived in Lynnfield and loves its history. As chairman of the Historical Commission, he enjoys getting to learn about elements of the town’s history that can’t exactly be found in any historical documents.
“(Meeting) older people who are still in Lynnfield that can tell you a story is truly my favorite part because there aren’t a lot of them left,” he said. “But they can sit down and tell you stories about the town that we don’t have in our history books. It’s just great to hear them talk about what life was like in Lynnfield 70 or 80 years ago, and that’s really my favorite part, meeting the people.”
Being a part of the Historical Commission, Mansfield believes that it’s important to keep history alive and pass it on to future generations.
“You don’t learn from erasing history, you learn from understanding it,” he said. “If you just bought a brand-new house in a beautiful neighborhood, don’t you wonder where that came from, where that land came from and the people that developed it way before your house was built? We should always learn from the past.”
History isn’t Mansfield’s only passion. He has served on the Conservation Commission for about two years and currently is vice chair under Chair Don Gentile. He is also chair of the Conservation Commission’s Pillings Pond subcommittee and is working on a book about the pond.
“It started as a history of Pillings Pond — the history of the cottages and people who lived in them, but now it’s more of a mix,” Mansfield said. “I met so many amazing people who told amazing stories, so now it’s about the journeys of these people who told me their stories.”
