REMEMBERING

Remembering:

Just the other day I was reminded of what a community is and how one remembers it. 

My father built the house I was born in. It was located in  in Newtonville, a section of Newton and it is close to several other cities namely, Watertown and Waltham. And, as a teen and young adult I lived in Weston located just on the outskirts of Waltham.

So what was so wonderful about Newton you may think. It isn’t like it's a city. But, it is a city, the "City of Newton." But, you of course mean the City of Boston and all its little cities around it.  

Some of the cities around Boston, East Boston, Haverhill, Leominster, Lowell, Cambridge, Newton, and Waltham are all immigrant cities.  These cities housed mills where French Canadians came to work long before the Irish or the Italian influx.  The French Canadians came down to work in these mills mostly in the winter after their crops had been harvested. 

How do I know this you wonder? I have done my homework.  I belong to a genealogy society where we have traced our ancestors back to the 1740 and earlier to the Acadians of Annapolis Valley, NS and the original Quebec settlers. We have many documents of these travels and travelers. And, in the genealogy group I met many people from Newton, Waltham, Weston, and we, of course, shared stories about growing up in these towns.

When I grew up in the 40s, 50s and 60s it wasn’t much different than the description given by a classmate.  We had our church festivals, Italian-Irish Catholic, parades three or four times a year, Greek and Armenian Tavernas in Watertown, and holiday parades, Easter, Forth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas, in Waltham.  We had two movie houses close buy, one in Watertown and one in Newton Corner where we went to see the latest films on rainy days. (Continued)

A MOVE TO WESTON

A Move to Weston

When I was almost fourteen years old we moved to Weston.  Being a teen is a difficult time in one’s life and I was no different. It was also difficult fitting into a new school system but I soon found friends in my neighborhood that I was compatible with and we shared homework or babysitting jobs.

I got my first real job working at Foot’s General store just around the block from our house.  I served ice cream. Guess you could have called me a “Soda Jerk.” What it taught me was responsibility and the art of making sundaes. Another job was being a Mother’s Helper for a Jewish couple. They had three boys and I became part of their Jewish family.  I have many happy memories of them. 

As for activities there was tennis, horse back riding, going to Howard Johnson’s after the monthly dances, art lessons, apple picking, football games and going to Moody Street to shop for clothes. Of course we always had access to Boston for the train stopped down the road from our house. We could hear the freight trains at 4 o’clock every morning as they blew their melancholy whistle echoing in our valley before crossing the roads.

In high school I found a group of friends who loved Jazz as much as I did.  How many people can say that every Wednesday afternoon they went to Boston’s Copley Square Hotel’s Storyville and listened to the jazz artists who were traveling through the area. 

Some of the artists we were fortunate to see were, Johnny Mathis, when he was nineteen, big bands like, Louie Armstrong, Bobby Hackett, Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller Memorial band, Benny Goodman Memorial Band, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horn, Jean Krupa,, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughn, Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Louie Belton, Bert Barrack. And so many more I can’t remember them all.

Now when I look back on it all, I don’t think I would have wanted to live anywhere else, for I had the best of both worlds… Newton was close to the trolleys and the buses went everywhere and Weston is only 12 miles from Boston and had a train that went directly to North Station. We had city activities and country living.

Ah! Ya can’t beat that…

Night, night, you all out there, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,

Sleepy Sally Sandman