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November/December 1998 Volume 2, Issue 2 -Cottage Street Stations Newsletter |
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| "A Jewel in the Center of Nashawannuck Square" In the heart of the historical Nashawannuck Square on Cottage Street stands an attractive building that houses a row of neatly painted shops, one of which has a handsome looking sign announcing the Nashawannuck Gallery. Located at 40 Cottage Street, the building and the gallery is owned and operated by Mai Stoddard, who is also the owner of Wing Travel Bureau, located at 30 Northampton Street and various other properties in town and also in Key West, Florida. Mai Stoddard was born Mai Joandi (yo-on-dee) in Tartu, Estonia and not long after, her family fled the Soviet regime. They spent 3 years in refugee camps in Germany before moving to Stockholm, Sweden. Mai received a degree in chemistry at the University of Stockholm and came to America as a new bride in 1965. She was enchanted from the beginning with Easthampton and all of the beauty it encompassed while raising a son and 2 daughters here. Soon, she became involved in real estate and also began the successful Wing Travel Bureau in 1974. Mai now owns several properties in town, as well as in Key West, Florida. In May of 1995, feeling that she would like to do something special for the town she had grown to care so much about and to tap into the strength of the community itself, she started the Nashawannuck Gallery. Mai felt she could showcase the work of artists who had studios at One Cottage Street., while giving to the town something they would be proud to have in their midst. She named the gallery Nashawannuck, not only because of the Nashawannuck Pond located behind her building, as well as the fascinating history behind the Nashawannuck Square in Easthampton's past, but she says she really liked the significance of the name itself: Nashawannuck is a Pascommuck Indian name meaning "The Valley of the Little River". Mai realized that this was the source of the beginning of all the energy in Easthampton. the beginning of the mills, the very reason the town began and grew in the first place. Mai travels extensively, sometimes to her rental property in Key West, Florida or to visit her mother and brother, who still live in Stockholm, but wherever her travels take her and no matter how far she goes, Mai always comes back to Easthampton, the town she has come to view and cherish as her own. Dedicated to making "Old Downtown" Easthampton an inviting & vibrant neighborhood to do business |
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