Spencer and the War Years

As World War II raged on, life in Spencer also raced along for this growing boy. As soon as I reached the age of 12, I became a member of Boy Scout Troop 115. The other two Boy Scout troops were 149, which met at the Cherry Street Fire Station, and Troop 116, sponsored by St. Mary’s Church. My Troop 115 met every Tuesday Night at 7 p.m., with Ralph Warren as scoutmaster -- the best scoutmaster a boy could have. 

He took us on weekend camping trips, taught us scout and outdoor lore, and for many years gave up his yearly vacation from the Spencer Printing Co. to escort his Scouts to Treasure Valley. Some of my fellow scouts were Al Stebbins, Scott Gerrish, and a tall, lanky kid by the name of Eddie Budnik. It was a wonderful time of my life; I truly enjoyed scouting.

For three years I went with my troop to Treasure Valley Boy Scout Camp on Browning Pond. I would save the $7.50 it cost for a week from my paper route money. Treasure Valley Camp was one of my favorite places in the whole world. Each troop had their own campsite, where we lived in large wall tents. We did our cooking as a troop, and learned boating, canoeing, swimming, and other activities. 

One day, on my first year going to camp, I was sawing wood with a two-man cross-cut saw. I was kneeling on one side of the saw, and the scoutmaster was on the other side. I let go of my side when Ralph Warren was pushing on his side of the saw. I won’t go into detail as to what happened, but I did learn a valuable lesson that is, never let go of your side of a two-man wood-cutting operation. I still have the scar above my right knee to prove that theory, 56 years later.

Earlier in the story I shared that Luther Hill Park had been destroyed by the Hurricane of 1938, with not one of those beautiful, tall evergreens left standing. The storm had just devastated the park. It was during my time of scouting that the Boy Scouts of Troop 115 -- with the help of Spencer’s strong man, George Willey -- re-planted all the trees. To this day, the pines that we scouts planted back in 1943 are the ones that still provide shade and beauty.

Another one of my favorite pastimes in the summer was to walk to Alta Crest Farms to visit and play with my friend, Richard Sagendorph. Alta Crest Farms, as I mentioned before, is where St. Joesph’s Abbey is now. It was a four-mile hike, but I did not mind it at all; in fact, I found the trek fun. There were two ways I could get there. I could hike along Route31 to the road, now blocked off, beside the Guaranteed Fitness Center. That road would take you by Kerlin’s Chicken Farm -- run by Nathan Kerlin and his son, Isaac -- over the hills and past the Town Poor Farm, run by the Wilsons. 

Do you remember Mr. Wilson, the pony ride man on the East Brookfield flats? When I was a kid, he was the warden at the poor farm. Before the state of Massachusetts took over supervision of welfare, the cities and towns were in charge of taking care of their citizens in need. All towns had a poorhouse or poor farm. It is where the authorities sent their real down-and-outers. The town farm, I can assure you, was not a very nice place to be. It is good that they are part of history in Spencer and New England, and are no more. Anyhow, over the hills to a great day playing at Alta Crest Farms.

The other way my hike to the farm was up Northwest Road right past the old Proctor Farm. I would get a ride home on a truck that used to come into Spencer to pick up the milk at the Alta Crest Village Farm. This was a smaller farm the Sagendorphs owned on the west side of Pleasant Street, right above Smithville Road. The pastures of Alta Crest Village Farm were where the housing development is today, on Smithville and Old Farm roads. The overseer of that farm was a Scottish immigrant, Bill Gibson.

At the beginning of World War II Alta Crest Farms was awarded the milk contract at Lowell General Hospital in Fort Devens. On Sundays, so that the milk truck driver could have a day off, Dick Sagendorph, Sr. used to take the run to deliver the milk at the Fort. One Sunday he invited my friend Richard and me to accompany him on the trip. It was probably the biggest adventure of my life to that date. Imagine riding in a big yellow truck, hauling a load of milk all the way to Ayer and a real Army reservation. This was not a story my father had told me about the Army; this was the real thing, me, Marty Civin, at Fort Devens. What a thrill it was!

On the more academic side of those days, my love for US history might have started with a boy who had moved from Harlem, New York City, to Spencer. Lauri Ahlbom was sent here by his alcoholic father in New York City to help with the chores, in exchange for room and board, on the farm of Erick Johnson and his wife. (Mrs. Johnson was Jim Grant’s grandmother.) The farm was located where the Klem Dept. Store is in the west part of town. Lauri was quite proud of his estranged father, and with good reason. His father, a world-class sprinter, had been a member of the, I believe, 1928 Olympic Team from Finland. Lauri’s dad had immigrated to the United States to ply his trade as Henry Ford’s personal tailor.

Unfortunately, booze had done him in, and he was now working at his trade in New York. Lauri, who was my age, came to David Prouty Junior High at the beginning of the seventh grade. He was the smartest kid I had ever met, and he excelled in everything. Though he was rough around the edges, he must have been a teacher’s dream. Our history teacher, Miss Silk, gave extra credit if you could memorize the summary of each chapter in our history textbook. A competition began between Lauri and me, with both of us memorizing the summary, word for word after each chapter. I don’t remember who won, but I do recall that we both memorized our whole history book. After he returned from visiting his father (on the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem) over Christmas vacation our seventh grade year, there wasn’t a boy in our class who didn’t envy Lauri. While in the Big Apple, Lauri and one of his Harlem friends went to Chinatown, to Charlie Stewart’s tattoo shop. For 25-cents my buddy got a sailing ship tattooed on one of his biceps, with seagulls flying above the sails. Lauri Ahlbom was my friend until he moved to Florida a number of years ago.

Jimmy Bogle was another good buddy -- known as a tough kid, but a good kid. He lived upstairs at One Valley St., the house next to the Spencer athletic field. His mother did housework, and his father, Scotty Bogle, worked in the dairy at Sibley Farms. My mother was not at all happy with my friendship with Jimmy, whom she was sure was going to lead me astray. Besides attending school most of the time, Jimmy Bogle was a striker on Sibley Farms’ milk truck.

The summer of 1944, when I was 13, I gave up my paper route, and Jimmy got me a job as a striker. You were paid $7 for 7 days’ work, $1 a day and breakfast. I worked for a driver from East Brookfield by the name of Don Wagner. He would drive the truck around the route, and I would run door to door putting the glass bottles of milk on the doorsteps. My day started at 5 a.m. and usually ended about 2 p.m. I haven’t seen or heard from Jimmy Bogle in years, but I do know what happened to him. He quit David Prouty in his junior year and joined the Navy 1947. After boot camp, he became a pigboat sailor. Pigboats were World War II-class submarines. It was like going to sea in a sewer pipe. He ended his seagoing career on atomic subs. Jimmy retired after more than 30 years’ service, with the Naval rank of captain -- that would be the same as an Army colonel. Not bad for a dead-end kid from Valley Street.

It was around 1943 or 1944 that Civin’s Specialty Shop moved from 10 Mechanic down the street to 20 Mechanic St. My parents went all-out in designing this store: They finally had a fashion shop. They had their fixtures built in knotty pine, which was the trend of the day. No more makeshift racks; it was a real women’s and children’s shop now. My parents were now drawing $42 a week out of the business, a sum they would draw for many years. My mother -- who could at times be quite frugal -- used to boast that they managed on a $42 weekly salary for years. What she did not mention was that the business paid all their expenses, with the exception of food.

In the autumn of 1944, I entered David Prouty High School as a freshman. My subjects were English, Latin, Ancient History, Algebra, and Science. My marks stunk; I just got by with five Cs. Most of my time in classes I sat and dreamed, and when I got home I did very little studying. I dreaded report card time, because I knew there would always be yelling, lectures, and punishment from my parents. I also became quite introverted and withdrawn. It took me many years to come out of my shell.

Scott Gerrish and I got a job in the fall that year for the whopping sum of 40-cents an hour. I am serious; we thought that was darn good money for a couple of 13-year-old kids. The job was with Johnny Ficociello’s vegetable farm on the East Brookfield flats, across the road from Petruzzi Farms. (Johnny was the brother-in-law of Sandy Petruzzi’s grandfather.) Our job was to walk behind the tractor and plow as it dug up the carrots, pull the foliage off the vegetables, and throw them into bushel baskets. It was all stoop labor; talk of earning your money. Wow. From that period of my life until 1996, I have had some interesting and varied positions, but it was topping carrots for a few weeks where I started to learn that a dollar did not come easy.

In November 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term as president, with Harry S. Truman as his vice president. Roosevelt, though only 60 years of age looks like death warmed over in his pictures. The war in Europe is beginning to wind down, or at least everyone thought it was winding down. In December 1944 the Nazis made a desperate last attempt to reverse the tide of Allied advances. The Battle of the Bulge in Belgium turns out to be one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Fortunately, the Germans’ last great push failed, but not without crushing casualties on both sides. The Allied advance now resumes across the Rhine River and into Germany. From the east the Soviet Army, which had held the Nazis at Stalingrad for over three years, was making the Germans pay for the 30 million Russians -- both military and civilian -- that had been killed in the war.

Franklin Roosevelt did not live to see the end of World War II. He died in Warm Springs; GA, in April 1945.The greatest leader of the 20th century was dead at the age of 61. Harry Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. The beginning of May of that year troops of the US and Red armies linked up at the River Elbe. The war in Europe was over, but there was very little celebration, because there was still a bloody war to be won in the Pacific.

The war in the Pacific rages on in the spring and summer of 1945. The battle for Okinawa turns out to be extremely bloody on both sides. The US and her allies are preparing for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Casualties are expected to be catastrophic. Japanese kamikazes (suicide bombers) are hitting our ships one after the other. Meanwhile, off the coast of Okinawa, a young radioman third class in the radio tower shack on a destroyer gets a relief to get a cup of coffee. While he was in the ship’s dining room -- or galley, as it is called -- drinking his coffee, a Japanese kamikaze pilot crashes his plane into the radio shack, killing the radioman third class’s relief. The radioman was someone familiar to you Civins: R.M3/c Kenneth (Mookey) Bernstein.

On Aug. 4, 1945, President Truman makes a weighty decision. He gives his consent for a B-29 bomber, called Enola Gay, to take off from the island of Saipan, and go on a bombing run to drop its load on Hiroshima, Japan. The first atomic bomb is dropped, and a couple of days later another A-bomb is dropped on the city of Nagasaki. On Aug. 14, 1945, the Japanese Imperial Government surrenders to Army General Douglas McArthur, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. World War II is over, the Atomic Age is born, and the world will never again be the same.

I will never forget V-J Day, the day World War II ended. What a celebration it was here in Spencer! Scott Gerrish and another friend, Richie Lilystrom, went downtown that evening of Aug. 14, 1945, to watch the parade. I can remember a drunken sailor coming down the Town Hall hill lickity-split on a tricycle. People were dancing in the street, horns and whistles were blowing, and it was a night like none I had ever seen. After a while, Richie went to his grandmother’s house and stole a jar of homemade peach brandy. The three of us went out to Scott’s backyard on Cherry Street and downed the brandy. It must say, that was my first time that I did any serious drinking, and I did have quite a shine on. We three celebrants then borrowed Scott’s father’s 12-gauge shotgun, and we each fired off a few rounds. We all then went home, and went to bed. I will never forget that night. I was 14 years old.

Behind the Memories

Medical Miracles —Yet to Come

It is easy to forget that some of today’s routine tools — especially in medicine — had yet to be developed. Take Richie Lilystrom, who lived at 95 Main St., the house on the east corner of High Street.

A year younger than me -- and a little on the wild side -- Richie was one of my best buddies. He looked like someone in a Norman Rockwell painting, a skinny kid with blonde hair hanging down over his forehead, and a freckled face. However, Richie had a bad problem; he had a bad heart. Today, most likely some surgery and a couple of days in the hospital would have fixed him up. Back in the 1940s open-heart surgery wasn’t even a dream. Richie died of a heart attack at age 15. My pal knew that he should have restricted his activities, but – such is a teenager -- he refused to do 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.

The Merchants of Mechanic Street

As first grade got underway for me in 1936, Mechanic Street no more resembled the depressed street that you see today -- with its vacant and boarded-up stores -- than an apple resembles a hot dog. The street was teeming with people on their way to work in the shoe factories, or doing their shopping at noon and walking in the evenings after a hard day plying their trades in the shoe industry. 

Mechanic Street was where you met your neighbors and shopped and socialized. If a person was more comfortable speaking French than English, so be it. You used to hear as much conversation in Canadian French back in those days as you did in English.

It was during this period that Civin’s Specialty Shop moved to a new location. A store at 10 Mechanic St. had just been vacated by Morin’s Gift Shop, which had just moved across the street to a newly remodeled store. To survive, our family store had to move from the little hole in the wall to larger and more centrally located quarters. Ten Mechanic St. was a large business block situated where the Post Office is now located. I will tell you more about the store and building shortly when I take you on a trip up and down the rest of Mechanic Street, introducing you to some of the business people along the way. 

Many years later my mother told me she was very reluctant to move to 10 Mechanic St., because Mr. Morin was such a nice man and we sold competitive merchandise. She did not want to offend him. My father and Uncle Nathan felt that business was business, and the move was made. On the morning of the opening of the new store, the first person to greet my mother was none other than J. Henri Morin. Mother said her heart sank as she did not know what to expect. During the Depression $2 house dresses were a big part of a clothing store’s sales. J Henri Morin wished my mother luck by saying, “If you people do as much business in this location as I did, it will make me the happiest man in Spencer. I have also decided to stop selling house dresses; I will send my house dress customers to you.” I will tell you more about J. Henri Morin later; he was quite a man.

In the 1930's, 40's, and 50's, Spencer had two main business streets; Main and Mechanic, with Chestnut following in third place. The stores opened at eight in the morning and stayed open until six in the evening Monday through Thursday, and until nine on Friday and Saturday. Main and Mechanic Street were always busy with shoppers. People would occasionally go to Worcester on the Shortline Bus that ran on an hourly schedule, but as a rule they did most of their trading in Spencer. There were not many automobiles in those days; not every family owned a car. Noontime in my parent’s store was always a busy time, because the factory girls from Kleven's Shoe would have time to kill on their lunch hours. Friday was the busiest day. That was payday, and the workers were paid in cash. Mechanic Street of 1936 in no way resembled the Mechanic Street of today.

Let’s take a walk down the street, starting on the west side. On the corner of Mechanic and Main streets, where the flower store now is, was Peter Richard’s hardware store. Peter Richard was quite elderly at that time, and his son, Hugo, ran the day-to-day operations. Hugo was a big man, about my father’s age. He had just one son, Charlie, who was a year ahead of me in school. He graduated from Worcester Tech moved, to Seattle, and I believe became an engineer for Boeing. (Peter Richard was also the grandfather of registry inspector John Cote.) Next going down Mechanic, on the same side, was Saldini’s Fruit Store. It was a combination fruit and candy store, plus a soda fountain. Mr. Saldini worked there with his daughter, Gina. Gina never married, and I am pretty sure she is still alive and well into her 80's. Going down the street, next was a big part of the social life of Spencer, The Park Theater. There were three Park Theaters, one at Webster Square in Worcester and another in the Greendale section of Worcester. The Spencer theater was managed by a gentleman by the name of Charlie Kane, with a woman by the name of Mrs. Collette selling tickets. Movies changed three times weekly, with a continuous cowboy serial every Tuesday night. In addition to movies every night, there were matinees on Saturday and Sunday. A ticket for a kid was 15-cents.

Going down the street, next to the Park Theater was 10 Mechanic St., one of the biggest business blocks in Spencer. I don’t remember any of the tenants in the upstairs apartments back in the 1930's, but I do remember most of the businesses in that block and their proprietors. In the first store in the block, next to the movie theater, was The Spencer Fruit Co, owned by Luigi Piagentini and his wife, Edith. Louie’s -- as we kids called his store -- is where we always bought our popcorn for the show at the Park. In addition to fruit and popcorn, I bought my first smokes from Louie a few years later. Louie used to accommodate us kids by selling us cigarettes for a penny apiece, if you did not have the price of a full pack, which sold for 15-cents. You could buy Wings and Marvel brands for 10-cents a pack, but we used to say that they tasted like ground horse manure. Louie Piagentini was also one of the most henpecked men I ever knew. Edith was constantly brow beating him in Italian. Many years later, when we were teenagers, Louie said to Scott Gerrish and me; “It’sa no good boys, I’ma sorry I marry that someama bitch.” So it went with the Louis Piagentini the statue maker from Italy, who now made his living selling fruit and popcorn. Once in a while I will ask some of the old-timers in Spencer if they can remember the brand of ice cream Louie sold. If anyone is interested, it was Velvet Ice Cream.

Meet Sam Kanen, the tailor, whose shop was between Spencer Fruit and our store. Sam used to do his hand sewing sitting on a table with his legs crossed, and the garment he was sewing lying across his legs. He used to send his customers’ clothes to Worcester for dry cleaning, but they were sent back to Sam for pressing on a huge steam-pressing machine. A teenage boy then delivered the cleaned and pressed clothes to his customers. The boy would walk to the customers’ homes, carrying the garments on his back. If you had the money, Sam would make you a suit, and believe me, he was a master tailor. Sam also had the reputation of being the snappiest dresser in Spencer. I never saw Sam unless he was clothed in a suit, shoes shined to a mirror glow. Old timers in Spencer still mention Sam’s diamond ring, yellow gold with a beautiful blue/white diamond. A confirmed bachelor, he lived in one dreary room on the third floor of the Massasoit Hotel for more than 40 years.

The late State Senator Phil Quinn, who owned the Massasoit and watched out for Sam in his last years, told me the story that Sam was confined to the Memorial Hospital in Worcester, and Phil went to visit him. Sam -- who seemed to be doing pretty well in his recovery.-- said to Phil, “Call Perlman the undertaker, and tell him I want to see him right a way”. The undertaker came to Sam’s hospital room, Sam told Perlman exactly how he wanted his funeral, and then asked, “How much is it going to cost me?” Perlman gave the price, and Sam -- who was illiterate -- took his checkbook out of the end table next to his bed, and said, “Phil, write him a check for the amount of my funeral.” Sam died the next day. That was about 30 years ago. He is buried in the B’nai B’rith Cemetery in Worcester.

Let us leave Sam Kanen and go to the store next door 10 Mechanic, the home of Civin’s Specialty Shop. The family store was now rising up in the world and starting to do business. It was supporting two families, I’m sure not in style, but we were eating. Uncle Nathan and my Dad were still peddling on the road, and my mother and Aunt Gertrude were holding everything down on the home front by putting in long hours at the store. I do not remember an awful lot about that store except that it was long and narrow, and also heated by a potbelly stove.

The next store in the block was one that was vacant a great deal of the time. The Spencer Flower Shop occupied the last store in the building. Leo Hebert, nicknamed “Flowerpot,” and his wife, Antoinette, established the company that is still operating today with a different owner. The Spencer Flower Shop is now on Main Street and owned by Timothy Lee. When the Hebert's first started their business, they were so poor that they lived in the back room of their store. Leo later became one of the biggest landlords in Spencer, and he became extremely wealthy. However, he was known for his stinginess, hating to spend money. Leo has been dead for many years, though Antoinette is still alive and is in her 90's.

As you crossed the driveway leaving 10 Mechanic and headed towards Wall Street you came to Wedge’s Café at 12 Mechanic, run by Ludivic Aucion and his wife, Nellie, known as Ma Wedge. Wedge’s Café was a vital part of the Spencer business scene. As a kid, I used to see my father and Uncle Nathan sneak into Wedge’s occasionally -- maybe Nathan more frequently than my Dad -- but they both used to go there for a cold one. Ludivic Wedge, I am told, ran a speakeasy next door in the basement of 10 Mechanic and, according to his son, also ran bootleg liquor from Canada during Prohibition. Twelve Mechanic went legal when Franklin Roosevelt repealed Prohibition, after taking office in 1933. (The Wedges were the grandparents of the McNamara's. Ma Wedge also would have been the great aunt of the Ensom boys.) In addition to serving beer, ale, and booze, Wedge’s Café used to serve lunches to many of the shoe workers at Kleven's and Allen Squire. It was the social center on Mechanic Street, featuring a band and dancing on Friday and Saturday nights.

Of course, there was no television back in the 1930's and 40's; consequently, heavy drinkers did their drinking in bar rooms. I have been told that Ma Wedge was always happy to take care of some of the men with drinking problems via their pay envelopes. On Friday night, after being paid the alcoholic would buy a meal ticket at The Puritan Restaurant on Main Street, pay for his room for the week at either The Windsor or Waldo hotels, then give what was left of his wages to Ma Wedge. He would drink from what was left of his wages until it was gone. Let me explain meal tickets. A restaurant would sell you a ticket for a certain amount of money. It worked like a pre-paid telephone card. Every time you would eat, the waitress would punch your ticket for the amount of the meal. The Windsor Hotel was on Chestnut Street and on a slightly higher social plain than the Waldo, situated on Wall Street. Men with drinking problems occupied both hotels. The Windsor had a bar, where in the 1940's naughty women were known to take off their clothes. The Waldo had rooms to rent, but it also rented cots in an old store in front where probably 10 or 15 men resided.

Continuing down Mechanic Street, next to Wedge’s Café was the A & P (The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company), the food market giant throughout the United States back in the 1930's. Spencer had three A & Ps; one on Main Street where Whitco is now, another store on Chestnut Street, and one store next to Wedge’s Café, in a building no longer standing. There was no such thing as supermarkets back in the 1930's; supermarkets did not start to appear on the American scene until the late 1950's and early 1960's. When you made your food purchases, you stepped up to a counter, and a clerk waited on you.

There was a driveway separating the A& P and the Lamoureux Hardware Store, and no story of Spencer during my formative years – or of Spencer commerce -- would be complete without this honorable family. Moise Lamoureaux, whom I remember quite well from when I was a boy, came to Spencer from Quebec in the 1880s. He established a crockery business on the corner of Cherry and Mechanic Street, later expanding into the largest furniture store between Worcester and Springfield. (Keith, Moise was the great-great grandfather of Billy Rock.) The Lamoureaux retail enterprises consisted of the hardware store, the furniture store on the south corner of Mechanic and Cherry streets, and a separate gift shop across the street from the hardware store. They also owned many business blocks and tenement houses throughout Spencer. My parents rented a retail store at 20 Mechanic St. in the 1940s and 1950s. My mother used to say that they were just wonderful landlords.

To help manage the Lamoureux holdings, Moise’s sons -- who were part of my parents’ generation-- ran various segments of the business. Moise, Jr. ran the furniture store. Donat, a World War I, veteran ran the gift shop. Hector, if I remember correctly, was sort of an all-around man. (He was the grandfather of Lionel Lamoureux, the proprietor of Lamoureux Ford.) The hardware store was managed by his son, Etienne, and Hector’s grandson, Lionel. (Etienne is the father of the architect, Richard Lamoureux, and the schoolteacher, Miss Susan Lamoureux.) Ernest Lamoureux, a bachelor and another of Moise’s sons, did odd jobs and ran errands for the business.

Twenty Mechanic St. started the next building with a dry goods store, run by two elderly ladies whose names escape me. Next door in the same building, a shop was occupied by a barber by the name of Berthauime. He ran the shop with the help of his son, Gerard. These were the Depression years: Though Gerard worked as a barber, he was college-educated and trained as a teacher, but could not find a job in his profession. I remember that there was something about Gerard that used to puzzle me, a six-year-old boy. Why did Gerard carry an umbrella even when the son was shinning? He had a girlfriend, but on his meager salary he could not afford to marry her. Gerard’s girlfriend, Miss Mary Madden, was a very beautiful young lady in her early 20's who taught first grade at Pleasant Street School. This was 1936, the first year Mary taught. At the outbreak of World War II, Berthauime was drafted into the Army and shipped to England. He married a British woman. He came back after the War and became a teacher in Vermont. Gerard is now retired, and a Spencer friend of his recently told me that he is again barbering in Swanton, VT, a small town on the Vermont-Quebec border, so that he can be close to the culture in Montreal. I wonder if he still carries an umbrella on sunny days?

Walking down on the west side of Mechanic Street you came to the building occupied by Mahan’s Café on the first floor. On the second floor was a boarding house for single men, run by a Mrs. Thompson, wife of Scotty Thompson, the bartender at Mahan’s. This Mahan’s looked like something out of an old-time western movie. It had swinging louver doors, a highly polished, dark-wood bar, and shiny brass fixtures to draw draft beer. On Friday and Saturday nights many a drunken shoe worker staggered home to his wife and kids after blowing his week’s pay.

On the corner of Wall and Mechanic was the shop of Ferdinand Phaneuf the haberdasher. (Mr. Phaneuf was the great grandfather of Billy Breault, whom I believe was a classmate of Todd’s.) My mother once told me that when she, Uncle Nathan, and Grandpa went into business at 48 Mechanic St., Mr. Phaneuf took bets that their business would not last a month. One of the things I remember about Mr. Phaneuf was his liking of a raw egg in his beer. Mr. Phaneuf would walk up the street, heading to Wedge’s café, carrying a raw egg to put in his glass of beer. I don’t know if he would not buy an egg from Wedge’s because he did not consider their eggs fresh enough, or that he was too frugal to purchase an egg.

Behind the Memories: The Millers: Such Beautiful People

How do I describe the Millers? Let me start with Mrs. Miller, considered the ultimate Jewish cook and mother. (The proof: Mrs. Miller tried very hard to arrange a romance with the Dr. Daniel Sidenberg and one of her daughters.) On Sundays, thanks to Mrs. Miller, her home was a gathering place for Jewish guests from all over Worcester County. But the story of the Millers and the Civin's began with my grandparents.

As I mentioned before, my grandfather and grandmother (Israel) on my mother’s side were divorced. (My Grandmother Civin died shortly before I was born, and Grandfather Civin was killed in 1932 by a car while crossing Blue Hill Avenue in Boston. I was a year old.) Grandmother Israel ran a clothing store with the help of my Uncle Max in Warren, where they also lived. Grandfather Israel had a few rooms upstairs in the Miller residence on Maple Street in Brookfield. He had one room for sitting, one for sleeping, and another to store the merchandise for his peddling business. In the barn he kept his Model T truck with sliding doors. Thinking back, though I am sure he was satisfied, it was a pretty drab existence. Grandpa also ate all his kosher meals at the Millers’.

Joe Miller was a junk man. I guess there aren’t any more junk men. They started to disappear from the American scene after World War II. Junk men used to go house to house and buy old metal, rags, burlap bags, and other scraps from home owners for a few pennies or dollars, fill their trucks, and sell to what we would call re-cyclers today, for a profit. Dorothy’s grandfather, Jacob Sigel -- known as “the giant” -- was a ragman. He did his business in a horse and wagon. Dorothy has told me that sometimes when she was a little girl, her grandfather would drive her to Belmont Street grammar school in his wagon. She said she used to be so proud riding way up high beside him.

Getting back to Joe Miller, at best he made a meager living driving his old Chevrolet truck house-to-house collecting junk. Joe Miller was a very simple man, but he used to brag to his customers about his $7 million. His riches were Irene, Goldie, Hilda, Miriam, Beatrice, Edith, and Nancy — the seven daughters of he and his wife, Sarah. In addition to the Millers’ seven daughters and my grandfather was Bubbe Miller, Joe’s mother. Bubbe Miller used to live in a room off the barn, where Fannie the Guernsey cow was stabled. I remember Bubbe Miller as very old, and wearing a wig. It was the custom of religious, Orthodox Jewish women from Eastern Europe to shave their heads at the time of their marriage.

Come Sunday afternoons Mrs. Miller fed her many Jewish guests in style; I don’t know how she did it. They had very little money. I suppose with their large garden and their cow, they somehow managed. She made her own farmer cheese that she would also barter with merchants on Water Street in Worcester for groceries. She made pickles, strudel; I have yet to ever taste potato or lokshon kugel (noodle pudding) as good as her’s. Her blintzes melted in your mouth.

The Millers’ seven Depression-raised daughters did okay in life. Irene, the oldest, worked in Kleven Shoe in Spencer for a few years, then went to Washington, DC, where she obtained a job with the Federal government. She married late in life, retired from government service, and is deceased. Goldie married a man from Boston, was widowed recently, and still lives in Boston. She is 82 years old.

Hilda graduated high school and went to work in Kleven Shoe. At the beginning of World War II Hilda enlisted in the Army, and served for the duration of the War, being discharged as a sergeant. She married a Worcester taxi owner by the name of Morris Witkas. Long ago widowed, I believe she had three children, one of them now a rabbi who lived quite a few years in London, but now resides in New York City.

Miriam was the first Miller girl to graduate from college. She graduated from UMass Amherst about 1940. She went on to teach at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. She is now deceased. Edith became a cadet nurse during World War II, graduated, and married a man by the name of Sam Sadowsky, who managed retail discount stores. They have lived in Baltimore for over 40 years. The Sadowskys had three sons; a doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant. What more could a Jewish mother want?

I almost forgot Beatrice, who came between Miriam and Edith in age. Beatrice was a secretary for Chicago Dressed Beef, a large Worcester meat packer now out of business. Now widowed, she and her husband ran a janitorial contracting business. Nancy, the youngest Miller, graduated from UMass and is married to a very successful attorney in Boston.

Joe and Sarah Miller ended their days in The Jewish Home in Worcester. Sarah suffered from Alzheimer’s and died in her early 80's. Joe Miller lived to be well into his 90s, running a little convenience store in the Jewish home. I have many fond memories of the Millers. While I am writing this, please don’t anyone look; there are some tears running down my cheeks.

Our Neighborhood, Cherry Street

Let us go up Cherry Street in the early 1930's. We lived at 48 Cherry St. The house still stands; the second house east of Ash Street, on the south side of the street. The house belonged at that time to the Spencer Savings Bank. I would assume it had most likely been part of a Depression-era foreclosure. I don’t remember what the inside of our apartment looked like, but I do recall there were two beautiful pine trees standing, one on each side of the front walk. I believe one of the pine trees became a victim of the 1938 hurricane.

We lived on the first floor. On the second floor lived Frank Kimball, his wife, Florence, and two sons; Paul -- about a year younger than my brother, Bob -- and Lawrence, a red-headed kid with a Dutch cut, about a year younger than me. (Todd and Keith, you most likely remember Larry Kimball from Syracuse University, where he was publicity director for the University athletic teams.) Frank Kimball was employed as a farm hand at Sibley Farms located where Ragsdale Chevrolet is today. Florence Kimball, is still alive; she must be in her 90's. Mr. and Mrs. Buster Archambault occupied the third floor. Buster and wife were childless and he earned his living on a door-to-door residential bread route for the Holsom Bread Co.

The house below us on the corner of Ash and Cherry streets belonged to Walter Prouty. Mr. Prouty was a very waspy gentleman who served as treasurer of the Spencer Savings Bank. On the second floor lived a Mr. and Mrs. Tripp, the retired Spencer postmaster, and their daughter, Eleanor. I remember Eleanor as being in her 20's always wearing riding apparel and was quite masculine.

The house on the other side of 48 Cherry St. belonged to Mrs. Mary Porter, who was considered by many people to be the richest person in town. Her late husband had made a fortune in the Oklahoma oil fields in the early part of the 20th century. She shared her home with her sister, Emma Birch, along with Mr. Birch and her full-time maid, Myrtle. Mrs. Porter was the biggest contributor to the Congregational Church in Spencer. Upon her death in the 1950's, It was said that she left over $1 million to the Church. I don’t know if it’s true, but she was a real wealthy lady. As a three-year-old kid I used to visit Mrs. Birch, who was quite sickly. When she died, she willed me the picture of the Dutch boy that still hangs in Dorothy’s and my bedroom. As a little kid visiting my friend Mrs. Birch, I always used to admire that picture. Mrs. Birch willed Uncle Bob the Bible that her father carried with him as a Union soldier in the Civil War.

Going east up Cherry, in the house next to Mrs. Porter’s lived Mr. and Mrs. Tom Greenwood. I remember Tom Greenwood as a short, chubby, bald man. He ran a dairy on the corner of Main and Spring streets, in the building where Gregoire Electric is now.

In the next house, on the corner of Cherry and May, resided a very important man of that period in Spencer. Mr. Fred Trail was chairman of the Board of Selectman, and treasurer of the Allen Squire Shoe Co., Spencer’s second-biggest employer. Allen Squire manufactured men’s work shoes that were worn by many during the Depression years. A good and steady business to be in or to be employed in.

I am going to cross Cherry Street at May Street on the north side of the street. On the east of May was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Willard Johnson. Mr. Johnson worked for his wife’s family who was the Hobbs of Hobbs Coal and Ice Co., delivering coal. The Johnsons had five children; two boys and three girls; and only one survives. The oldest was Frank, a very bad asthmatic who in adulthood worked at Norton’s and lived in Holden. He died about 15 years ago in the Jewish Health Center in Worcester. Eleanor, the oldest girl (and the prettiest) served as an Army nurse during World War II. She died a number of years ago in Worcester. Another sister, Grace Perreault, worked at the jewelry counter at the Fair Dept. Store for many years. She passed away just a few months ago. Phyllis Johnson Girourd died in Spencer quite a few years ago, a classmate of my brother, Bob. The youngest of the Johnsons, Gordon-- a.k.a. Guy -- is retired from Norton’s and lives in Holden. (His son is married to Nancy Gregoire.) Crossing May, still going down Cherry, was the house where Mr. and Mrs. Bill Rogan lived with their two identical twin sons, Jack and Bill. Mr. Rogan was a debit salesman for the Prudential Insurance Co. One Rogan twin is deceased; the other is still alive. Going down the street, in the next house lived some people by the name of Dunn, and Rick Hobbs lived upstairs.

The next home down belonged to Dr. George & Tillie Gerrish. What wonderful people they were. Their three children included Ann, who lives in Denver and is now close to 90. Back in the late 1930's, Ann became a Pioneer Airline hostess. Sarah became the wife of a dentist, the late Dr Fred Mase. The youngest, Scott, was my very best friend when we were kids. We remained very close until after we were both married. I was an usher at his wedding; he was an usher at Dorothy’s and my wedding. As the years passed we grew apart and saw very little of each other, though Scott lived about 15 miles from Spencer in Brimfield. Scott died about seven years ago of pancreatic cancer. There is no real reason we drifted apart, but it is something I regret deeply.

Getting Down to Civin Business

Towards the end of 1932, an operating plan was established to try to nurture Civin’s Specialty Shop into a reality. My mother would stay in the store, and my father would travel to some of the outlying towns and peddle clothes out of a car. About this time, my Uncle Nathan decided to leave the fledgling business and try his luck in New York City. Uncle Nathan will reappear a little later in this story. Let’s get back to my father, the ex-dress manufacturer from New York, becoming a peddler.

I don’t think my father was too anxious to become a peddler, but mother said that if my father would not go on the road, she would. With that threat, Dad was to become a peddler, but it was not to be that easy. My Dad neither knew how to drive, nor did he own a car. My father purchased a 1926 Dodge Brothers touring car. A touring car had a roof, but where the windows were supposed to be would be nothing, just open sides. In the winter you attached side curtains from the top of the doors to the roof.

Now that the business had a car, my father had to learn to drive it. When my father came to Spencer, he found a man there by the name of Eddie Cragan. Grandpa had served in the 306th Infantry in France in World I with Mr. Cragan. All I know - other than my father and Mr. Cragan were Army buddies – was he was a bachelor, he was a streetcar motorman, and he drank a lot. With Mr. Cragan’s help, my father learned to drive. After six tries my Dad was issued a license and he started his road business. He sold clothes out of his car in Barre, Gilbertville, the Palmer Villages and Warren. He was a peddler for the rest of his working days. I think he enjoyed it very much.

I have been told that, when Civin’s was first established my mother used babysitters to watch Bob and I while she minded the store. I had a few sitters, but I am told one of the best was a teenager by the name of Blanche Carbonneau. Blanche later married Carl Berger and a number of years later they started Berger Oil Co. Carl has been deceased for about 20 years, but Blanche Berger is still alive and in her 80s. I still buy fuel oil from the Berger Co., though it now belongs to E.T. Smith Co., a large Worcester oil dealer.

Memories: The Beginning

I am writing this first part of my story to tell something of what Spencer was like as I grew up in the 1930's and 40's. Most of what I tell you in the beginning is hearsay because, of course, I cannot remember events of the first few years of my life. My brother, Bob, is writing a history of our family going back to 1840's, one I am sure will be better crafted and different than mine. Think of this as my autobiography.

The question has been asked: What brought the Civin family, of the Sea Gate section of Brooklyn, NY, to Spencer, MA, on that Labor Day of 1932? The answer is, times were hard. It was the in middle of the Great Depression. Changes had to be made by my mother and father.

At the time of my birth, my father was a business partner with a man by the name of Mr. Siegel, in a contract dress-manufacturing firm in New York City. The way I understand it, a dress contractor would take the overload of work from larger, and, probably branded manufacturers. It was during the Depression, and I would guess that there were not many overloads of work to be handed out to contracting firms. My Dad’s company fell on hard times, and consequently went bankrupt.

A decision had to be made: My father would stay in New York and look for a job in his trade as a dress cutter, and my mother would take Bob and me, as well as, her friend and boarder, Gertrude Farrington -- to her mother’s house in Warren, MA. I don’t imagine we all were welcomed with open arms. I am sure my Grandmother Israel was not a particularly gracious person. Shortly after arriving in Warren, mother opened “The White Swan Tea Room” in West Brookfield. The building still stands at the site of the tearoom and is occupied by Bousquet Auto Parts.

My mother ran the Tearoom, and my uncles, Max and Nathan, sold “Sinclair Gas” from a pump in front. The money for my mother’s venture, I was told, came from $400 she had saved from table money from our home in Sea Gate. From what my mother used to tell, I guess the food was pretty good at “The White Swan Tea Room”. The only problem was there were no customers to try the food. My mother did have competition down the street from a restaurant known as “George and Ethel’s.” I am told they did all right because they sold bootleg hooch. Of course, there was no way Ethel Civin was going to sell booze. Mother closed the little restaurant, and Gertrude, who  had been acting as our nanny, returned to New York.

With the closing of the tearoom in West Brookfield, there was much despair. What was to be done? We had to eat, and I am sure my mother wanted to get out of the situation she was in, with all of us living with my grandmother. So, Mother and Uncle Nathan decided to open a small clothing store. Nathan had recently graduated from Northeastern University in Worcester. He had a degree in Business Administration, but he had no job.

On Labor Day, 1932, the Civin family arrived in Spencer, and Civin’s Specialty Shop was born. It would be a name in women and children’s clothing in Spencer for the next 30 years. My father had now joined his family in Spencer, but for the first couple of months he was not part of my mother’s and Nathan’s firm. He was looking for locations to open a grocery store in Worcester. Nothing became of Dad’s grocery store plan and thus he joined the business in January, 1933.

You might ask, why Spencer for a location? Both Kleven's Shoe and Allen Squire Shoe Co. were working most of the time and my Uncle Nathan thought Spencer looked like a busy town. He used to come through Spencer on the trolley on his way from Warren to Northeastern. Also, for a very short time, Uncle Max and Nathan ran a small gym on Chestnut Street in the 1920's. I was told it was where the Savageau brothers and a boxer by the name of George Ledoux first put on the gloves. Uncle Max also flirted with boxing, but never entered the ring.

The first location of Civin’s Specialty Shop was at 48 Mechanic St. My brother Bob tells me, it was pretty much a dump. The store was heated by a pot-bellied stove which also used to warm my mother’s and my lunch. I will tell you more about that part of Mechanic Street and some of the people shortly. (Remember, I was only 1-1/2 years old, so everything I am telling you about our arrival in Spencer came from stories my parents told me, or from Bob, who was 7 at the time).

The total investment for the business was probably about $100 for some used fixtures and a month’s rent. To obtain merchandise, Nathan and my mother bought on their father’s credit line. Grandpa and Grandma Israel were divorced. Grandpa Israel lived in Brookfield, and peddled clothing out of a panel truck to area mill towns and farmers.