NORTH ADAMS — Janet Keep of Williamstown, a woman praised for her modesty and example, was honored with the Martin Luther King Peacekeeper Award at the annual observance of the civil rights leader’s birthday at the First Baptist Church Monday.
The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition hosted the event, and the Martin Luther King Committee presented the award.
Keep, 82, received recognition for, among other activities, her involvement in forming the Northern Berkshire Peace Group to oppose the war in Iraq and her part in delegations such as Witness for Peace to Central America.
“She’s just an amazing person,†said Alan Bashevkin, colalition executive director. “She leads by example. She’s been a mentor for me for many, many years.â€
Keep, who has lived in Williamstown more than 60 years and has long been active in First Congregational Church, was introduced by the Rev. Carrie Bail, pastor of First Church, who called her not just a pillar of the church but “part of the bedrock†and “a peacemaker through and through.â€
“Think globally and act locally,†a mantra of the peace and social justice movements, has been a guiding principle for Keep, whose outreach into global mission has taken her with, among other organizations, Witness for Peace to Nicaragua — while fighting was still going on — and to Haiti with Hearts With Haiti. She has also undertaken missions to Mexico, Brazil and Cuba.
Keep is the 25th recipient of the award, which started in 1996 with Ann Cain. Some years, as many as four people have been honored.
Keep said she has a special interest in world peace, and, from earliest childhood absorbed her English parents’ concern for peace and social justice. Her father, David Thompson, was one of the founders of the Labor Party in England and worked for the League of Nations. He was executive secretary of that organization’s Committee on International Intellectual Cooperation, a group that included Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. Her mother, Margaret Stewart Dismore, was a labor economist who worked on women’s labor conditions.
“There’s no question my family inheritance was a terrific influence,†Keep said.
She said her first political involvement was speaking for Socialist candidate Norman Thomas in 1932, she recalled in an interview after her presentation Monday.
A graduate of the Putney School and Radcliffe College, Keep joined the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency) shortly after graduation. She was a research analyst and writer specializing in Asia with the Central Intelligence Agency.
During her marriage to James MacGregor Burns, Keep raised their children and served as Burns’ research assistant, worked on his political campaign in 1958 and also wrote for The Berkshire Eagle and North Adams Transcript. She also played flute in the Berkshire Symphony.
Over the past 25 years, she has held almost every office at First Congregational Church. She said her own struggles after her second husband died led her ultimately to go back to graduate school at North Adams State College, now the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, for a degree in psychology.
A licensed psychotherapist, Keep has worked at Counseling Center in the Berkshires and at the Berkshire Council on Alcoholism and Addictions, heading that agency’s North Adams office.
Her own struggles were with alcoholism and depression, she said.
“I got so much support from AA in Northern Berkshire,†Keep said. “The notion of a higher power has had a tremendous influence on my spiritual development. The theme for me was ‘let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.’â€
Keep’s children were increasingly involved in opposition to the Vietnam War, and her son Stewart, who has just written a biography of Martin Luther King Jr., was an active draft resister.
Last year, increasingly concerned about a U.S. military invasion of Iraq, Keep said, “I jumped at the first chance to join a demonstration in Williamstown.â€
She was also instrumental in organizing for a special town meeting to consider a resolution against the war in Iraq, although, characteristically, she stresses that she was only one of the organizers. She also helped organize a program at First Church focusing on the effects of the Patriot Act.
As a psychoanalyst, she has delved into Jungian analytic psychology and dreamwork, and she attended seminars in London and Zurich. She has also become increasingly interested in Celtic spirituality, spending time on the island of Iona in the Hebrides, where Saint Columba founded a monastery in the 7th century. Also, she founded an ongoing Celtic spirituality circle at First Church.
Besides Stewart, Keep’s other three children are Deborah Burns of Williamstown, Mecca, a creative arts therapist living near Charlottesville, Va., and David, an advocate for the mentally ill in Northampton.
“The most important thing in my life is that for 20 years I’ve been a grandmother,†Keep said. “Twenty years ago this month, I moved in with my daughter Deborah and her husband, Tom McHugh, and their daughter Tess, 14, and son Sean, 19. That’s the center of my life.â€
Keep said she was “amazed†to receive the Peacemaker Award, adding that she knew so many of the past recipients.
“Community is so important to me,†she said.
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Former Harry's Supermarket Under Construction for Restaurant
Late last month, the Conservation Commission greenlit some tree pruning on the property. New windows and a new door can be seen in the front of the building.
"It's a substantial renovation that's currently underway here," Brent White of White Engineering said, speaking on behalf of the applicant and owner, Huajie Zhu.
A fire gutted the longtime Wahconah Street supermarket in 2023, and the following year, Zhu purchased the property for $460,000 two years ago to build a restaurant with hibachi in the existing footprint of the more than 100-year-old building.
White explained that the project has been ongoing for over a year, and the Community Development Board granted the property a waiver to reduce the minimum required number of parking spaces so that additional spaces aren't needed.
He noted that, looking at the site plan, there is very little room to do so. A mirror will be installed near the sharp turn on Bel Air Avenue to alleviate traffic concerns.
Pruning will be done on trees in the southeast corner of the existing paved parking lot, as a number of branches are hanging over. The new owners also intend to patch, sealcoat, and re-stripe the parking lot.
A fire tore through the building less than an hour after the supermarket closed for the day three years ago. An automatic sprinkler system is required for the new use.
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