CHICOPEE – One of Ann Marie Liswell favorite parts of being an educator was seeing children learning to read and enjoying reading.
It is fitting that the library at Fairview Veterans Elementary School will now be named in her memory.
Liswell, 58, was the vice principal of the about 400-student school when she died in March following a two-year battle with cancer. She had served in the position for about 13 years and prior to that she was a teacher at Patrick E. Bowe School, said Irene Lemieux, who recently retired as principal of Fairview.
“She had such love for children, nurturing them, teaching them and the library was her favorite place,” Lemieux said.
Liswell was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She continued to work remotely for as long as she could and kept in touch with faculty and children while undergoing treatments, Lemieux said.
She was always so positive and that attitude spread throughout the school from the day she started working there, Lemieux said.
“I swear the kids would sometimes get in trouble just so they could go to the office and sit and talk with her,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux said she remembers first meeting Liswell when the School Committee had approved funding for a vice principal for her school. The two clicked immediately and became a great professional team as well close friends.
In fact the two became best friends and it was Lemieux who pushed to have the library named in Liswell’s honor, said Robert Liswell, Ann Marie’s husband.
“This is a nice recognition of her,” Liswell said, adding he and his son Colby, a 2022 Chicopee High graduate, want to thank Lemieux, interim Superintendent Alvin Morton and the School Committee for the honor.
The school was very important to her. Liswell said his wife would always go above and beyond bringing in coats and gloves to kids who needed them and enlisting friends to come into the school to read to the students.
Liswell said his wife will also be remembered at the Ken O’Neill Dusk to Dawn golf tournament, scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Aug. 8, at the Boathouse in South Hadley. This year Mike O’Neill, director of golf at Chicopee Country Club, will be playing 108 holes in honor of Liswell and Andy Yee, a well known restaurateur and businessman, who died in 2021 at the age of 59.
The Liswells have been long supporters of the event, which raises money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ken-oneil-dusk-to-dawn-golf-marathon-2022-tickets. More information is also available on the event’s Facebook page.
Robert Liswell, who created the Chicopee Fest Of All Committee, has volunteered countless hours to help the city of Chicopee and he said his wife was always there with him. The couple met when Liswell was working at the golf course as a summer job and they got involved with the tournament.
Scott Chapdelaine, director of school facilities, also spoke in favor of the proposal to name the school.
Under the School Committee policy, the proposal was first sent to the Fairview School Council where it was endorsed unanimously and then submitted to the facilities subcommittee, which also approved it unanimously, said Donald Lamothe, a School Committee member.
The full School Committee voted 8-0 on July 20 to name the library after Liswell. Their vote was followed by applause from staff who attended the meeting.
School staff plans to put up a plaque in the fall officially naming the library in her honor, Lemieux said.
Chicopee names Fairview Elementary School library in memory of vice principal Ann Marie Liswell - MassLive.com
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