Reporter's Afterword

But one thing led to another, the way things do. It was only a couple weeks after I got all the Beaver Brook documents from Probate Court that I realized that I had known and worked with Richard LaRose, the nurse's aide in question, at VNA/Hospice. I will always remember one of our supervisors at a staff meeting standing up with a quaver in her voice, telling us that she had to fire, some weeks before, the best male nurse's aide she had ever worked with. Dick LaRose was a fine person, and an active volunteer in the Christ Methodist Church, where he ran monthly fund-raising dinners. His life of service since his retirement from Stanley Home Products was exemplary. But he was human.

Dick La Rose and his wife lived in a truly tiny house in an Easthampton public housing project before his death. I know he earned about $9.00 an hour for his work with the elderly. We don't value our caretakers that much in our society.

He shared this life of service to the elderly with Father Vincent O'Connor of Saint Catherine's Church in Leeds. I went out to talk to Father O'Connor the other day about his reasons for being involved in this business, and specifcally the $114,000 he had received from the Fred Whitburn estate. I looked at the Gazette archives, and found two clippings about him, the last dated l988, when he celebrated 40 years in the priesthood. He has been pastor of Saint Catherine's since 1969. Father O'Connor has made it his life work ministering to the poor and the elderly. He was a social worker and helped found the Catholic Charities and the Society of St. Vincent De Paul in Springfield. He lived at a home for the elderly in Holyoke. He is a charter member of the National Association for Social Workers. On the day I saw him in his rectory he was on his way to visit someone in a nursing home.

In our short, rather strained interview, he had no comment on this whole business, other than to say that Fred Whitburn was a penitent, and that there was no way he could violate the confidentiality of their relationship. He acknowledged that he and the church had received money from the will, but could not comment in any way on the matter.

Afterwards I stood outside in the sun looking at the church feeling like two cents. And I felt worse when I saw someone I knew working with his wife planting and trimming the shrubbery around the church. The documents in this article may cause some turmoil and unhappiness in the parish. St. Catherine's is a modest working person's church. Asphalt siding, rebar showing through the cement front steps. It was built probably for the workers in the mills, and was not, I would guess, a wealthy parish.

This story in part one, I fear, is probably not that uncommon in areas of our country where the real estate market is hot and there is a premium on parcels of real estate suitable for development.

View Chronology of Beaver Brook

Next: Part Two in the Battle at Beaver Brook. All is fair in love and development.