Veteran of Foreign Wars Memorial, Whitinsville

VFW Memorial, Whitinsville, MA

J. Hendrickson

There is a memorial dedicated to veterans of foreign wars on Linwood Avenue. This area pays tribute to the men and women who served in World War II as well as Korea and Vietnam. 

Harry Kazarian was one of the local men who went to war in the 1940s. He was a second-generation employee. At the end of his service, upon his return to Whitinsville, Kazarian no longer wished to work in the foundry, a hot and difficult job that paid less than other “skilled” positions. Another employee asked Kazarian, “it was good enough for your father, wasn’t it?” But the world, and Kazarian, had been greatly changed by the war. 

During the war, with men like Kazarian away, women in town had unprecedented opportunities to earn good wages at the company. They made steam engines and other products for the government in huge quantities and were granted an E for Excellence award multiple times. The end of the war did not bring immediate stability or an interest in returning to the status quo. A heightened interest in unionization among workers, and a successful union vote, led E. Kent Swift—the last of six generations of Whitins to run the company— to resign from his position near the end of World War II. In 1946, J. Hugh Bolton became President. This was not the end of the Whitin Machine Works, but it was the end of Whitin investment; they withdrew their financial stake and sold their town properties.  

At a time when some wore 50 Year Club pins showing their many years of service to the company, others took to challenging the Whitin Machine Works. A long strike was led by workers in 1946. After the resolution of the strike, the company continued under Bolton’s leadership for two decades more. Then, in 1966, the company was sold to White Consolidated Industries. It was shuttered in 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial.  

From the beginning, Whitinsville was forged and repeatedly changed by people who experienced war.  

Traveling around this community, we can see the seeds of the Whitin dynasty planted during the American Revolution. We can only wonder as to the future of the people who labor to make Whitinsville more than just a place to work.