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As we walk my “mile”,
the first business along
my route was literally
right out the door. My
father owned a wholesale
produce distribution
business that was
located behind our home.
Evolving out of a
business that he started
in Holyoke at the height
of the Great Depression,
a new warehouse was
build in 1953 (the year
I was born),
state-of-the-art at that
time, and expanded upon
5 years later. In later
years there were missed
opportunities, and
despite the fact that
the business was named
“Edward Pelland & Sons”,
there were no concrete
plans for succession,
and the business no
longer exists.
Diagonally across the
street, a home-based
hairdressing shop was
built in the early
1960’s. No doubt several
owners later, it still
is a hairdressing shop,
though presumably
serving an ever-aging
clientele. On the next
block came Du-Well
Products, a small
wholesaler of bleach and
cleaning products.
Another family-based
business with no
succession plan, the
building now appears to
be vacant although it
recently housed a Glass
Doctor windshield
replacement business. A
block in the other
direction, there were
two neighborhood
groceries (Roger’s Cash
Market and Milkay’s
Market) along with a
small Mobil gas station
and a hardware store.
The markets are long
gone (one has a sign
that says “Sue’s
Ceramics”), and the site
of the gas station was
later a Cumberland Farms
convenience store before
becoming the Highland
Farms convenience store
that is there today.
The F&M Hardware Store,
being almost across the
street, was one of my
childhood shopping
Meccas. More familiarly
known as Makowski’s
Hardware (the “M” of
“F&M”), it was run by a
friendly, old Polish
lady (who may have only
appeared to be old to a
7 year old) who was
endlessly patient with a
young customer whose
typical purchases might
consist of 10 nails or 2
nuts and 2 washers to
fit the two bolts that
were already contained
in my parts inventory.
Thanks to the gift
department at F&M
Hardware, I always had a
source for the perfect
birthday or Christmas
gifts for my parents and
siblings. It was amazing
how, if I only had a
dollar in my pocket,
that little gift for my
mom was suddenly marked
down to $1.00. Mrs.
Makowski (who had
legally changed her name
to McKay, although that
seemed too difficult for
me to remember) was the
patron saint of patience
and customer service,
whether or not she was
knowledgeable about
hardware. Of course, F&M
Hardware – at the time
one of two full-service
hardware stores within
my linear mile – has
long gone out of
business. When it first
closed, it became a
military recruitment
office, selling to a
slightly older customer
base. It is now occupied
by a small machine shop
known as General Burring. A neighborhood
loses a whole lot more
than just another small
business when it loses
its hardware store.
Back on the walk to
school, Gert’s
Laundromat served
families in the
neighborhood who didn’t
have their own clothes
washing machines. This
self-service laundry was
a pioneering concept at
the time when the
business was launched,
and it was followed next
door by another new
concept – a sequel of
sorts – Gert’s
Self-Service Car Wash.
(Those monsters that
took us out of our
neighborhoods needed to
be kept clean, and a
hose and a pail of soapy
water were just so
old-fashioned in the
atomic age.) The
laundromat has been long
vacant, and the car wash
was converted to an auto
repair shop years ago.
Less than a block from
Gert’s enterprises was
the home-based Cohen’s
Seltzer. Without a sign
out front, Meyer Cohen’s
business was somewhat
mysterious, a perception
that was certainly
helped by the fact that
the house was a dead
ringer for the one
occupied on TV at the
time by The Addams
Family. Cohen’s sold the
kind of refillable
seltzer bottles that
were Clarabelle’s
trademark on the Howdy
Doody Show. About all I
remember about this
business is that I got
the nerve to ring their
doorbell on Halloween
one year. The house was
in total darkness, and I
was given two black
jelly beans. The Cohens
were the only Jewish
people I’d meet until I
would go to college. The
house later appeared to
be converted to a
multi-family dwelling
and for a while had a
used car lot on the
premises. It has since
been restored to a
classic Victorian
residence.
Photos: Roger Talbot at
his father's service
station and an interior
view showing the penny
candy counter,
groceries, an old pay
phone, pinball machine,
and self-serve popcorn
machine.
Photos courtesy Yvette
(Talbot) Swol
On the next block, on
the corner of Artisan
Street, stood Talbot’s,
a small service station
that sold Esso Gasoline,
when “Esso” was an
acronym for “Standard
Oil” before it evolved
into the more
modern-sounding “Exxon”.
The site of Talbot’s
Service Station, as well
as the adjoining
residential housing at
the corner of Warregan
Street, became the
footprint for the
Willimansett Nursing
Home West in the 1970’s,
joining the original
Willimansett Nursing
Home that had displaced
one home and a vacant
lot across the street in
the late 1960’s. As the
neighborhood population
aged, it is no surprise
that there would be a
demand for new senior
care facilities.
On to the next block,
between Warregan and
Norman Streets, we have
a survivor of sorts.
Although there is no
sign identifying the
business, the Colonial
Cafe still appears to be
an old watering hole.
Also gone are the old
Hampden Beer & Ale signs
that glowed in the
small, out of reach
windows in my youth. I
presume that these
windows were intended to
conceal the identity of
the patrons who would
later stagger out the
door and be on their
own. In any event, not
much appears to have
changed. Further down
this same block came
Jorczak’s Pharmacy and
Serge’s Barber Shop,
occupying a duplex
storefront. Needless to
say, most neighborhood
pharmacies are long gone
and a throwback to the
days when doctors
prescribed paregoric for
babies with stomach
aches. At this time,
including the Rexall in
the opposite direction
from our house,
Willimansett had four
pharmacies.
Jorczak’s
was my favorite of those
pharmacies because
it had a soda fountain.
I recall one year when
Jorczak’s had a
pre-Christmas toy set on
display in its front
window. It did not
really have a name, but
I knew that I wanted
that X-500 space station
(just as much as Ralphie
in A Christmas Story
wanted one of those Red
Ryder BB guns). When it
remained on display on
Christmas Eve, I was
prepared for
disappointment, only to
find that there must
have been more than one
of those for sale in toy
stores. I remember that
it had a spring-loaded
Atlas rocket with a
capsule that could
contain either an
astronaut or a chimp,
and it had countless
switches and dials that
seemed super-futuristic.
There were also
spring-loaded rocket
launchers that were
modeled after the Nike
missiles of the day.
The combined space of
the pharmacy and the
barber shop (one of
three in Willimansett,
although now there are
none) has a sign that
reads “Interstate Custom
Kitchens”. I presume
that this is an active
business, although on a
recent drive-by, most of
the current storefronts
showed little, if any,
signs of life.
Soon after the pharmacy
and the barber shop came
Joe Archambault’s
Service Station. I can’t
recall with certainty
whether the red neon
sign promoted Mobil or
Flying A gasoline, the
logo for which depicted
Pegasus, the winged
horse. This location is
now the site of Izzy’s
Shop, which appears to
repair and sell cars
that have seen better
days. On this same block
and on the corner of
Nash Street came Jake’s
Restaurant. Jake’s was a
seasonal, window-service
purveyor of soft-serve
ice cream and sundaes,
as well as burgers,
fries, onion rings, and
foot-long hot dogs.
The opening of Jake’s
was a sure sign of
Spring each year. The
restaurant was owned by
Jake Schmidt, a
perennial candidate for
ward alderman who never
seemed to win an
election but never tired
of trying and probably
didn’t want to see the
signs and bumper
stickers from his first
campaign go to waste.
Jake’s would close each
year with the onset of
frost, just in time for
the campaign season and
the Halloween
window-soaping. Just as
teenagers in some towns
have made a tradition of
toilet-papering trees,
the older kids in Willimansett seemed to
have some sort of rite
of manhood that involved
soaping the windows at
Jake’s on Halloween.
Around 1962, management
was assumed by Jake’s
son, Brent Schmidt.
Brent expanded the
business in the 1960's,
enclosing the outdoor
seating and adding to
the menu, and also
opened a second location
in the new Fairfield
Mall. Jake’s and the
Fairfield Mall are now
both history, but a
restaurant has
consistently remained in
the original location. I guess that
Jennifer’s Kitchen
qualifies as a business
survivor of sorts.
(Thanks to Glenn Wegiel for
his assistance in
refreshing my memory and
providing additional
information about
Jake’s, where he worked
during the 1960's!)
At the halfway point in
my linear mile came
Lacroix’s Market &
Luncheonette, one of the
four family-owned
markets along the way.
The luncheonette had
counter service and
always seemed to be
busy, with one employee
– named Freddy – who
seemed to run a
three-ringed circus.
Unlike Mrs. Makowski,
Freddy did not like
kids. Lacroix’s was also
a U.S. Post Office
substation and,
therefore, the place
where I had to buy
stamps and mail small
parcels, back in the
golden age of mail order
and foreign pen pals.
Freddy was also the
postal clerk, manning
the window at the far
end of the lunch
counter. Although at the
time it seemed that he
specialized in ignoring
my presence and making
postal customers wait
for service, it was
probably difficult to
break away to sell
stamps when you were a
short order cook and had
several meals that could
burn on the grill.
Freddy and I had a
mutual dislike for one
another. He didn’t like
me stopping in twice a
week, on my way home
from school, to buy
three 4¢ stamps, and I
didn’t like the fact
that he seemed incapable
of separating stamps
along their
perforations. I seem to
recall telling him once
that I did not want to
buy torn stamps and that
I thought it was a
felony offense for him
to be so intentionally
careless with federal
property. I believe that
he chased me out of the
luncheonette and told me
never to come back. That
long story aside,
Lacroix’s continued into
the 1990’s with a market
and luncheonette. The
luncheonette was later
expanded into the entire
space. Two owners later,
it re-opened as
Lacroix’s Restaurant
in 2008. It adapted to a
changing market, and we
have an indirect
survivor. (There was a very small shop at the end of Lacroix’s building. It may have been a dry cleaner at one time. It is now Cheryl’s Cuts & Curls, a small hairdressing shop.)
This photo, provided by
Bill Santy, was taken in July of 2013.
It depicts several of the gentlemen who “hung around Lacroix’s during the 1950s”,
most of whom lived near the Y in Willimansett in the 40s and 50s.
Older than I was at the time, most were born between 1939 and 1942.
Standing, left to right: Ed (Sonny) Gingras, Bob Rainville, George Cartier, Don Robitaille,
Frank Tatro, Ren Gladu, Len Sabourin, Bill Santy, and Gerry Robinson.
Sitting, left to right: Bob Garstka, Fran Robidoux, Brent Schmidt, Norm Avey, George Como, and Charlie Albano.
Click on the photo for a larger version.
The next business after
Lacroix’s was
Masse’s Fish Market.
The neon signs at
Masse’s flashed “Fresh
Fish – Fried Fish”, and
there were probably 20
or 25 customers lined up
for take-out orders on
any given Friday. That
level of business
markedly changed when
fish markets everywhere
were dealt a deadly blow
by the Vatican. It was
at this time that the
Second Vatican Council
decided that Catholics
were free to eat meat on
Fridays. There were
three churches in
Willimansett: St.
Anthony of Padua (the
Catholic parish that
served the Polish
population), the Church
of the Nativity (the
parish that served the
French Canadian
population), and St.
Mary’s (the Catholic
parish that served the
Irish population) …
clearly the days before
ecumenism and a shortage
of clergy forced
integration. The math
was clear. This was not
a good time to be
running a fish market in
Willimansett, but
Masse’s adapted to the
sudden decline in
demand. Although there
is only a parking lot at
the site of the original
Masse’s Fish Market
today, the business
moved to Memorial Drive
(in the Fairview section
of Chicopee), where it
opened a much larger,
new seafood restaurant
that appears to be
thriving today, when
many people have
increased their
consumption of seafood
as a healthier
alternative to meat. By
adapting to the times
and moving to a location
with much higher
vehicular traffic,
Masse’s Fish Market has
been a success story,
although a loss for
Willimansett.
After Masse’s came the
Frontenac Club, another
tavern, set back from
the road a distance,
with a long canopied
walkway to its entrance.
Years earlier, in the
1920’s and ’30’s, this
had been the location of
the Holyoke Mirror
Works, owned by my
maternal grandfather,
Donat Gauthier. Today
this commercial property
is vacant, although the
apartments on the upper
floors are probably
occupied by tenants.
Across the street is the
old Chapin School, the
City of Chicopee’s large
public school serving
the Willimansett
neighborhood. My only
memories of Chapin
School are that its
students seemed fond of
starting fights with
necktie-wearing Mount
Carmel students who
crossed their paths, and
the school’s crossing
guard, a retired member
of the Chicopee Police
Department who wore an
auxiliary uniform and
refused to help children
from the Catholic school
use the crosswalk. In a
way, he was far ahead of
his time, having
actually originated the
phrase, “That’s not my
job.” Today, Chapin
School is closed and
apparently vacant,
although other schools
from its era have been
converted to
condominiums or other
alternate uses. My guess
is that Willimansett is
not a vibrant
condominium market and
that renovation would
probably be costly and
involve some degree of
environmental
mitigation.
Continuing our route
beyond Chapin School, we
unofficially enter the
“Y” neighborhood and a
transition to an
increasingly Hispanic
demographic. Just beyond
the Chapin School, but
on the opposite side of
the street, is the site
of the Aubuchon Paint
Store. Aubuchon closed
years ago and is now
occupied by the Iglesia
Fuente de Salvacion
Misionera. After
Aubuchon Paint came
Perrault’s Market, one
of the four markets in
Willimansett at the time
and also a family-owned
business, as its name
would imply. It also
closed years ago and is
now occupied by the
Iglesia Movimento
Misionero Mundial. In
the interim years, it
had been a square
dancing club. Opposite
Perrault’s Market, and
occupying the inner
point of the “Y” itself,
was the “Y” Garage, a
service station that had
been built by one of my
uncles, Rheo Gagne, and
was being run at the
time by his sons, Rheo
Jr. and Robert. Although
the gasoline pumps
(Gulf, I recall) came
out years before lead
came out of the
gasoline, this garage is
still in business under
the name of Chicopee
Tire & Auto. Auto
repair, along with the
sale of used cars, makes
sense in Willimansett
today.
Across from the “Y”
Garage was the small
campus of the old
Hampden College of
Pharmacy. Built in the
days before pharmacists
simply counted pills and
transferred
pharmaceuticals from
large bottles to small
bottles, these somewhat
ramshackle old wooden
buildings fascinated me,
with their windows
showing lab tables
covered with beakers,
flasks, and test tubes.
The Hampden College of
Pharmacy closed at some
point in
the 1960’s, absorbed by the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS University) in Boston, with the
buildings demolished and
replaced by the
apartments that still
occupy the site today.
As we enter the base of
the “Y”, after Meadow
Street ends, the largest
building on the East
side of Chicopee Street,
just beyond Rivers Park,
is the site of the old
Willow Theater,
named after the weeping
willow tree that grew
next to the theater at
the edge of its parking
lot. The Willow, not
surprisingly, was
Willimansett’s only
movie theater. Sadly, it
closed early in the
1960’s, years prior to
its counterparts in
Chicopee Falls (the
Falls Theater) and
Chicopee Center (the
Rivoli Theater). Of
course, there were many
more old theaters in
Holyoke and Springfield.
It is difficult to
convert theaters to
alternate uses because
the sloping floors must
be rebuilt. For a time
after closing, the
Willow became the home
of Ray’s Super Market,
which briefly brought
Willimansett’s food
market count up to five,
but probably also helped
to force the closure of
nearby Perrault’s
Market. How many markets
could Willimansett
support? Ray’s Super
Market was owned by Ray
Desrochers and had a
fair number of
employees, perhaps half
of whom were family
members. Ray’s first
market was located in
Aldenville, where it was
fairly successful, at a
time when neighborhood
food markets were not
yet losing their market
share. The only real
supermarket “chain” in
the area at this time
was the A&P, plus buying
cooperatives like First
National, ShurFine, and
Sweet Life that mostly
served the real mom and
pop stores. Perhaps
encouraged to expand by
the owner of the leased
property in Aldenville
(Edward Lieberman, who
not coincidentally was
also the owner of the
Willow Theater), rather
than market research,
Ray’s Market was a
short-lived failure at
its second location and
closed after a few years
of losses. Perhaps Ray’s
Super Market saw this
expansion as an
opportunity to follow in
the footsteps of The Big
Y, which was in the
early stages of its own
successful growth and
expansion, but that was
not to be. The former
Willow Theater is now
occupied by the Grace
Slavic
Pentecostal Church. Even
Ray’s Market in
Aldenville eventually
closed, to become the
home of a carpet and
flooring business that
only needed to change
two of the letters in
the big neon sign out
front to transform from
“RAYS” to “RUGS”.
The main commercial
district at the “Y” ran
for one block along the
West side of Chicopee
Street between John
Street and Whitman
Street. Businesses in
here at the time
included Lapite’s Sweet
Shoppe (which sold
Russell Stover candies
and Hallmark cards,
along with a counter of
penny candy which made
it a mandatory stop on
the way home from
school). At the time,
Lapite's was probably
the defining mom and pop
small business at the
“Y”, run by owners Art
and Connie Lapite. Not
only did they work long
hours, I do not recall
there being a single
employee other than the
owners themselves, who
actually lived in the
house that was attached
to the rear of the Sweet
Shoppe. Lapite’s is now
vacant and appears to be
in a state of disrepair.
Also in this block were
a branch office of
Holyoke National Bank,
long closed and now
occupied by a Liberty
Tax Service office. (At
least the location still
deals in financial
matters of sorts, but
this is clearly not a
survivor, with the
parent bank itself no
longer in existence.) A
couple doors down was
the office of the
Willimansett Credit
Union, also not only
closed but no longer in
existence. At a time
when banks were expected
to have their own
parking lots and
drive-up windows,
banking with street-side
parking in neighborhoods
like Willimansett could
not possibly survive.
Other businesses in this
stretch of real estate,
at various times during
the 1960’s – and now all
closed – included Riopel’s Hardware, the
“Y” Cafe (ironically one
of the last survivors),
the “Y” Package Store
(the neighborhood liquor
store which no doubt
sold a good deal of
Hampden Ale and Beer),
the “Y” Barber Shop,
Littlejohn’s Jeweler,
the “Y” Fruit Company
(better known as
Caproni’s Luncheonette,
or simply as Cappie’s,
after its owners, Aldo
and Tillie Caproni), and the
“Y” Pharmacy (also
perhaps better known by
the name of its owners
as Fisher’s Drug Store).
Literally across Whitman
Street from the “Y”
Pharmacy was the
competing Valliere
Pharmacy, which shared a
duplex storefront with a
small record shop, but
both of these businesses
closed when the building
was taken for the
Nativity church parking
lot in the early 1960’s. There was an easily
distinguished pattern
with these businesses,
each known as well or
better by the name its
owners than by the name
of the business itself,
and most of those
owners’ surnames were
French Canadian.
In several instances,
such as Lapite’s,
Riopel’s and
Littlejohn’s, the
business names and the
owners’ names were one
and the same. That was
the nature of the
business community at
that time. There were
small businesses like
these, and then there
were the factories of
Holyoke, Springfield,
Chicopee, and Chicopee
Falls. Interestingly,
few of either the small
or big businesses of the
time have survived. The
former
business locations at
the “Y” now
present a mix of vacant
properties and the Assembléia de Deus, the
Ministério na Unçáo,
Natural Tasté Hair
Boutique, Custom Cuts,
and the Wang Garden
Chinese Restaurant. The
Riopel’s Hardware
location was recently
occupied by a Sprint
store, and the
storefront next to the
old “Y” Pharmacy was
recently occupied by
Jackson Hewitt Tax
Service.
The opposite side of
Chicopee Street, just
beyond the Willow
Theater, consisted of
more multi-family
residential properties
than businesses,
although a few shared
the characteristic of
presenting walk-in
retail and service
businesses at street
level. These included,
Hugard’s Barber Shop and
a Norwood Dairy Store
(the precursor of
Cumberland Farms). Down
a side street were a
small bait shop and the
equally small Rondeau’s
Shoe Repair (run, of
course, by old Mr.
Rondeau). A few blocks
further down the street
was Knightly’s Pharmacy,
for a total of 5 drug
stores within less than
one and a half miles on
the West side of
Chicopee Street, from
the Rexall to
Knightly’s. (Thanks to
Pierre St. Germain for
his assistance in
helping me to complete
some of the missing
pieces within these last
two paragraphs!)
Also in this stretch of
small businesses on the
east side of Chicopee
Street, just north of
the “Y” was Monty’s
Toys, the only toy store
in Willimansett.
(Thanks to Mark Marchand
for refreshing my
memory!) Monty’s
Toys was founded by Dolf
and Mary Montemagni and
later run by Dolf’s
brother Ed, who
apparently drove the
business into
bankruptcy. The toy
business evolved into
the furniture business
with Monty’s Furniture,
then got into the rug
business with Baystate
Rug Company, in
Aldenville. Remember how
the sign at RAYS Market
had two letters changed
to become RUGS? That was
Baystate Rugs. Monty’s
was fascinating to young
kids, not only because
of the toy displays but
because it was known as
the place that sold
semi-legal sparklers and
illegal fireworks every
month of June. This
would lead up to the
Fourth of July, when the
Chicopee police would go
through the motions of a
routine confiscation of
the contraband a couple
days before the holiday
(but after most of it
had been sold.) I recall
at least one instance of
setting of some of those
fireworks in the
backyard of one of my
uncles, who was a
detective in the
Chicopee Police
Department. I also
remember sheepishly
stopping in to Monty’s
one year and asking if
he had any fireworks for
sale, with visions of
Roman candles dancing in
my head. Ed Montemagni
told me that he did not
have any fireworks for
me (wink, wink) but to
send my father in.
(Thanks to Michael and
Jon Montemagni, sons of
Dolf and Mary, for
assistance in improving
the accuracy of the
Monty’s Toys story.)
Beyond Whitman Street
and Valliere’s Pharmacy was
the red brick Church of
the Nativity, a historic
building that was all
too willingly offered up
for demolition to
accommodate the elevated
highway of
Interstate 391 that
would, perhaps more than
any other single factor,
lead to the permanent
dissection of downtown
Willimansett. This
original Nativity Church
had a tall steeple,
balconies, and a
basement auditorium that
served as the location
for meetings of the
parish’s Boy Scout Troop
424, the League of the
Sacred Heart (a Catholic
men’s organization), and
the Holy Name Sodality
(the women’s
equivalent). This church
was considered such a
permanent landmark that
there was actually a
U.S. Coast and Geodetic
Survey marker (typically
located on mountain
peaks such as nearby Mt.
Tom, in Holyoke) located
in the steeple. Despite
the positive thinking of
the U.S. Coast and
Geodetic Survey (which
itself no longer exists,
incorporated into the
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric
Administration, in
1970), the site
of the church is now
occupied by the highway,
a small parking lot, and
a few park benches.
Ironically, the logic
for the parking lot was
to provide convenient
access for the
businesses that the
highway would only
bypass and help to kill.
Unfortunately, there was
little to no opposition
to either the demolition
of the church or the
construction of the
highway that was
supposed to help to
revitalize downtown
Holyoke, which was
already well into its
own decline at the time.
In every respect, this
Interstate highway spur
has been a total
failure. Adding further
to the travesty, the
“new” Church of the
Nativity was slated for
closure by the Diocese
of Springfield in the
Fall of 2009, a
financial casualty of
the combination of
declining enrollments, a
shortage of clergy, and
massive settlements paid
to the victims of sexual
abuse (primarily altar
boys from this time
period). That
short-lived “new” Church
of the Nativity is now
occupied by Legacy
Church, and the former
St. Mary’s church a
couple blocks further
down the road is now La
Senda Antigua. Back in the
1960’s, prior to the
decline in vocations,
there were almost always
three priests in the
Nativity parish (the pastor and
two curates), who lived
in the rectory next
door, as well as perhaps
20 or 25 nuns who lived
in the parish’s nearby
convent on St. Louis
Avenue.
Next door to the church
and rectory
was my daily
destination, the
parish’s Mount Carmel
School, a yellow brick
building built in the
second decade of the
twentieth century. Mount
Carmel was the parochial
school that served
families in the
Willimansett and
Fairview sections of
Chicopee, as well as
families from Westover
Air Force Base. I
enjoyed my years at
Mount Carmel School. The
Sisters of the
Presentation of Mary
were far friendlier than
the Sisters of Saint
Joseph, to whom I would
be subjected in my far
less enjoyable high
school years. During my
nine years of
attendance, the school
changed significantly.
The kindergarten was
eliminated soon after I
attended that pre-school
grade, as were the
parish carnivals that
were held in the front
schoolyard each year.
One constant was the
school custodian, Mr. Giguere, who had none of
the cranky attitude of
the crossing card at
Chapin School down the
road. He clearly liked
kids, and he seemed to
wear a multitude of hats
within the parish,
including the school,
church, rectory, and
convent. As the school
custodian, he seemed to
be responsible for just
about everything,
including maintenance,
repairs, cleaning,
feeding the enormous
coal furnace in the
basement, and serving as
the school crossing
guard three times a day.
As a crossing guard in
the early 1960’s, he was
assisted by a network of
“patrol boys” from the
upper grades. Patrol
boys were student
crossing guards,
identified by their
white belts and badges,
part of a program that
originated with the
American Automobile
Association back in the
1920’s and which
remained popular for
many years in cities
throughout the United
States. As a first
grader, I couldn’t wait
to be a patrol boy, but,
alas, the program would
come to an end at the
school long before I
reached the upper
grades. Along with an
end to the patrol boys
and parish carnivals, in
subsequent years,
enrollment declined,
nuns were replaced by
lay teachers, and the
school closed. The
school was sold by the
parish in 2006, and it
now serves as the
headquarters of the
Valley Opportunity
Council, a social
service agency with a
variety of programs that
serves the needs of
25,000 people in Hampden
County. The modern
replacement for the
demolished Church of the
Nativity was built in
the front school yard
when the property was
still functioning as
Mount Carmel School.
Just beyond the school
was the Willimansett
branch of the Chicopee
Public Library. As might
be guessed, the branch
library was closed
several years ago. Its
former location is now
occupied by a business
called “Games & Stuff”.
Maybe, just maybe, some
of those games can help
to develop reading
skills. Across the
street from the school
was Yvonne Hamel’s Music
Studio (owned and
operated, of course, by
Yvonne Hamel) and
Brunelle’s Funeral Home
(owned and operated by
the Brunelles). Both Yvonne
Hamel and her music
school are long gone,
and the building is now
occupied by the
Willimansett precinct of
the Chicopee Police
Department. With extreme
irony, while almost the
entire small business
community of
Willimansett has died
and disappeared,
Brunelle’s Funeral Home
remains one of the
singular survivors. In the early
1960’s, Willimansett’s
“Y” neighborhood had two
schools, two banking
institutions, a library,
a music school, a
pharmacological
institute, a small but
vibrant business
district, and it didn’t
need a police
department.
Next, we will speculate
upon the
root causes of
these changes,
surmise
how changes for the
worse may be overturned,
and see how similar
declines might be
prevented from occurring
elsewhere. |
