Westport LWV at 60: The 'reel' history ready to roll

Westporters can add a local production to the list of this fall's must-see big-screen attractions.

The League of Women Voters of Westport is releasing a documentary that chronicles the history and impact of the LWV in Westport, as told by past presidents of the league and other colleagues.

Two LWV members are guiding the production -- Lisa Shufro is the producer and John Hartwell directed the documentary. The project began last fall when Hartwell planned to film a gathering of past LWV presidents to commemorate the organization's 60th anniversary. However, he realized that the subject warranted a more ambitious approach.

In particular, Hartwell said he was fascinated to learn about the key role of social empowerment that the league played for Westport women in the 1950s and '60s.

"There were a lot of very bright, very talented women here in Westport who turned to the league because it was a place where other bright and talented women were gathering," he said.

He then enlisted Shufro, a former LWV president, as a producer to take charge of finding compelling interviewees for the documentary. Like her production partner, Shufro said she learned much about the legacy of the LWV through her work on the documentary.

"The thing that's remarkable about the league's history is how much it intersects with the town's history," she said.

And throughout its 60 years in Westport, the LWV has not just been a witness to local history, it has also helped to shape it. The three women who have so far been elected first selectman of the town have all been LWV members.

Among them is Jackie Heneage, who was interviewed for the documentary. She was the first woman elected first selectman of Westport in 1973, and went on to serve in that position until 1981.

However, as Heneage recalled, the LWV's role, as well as her own, in changing public policy in Westport was an organic process. In fact, it wasn't even her idea to run for first selectman.

"The Democrats came to me and said, `We want to run you.' And I said, `Go away. I don't want to run,'" she recalled.

"They had a couple of candidates who were perfectly capable of being first selectman, but they [the Democrats] decided it was the year of the woman. So I ran, and much to everyone's surprise, I won."

Nowadays, it is hardly a surprise to see women hold many of the town's highest offices. But documentary interviewee and former LWV board member Martha Aasen said Shufro and Hartwell's production will underscore the social and political progress that women have made in Westport.

"It's always good for people to know where they came from," she said. "I think history is terribly important. You shouldn't take anything for granted."

Hartwell -- a candidate for state Senate this year -- said the documentary also aims to show how the LWV has made an impact on the daily lives of Westporters.

"We live with a different set of rules today around planning and zoning because of the League of Women Voters," he said. "I think everyone that I know would agree that the town looks a whole lot better." He cites the more attractive look of the Post Road in Westport, as compared to its layout in other towns, as a legacy of LWV members who have served on the town's Planning and Zoning Commission.

As they approach the as-yet-untitled documentary's release date, Shufro and Hartwell are looking for archival footage from a public access cable television show on water quality called, "From Source to Sound," that league members produced about 30 years ago. Shufro and Hartwell ask that anyone who might know where footage from the program could be secured to contact the LWV.

Once complete, the production will likely be screened for LWV members first, before public screenings.

And as far as women have come in Westport, and the nation as a whole, the documentary's makers and subjects aspire for women to achieve greater success in the future.

"I think that a lot of women shy away from politics, because maybe they're not in for the fight that you have to go through in politics today," says Pat Porio, a former LWV president.

"I'd like to see more women involved in helping to frame the decisions that run a town, run a state, and eventually run the country. And I think that's a process that will happen."