About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
Usually it is a sleepy village crossroad with a car or two. There are times, however, when the traffic is heavy and there is good reason.
The first Berkshire Symphonic Festival concert took place Aug. 23, 1934, at 8:30 p.m. on the Hanna Farm in Stockbridge. Gertrude Robinson Smith – a woman of girth, guts and money – started the concert series in the midst of the Great Depression and made it work. From that first concert, local police and firemen were pressed into service to direct traffic. Hundreds flocked to enjoy “concerts under the moon and the stars.” In the afterglow of initial success, the only criticism was of the appalling traffic.
In 1936, J. Bruce McIntyre, High Sheriff of Berkshire County, reported, “After the concert, the grounds were not clear of traffic for 50 minutes.”
McIntyre suggested some improvements that might reduce the time to 28 minutes, but a dozen improvements over six decades did not reduce that time. In the late ’90s, playwright and Stockbridge resident William Gibson attended a concert and, afterward, it took 58 minutes to drive 6 miles from Tanglewood home.
“Never again,” he said, and he never did attend another concert. The time to exit could not be decreased because no plan could keep pace with the increasing audience.
In 1936 Henry Hadley and the New York Philharmonic were replaced by one of the three outstanding orchestras in the country, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of maestro Serge Koussevitzky. The audience swelled from the hundreds to thousands.
In 1937, Mary Aspinwall Tappan and Rosamond S. (Mrs. Gorham) Brooks signed a document that stated in part: “Know all men… I hereby grant onto the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc. …a parcel of land in Stockbridge…” and the Berkshire Symphonic Festival found a permanent home at Tanglewood. That same year a major thunderstorm drowned out the music and a permanent shed was suggested.
By 1939 George Edman of the Berkshire Eagle wrote Robinson-Smith: “Whether we like it or whether we don’t, the public and newspapers are not going to twist their tongues to say Berkshire Symphonic Festival…They are going to use ‘Tanglewood’ because it is melodic and lends itself beautifully to a headline.” The summer music festival as we know it today was in place with all the beauty, joy and traffic. The audience was now in the tens of thousands. Special traffic officers of the Stockbridge police force were a permanent and necessary part of the summer concerts.
On Aug. 8, 1940, as Officer Thomas Killfoile stood at his post on Main Street, Stockbridge, ready to direct concert traffic, Tanglewood had expanded once more. What composer-conductor John Williams called “the Great Tanglewood Triumvirate [Koussevitzky, Copland and Bernstein]” was at the music festival.
Koussevitzky realized his lifelong dream and established a school at Tanglewood. Aaron Copland led the classes in composition. Opera was under the guidance of Herbert Graf and Boris Goldovsky. Koussevitzky guided “a few students of exceptional promise” including Lucas Foss, Randell Thompson, and Leonard Bernstein. The concert schedule was increased from six to nine concerts on Thursday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Concomitantly, the audience grew from thousands to tens of thousands.
As the Thursday night concert let out, Officer Killfoile was at Red Lion Corner. It was the place where routes 7 and 102 crossed. It was considered the most dangerous spot for the traffic officers because vehicles came from four directions. Concert-goers poured down Prospect Hill Road in a steady stream toward Main Street. At the same time there was traffic coming up Route 7 toward town, and cars moved in both directions along Main Street. It all converged at Red Lion Corner. Officer Killfoile stood alert in the crosshairs.
Richard M. Booth was attending the concert with his mother. Leaving, he traveled down Prospect Hill Road toward Route 7 south on his way home to New Milford, Connecticut. He was 24 years old.
It was a direct hit – man and auto. Killfoile was thrown into the air.
Booth swore “There was no time to apply the brakes and bring the car to a halt before hitting the officer.”
Killfoile landed 67 feet, 11 inches away from the spot on which he had stood. He lay on the road. Officer Harry Stafford was the first to come to his aid. Stafford stayed with him while another officer ran down Main Street to the house of Dr. Campbell. When the doctor examined Killfoile, he called for an ambulance and ordered Killfoile moved to St. Luke’s Hospital on East Street in Pittsfield. There Killfoile died at 3 a.m. the following morning, four hours after he was hit.
Booth was tried and found guilty of driving “so that the lives and safety of the public were endangered.” He was fined $100 and released.
Many remembered the Killfoiles fondly. “After Papa died, the Killfoiles were afraid my mother, brother and I would be alone at the holidays so they invited us to their house on Thanksgiving and Christmas every year throughout my childhood. You don’t ever forget things like that. They were wonderful people.”
In St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Stockbridge, there is a tombstone that marks the life and death of a police officer. His name was Thomas E. Killfoile. On Aug. 8, 1940, shortly after 11 p.m. on a warm summer night, amidst the joy and excitement of exiting Tanglewood-goers, Special Traffic Officer Killfoile was struck down. He was 54. He was survived by his wife, Anna, and four children – three boys and a girl.
Lately, folks have complained about that corner – especially after concerts and on the summer, tourist-filled days. For decades a Stockbridge police officer stood that corner assuring the safety. Now, drivers navigate without assistance. Some say it is too dangerous for a policeman to stand that post. They cite the loss of Special Officer Killfoile. That loss was tragic, but it was the only loss of a policeman at that corner in more than seven decades.
