Freshman Brenda Lambert has completed working with her father and ‘Images of America’ publishing to co-author the book, Stoughton in the 20th Century.
The father-daughter pair began writing during Brenda’s senior year of high school, and they finished the book, which focuses on the history of Stoughton, Mass., in February 2015.
Brenda compiled data on residents and their rich culture by working with the Stoughton Historical Society to obtain information and pictures of the town, and discover the ages and owners of buildings. She made executive decisions on which events to include, what pictures to use, and helped write the captions for the book.
Both Brenda and David are part of the Stoughton Historical Society. Brenda became the youngest member at 8 years old and has since enjoyed spending the family time collecting information about the people and the culture of Stoughton. The idea for the book came from her father.
“My dad… has lived in the same town his entire life, so have I, and he is basically what you would call our town historian. He has a huge amount of records, he has worked very heavily with the Stoughton Historical society,” Lambert said.
Brenda is working towards a degree in special education and wants to teach in Stoughton, while pursuing her love of history in the meantime.
“Since I was a very young age I have always had a huge love for history and it has just kind of gone off from there. I just love learning about it… It’s really cool to see how things were like back then,” Lambert said.
Brenda relayed her message to everyone that will read the book in the Acknowledgements section stating, “To any kid with an interest in history, by all means pursue it. Go out and discover your local history. Find the stories and chase after the missing pages.”
Stoughton in the 20th Century was published this past February and can be purchased on Arcadia.com and from other popular book vendors.