Meri Goyette

NASHUA – Deborah “Arnie” Arnesen, for years active in state politics and a longtime talk radio host, was in the midst of a comparatively brief, 18-month stint at Nashua’s WSMN when two things that would change her life happened in succession.

One of them occurrred the morning she spent a lot of air time carrying on about the condition of her rather shabby apartment, which, as newly divorced and with little income, was all she could afford.

At show’s end, she headed for the door when someone stopped her.

“They told me an elderly lady left me this envelope,” Arneson said. “Inside was a key and a note that said ‘I’ve been listening to you every morning. This is a key to my house. I have a pool and a spare bedroom and plenty of room.'”

Arneson called the enclosed phone number.

A portrait of Meri Goyette, longtime Nashua arts advocate and benefactor, whose new exhibit is on display in the front windows of The Telegraph.

“I said, ‘who are you?'” Arneson said, laughing. Instead of answering, the woman said, “‘I know you, Arnie Arnesen.'”

The woman on the other end of the phone was Meri Goyette, and by the time the call ended, the two were well on their way to becoming fast friends.

The chance “meeting,” Arnesen said this week, “was one of the two most important things in my life,” events that happened to occur while she was at WSMN.

The other major life milestone was meeting her second husband, Martin “Marty” Capodice, a frequent guest on her show whom she married in 2000. (Capodice, like Arnesen, an advocate for the arts, passed in 2013).

“She was there for me. She’s been important to me since,” said Arnesen, who is among the legions of folks from Greater Nashua and beyond mourning the loss of the Goyette family matriarch whose lifelong devotion to advocating for and supporting local and regional arts communities that she left far more vibrant than she found them.

Meri Goyette

A native of the small Vermont town of Barre, Goyette was born Mary Zanleoni, but as a teenager decided to legally change her given name to Meri because, she has said, it was unique and much less common.

Growing up, she became acquainted with a studious young man and fellow Barre native named Charlie Goyette, who was bound for a career in medicine.

The two grew close and, in their early 20s, they married, forming a union that would endure some 72 years until his passing three years ago almost to the day.

Her services included, quite appropriately, a so-called “Meri Parade,” a type of celebration in which well-wishers form a line and parade past a stationary Meri, honking horns, shouting best wishes and in some cases handing her flowers or balloons.

Until Thursday, the last “Meri Parade” took place in April to celebrate her 95th birthday. It rained on and off, but it didn’t seem that anyone noticed.

Meri Goyette

John Weidman, a well-traveled artist who specializes in sculpture, and who founded the Andres Institute of Art in Brookline, remembers meeting Goyette back in the 1960s and 70s when he was conducting programs at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston’s South End.

But it was Goyette’s idea to bring Weidman’s International Sculpture Symposium from Brookline to Nashua that cemented their deep, personal friendship.

“Meri was, and is, an inspiration,” Weidman said. “She was a pleasure to work with. What can one say?”

The series of events that would lead to the debut of the International Sculpture Symposium in Nashua began with phone calls then a 2007 meeting at Weidman’s Brookline institute.

“Meri and Kathy Hersh came out, and we talked about it,” he said, referring to another of Nashua’s most prolific arts advocates who also served the city as an alderman and as the Community Development Director for 12 years, then was named president of the City Arts Nashua.

Meri Goyette

Weidman was impressed. “I was all for it,” he said, calling Goyette “a very inventive person” and marveling at her penchant for “encouraging everyone … she always made everyone part of her emotional family,” he said.

Goyette also “had a belief in people … a belief in the circumstances of how things can get better.

“Meri had more belief than faith, because faith is fleeting, but belief is knowing that things can be done,” Weidman added.

He said he thought of Goyette often and visited when possible, then continued communicating with her via phone. “We talked every Sunday, and often during the week as well,” Weidman said, adding that being considered part of her family is humbling.

“To be called part of the family, well, that’s beyond an honor,” he said.

Meri Goyette, holding a bouquet of flowers, listens to speakers at the dedication of a donated sculpture two years ago. Goyette, 95, passed last week.

Hersh, meanwhile, retired not long ago from her various endeavors, but remains a strong advocate and supporter of Nashua’s arts community.

In a letter to the state Council on the Arts nominating Goyette for its Individual Arts Patron Award several years ago, Hersh referred to her as “the Grand Dame of Arts in Nashua,” a moniker that was coined some years earlier.

“Meri’s fingerprint is on everything ‘art’ throughout our city and beyond,” she wrote.

On Thursday, as she was preparing for Goyette’s funeral mass at Immaculate Conception Church – which was followed by the “Meri Parade” of balloon-adorned vehicles to a reception at Nashua Country Club – Hersh recalled her longtime friend’s final days.

“She was fiesty to the end, still coming up with ideas for different projects,” Hersh said, her voice a mix of sadness and admiration.

Hersh remembers well Goyette’s idea to bring Weidman’s sculpature symposium to Nashua, and how Goyette utilized her persuasive acumen to convince Hersh it was a great idea.

Hersh, already waist-deep in pending projects in her capacity as Community Development Director, balked at first at the thought of piling one more project on the proverbial pile.

“Eventually I said OK, let’s go talk with John,” she said, referring to Weidman.

“Of course as soon as I got out there I said OMG, we’ve got to bring this to Nashua,” she said with a laugh, referring to the symposium.

Hersh recalls stopping at Goyette’s house for a visit on the day of the symposiuim’s closing ceremony in June.

“I got there about two hours before the ceremony was to start. We got talking, and an hour and a half later I told Meri I was leaving to go to the ceremony.”

Goyette’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s today?” she said, according to Hersh. Without missing a beat, Goyette announced to her home health aide, “Darlene, get ready, we’re going to the ceremony,” Hersh recalled.

Manny Ramirez, who founded the public art group Positive Street Art with fellow artist and partner Cecilia Ulibarri several years ago, recalls getting the same piece of advice from several sources as he and Ulibarri established PSA.

“People kept saying, ‘you have to meet Meri, you have to meet Meri,” he said with a laugh. “We had no idea who she was.”

He and Ulibarri weren’t disappointed.

“What a delight it was to finally meet her,” Ramirez said, adding that they soon found out how active Charlie and Meri Goyette were in the arts community.

“We knew then we had to spend more time getting to know Meri,” Ramirez said. They’d learn that she “was always coming up with new ideas … and ways to inspire artists.”

He remembers thinking of Goyette as sort of like “the mysterious genius in the background … it was so cool for Cecilia and me to know there was such a person.”

The couple began “hanging out with her more and more, we formed a close friendship,” Ramirez said. “She was such a wise person, she had a way about her … she accomplished everything with such grace.”

Thinking back on their relationship with Goyette, Ulibarri found herself searching for words.

“There aren’t enough words in the world to describe what a gem Meri is. I consider her ‘Nashua’s sweetheart,’ our champion of the arts.

“She was a dear friend who cannot be replaced.”

Ulibarri recalled Goyette encouraging her and Ramirez “to tell people what you guys are doing … make sure everyone in the community knows about you,” she said. “She was always looking to boost our confidence, both personally and in our professional journey with PSA.

“You can’t mention Nashua without mentioning Meri Goyette,” Ulibarri added.

Mayor Jim Donchess, who worked alongside Goyette in the city’s arts community in his first stint as mayor in the late 1980s as well as his current terms, remembers her as “a very significant Nashua citizen” who “supported the arts in so many ways, across the board.

“Meri couldn’t have done more than she did,” Donchess said. “She was an inspiration for a lot of other people in the arts,” he added, noting that “the arts community is essential to our economy and our sense of community. Arts improves our quality of life.”

Donchess recalls Goyette inviting him to her house for lunch shortly after he was elected mayor. “We talked a lot about the arts, mostly the sculpture symposium,” he said. “I found her to be a very engaging and entertaining person … whose history with the arts goes back a long way.”

Donchess said the last time he saw Goyette was in mid-June at the closing ceremony for this year’s Nashua International Sculpture Symposium.

“There she was, greeting everyone … like always,” he said.

Casey Holt, a marketing and advertising consultant and longtime member of the local arts community, said when he first met Goyette she was on the board of the first incarnation of today’s Nashua Center for the Arts.

“I was 14 years old and just moved to Nashua,” Holt said. “I was interested in the arts so I signed up for some programs, and Meri always seemed to be there.”

Later, Holt “reconnected” with Goyette, often joining her at her designated table at the former Coyote Cafe, which is now Surf restaurant.

Their friendship deepened, Holt said, as conversations turns to the arts. “It became really deep when she started the symposium,” he said of their friendship.

Gail Moriarty, an artist who owns The Picker Artists, a nine-studio building in the city’s Millyard where the NISS sculptors worked this year, said she “heard so many things about Meri” even before she arrived in Nashua to live and work.

“Everyone thought so much of her, I was nervous the first time I met her,” Moriarty said with a laugh. “It was like meeting a movie star.”

Her anxiety promptly dissipated, however, when she finally met Goyette.

“She was very down to earth, very welcoming and loving,” Moriarty said. It turned out that Goyette “was a lot of fun to be around. She made everything fun.”

When Goyette called, Moriarty said, “you knew right away she had thought of something. Whatever her idea was, we’d discuss it … she was hugely supportive of all of us,” she added, referring to local artists.

Moriarty said she and her fellow artists are determined to carry on Goyette’s legacy.

“She’s our leader … the leader of our symposium, and she always will be. I will try to continue her legacy as best I can,” Moriarty said.

Judy Carlson, a member and former chairperson of the Nashua Arts Commission, likewise experienced Goyette’s gracious, helpful nature, she said.

“Each time we had a project going,” Carlson said of the commission, “Meri told us, ‘always ask … the worst they could do is say no.'”

On Thursday, in eulogizing their Mom at the funeral Mass, her three daughters – Meri Reid, Carole Murphy and Robin Whitman – concluded, fittingly, on a humorous note.

“As most of you know, whenever Mom felt she was getting tired, she’d say, ‘OK, you can go now,'” the three said in unison.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

Meri Goyette

Meri Goyette

Meri Goyette, with daughter Robin Whitman, blows a kiss to some of the participants in a drive-by "birthday parade" celebrating her 95th birthday in April. Goyette passed last week. (Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP)

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