‘Our great treasure’: Tom Curtin’s Acton-Nanae legacy enshrined
His wife, Susan, presented the town with two awards bestowed on Curtin by Japan’s top leaders.
They came in quietly at first. Old friends greeted one another with hugs, and former colleagues exchanged stories in low voices.
In a sunlit room at the Acton Free Public Library, the gathering was more reunion than ceremony, with those present linked by their affection and respect for a man whose work long outlived him.
Tom Curtin was the founding chairman of the Acton Nanae Network, the volunteer group that has sustained Acton’s sister-city relationship with Nanae since 1995. On February 27, his wife, Susan, presented the town with two awards bestowed on Curtin by Japan’s top leaders.
Susan said her husband loved Nanae because of the kindness they felt during their visits.
“We would walk down the street, and people would be very friendly,” she said. “They would point to particular places they thought we should go. It just sort of grew from that.”
Imperial accolades
That love and dedication to connecting Nanae and Acton led to Curtin receiving the Order of the Rising Sun with Gold and Silver Rays from the emperor and formal recognition from the foreign minister of Japan.
After Curtin’s 2016 death, Susan began searching for a permanent place for the awards. That search culminated in the honors finding a lasting future home in Acton’s town archives.
Speaker after speaker returned to the bedrock of Curtin’s character: his meticulous planning, his quiet humor, and his fierce belief in “people-to-people” exchanges. From student homestays to ecological conferences to repeated Acton-Carlisle High School band tours to Japan, they remembered Curtin fondly.
Former Acton-Carlisle High School band director Al Dentino told the story of a single clarinet student whose life-changing trip to Nanae sparked the bold idea of taking the entire band to Japan.
What began as a seemingly impossible dream became four band tours under Curtin’s guidance, each governed by itineraries “organized to the minute,” Dentino said.
Dentino called Curtin his teacher, mentor, and guide. He said he can still hear Curtin’s voice in his mind whenever he plans a trip.
Current CNN Chair John Cratsley shared a message written by a Nanae student after Curtin’s death.
“Tom, we lost our voices when we heard that you had passed away because the loss was so big,” Cratsley read aloud. “We think it is our great treasure that we could meet you in our lives. We still feel you watching us with your warmest eyes.”
