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.


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

..AND THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON : A MOUNT HOPE HOSPITAL CONNECTION : Part I


The distance between Point B which is North Dighton, Massachusetts, site of Mount Hope Hospital from around the 1915  to around 1951, and Point A is 4,356 miles.  That is the distance traveled by this baby spoon given to the parents of a baby girl named Nancy on the occasion of her birth at that hospital in 1942.  The tiny spoon was kept carefully by the parents.  Then the child herself kept it as she grew up to become a college professor and to travel far from little North Dighton.

                      Apparently the spoon went along, too, not leaving its owner for many years.

                                                           
                                          Until sometime in the past …. the spoon left home





As readers know, on October 17, 2013  this blog published a post about Mount Hope Hospital, a pivotal part of the Mount Hope Company town in N. Dighton, Massachusetts. 
 Hence comes our story.  

Presbyterian missionaries working with a gypsy group in Goias, Brazil were shown a spoon by them engraved in English with a child's name and that of a hospital:  Mount Hope Hospital. The birth date and how much the infant weighed were also engraved on the spoon.  The world shrunk with the Internet.  The missionaries, Leonor and Reginaldo Goulart, googled Mount Hope Hospital. Up came my post !

 The blog shared my e-mail address and they wrote to me, to my utter surprise.  The hunt began with cooperation from the I'M FROM TAUNTON Facebook page and myself.  The Dighton Historical Society was also very interested.  Their oldest volunteer is 95 years young and was born at Mount Hope Hospital herself. Questions abounded until the son of the spoon's lady messaged that he was connecting with the owner, his mother, currently in Brazil !  Connections are trying to be made with the missionaries, the  Goularts and with the spoon's owner to reunite them.

Silver baby spoons have long been a gift source for newborns, especially on the occasion of christening ceremonies.  The city of Taunton where I grew up, so closely adjacent to N. Dighton as to be siblings, contained two famous silver companies: Reed and Barton and E.B. Rogers.  For years area residents purchased their silver pieces from one of them.  We shall see who was the creative originator.

The story is more poignant as Mount Hope Hospital is only a memory now.  The tiny hospital of 15 beds was funded and run by the Mount Hope Finishing Company in North Dighton and that little town was a true company town.  Check out my posts on the subject: very interesting and nostalgic.

Learning more about silver baby spoons, it is an historical fact that back to medieval times, babies were fed with silver spoons. This occurred, of course in wealthier families as it was noted that those children fed with silver spoons did not succumb to the Plague.  It is now known that silver is bactericidal and often a component of bactericidal ointments and such originating in World War II.

For the present I still remain a sort of go-between from my home in Amelia, Florida to Brazil.  Each day I learn a little bit more about the story myself.  This is the kind of experience historical bloggers like myself dream about and it is still hard to believe.  The Internet can be a misused power or it can do good.  Maybe this little blog is the blog that could….that did…..and that will.

                      More to come on this sweet mystery, from whence came the spoon?


                                      Here are Reginaldo (left) and Leonor (right) Goulart
                                                Presbyterian Missionaries in Brazil
                                                        who found the spoon
                                      and their mission website which has been translated.




2 comments:

  1. Love this. . . may the spoon and its owner be reunited :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The world is small, since I went to school with the woman who had the spoon. I checked my reunion data sheet and I gave the address information to my sister Sandy. It shows are closely connected we all are. Glad I could offer something to this mystery.

    ReplyDelete