TRANSCRIPTION
Please describe what your neighborhood was like??
We lived in a small town - less than 5000 people. There were a few farm houses in the area. The housing contractor had about 6 building lots on our street. Our house was the first on the street, and the other lots were in process of development for about two years. The road was dirt, with no street lights and no sewers; it was considered a private road until all lots were developed, so no town services (but the town sometimes did plow it in the winter anyway). The town of Ludlow was situated on the Chicopee River - the other side of the river was Springfield. The town offices, schools, post office, bank, factory and hospital were all next to the river. We lived about 1 1/2 miles out, in what used to be farming area but was
starting to be developed. There were woods all around where we picked blueberries and mushrooms, ponds where we skated in winter and fished in summer. Nearby there was a dairy farm where they also grew some vegetables; and a turkey farm where we got eggs (turkey eggs are HUGE - equal to about 2 grade-A Large chicken eggs). The nearest kids my age lived down near the town; aside from school I only saw others my age when at band practice or at Boy Scout meetings. Social life was nil.
What were your schools (Elementary, Middle, and High) like? Did you have "Bomb Drills?"
Classes were approx 30 students, 1 teacher (no aides). No uniforms, but must be neatly dressed (no jeans - girls wore dresses). Outer wear was hung in coat room (walk-in closet) or rack at back of classroom. Elementary School (1-2-3) - Ate lunch at desk, school supplied milk. Starting in Grade School (4-5-6) and Junior High (7-8) we had cafeteria, but most brought lunches. Seniors (9 through 12) usually bought lunches (25 cents for hot lunch, 15 for salad or fruit cup, 5 for milk or deserts). Never any soda or junk food!! Schools supplied all necessities. Ink wells in upper left corner of desks were filled after third grade - we had to write cursive in ink, and practice penmanship. (Pens were wood fitted with steel nibs - one dip into well allowed you to write about five letters, then you had to dip again.) From 7th grade to graduation we used fountain pens, which we supplied. Ball point pens were not allowed (too expensive, and very unreliable).
In Junior High through High School we had Bomb Drills - if short warning: sit or lie on floor under your desk; if there was time after warning: go down to basement, sit against wall. Some schools had emergency supplies (water, food, first aid kits).
In High School we pretty much treated bomb drills sort of like fire drills - it ain't gonna happen. (Joke was that if there was an air raid, duck into the boy's room urinal - nobody ever hits that. Also, put head between legs and kiss your butt goodbye.) Seeing that we lived only a few miles from Westover AFB where they stored most of the nukes for Strategic
Air Command (B36, B47, B52 and B58 long-range bombers), we figured that if we got hit the bombs would all go off at once; there would be a giant crater and all of us would be gone anyway. I doubt that anyone worried about it after a while. I worried more about school, or about affording bus fare to go to Springfield (big city) to movies or museums.
What did you do after school?
Due to overcrowding, we were on ˝ sessions. Classes were only 40 minutes long, with 5 minutes to move between classes. Senior High started at 7:30 through 12:00 and Junior High started 12:30 through 5:00. In JH went to band practice before school, and in HS band was 1 hour after school MWF. I did most of my homework in study hall. After school or after band
practice, went home; started supper, ˝ hour daily practice clarinet (Tuesday ˝ hr lesson from a pro musician - $2.50 at first then $3.50), did chores (gardening & yard work), and delivered evening papers (they were brought in about 4:00 PM). After supper did remaining homework (about 1 hour). Monday & Tuesday library until 9:00 PM; Wednesday NRA Rifle Range, Thursday Boy Scouts, Friday nights go to movies. Saturday chores in AM; PM I went to work with my Father at his second job. Sometimes I helped my Father with his carpentry, but other times I picked up slabs of field stone (my Father and I built field stone planters and a field stone fireplace in our back yard). I also collected buckets of peat that the contractor had dredged from a swamp - the peat was mixed into the topsoil as a nutrient for our gardens. During winter tried to get in some ice skating after doing my paper route, and played hockey on Saturdays; we were surrounded by ponds, so there was always a place to skate. If I saved enough, I could take a bus to Springfield on Saturday afternoon - after I was 12 years old.
What did your parents do for a living?
My Father was a machinist at American Bosch (Bosch was originally a German-owned company, taken away by government during World War Two - manufactured diesel engine parts); in later years he was chief inspector. Occasionally he worked part-time as a printer, but later worked weekends as a carpenter for a local housing contractor - Mom worked at Westinghouse winding armatures for electric motors - then she learned to type and worked at Massachusetts Mutual Insurance company as clerk in Policy Loan dept.
Did you and your family, being Polish, face any discrimination?
Not Really. Definitely Not for being Polish. The town was settled in the 1600s by political and religious refugees from England. Later immigrants were mostly Scots, who lived out in the sticks. A lumber boom brought in a wave of French Canadian lumberjacks, who brought their families with them and stayed. In the early 1900s several Polish immigrants came to work in the jute mill - they stayed in the country. Around late 1930s some Portuguese immigrated into the town. Each nationality set up in separate communities. Each group had its own religion - there were Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians on one side, and Roman Catholic on the other. The Roman Catholic churches were Christ the King (Polish), St Jean Batiste (French), and Our Lady of Fatima (Portuguese). Our family was Polish National Catholic, which had broken away from the Roman Catholics in the early 1900s. So, we were not really welcomed by any of the local Roman Catholics. Eventually we were accepted by the protestant groups, but were still treated as newcomers. It was not really discrimination, but I myself felt out of place. Mostly because I didn't really try to fit in with any one particular group - I did OK with Band and Boy Scouts though.
Did the recession hit your family hard?
I am not sure which one you mean - we've had several. The first recession that I recall was around 1950 - (or perhaps 1952 - 53 during Eisenhower's presidency). I was probably too young to understand the full impact. I know that there was inflation, prices were high, and people were kind of disgusted with politicians and big corporations - General Motors tried to break labor unions and defended its actions with the statement "What is good for GM is good for the USA". Comic strips such as "L'il Abner" lampooned the situation - a multimillionaire industrialist named General Bullmoose lobbied Senator Fogbound to destroy the town of Dogpatch, where Abner was trying to get a raise for himself - he cut the little moons in outhouse doors for $1.00 per week. But our family continued as normal - My father still worked his factory job during the week; on weekends he still worked as a carpenter. Mom also worked; first in a plastics factory, then after she learned to type she got a better job at Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance - at the main office in Springfield. That's also about the time I started my paper route.
I remember that I wore a lot of leftover military uniforms that my uncle Ed purchased out of the base laundry - a lot of the military had been discharged after WW2, and they never bothered to stick around for their uniforms to come back from the laundry. The uniforms fit, they wore like iron, and I didn't care if I was called "Sarge" for a while by the kids in my boy scout troop. I was never on the best-dressed list in school, but who cared? The next recession came around 1960 - I had just graduated from high school. My job at the Wall Street Journal had ended, and I could not get a job anywhere else without at least two years experience. That's when I joined the Navy. I was seventeen then, so my parents had to sign for me to go. Then I was so busy the civilian financial situation didn't affect me at all.
What was your 1st job?
My first job was probably my paper route, age 11 through 14. The route was about 100 customers, and I had to buy it from the previous paper delivery boy. I made about 2 cents per daily paper and about 4 cents for Sunday papers (though not as many of those), enough to cover school lunches, music lessons and an occasional soda after school; also used it to pay for movies. We got about $7 total per week which was split with my sister and brother - they had small parts of the route close to home, while I went about 1 ˝ miles up the road. This money was in lieu of an allowance - we had to earn it. At 14, I worked as kitchen boy in a YMCA camp. I lived at the camp all summer, and washed dishes, assisted the cook, and was general all-around gofer. Got my room and board and a couple dollars per week (which I got stiffed on - the camp director said they were losing money and couldn't pay the kitchen crew).
At 15 I worked on a tobacco farm, where they grew shade-grown broadleaf that was used for outer wrappers on cigars (the tobacco was grown under cheesecloth tents that provided enough shade to protect the fragile leaves). I started by tying strings from the tent support wires to the seedlings; suckering (trimming small bottom leaves from stems); winding (as tobacco grew; wrap strings around stems to support plant); and finally, picking mature leaves. For this I got 30 cents an hour. Quit in mid-summer and got a job as dishwasher for Howard Johnson's restaurant on the I90 (Massachusetts Turnpike) for 75 cents an hour! This was good pay - my father made about $1.50 per hour as a skilled machinist. Because this was a paying job I had to pay room & board - $10 per week. At 16, I got a job as copy boy and wire services assistant with the Wall Street Journal, which was published in Chicopee Falls. The hours were from 1:00 to 9:00 PM, which fit in with our school schedule. My duties were to collect printed copy and encoded punched tape from the Associated Press teletype machines, bring the copy to the editors, and the encoded tapes to the automated Linotypers for conversion to blocks of type. When the blocks of type were done, I would ink the blocks and print galley proofs, take the proofs to the editors for correction, then back to the Linotype operators so they could correct the wording as necessary. I also did some proofreading and printed an occasional photo from the wire photo machine. This was the first job where I did something that mattered.
Was it hard to keep your grades up while working?
Not really, but as I had been doing chores and working since I was 12, I was used to it. Just a matter of scheduling for most stuff, but when high-school exams came I had to change my schedules around a lot. My sister and brother had to take over some of my chores.
Was working or your education more important?
They both were of equal importance. Education was first on everyone's list, so we were under a little pressure to excel. My grandparents were educated up to what we currently call middle school level, my parents and their siblings all graduated high school, and a few of my cousins and I went on to college. Everyone in our family was proud of us getting so far. Work was equally important for me. My parents started literally from scratch with no financial assistance, so I had to earn money to pay for everything beyond the basics: bicycle, music lessons and instruments, books, etc. Work also taught me to discipline myself; scheduling my own time to complete work, chores, and schoolwork.
Did you have time to interact with your sister or brother? If so, what did y'all do?
Yes. We were a closely knit family, and we were involved in each other's activities. There was nothing special that we did together - but I do recall we were into board games and jigsaw puzzles as a family thing, and I would use scraps of lumber from my father's carpentry job to make wooden toys for my brother and myself to play with.
What were holidays like in the 50s?
Almost everyone I knew celebrated in much the same manner. Holidays all were celebrated at home with the immediate family; then we all went to church. After church everyone congregated at the Grandparents houses. The priest and a couple altar boys came around before each religious holiday to bless the house and family, (and to sample the food and drink). When I was an altar boy I took my turn; I spent one afternoon before each holiday going around with the priest. I had to either carry incense and vials of holy water, or the big Polish-language bible (it was HEAVY). We went to my father's parents for Christmas Eve, then to my mother's parents for Christmas Day. Same thing for Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, except everything took place the same day which meant lunch at one place and supper at the other. This was a great time to visit with cousins who lived so far away that we only saw them on holidays. The cousins all gathered in one room and played games and stuff, while grown-ups did their thing - men in the kitchen and women in the living room. Holiday meals there were in two seatings: kids first, then adults. I was the oldest of the local cousins, and my grandfather sometimes would add a little extra rum flavoring to my eggnog (when nobody was looking, of course). Both grandmothers, a couple aunts and my mother made traditional Polish holiday foods. In later years my parents hosted the Christmas Eve festivities; I helped my mother prepare a lot of the foods, so now I make some of the foods for our holidays too.
What would you consider to be the highlights of the 1950s?
* Watching Queen Elizabeth's coronation on TV in school auditorium (live via transatlantic telephone cable - very poor quality picture, but interesting)
* Presidential Campaign - Dwight Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stevenson. Lots of vicious mudslinging in Gubernatorial and local-level campaigns. (Democrats were associated with communists, and Big Business was supposed to be the answer for everything. "What's good for General Motors is good for the USA." was the new Republican slogan.) Somebody flooded the schools with "I Like Ike" campaign buttons, and comic books showing Stalin and Lenin taking over the Capital building with help of liberal congressmen.
* Watching Eisenhower's Presidential Inauguration on school TV.
* Getting our own TV, so we didn't have to go down the street to a neighbor's house. (All of the kids in the neighborhood would gather to watch "Howdy Doody".)
* Watching
You said that a classmate had had polio, were you ever worried or scared that you might contract it?
Yes, but as with every other worry we didn't dwell on it. It affected us in several ways; the town closed down the local beach one summer because he had been swimming there, and they were afraid it would be contagious.
