West Medford, Massachusetts has been home to a thriving African American community, where families have lived for generations since the end of the Civil War. The stories of its residents have been fading as elders die and families move away. Most of the history of this neighborhood resides within the memories of these few remaining elders. The discovery of over one hundred funeral programs, saved and collected by residents since the mid-twentieth century, tell the stories of residents who have passed on but made countless contributions to the community. These funeral programs, along with supplemental interviews, illustrate how past residents developed community resources and used ingenuity to help create a strong neighborhood of their own. Within these pages are stories of personal perseverance and tenacity, humor and resiliency. Through portraits of individuals, West Medfords African-American neighborhood of the past is documented, through the sharing of the lives of men and women, and how they interfaced to create a solid community, despite societal and economic obstacles.

Jennifer Lund was on a quest for answers to some of lifes most enduring and unresolvable questions. Why am I here? Have I been here before? Who was I? Jennifer had a unique predisposition for psychic experiences which had surfaced in childhood. But she began to suspect that these brief encounters with the unknowable might be more than they appeared. Now a middle-aged, professional administrator, she has managed to dismiss her somewhat inconvenient abilities. But on the day she suddenly and inexplicably becomes terrified of her own husband, she begins a quest for answers that leads her back in time. Finding herself as a young child, daughter of a cobbler in a small Basque village during the early-nineteenth-century Carlist Wars, the events of that lifetime unfold, casting shadows upon the present and the choices that both she and her skeptical therapist are about to make. Her journey weaves itself through pre-Christian, Basque mythology and nineteenth-century French history to present-day psychology and back again. Is it merely a creation of her mindor is she calling up memories from another time? Another place? Another life?

RICHARD F. LACK (1928-2009) was one of the most important and distinguished artists of the last half of the twentieth century. Over the span of sixty-three years he completed more than 1,300 paintings, drawings, sketches, studies, etchings, woodcuts, and watercolors. Early in his career he received thirty-four Gold Medals, Best of Show, People's Choice awards, and several scholarships for his atelier (19711992); 100 highly trained painters completed Lack's program, many of whom are accomplished artists recognized nationally today.

Jennifer Lund was on a quest for answers to some of life's most enduring and unresolvable questions. "Why am I here? Have I been here before? Who was I?" Jennifer had a unique predisposition for psychic experiences which had surfaced in childhood. But she began to suspect that these brief encounters with the unknowable might be more than they appeared. Now a middle-aged, professional administrator, she has managed to dismiss her somewhat inconvenient abilities. But on the day she suddenly and inexplicably becomes terrified of her own husband, she begins a quest for answers that leads her back in time. Finding herself as a young child, daughter of a cobbler in a small Basque village during the early-nineteenth-century Carlist Wars, the events of that lifetime unfold, casting shadows upon the present and the choices that both she and her skeptical therapist are about to make. Her journey weaves itself through pre-Christian, Basque mythology and nineteenth-century French history to present-day psychology ... and back again. Is it merely a creation of her mind...or is she calling up memories from another time? Another place? Another life?

As the fortieth anniversary of the Nixon resignation approaches, it is time to take a fresh look at Watergate's impact on the American political system and to consider its significance for the historical reputation of the president indelibly associated with it.