MEMOIRS OF SCHOOL STREET VILLAGE

Thanks so much for the great response to this blog!
A special thank you to those who have passed it on to others. We are heading quickly to amazing page visits to this blog! Welcome to folks from all over the country and other countries as well, including Lisbon!!

The "Village", as it was called, is located in the northwest corner of the city of Taunton, Massachusetts U.S.A. It covers about 1 square mile with the center being School Street. A large portion of the Village population was Portuguese when I was growing up.

This blog covers a lot of the history of the Village, much to do with my years as a child there: 1940 through the late 1950's. I do have many wonderful photos and information prior to that that and will share those as well. Always looking for MORE PHOTOS AND MORE STORIES TO TELL.

If you would like to send photos or share a memory of growing up in the Village
e-mail me at spinoart@comcast.net
feel free to comment on the posts. Directions are on the right side of the blog posts. Jump in, the water is fine and it is easy!!!


I will be posting photographs but not identifying individuals unless I have permission or they are a matter of public record. It you wish to give me permission, please let me know.

I am looking for any and all photos of the Village...

Please note: the way blogs work is that the latest post is first. It you would like to start from the beginning of the blog, check out the post labels on the right of the blog and go from there. Thanks.


Tuesday, July 14, 2020

A TRIP TO THE PAST - REMEMBERING THE CHILDREN OF THE VILLAGE


My memories of the School Street Village are wrapped in my childhood days.
Previously, on many posts I shared some of the photos of those times and earlier.  Laced together they form a timeline of Village histories highlighted in its children.  I recently read a Facebook post which said that "children are a wonderful way to start people." Children grew our Village. If one could hear echoes from as far back as the early 1900's the song on the wind would be children's laughter.  Bright and eager, let's put them in the context of their times.


This is my oldest photograph of my paternal Souza family.  My Uncle Joe is the oldest on the right and I can date this to about 1914 as he was born in 1909.  The little girl is my Aunt Mary Souza later Bernadino. I love that she is grasping her precious pocketbook like someone is trying to take it from her. The little boy on the left is my Uncle John Souza.  

These children played the Village sidewalks just as I did and the back yards and fields, too. We just dressed differently.  They grew up at 184 School St. where I spent many years of my childhood in the 50's  Strange to think we played in the same room , these children who would be parents of my cousins and friends years onward.

The year this vintage photograph, 1914, there was the first ever Mother's Day. Wrigley Field opened in Chicago and Babe Ruth was signed by the Red Sox.  Charlie Chaplin appeared in his first film and Tarzan of the Apes was published.  

Most significantly, World War I began.  





This next photo is a treasure from the annals of Fuller School photos.  Fuller School, you may have read when I started this blog, is where I and decades of Village Children went to school.  It was a two story wooden building smack in the middle of the Village, where it's heart would be. Though I have showed this photo before, it never hurts to show it again. Fuller School was demolished in the 1960's and a sigh could be heart throughout the Village and probably beyond.




Every group photo throughout the years would take place on those wooden front steps. It would be grand to have more photos of the classes. However, we are fortunate to have what we have.

At Fuller School over the years dear teachers, all women, lovingly taught us and cared for each of us. Within the next photo is our beloved family physician, mothers of my playmates and more. A well known piano teacher is here, too. Fuller School received its name in 1909. It was in those first years of the 1900's that Portuguese immigrants would be moving to the Village. among them my paternal grandparents.

See the clothes in this photo below?  It is clearly winter as one can tell from the obviously handmade hats. Hats- mothers way of sealing their love and warmth in those children. Grandmother's and Aunt's way of reminding little ones of a family love that sought to protect.  They all had reasons for keeping these children warm. A horrific Spanish Influenze made its way through the world seeking the most vulnerable during that time.Thankfully, it seems the Village was not terribly touched.  Perhaps Avos.or Portuguese grandmothers had their own medicinal treasures to protect beloved children as well as young adults. Imagine, cold and flu seasons without Kleenex- that would not be invented until 1950!

The rest of their clothing: long leggings or long johns, high laced boots
similar to the ones worn by the children in our first photo complete their ensemble.





There was a little one room building in the back of the main school where children who only spoke Portuguese could learn English so that they could catch up with their classmates.  My mother went there. here is her photo at age 9 so this is around 1925. She perhaps saw her future husband, by father, playing in the schoolyard....   A little girl who would face a lot more in her young life than the inability to speak English.  Like many children brought up in another language her lack of English hid a sharp and talented mind. Our Mom lived in the Village for awhile. My parents and my paternal siblings all went to Fuller School.When she married my Dad she returned once more to the Village.




In the 1920's Amelia Earhart made her first flight just as these children were making their way through their childhoods.



In 1929 Herbert Hoover was elected President and in 1929 the lives of the children above and their families would change dramatically as the Stock Market crashed.

A new app called Desktop Pixr has allowed me to restore this third grade 1929 photograph much more than when I initially showed it. This Class photo was taken on the occasion of the Fuller School class winning a music award that year: First Place in a city-wide competition. The students are: (first row from left) Arthur Alves, Louis Carvalho, Evelyn Dias, Hilda Costa, Mary Camara, Zelmira D'Arruda, Alce Braga; second row (L to R)  Edward Coute, Anthony Costa, Lillian Duarte, Joseph Mendes, Elsie Furtardo, Mary Costa, Augusta Agrella, Catherine Foster, third row (L to R)  Adeline DeMello, Francis Thadeio, Alexander Taylor, Aurelio Santos, Arthur Amaral, George Abreau, Anthony Pinto and back row (L to R) George Texeira, Arthur Furtardo, Gabriel Texeira, Anthony Rebello, Mary ventura, Delores Agrella, Alveda Braga and Hilda Dias.

I recognize so many names, for they were the adults of the Village during my childhood. Their parents would struggle to make ends meet during dark economic times. They would have given thanks for the closeness and support of their Village neighbors...it does take a Village when times for all are so difficult.


                         Photo taken Monday, December 8, 1941 the day after Pearl Harbor.


Speaking of harder times still ahead.  Here we are in 1941.  Above  is the class of Arlene Rose Gouvia second in the first row from the left. On a winter December 7th these children and their parents would be stunned by the news that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Arlene remembers that she and her classmates were deeply troubled and afraid. Their third grade teacher,Miss Marguerite Hoye (who would in the 50's be MY third grade teacher)  would help to calm them while they learned their lessons. More children and adult frightening scenarios would make their way to the public when news of the Manhattan Project came out toward the end of the war.  The class photo above was taken on Monday, Dec.7, 1941.

Children in the photo: front row L to R-Lorraine Ferreira, Arlene Rose, Lorraine King, Robert Gouveia, James Pine, Second row: Alice Rugg.  Norma Gouveia, Loretta King, Natalie Torres, Charles Leanard, David Rosse, Third row: Catherine Duarte, Mariano Amaral, Elizabeth Jacinto, Jeremiah Raposa, Leo Perry, Joan Fontes, Raymond De Thomas and back row: Evelyn Torres, Virginia Sanson, Carol Rose, Jeanette Lopes, John Andrews, Margaret Soares and Gilbert DeMello.

       The next class photo we have is this one, First Grade in 1946. I am not here as I went to a kindergarten/first grade school that year and then joined this group in the second grade. The color of the film here reminds one of the Little Rascals and other movies we watching Saturday afternoon. But, the future would be changing far ahead into the future for children and everyone....the first computer was built in 1941.  There was a lot of easier breathing for everyone in 1946, for the second World War had ended the year before.




Who knows where the next two years of class photos went the 
next is my fourth grade class at Fuller.
There is one little girl here, to my left, whose family left for 
California either this year or the next. 
We were very good friends...imagine that through this blog 
we met again and reignited that old friendship!




Coming almost full circle in the following photograph. Some of the children seen above can be  recognized all grown up in this one of my THS class reunion photo. Some of us still lived in the Village, some in Taunton, others far away.

Most of us went from Fuller to Cohannet School just past downtown Taunton for grades 6-8 and then on to Taunton High School about a mile away. Our journeys in life took us along different roads, some roads converged back again to Taunton. Always our group of children then adults kept track of other's paths the best we could. Many of us cannot make the general reunions so there are regional reunions, as we have in Florida and the west coast.




      This photo of the 2014 regional THS "57 reunion in Ponta Gorda, Florida
 includes two Village gals...



It has been a virtual trip down Memory Lane with these photos.  Many of the children we grew up with are no longer with us....but live in our hearts.

Life is a journey. Ours started in a very special place, so special that those we met there, who loved us then and love us now still inspire and comfort us. There is still laughter when sone of us meet even though our senior years can be full of pain and loss. I have ever been and will always be deeply thankful for the School Street Village, for its friendships, its life lessons and the energy to keep on the journey of life with courage.







Tuesday, December 5, 2017

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LIGHTING UP CHRISTMAS!!

I originally published this in 2013 and am reposting in today.
One cannot get enough of Christmases past.


...................



Taunton Green was placed on The National Register in 1985.

Taunton's Green, or Common as it was called,  factored centrally in Taunton's life since Taunton's founding in 1637.  First it was a place to graze cattle and roster the troops. In  1914 it began its story of a spectacle of light and hope at Christmastide. 

 Below is one of the first Christmas Green photographs taken in 1925 from the wonderful book "80 years of Christmas in Taunton: Candles on the Green." released in 1994.  A new one is available celebrating 100 years this year of 2013.  Once again, Charlie Crowley and Dr. William Hanna renew our memories and knowledge of this Taunton treasure.  I have added the framework to give it a nostalgic touch for this post.  



In the next photo taken in 1936, the theme was The Spirit of Taunton recalling the famous Lindberg flight  with a plane at center on a multi-colored globe painted by Frank Taylor.  "The airplane's registration number, shown on its tail, was 593, which happened to be the telephone number of the TMLP."  The Christmas displays each year would mirror the times in which they occurred, in peace and in war. You can see the plane glowing above the globe.

My husband was nine years old that year and recalls this display.  His family made the trek from Swansea each year to see the Green.  He remembers, as do so many Tauntonians, the wonderful arches that so often graced the Christmas Green.



Last Christmas in this blog we followed the Green over the World War II years when blackout rules did not allow for lights and Taunton with the country worried over the safety of its sons and daughters. The romance of my Aunt Alveda and Uncle Ziggy provided a personal pictorial framework for us.


In 1949,  then Mayor ]ohn Parker wrote an article about the meaning of the Green.  A good friend, Louise Foster who grew up in Taunton, shared this photo of the Green that same year.  As so often happened, a blanket of snow covered all.  War was over and the nation was starting to dig itself out. 




This past weekend, on Dec. 7th, Taunton, The Christmas City celebrated 100 years of lighting Christmas up for its people and those from miles around. With its celebratory hat on the City bloomed with venues of wonderful entertainment .  There was even a human Christmas tree in which 982 people participated and broke the Guiness Book of Records!!  Taunton went for it!!


Thanks to Micaila Britto-Patten and the TMLP bucket truck for this awesome photo of this year's
Christmas lighting from I'm From Taunton Facebook page.


One hundred years of living through the ups and downs of so many struggling New England cities, and still our little city shows its spirit! That spirit it demonstrated in the American Revolution, through the Civil War and the terrible wars that followed.  Lights on the Green led us on, even when it would have needed candlelight.  May those lights get even brighter and our birth city pull itself up and onward!

What is wonderful about all of our Christmas Greens is the fact that there has always been a Nativity scene somewhere on them.  Take the one below from 1947 (picture found on the Net) which prominently displays the Nativity right in the center of the Green.  Even this year one was included. Taunton has never forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.



You can easily find a lot of interesting photos and information on this year's Taunton Green Christmas celebration online:  Taunton Daily Gazette as well as with photos and information shared so well on I'm From Taunton Facebook page.

To read my posts from last Christmas about the Green please go to 2012 posts on the right of the blog, then find December 19th and 21st.  Thanks.

                       Thank you to Kathleen Campanirio for her assistance with this post.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !

This is a reposting of what I wrote for Thanksgiving some years back. It is always
relevant.  I pray that this year 2017 may bring us peace and harmony, such as so
many of us knew in our childhood in the 50's. Without cell phones, a constant media barrage of the horrific and the scandalous our hearts and minds could focus on family and being grateful for what we had.

I wish you that kind of Thanksgiving this year.



...........



Thanksgiving 2013 I posted this and it seems
right to use it again.  My memories simmer like gravy on the stove, 
loved laughter drifts through my mind, the taste of that special squash pie only my Aunt Eleanor could make, the smell of the apple pies that were my mother's specialty, the sound of the bubbling crispness of the turkey roasting in a brown paper bag in the oven, The smell and taste of Aunt Alveda's stuffing. The sound of children's feet as they sneaked into the kitchen for a taste of this and that, little fingers traveling the tabletop.  

The heat and heart of the kitchen from all the cooking and from all the love.



Happy Thanksgiving memories and dreams to all !
.........................





This is a great photo of two of my wonderful aunts: Aunt Alveda and Aunt Eleanor.  
The light of their smiles lit up a room. This was some kind of 
a family get-together;
maybe Thanksgiving, maybe not.  But the message is there: of family, 
of place, of all the gifts
in our lives that started with being born into the place we were.

  I am thankful for everything, for 
my family and for the family of the School Street Village.
May Thanksgiving blessings be on each of
you and your families wherever you may have roamed.