Main Street Merchants

If you start down Main Street, next to where Apple Blossoms is now located you will notice a narrow little candy store. Years ago, that narrow store was the location of Quinn’s barbershop, one of -- I just counted, and I can think of, eight barbershops. I am sure there were more than that, given most men used to get a hair cut every two weeks. The cost was 25-cents. No one tipped in those days. Some men also used to also get a shave every day, costing 15-cents. Incidentally, there was nothing more luxurious than a barbershop shave. I once got a shave at the railroad station in Chicago when I was in the Army, and I was waiting for a train to New York City. The barber would first put hot towels on your face to soften your whiskers, then give you a real close shave with a straight razor. You felt like a million bucks after that treatment.

Burkill’s Drug Store was where Susan’s Hair Salon is now. Norm Burkill -- a chubby, jovial man -- was the proprietor and pharmacist. He was assisted by another pharmacist, Frank Reavey. Frank had never been to college. You could at that time serve an apprenticeship in pharmacy, take an exam, and if you passed the test, you became a registered pharmacist. Burkill’s also had a very active soda and ice cream counter, serving sandwiches and light lunches. (Melanie, Norm Burkill was the husband of your teacher, Gertrude Burkill.)

Chef Sau, Spencer’s Chinese eatery, now occupies the location of Dufault the haberdasher’s store. I am told Dufault’s carried the best in men’s clothing. I remember Mr. Dufault as a very dapper man who dressed beautifully. My father used to tell me that Dufault would go to New York City to buy his personal suits. When a prospective customer would come into the store and comment on the nice suit Mr. Dufault was wearing, he would always say he had just taken off the rack in his store. He retired and sold the store in the 1940s to one of his salesmen, a Mr. Gregorie, who ran it for quite a few years, still carrying quality men’s clothing.

The Spencer Fashion Shop was the other major women’s clothing store in Spencer, hence Grandma’s and Grandpa’s competition. They were located where Mike’s Pizza Shop is today. Ella and Sam Hyman ran the store, also carrying a quality line of dresses, sportswear, and accessories. Every Monday, Ella would drive to Boston and return with a fresh supply of fashions from the garment wholesalers at 75 Kneeland St.

Next to Mike’s Pizza, where Charley Martinez has his appliance repair shop, was Giard’s Stationary Store. Edmund Giard and his wife sold stationary, office supplies, candy, etc. The store was sort of a mixture of many fast-selling items. The Giards had twin sons, Ronald and Donald, who were high school classmates of mine. At that time they attended a private Catholic school in Canada, with the financial help of an uncle who was a priest in Ware. Donald Giard died in Hartford, CT, a few years ago. Ronald is a retired head social worker for Catholic Charities, and lives in Leicester.

The First National Store was one of Spencer’s two chain grocery stores. (Recall that there was no such thing as a supermarket.) Located where the Spencer Travel Agency is now, the First National was managed by Napoleon O’Coin. The store shared equal billing with the A&P next door as Spencer’s largest and busiest grocery store.

Where Whitco is today, the Main Street A & P store was one of two in Spencer, with a smaller branch store on Mechanic Street. Though I don’t remember it, I am told there was once also a branch on Chestnut Street. A very charismatic gentleman from Worcester, Fred Hattinger, managed the A& P. George Bernard, a VFW buddy of my Dad’s (and Vickie Hopkin’s grandfather), was the butcher. One of my early memories of the A & P was purchasing a large dill pickle out of the wooden barrel next to the vegetable counter, for 4-cents.

The next block going down the street housed Jack Rosenthal’s Puritan Restaurant. The Puritan was where the two stores are that Whitco now uses for storage. Civin’s Specialty Shop also was located in one of those stores, before ceasing business in 1960. Back in the 1930s the Puritan occupied the entire first floor of 138 Main Street. It was where the action was; on a weekend night there usually were three men serving customers at the long bar, and as many waitresses waiting on the trade in the numerous booths. When people ate out in those days they dined at the Puritan, Jack’s Lunch, or the Kenwood Diner, but the Puritan was the biggest and busiest of the restaurants.

A narrow little store was hitched to the end of the building where the Puritan was located. The narrow store housed the one-stool shoeshine parlor, run by a man named Dumas. I don’t remember his first name, but I was told he had been a violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in his younger days. People also called him crazy because he purchased all that land where the Big Y shopping center is in the west end of town. People used to say that nothing could succeed that far out of the center of town. Who in the world would go shopping way down there?

The Crowley Block, on the corner across from Pleasant Street, had two stores on the first floor. The store on the east side of the building housed the Collette Drug Store, one of three pharmacies in Spencer, the other two being Burkill’s (that I just detailed) and The Carpenter Drug store that I will get to shortly. Most of all, I remember the marble soda fountain in Collette’s. The soda fountain was run by a man named Hector Plante, assisted by a teenager named Albert Laroche. Hector and Albert were probably two of the most enthusiastic Boston Braves fans around. When they would get a vacation they would follow the Braves on the train, attending some of their out-of-town games. When the owner (Mr. Collette) died, Hector Plante purchased the store, turning it into a store selling patent medicines, ice cream, soda, and light lunches.

Sharing the building in the other store was White’s 5 & 10, run by Morty White and his brother, Jack. Morty reported to his father, who owned four other 5 & 10's in Worcester. He ran the store until the beginning of World War II, when he left to go in the Army, leaving his brother in charge. When he came back to Spencer after the war, Morty moved the store across the street, bought it from his father, and changed the name to Morton’s Department Store.

Down the driveway of the Crowley block was a little factory formulating cough syrup. Faveau and Mathew’s Cough Syrup was sold on patent medicine counters throughout New England. There also was a bakery selling delicious pastries and bread, both wholesale and retail. Lamoureaux Furniture used the second and third floors of that building to warehouse their extensive inventory of furniture.

Let us cross the driveway to the building that’s now home of the Uptown Beauty Salon and Cormier Jewelers. Hitched to the end of the building on the driveway side was a diner run by Jack Mulcahy, called Jack’s Lunch. Jack’s had an about a 12-stool counter, with a few tables against the wall. The cooking was done in the basement, and the meals would be sent from the kitchen to the upstairs on a dumbwaiter, a little elevator-type contraption behind the counter.

Next door was Webster’s Package Store, one of Spencer’s two liquor stores. The other liquor store was Berthauime’s Package Store, across from Muzzey Meadow on Maple Street. Berthauime’s was run by brothers Henry and Fat Berthaiume. Fat was probably the most obese man to ever live in this town. He weighed, I was told, over 500 lbs. Among other things, Fat had a special double seat in the Park Theater. One of my favorite stories of Fat Berthaiume has to do with the Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling heavyweight championship fight of 1937. Fat loved boxing and traveled by train to Chicago to see the bout, which was no short journey back in those days. He arrived in the stadium just as the two pugilists were shaking hands. Louis knocked Schmeling out in the first 30 seconds of the first round. Fat stood up, immediately went back to the railroad station, and returned to Worcester. With all that weight, Fat still lived well into his 80s.

Fleming’s Jewelers was where Cormier’s is at present. Franklin Fleming was a rotund, dapper man that I guess you could say looked like a jeweler. Many watch repairmen back in those days were physically handicapped, because they could do their work while seated. Fleming’s used to have a watch repair man by the name of Putnam who was very badly crippled with either polio -- a disease that claimed a lot of victims in those days -- or with birth defects.

Next to Fleming’s Jewelers, rounding out the business tenants in the building, was a branch of a new hardware company with a home base in Fitchburg. Spencer’s Aubuchon Hardware was managed by Norman Belanger. After World War II, Mr. Belanger left Aubuchon and started his own hardware store. He also became quite successful in a real estate business he operated with his wife, Yvette. Norman Belanger died in

Marty Civin 63

the 1970s, and his widow married Dr. Henry Lareau, one of Spencer’s medical doctors. They moved to Florida, where they resided for a number of years. Yvette Belanger Lareau passed away a few years ago.

A fruit store and meat market occupied the block on the other side of Wall Street, where Dick Adams now has his paper goods store. The Crimmins brothers, Mark and Tim, owned the fruit store on the corner. Crimmins also was also the home of a weekly poker game in the back room. In addition to the Crimmins brothers, some of the participants were men that I have mentioned in other parts of this story; Dutchy Meloche, Sam Kanen the tailor, Sam Hyman of the Spencer Fashion Shop, Fat Berthuime, and many more of the illustrious male population of Spencer. The other store in the block was a meat market run by a gentleman named Mike Kelly. Mike’s two daughters were Rita Kelly, a long-time biology teacher at David Prouty High School, and Miriam Mc Court, a long-time teacher and former Spencer selectman.

Do you remember Ray Rich of the Spencer Sea Food Restaurant? Ray Rich had just come to Spencer and with a partner by the name of Mr. Laporte, and opened Spencer’s first fish store. The Atlantic Fish Store was located where the Karate studio is now. The store sold fresh fish daily and, only on Fridays, fish and chips to take out.

Next door to the fish store, where the Christie and Thompson auto parts store now conducts business, was Meloche’s Garage. It was run by Freddie and George Meloche, and owned by Dr. Meloche the veterinarian. Freddie and George were brothers of Chief Dutchy Meloche, and sons of Dr. Meloche. In addition to repairing cars, the brothers also sold Gulf gasoline from two pumps in front of their garage. In the early 1940s, George Meloche became despondent and committed suicide. (He was the husband of Grandma’s friend, Evelyn Morin Meloche.) After World War II Freddie Meloche opened an auto dealership in the garage, selling Kaiser and Frasier cars. (Keith, Freddie was the grandfather of your first love, Christine Letendre.)

On the east corner of Elm and Main streets was Hodgerney’s Garage. On the main floor people rented space to garage their autos, and in the basement of the building that you entered from Elm Street was Spencer’s largest auto repair shop, employing about half a dozen mechanics. Hodgerney’s sold Sacony Gas from two pumps in front of their garage. Sacony Gas was the predecessor of Mobil Gas. One snowy night, Proprietor Everett Hodgerney was filling a customer’s car with gas when another car heading west on Main Street skidded across the road, hitting him. Mr. Hodgerney had to have a leg amputated due to the accident, but he still conducted his business for many more years walking on an artificial leg.

Let’s cross Main Street and head east. Before I undertook the writing of this story, I had forgotten how vibrant downtown used to be. I have turned up so many pleasant memories, and yes, so many ghosts of people long gone, but I am happy to have known.

The Kenwood Diner was where it is now, but it was a different diner. The old diner was much smaller and moved to Rochdale during the later part of the 1930s, replaced by the present diner. The Kenwood was a very busy place, open to the wee hours of the morning. Many truck drivers on the way to Albany used to stop there when they went through at night. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, I have been told that truck drivers would eat at the diner, and then go into their trucks to catch a little sleep. Before leaving the eatery the driver would tell the diner counterman what time he wanted to be woken up. A teenager would then walk down the street and wake the driver at the appointed time. Now that is service.

The Massasoit Hotel not only gave downtown Spencer a unique character, but it was where the town’s social life transpired. The Quinn family owned the hotel, and John Clarke presided over the bar. The Depression brought John Clarke to Spencer. I don’t know where he came from originally, but here is the story I was told many years ago. Mrs. Quinn (who was the mother of the late Senator Phil Quinn, and owner of the hotel) was working in the kitchen, when a young black hobo appeared at the back door and asked for something to eat. Mrs. Quinn offered to exchange a meal for some chores she needed done. John Clarke never left the Massasoit. The hotel became his home for the rest of his life. He was a husky, jolly man who presided over the hotel bar with help of Joe Bouley, Al Bouley’s father. John Clarke died suddenly of a heart attack while still in his 40s. He is buried in his adopted town, at the Pine Grove Cemetery.

The Sugden block had four stores as it does today, but the occupants were different. Heading east from Pleasant Street, the first two stores competed with each other -- both Warren’s Store, which was the store on the corner, and the store of W. Harry Vernon, were in the dry goods business. Harry Vernon also made custom window shades and drapes. I don’t know if any of you remember the late Wyman Adams, who sewed Mom’s and my bedroom drapes. Wyman Adams got his start with Harry Vernon, then bought the drapery part of the company.

If you wanted to buy a newspaper in this town -- whether it was a Worcester Telegram and Evening Gazette, a Boston Globe, or Boston Post or Record -- it was distributed by the A.M. Latour Company, which was located where Ernie’s Newsroom is today. Mrs. Anna Latour and her sister, Miss Elizabeth McCarthy, had a monopoly on all papers sold in Spencer. Whether you bought your newspaper from a newspaper boy or over the counter anywhere in town, these two old gals got a piece of the action. Both Uncle Bob and I did stints as paperboys for Latour’s.

The US Post Office was in the next store where The Brickyard Restaurant is now located. The Post office did not move to Mechanic Street until many years later.

Heading east on Main Street after the Sugden block were two houses, one that is still there, which in 1939 housed the office and home of Dr. John Fowler. The other house, a tenement, house was torn down about 1940.

Kleven Shoe Co. was the lifeblood of the town, occupying a large wooden building where the Price Chopper shopping center is now located. Before World War II, the majority of people in Spencer worked in Kleven’s as shoemakers on women’s shoes. If they did not work in Kleven’s, they worked in Allen Squire on men’s work shoes. Back in the late 1800s the Kleven building was considered the largest wood frame building in the United States. Part of the character of Spencer of 50 years ago was the smell of leather as you walked along the downtown streets.

Carpenter Drug was in the little building beside Kleven’s, now occupied by the Mid-State Insurance Co. The pharmacist and owner was a nice gentleman by the name of George Perrault. He kept company with Adrienne Kasky; he finally did marry her, after going out with Adrienne for about 40 years. You could get a good-sized cone of Hood’s Ice Cream for a nickel at Carpenter Drug.

Speaking of ice cream, every merchant had his particular brand, a source of pride. A small cone was 5-cents and a large one a dime. A hot fudge sundae, if you could afford it, was 15-cents. Hood was around, then Fro Joy by Sealtest. Louie Piagintini sold Velvet Ice Cream, and there was McCanns Ice Cream, at 30-cents a pint. You could go to the Puritan or either of the diners and purchase a hot dog and drink for twenty cents, or a big slab of apple pie and coffee for a quarter. A baked sausage diner with peas, applesauce, and mashed potato with gravy was sixty-five cents at the Kenwood, with a cup of coffee thrown in.

Back to the High Street Neighborhood

It’s time to return to Main Street, and back up High Street on the Civin side of the street. The house where the Cormier's live was not a house, but an auto repair shop run by a man by the name of Leslie Hodgerney, who was killed in an automobile accident shortly after we moved to High Street. Jerome Cormier bought the garage, converting it to a house a few years later.

The next house going up the hill belonged to a man by the name of Thibault. I don’t remember too much about him. It seems to me that he was an executive in the shoe industry.

Going up the hill, the following house belonged to Jack Baker, his wife, Gertrude, and their son, Sherman, who was at that time a student at Harvard. Jack was a very rich man, accumulating his wealth in the retail shoe business. People traveled from all over the East Coast to buy the reject shoes from Kleven’s that Jack sold in a shop in the Kleven shoe building. J. Baker’s, as the business was called, was probably one of the first discount retailers in the country. Sherman Baker, Jack’s son, was listed a few years ago by The Boston Globe as one of the 100 wealthiest men in New England. He is still active in the shoe business, trading under many national names.

Jack Baker was a drunk, gambler, and profane, but with a heart of gold. Originally, Jack “Baker” was Jack Goldstein. Mr. Goldstein ran a poolroom in Chelsea before meeting and marrying Gertrude Kleven, the sister of Archie Kleven, a sharp young Jewish salesman from Boston who was employed by the Harris Shoe Co. (Harris was Ernie Roberts’ uncle.) A few years after arriving in Spencer, Archie managed to buy the I.H. Prouty Boot and Shoe Co. that was on the verge of, or in, bankruptcy. Kleven brought Gertrude and his brother-in law-, Jack Goldstein -- now “Baker” -- to Spencer. Gertrude was to be the office manager for Kleven Shoe, and Jack would work in the factory being taught the skilled shoe laster’s trade. After a few years of working in the factory, Jack made a deal with his brother-in-law to buy the reject shoes from the factory. The rest is history.

I believe that George Cournoyer, owner of the White Star Laundry, also owned the next house. He went door to door picking up and doing people’s wash, if they could afford a laundry man. George Cournoyer was the brother of Dr. Romeo Cournoyer. At times my mother used the services of the White Star Laundry, until she purchased a round, wringer-type washing machine. Mom and I also patronized the White Star Laundry when we first got married.

Ambrose and Irene Tower lived in the house now occupied by the Weninger's. Ambrose was an electrician and the brother of Dewitt Tower, owner of Tower Box Co. Irene used to spend hours on her porch not missing a trick. She was the neighborhood gossip and busybody. The Towers had two grown children; Ambrose, Jr., also an electrician, and a daughter, Marjorie. 

For a short time Marjorie was married to a man by the name of Charley Green, who made his living in Spencer as a wood chopper but was originally from Maine. She had two children with Charley Green before they split. Rumor has it she then had quite a few more kids by Shortline Bus drivers. (Marjorie loved uniforms, and was most generous with her charms.) Ambrose and Irene brought up her children. She called all the kids by the last name of Green, except for the final one; who was named Luke Tower.

Mr. Beaulac, the Spencer tax collector, lived in the next house with his wife. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was already quite elderly back in 1939.

The Spencer Broom Shop on lower Cherry Street, the largest manufacturer of corn brooms in the United States, belonged to a gentleman by the name of Leroy Latown. He either had built or purchased the cottage on the corner of Prouty Street -- you may remember it as the Sundburg house -- for his aged mother.

In the home on the north corner of Prouty Street was the home of Dr. Raymond McMurdo, his wife, Inez, and two sons, Raymond and Gordon, all on the first floor. Raymond was Uncle Bob’s age, with an unbelievable passion for trolley cars and trains. Raymond died about a year ago at the Masonic Home in Charlton. He was in his 70s and still talked about little other than trolleys. Gordon was a year older than me, and was the leader of the High Street kids. The second floor apartment was occupied by Sam and Ella Hyman and their only child, Marilyn (who you all know as our friend, Marilyn Budnik). I hope she will not slug me for telling this, but I remember her as a nice kid -- but most of all, I was quite impressed with her hair always being fixed in baloney curls.

The next house was ours. If you proceeded down the street there was, of course, no Art and Linda White home. There was just a large vacant lot, overgrown and full of poison ivy. My mother sold the lot in the late 1950s to a home builder by the name of Huckins.

On the other side of our lot we were fortunate to have the widow, Emily Roberts, and her two sons as our neighbors. Emily’s whole life was wrapped up in her sons; Ernie, age 26 and machinist at Kleven Shoe Co., and Zane, a high school senior. My parents first met Ernie when he came into our store on 10 Mechanic Street to welcome us to High Street. We were also invited to Zane’s high school graduation that June, which I am sure was done as a welcoming gesture. As you all know, Ernie was my neighbor for 60 years. No one ever had a bad word about Ernie Roberts, and Ernie never had a bad word for anyone. Ernie was among my dearest friends, a beautiful human being. I miss him very much.

Bordering the Roberts house on the south side was the Methodist parsonage. The Rev. Mr. Fulton, his wife, and two daughters occupied the church residence at that time. One daughter married a man by the name of Vernon Jones. The other daughter married Norman Kenwood, the son of the Sagendorph chauffeur. Norman Kenwood made his living as the projectionist at the Park Theater, and by building quality rowboats in a woodworking shop on Wall Street.

We had a busy neighborhood. I have memories of the milkman and the iceman coming to the door every day. On the kitchen wall facing the porch, there used to be a little door where the iceman could put a chunk of ice in our icebox without coming into the kitchen. We used to buy our milk from Cottage Farm Dairy. Frank Parker owned Cottage Farm, but his son, Roy, delivered the milk with the help of a teenager.

Good old raw milk, none of this stuff they call pasteurization -- everybody knows that boiling milk kills the taste. When we finally did start to drink pasteurized milk, it took me a long time to get used to the taste.

Very few families owned cars before World War II, so people depended on all types of peddlers and tradespeople to bring necessities to their homes. There were the Dion brothers, riding on the running boards of their truck, shouting out the merits of the fruits and vegetables they were selling. Bob Gregoire’s father, also a fruit peddler, had a pretty healthy set of lungs. Mr. Menard sold meat from a truck going door to door. There was a gentleman by the name of Mr. Raymond, nicknamed “Celery,” who sold celery and other vegetables grown in his garden, out of a Model T Ford.

When we still lived on Cherry Street a man by the name of Harry Pasov -- also known by us Civins as “Grishka” -- used to come to our house and sell us fresh mushrooms that he and his wife had picked in the woods of Spencer. Grishka was Russian, and his wife, Agnes, was an immigrant from Estonia. Quite ample in size and of much larger stature than Grishka, Agnes was given the nickname “Ignatz” (ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS? BET IT’S FUNNY! by my Uncle Nathan.

Spencer had all sorts of colorful characters -- alcoholics and just plain nuts -- wandering the streets. Remember, television wasn’t around to keep these people at home. It was at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York that the wonderful medium of television was first demonstrated for the public. It would be at least another 10 years before it started to appear in homes. There was Mary Jantos -- known as “Crazy Mary” -- who lived with her alcoholic husband, Walter, in an old trolley car that had been converted into living quarters on Valley Street. On this street, there were four old trolley cars where poor people resided. Crazy Mary was a little bit of a woman, standing about 4’10” tall and probably 80 pounds. She always wore a long dress, and a kerchief over her hair. Mary, a Polish immigrant, made her meager living doing house cleaning for Spencer’s more prosperous residents. When I think about her today, she probably was not crazy, just a poor, illiterate Polish peasant women who could not speak English.

“Vos Maste,” translated to English means “how are you.” I know I am spelling it wrong. Unfortunately, I cannot speak or spell in Yiddish. (I wish I could. It is one of my regrets.) Into my adult hood that was the greeting I always got from Bill Lareau, alias “the Chicago Kid,” a.k.a. “Billy the Kid,” or just plain “Crazy Billy.” I’m smiling as I write this; in fact, ask any old timer in Spencer if they remember the Chicago Kid, and watch the person break into a smile. Bill Lareau was also very small in stature, perhaps 5’ tall and 90 lbs. He always wore a suit and necktie. Bill wore cheap rings on most of his fingers, three or four wristwatches on each arm, and played the meanest harmonica you ever heard. Bill lived in a shack, where the former Hodes Market was located. 

When he needed money, he would chop cord wood for local residents. When not chopping wood, Billy would be seen picking the dump. Billy had a retarded daughter by the name of Alice, whom he got caught having an incestuous relationship with. He was sent to the old state prison in Charlestown, where he served three years. When he was paroled, people would ask him where he had been. He would always say he was in Chicago; consequently, he began referring to himself in the third person as the Chicago Kid. Alice married an old coot by the name of Charlie Keene, who was 40 years her senior. They lived in a barn down on Valley Street near the athletic field. Charley Keene used to drink and beat the hell out of Alice. She was a poor, unfortunate soul.

My Neighbors on High Street

In spring 1939, it was decided that I would finish the third grade at Grove Street School with Miss Miriam Kelly, a teacher I was quite fond of. She is still alive, though quite infirm and afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. (You probably know her as Miriam McCourt, a former selectman of Spencer.) Though it was a walk from Grove Street to home, I used to come home for lunch. We used to get one hour from 12 noon until 1 p.m. The route from the school took me down a small gravel road off Grove Street into some woods, past Angel’s sawmill, down to the rear of Kleven’s, a jump over the brook in back of the Sugden block and up Pleasant to Prouty Street.

Let’s take a walk up High Street on the west side from Main Street. The first house was a duplex inhabited on one side by Frank and Anna Mahar. They owned a food market in a building destroyed by fire on the site, where the Cumberland Farms store now is located. On the other side of the duplex lived Jack Mulcahey and his wife, Mae, Anna Mahar’s brother and sister-in-law. Jack was the proprietor of Jack’s Lunch; a diner hitched to the end of the building where Cormier’s Jewelers now is situated.

The next house going up the hill was the Arthur and Martha Sagendorph mansion (the former owners of Alta Crest Farms). Mr. and Mrs. Stan Kenward and their grown son, Norman, lived in the cottage in back of the mansion. Stan Kenward doubled as both chauffeur and butler for the Sagendorphs.

The Dennisons lived in the next house. Gretchen Dennison was the daughter of the Sagendorphs. She had two children; Patsy, who lives in Pennsylvania, and Allan, a retired Air Force master sergeant.

Mrs. Fortier and her mentally challenged son, Edward, lived where the Gallants now live. She was the Mrs. Fortier from the electrical shop on Mechanic Street. Dewitt Tower, one of Spencer’s industrialists, lived on the first floor of the next house going up the hill. Mr. Tower owned the Tower Box Co., manufacturer of shoe boxes. His factory was located in a building in back of Kleven’s. His daughter and son-in-law, Tom and Alice Duggan, and their son, Dick, occupied the second floor of Dewitt Tower’s house. Tom Duggan was probably in his late 20's, but he was dying. A short time later he passed away, leaving his widow and young son. (Tom and Alice were the grandparents of the Duggan kids you Civins grew up with.)

I could not write this story without all of us spending some time with the person who resided in the next house going north on the west side of High Street. I have met a lot of memorable people in my years, but Miss Mary Cruikshanks would have to be on the top of the list. She was born during the Civil War, the daughter of the Rev. James Cruikshanks, minister of the Congregational Church. She was straight out of the Victorian age, slender and ramrod straight, with high lace collars and wire-rim glasses. When she was younger she had been a companion for wealthy women traveling Europe and the Middle East. When she related stories of her travels you almost felt that you were along.

I remember when I was a high school freshman; and one of my courses was Ancient History. I asked Miss Cruikshanks if she would talk to our class about her travels in Egypt. I can still picture her, though she was probably in her 70s, down on the floor on a prayer rug that she had brought from the Middle East, praying to Allah. She wrote a social column for the Spencer Leader for many years, advising the people of Spencer about the events taking place -- some very important, most just good reading. I could go on forever about this wonderful lady from an era long gone by. The last time I saw Mary Cruikshanks, she was well into her 80s. She was walking down High Street on a snowy winter day. I said to her, “What are you doing out on a day like this?” She answered, “Marty, when I put my feet down, I put them down like I own the earth.” You know she did. A month later, she fell down in her apartment and died from a broken hip. (Damn, here come those tears again. Miss Cruikshanks, I have never forgotten you.)

Continuing along the street, the mansion that now belongs to Rick and Gail Lacaire was owned by a wealthy widow by the name of Mrs. Prouty. (I don’t think she was related to Dick Prouty. If she was related, she was a distant relative.) James and Grace Seymour and their three children occupied the cottage in the back of the Prouty mansion. The children were a little younger than I -- Jane, Ann, and Peter. Mrs. Seymour was Mrs. Prouty’s daughter.

The owner of the next house was Dr. Alonzo Amasa Bemis and his wife. Dr. Bemis was the great uncle of Richard Bemis, owner of Bemis Nurseries (and, of course the great-great uncle of Todd’s classmate, Eddie Bemis). He was also very proud of being a direct descendant of Samuel Bemis, the first settler of Spencer. A few years later he would be listed as the oldest practicing dentist in the United States. It was quite an experience to have him do some work on your mouth, because he had Parkinson’s Disease in his later years, and his hands shook. The tenants on the second floor of the Bemis house were the manager of the Worcester County Trust Co.,”-- then situated on the southeastern corner of Main and Maple streets -- and family; Charlie Putnam, his wife, Evelyn, and their two daughters, 5-year-old Connie and two-year-old Judy. 

The house across the street from ours had been vacant for a few years. It belonged to some people by the name of Wiggins, who had moved to either New York State or Pennsylvania. The house across the street (where Gary Wood, the state cop, now resides) belonged to Harris and Louise Gray. The Grays had two children, Harris, Jr. and Shirley, Harris’ younger sister. Shirley lived with her maternal grandmother in Leominster. Harris was much older than his wife, who taught dancing. A few years later, Louise left Spencer with a male dance teacher by the name of Bill Jarvis, deserting her husband and 5-year-old son. She never again got in touch with her family. On the second floor of the house lived Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hodgerney and a son who was my age, Raymond, Jr. In the early 1940s they moved to Pennsylvania.

Next door we go, heading down the hill to Raymond Tower’s house. A brilliant Worcester Tech graduate, Ray Tower managed Tower Box Factory for his father, Dewitt Tower. During World War II, Ray would leave Spencer every night to go work at a think tank on secret war projects. Ray and his wife, Olive, were known to all the kids in the neighborhood as Uncle Raymond and Auntie Olive. Auntie Olive was also known by a couple of generations of neighborhood kids as the “cookie lady.” Her elderly mother, Flora Hazelhurst, lived on the second floor of the house with her bachelor son. Flora was a very pleasant little lady, and her son, Harry, was a shoe worker, very quiet, and a loner. I do remember sitting on our porch on a hot summer night and hearing beautiful music coming from across the street, as Harry sat by his upstairs window playing his violin.

Where the Graves now live was the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Sibley. Mr. Sibley worked for the L.D. Bemis Coal, Wood and Ice Co. In the winter he delivered coal to heat Spencer homes, and in the summer he delivered ice door-to-door. (Remember that very few people had electric refrigerators.)

Behind the Memories

Five Uncles and an Aunt

Well, here’s a good time to have you meet your great uncles and aunt and their families on the Civin side. Thinking back, they were pretty nice people. Solomon and Rose Civin had eight children, all born in a shtetl near Slutzk in what today is Belarus. Six of their children survived and came to America. Two died, one of small pox, and another son drowned in a pail of water while still in Europe. I will introduce them to you by approximate birth date.

Samuel Schultz -- who took the name of the uncles he lived with when he came to Worcester -- was the oldest, born around 1888. In his youth he was known as “Sam the dancer.” I am told he loved the ladies and was also a terrific dancer. Like my father, he learned the dress cutter’s trade when he first came to this country, but after he married his wife, Eva, he ran a grocery store. Uncle Sam and Aunt Eva -- who was a very beautiful woman -- had two children The first, Julian, became president of New England Wholesale Grocers -- now out of business – and now writes the wine column for Worcester Magazine. Miriam died a number of years ago. She was married to Gurson Levine, also deceased, and they had two daughters.

Nathan Civen was born in 1889 and married to Aunt Anna. No, I did not spell Civin incorrectly; two of the Civins spelled their name “Civen” instead of “Civin.” Nathan graduated from Clark University and became a chemist for the US government. During the Coolidge administration there was a big cutback of government workers, and Uncle Nathan lost his job. He took a one-year course in optometry and set up a practice on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester, which in those days was inhabited by mostly Eastern European Jews. Nathan was a very quiet, gentle man, whose health was always quite fragile. I understand he had promised his dying mother that he would do everything possible to keep his brothers and sister close, a promise he tried his best to keep for the rest of his life.

My father was born next, in the spring of 1891. Uncle Oscar Civen was born about 1893. Born Isaac Civen, he changed his name to Oscar; my Dad said he wanted a more American-sounding name. (He sure picked a good one, didn’t he?) Oscar was a nice person, but one of most important things to him in life was status. Uncle Oscar was also taught the dress cutter’s trade, but he didn’t ply for long. When they worked together in the garment industry in New York, he used to say to my father, “Israel, working in a dress factory is alright for you, but I am going to be educated someday and be a somebody.” Shortly after he left New York, Oscar went to Boston and worked his way through Tuft’s Dental School doing menial jobs. He also started his practice on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester. He later moved his practice to Boylston Street in Boston, next to where the Colonial Theater is now located, and became a very prominent and wealthy orthodontist. Uncle Oscar met his wife, Eva, at Tufts. She was a MD, though she never practiced. They had two children; Morton, a PhD and a professor at UCLA (I am sure now retired), and Sherman, who lives in Wisconsin. It’s sort of interesting how wealth and status change a man. My father once told me the Oscar was a Communist during his days in the garment industry. In 1968, he was singing the praises of Barry Goldwater for president. He had a lot to lose by then.

Bernard Civin, born in 1898, was the youngest of my Civin uncles. “Barney” was a master salesman. My father used to tell me that, even in the darkest days of the Depression, Barney made big bucks. Well-tanned and beautifully dressed, Barney used to spend more on a necktie than a lot of men spent on their yearly wardrobes. Barney traveled New England representing a manufacturer of women’s fine slips, and a sportswear company. When not traveling he boarded with his brother, Sam, and his wife, Eva. He did marry in his later years to an underwear buyer from the G. Fox department store in Hartford. As a member of the Boston Polar Club, Barney went for a swim in the ocean every New Year’s Day – something he was quite proud of. 

The youngest -- and only -- Civin female was Aunt Miriam, born in 1900. Miriam became a registered nurse way back when nurses were expected to scrub floors. She became a private duty nurse working at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. I am told she made and lost a fortune in the stock market. Aunt Miriam was estranged from my mother and father. I only remember meeting her once in my life, and that was at Dorothy’s and my wedding, in 1955. My mother used to blame the divide on my father -- because he helped support her and sent her lots of presents -- and when he got married he could no longer afford to dote on his sister. (I tend to think their estrangement had to do with more than my mother cared to admit.) When Aunt Miriam was well into her 80s The Boston Globe ran an article about her, still jogging along the streets of Framingham. I am now going to tell you something that I have never mentioned to anyone. About 20 years ago, I was driving along route 9 in Framingham, and I saw Aunt Miriam walking from her daily jog. I wanted to stop and tell her who I was, but I didn’t. Sad isn’t it?

A Hurricane and a Home

In the fall of 1937 I entered the second grade at Grove Street School. My teacher was a young, new teacher and Spencer native by the name of Miss Margaret McQuaid. I don’t remember too much about the second grade. I guess that I was a decent student and my school year was uneventful. (Incidentally, Todd and Keith, Miss McQuaid’s brother, Frank, though he did not graduate, attended Syracuse University in the 1920s. Frank McQuaid married Miss Rachael Dufault, who was my grammar school art teacher.)

One day as I was walking home from school, Dad picked me up in his first brand-new car. It was a 1937 Hudson Terrraplane, with tin instead of cloth upholstery on the inside of the doors. Did I think that car was the cat’s meow? The car before the Hudson Terraplane was a 1930 Essex that I guess left a lot to be desired.

Life moves on that year. The Kimball family, who lived above us on the second floor at 48 Cherry, moved to one of the yellow houses on East Main Street, across from Frank Kimball’s job at Sibley Farms (now Ragsdale Chevrolet). Uncle Nathan and Aunt Gertrude and baby David move from Phillip’s on lower May Street, to the apartment above us. The Spencer Savings Bank sold 48 Cherry Street to Wilfred Cournoyer, who had a market on Chestnut Street, but had started to speculate in rental property. (Wilfred Cournoyer was the grandfather of Bobby and Steve Kowal, and Jimmy Latour.) One of Mr. Cournoyer’s (whose nickname was “Beaverboard”) first projects was to convert the barn in the back of the house into apartments. Maybe the time was coming to relocate, but not for a little while.

The family business is beginning to do a little better. Mother stays in the store, and Gertrude comes in to work even though most of her time is taken up with her infant son. Dad and Nathan peddle on the road to the outlying towns. Dad covers North Brookfield, South Barre, Gilbertville, and West Warren. Nathan covers the Palmer villages of Thorndike, Bondsville, and Three Rivers. Civin’s Specialty Shop is supporting two families -- not lavishly, but we are all eating. Don’t forget, this is still the depression.

I also start to go on the road with my father on Saturdays. What fun it was for me! We would start in North Brookfield, then go on to West Warren. Most of Dad’s customers on that route were Polish immigrant farmers and mill workers. I used to marvel at the way my father conversed with his customers in Polish. I guess I forgot that he came from the same part of the world they did, though I think he most likely spoke Yiddish in Russia, not Russian or Polish. It was on these Saturday trips when my Dad used to tell of his days in France with his 306th Infantry. I knew, when I grew up, that I was going to be a soldier just like my father. Lunch was always brought from home, eaten by the side of the road, but the day always ended with a treat at Tony and Annie Holda’s Diner in West Warren.

There were many places around Spencer that a boy could enjoy on a warm day — but not Peloquin’s Beach. “No Dogs, No Jews, No Niggers Allowed” was the policy of this beach, located on the south side of Lake Whittemore, in back of where the Dairy Queen now stands. Peloquin’s bigotry hurt me a little bit when I was a kid, but it could have been worse. I still had a place to swim and picnic with my family, in Luther Hill Park. This park was a beautiful place, with tall pines, picnic tables, and stone fireplaces.

Disaster stuck in September 1938, when the Hurricane of 1938 destroyed (among other wonderful things and precious people) Luther Hill Park and every one of those beautiful pines. What a terrible hurricane, one of the worst storms of the century! One of the two big pine trees adorning the side of our sidewalk at 48 Cherry Street fell. I remember the morning after the storm, climbing over trees lying across Irving Street. One of the tragedies of that day was the death of a farmer by the name of Rich. (Remember that there were no warning systems in those days.) Mr. Rich’s farm was where Bob Welch’s house is on Greenville Street. During the storm he noticed that his cow barn was about to blow down. He ran into the barn and tried to hold it up so his cattle could get out. He was successful. However, the barn however collapsed on him, taking his life.

After the hurricane, my parents, Uncle Nathan, and Aunt Gertrude decide that it was time to look for a home to buy. During the winter of 1939 they found a vacant Victorian house at 26 High St. It was owned by Richard Sagendorph, the son of Arthur and Martha Sagendorph -- who owned the mansion at the bottom of High Street -- and the grandson of Noah Sagendorph. Noah had the house built in 1876 and moved in with his bride, the former Emma Sugden. Emma was the daughter of wire manufacturer Richard Sugden, who generously donated the library to the town. The Sagendorph family in 1939 owned Alta Crest Farms, a beautiful 1,000-acre spread, where they raised Ayshire cattle. Richard Sagendorph lived on and managed the farm. Alta Crest was purchased by the Trappist order in the 1950s, and is now St. Joseph’s Abbey.

Uncle Nathan and my father went to the Spencer Savings Bank and asked for a $2,900 mortgage, the price Dick Sagendorph was asking for the house. Mr. Walter Prouty, treasurer and manager of the bank, denied the mortgage, saying the house had been vacant for a long time, was in disrepair, and was just a bad risk. J. Henri Morin was on the Board of Directors of the Southbridge Co-Operative Bank. My father went to see J. Henri Morin to see if he could help. Morin called his bank, and a 12-year mortgage was secured for the house at 4%. Thanks to their friend, Henri, the Civin and Israel families were now homeowners. I am told that, back in those days, many families who could not secure mortgages from the very conservative Spencer Savings Bank secured their mortgages through the Southbridge Co-Operative Bank, thanks to Henri Morin.

We all moved onto High Street in March 1939. The house was a mess, with broken windows from the hurricane, and an accumulation of dirt and grit that had collected from many years of vacancy. There were downed trees everywhere. A small orchard, completely destroyed by the hurricane, had occupied the backyard. Everybody’s work would be cut out for him or her for some time. But, it wasn’t all grim news. As Dad was cleaning up fallen limbs in the side yard, he was chopping up the magnolia tree that was lying on its side, a victim of the storm. As he was about to pull up one little sprig left in the ground and was still growing, my mother walked by. She said, “Oh, don’t pull that up, let it stay.” Thank you, Mother, for the spectacular magnolia tree. It has been a joy for over 60 years.

The house was very much in need of paint, and much work and cleaning had to be done on both the exterior and interior of the property. Nathan, Gertrude, and David lived upstairs. A kitchen had to be put in up there, and the walls plastered in that area. They used the beautiful front staircase to access their apartment. The only difference on the outside of the house is that the windows have shutters. The shutters were removed a few years later, because they rattled when it was windy. They are still in our possession, stored in the attic. A big coal boiler in the cellar did heating. Hot water had to be heated on our kerosene stove. When we took our baths, mine was on Saturday night. Dad heated a big tub of water in the kitchen, and carried it into the bathtub in the bathroom. On cold winter nights he used to heat bricks in the oven, wrap the brick in a towel, and place the brick under the covers of my bed to keep my feet warm.

Being the spring of the year, a large vegetable garden was planted. My mother planted just about every vegetable that could be grown locally. We even had watermelon and cantaloupe. We had blackberry bushes, currant bushes, and an herb garden. My mother canned a big enough supply of vegetables and fruit to last us most of the winter. Father made great pickles in a crock, using dill from mother’s herb garden. The crock my father used is on the floor in our kitchen. Oh yes, flower gardens; they became grandma’s love until she was close to 80.

Next to the house there was a barn of the same architecture, even with the same rod-iron gingerbread. It was two stories high, with stables and a place for carriages on the first floor. On the second floor there was a complete theater with a snack stand and projection box for the movies. A few years later Bob and I raised Rhode Island Red chickens in the basement of the barn. We even peddled eggs in the neighborhood and joined the 4-H poultry club. A young poultry farmer headed the club by the name of Eddie Thibeault, Sr.