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Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
Postcards from Falmouth Oral History Transcript
Recorded: June 30, 2021
Oral Historian: Nancy Eldridge, Camille Beale
Interviewer: Barbara Kanellopoulos
Topic: Falmouth Main Street in the 1900s
Note: The right column references postcards by identifiers searchable in the Digital
Commonwealth online collection.
00:00
[Music]
00:44
welcome to the Falmouth Public Library's
00:47
oral history project I’m Barbara
00:50
Kanellopoulos and with me are our oral
00:54
historians Nancy Eldridge and Cam Beale
00:58
who are going to tell us stories that
01:01
along with the historic postcards will
01:04
give us an idea of what Main Street in
#mainstreet
Gunning_Village_Sts_0017 through
0041
01:07
Falmouth looked like in the mid-1900s
01:12
Cam
01:13
Cam you arrived here in Falmouth in the
01:16
mid 50s and and married Falmouth
01:19
resident
01:21
Barry Beale whose parents owned
01:24
the Beale’s Shoe Store on Main Street and
01:27
Nancy you came to Falmouth
01:30
around 1940 as a child and you lived on
01:34
Main Street in fact Main Street was your
01:37
playground
1
#bealesshoestore
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
01:39
so I’ll turn to Cam first to tell us how
01:42
has uh how has Main Street changed over
01:45
the years well surprisingly Barbara it
01:47
really hasn't changed very much
01:50
from the mid-1900s the
01:53
buildings around the village green and
01:55
the center of Falmouth really
01:59
you would recognize them if you
02:01
looked at those postcards they look
02:02
pretty much the same as they do in the
02:05
postcards so the buildings have not
02:07
changed very much some of them have been
02:10
expanded some have been downsized for
02:13
them for
02:15
mostly
02:16
the town is the same
02:18
the town hall was
02:21
in the center of town and it was
02:24
on the Noonan Park site
02:27
that we use today
02:29
and it was
02:32
and behind it was the police station
02:35
and the police station overlooked
02:37
Shiverick’s Pond
#falmouthvillagegreen
#townhall
#pegnoonanpark
#shiverickspond
Gunning_Village_Pnd_0120
through 146
Hunt_Village_Pnd_128 through 135
02:39
and of course Katharine Lee Bates Road
2
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
02:40
wasn't there at that time
02:43
and
02:44
so the Shiverick’s kind of
02:47
really came up behind those buildings
02:49
fairly close
02:52
the story goes that
02:56
Shiverick’s used to freeze over in the
02:58
winter time and they used it to skate on
03:01
like three to five weeks during the
03:03
winter
03:05
and
03:06
there was a policeman named White
03:09
and he was
03:11
quite a big man and he would go out onto
03:13
the pond and stand on the middle
03:16
of the ice and
03:18
deem it safe or not safe to
03:21
to skate on
03:23
and
03:24
one day my husband Barry
03:26
eight or nine years old went out onto
03:29
the pond
03:30
unbeknownst to anyone
03:32
hadn't been checked out
03:34
and
03:35
a policeman coming back from being on
03:37
duty saw him and went down got him off
3
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
03:40
the ice called his dad at the shoe store
03:43
his dad arrived at the police station
03:46
and they
03:47
read the riot act to Barry Beale yes yes
03:50
it was a personal time people took care
03:53
of each other yes and uh I see Nancy you
03:56
certainly were very aware of the
04:00
visibility of the police on Main Street
04:04
yes indeed I was and everyone in town
04:09
kind of knew everyone else and
04:13
I
04:14
um
04:16
when I first
04:17
know when I first learned how to drive
04:21
I learned
04:22
how to drive
04:23
and I was driving very well by the time
04:25
I was 15.
04:27
and one day for some reason I was sent
04:30
to do an errand while
04:34
using the car
04:35
at the age of 15 and I drove out on Main
04:39
Street and
04:41
there was the traffic policeman standing
04:44
as they used to in a circle in the
04:46
middle of the
04:47
Main Street
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
04:49
that
04:51
and of course as I
04:53
tootled on by driving my car at 15
04:58
uh the policeman
05:00
was it uh Elmer Wright by any chance now
05:03
Elmer White that was what I thank you
05:06
for reminding me that was it Elmer White
05:08
yelled
05:09
hey what are you doing driving that car
05:12
you're only 15 of course he knew
05:14
exactly how old I was he knew who I was
05:19
yes
05:20
but that was as far as it went I waved
05:23
and smiled and
05:25
yes yes
05:26
and
05:27
so and the high school was right there I
05:30
understand and that was the high school
05:32
you went to
05:33
I did indeed the red wood shingled
05:37
building with the belfry in the top was
05:39
my high school
05:41
we were
05:43
supposed to be the first class to
05:47
graduate from the new high school which
05:49
was being built across Shiverick’s Pond
05:52
which is now the middle school
#lawrenceschool
5
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
05:55
but the truth
05:57
like all buildings it didn't get
05:59
finished in time so we were the last
06:01
class
06:02
to graduate from the old wood shingle
06:05
building on
06:07
right on Main Street and it was
06:11
it was an
06:12
interesting building yes I understand
06:15
there's a plaque on Main Street next to
06:18
a stone that commemorates that that's
06:21
where the old high school was
06:23
and um
06:25
and so Main Street then um
06:28
had had
06:30
markets markets for food shops
06:32
yeah they did there were three markets
06:34
that I remember when I came to town one
06:37
of them was the A&P
06:39
that was in the center of town
06:41
the other was the First National and
06:43
that was across the street from what is
06:46
now Barbo’s but it was W.C. Davis at that
06:49
time it was furniture store
06:52
and the third one was a specialty shop
06:56
it was
06:58
called Ten Acre
#tenacre
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
06:59
and it catered to the summer people oh
07:02
yes yeah
07:03
Hollis Lovell owned it
07:05
and he hired a number of high school and
07:08
college students to work summers
07:10
and they have I’m sure
07:12
a lot of happy memories doing that
07:14
um also my memory is of the donut
07:17
machine in the window or in the front I
07:20
can't remember whether it was in the
07:21
window or the front of the store but
07:23
anyway every they wheeled it out every
07:26
uh Saturday
07:27
and it made those you know plain greasy
07:30
donuts
07:32
they put the mixture in it would plop
07:34
the donuts down into the grease they'd
07:36
bob around and turn around when they
07:39
were cooked it would automatically lift
07:41
them out and drain the grease from them
07:43
and then somebody would pick them up
07:45
through the donut holes and put them
07:47
into a bag yummy plain donuts
07:51
greasy yes delicious it sounds like
07:54
just watching this machine must have
07:56
been entertainment for the town yeah
07:59
right line up right
7
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
08:01
and
08:03
entertainment
08:05
makes me think of
08:06
Nancy you remember a movie house on
Main
08:10
Street oh I certainly do I remember both
08:12
of them but the there was a
08:15
um the Elizabeth Theater which was right
#elizabeththeater
Gunning_Village_Sts_0025
08:18
on Main Street and is now the
08:20
location from I believe Maxwells
08:23
department store or
08:25
clothing store
08:27
and
08:29
they ran movies every single day and
08:32
evening
08:34
and I lived right next door to it so I
08:36
always knew what movie was playing and I
08:39
saw many of them but
08:42
they always had a cowboy movie on
08:45
Saturdays
08:47
and
08:48
good first run movies that ran on
08:51
Sundays and Mondays and double features
08:54
on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
08:57
don't remember what was on Friday but
08:59
always a cowboy movie on Saturday yes
09:02
and do you remember how much
8
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
09:04
admission
09:06
well as a child up till 12
09:10
and actually I got past 12 because I
09:12
wasn't very tall and didn't look 12.
09:15
I paid 10 cents plus 2 cents tax and I
09:20
think the the adult
09:22
um
09:23
charge was under a dollar
09:26
it must have been a place where all the
09:29
children went uh while their parents
09:31
were shopping on me
09:33
I would go shopping at the First
09:35
National and then I would come back and
09:38
say to the ticket lady I’m going to go
09:39
in and check on my children and she'd
09:41
say oh go ahead and tell the usher and
09:44
he'd let you go down talk to the kids
09:46
are you doing okay yeah fine all right
09:48
see you at the end and uh yeah for sure
09:51
it was yes yes yes it seems uh
09:54
that Main Street was just so homey it
09:58
seems at that at that time
10:00
and uh
10:02
of course there was um sometimes
10:04
entertainment even in the businesses how
10:07
about uh
10:09
the place called Harvey’s
#harveyshardware
9
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
10:11
somebody asked me about Harvey’s the
10:13
other day
10:15
we were at a I don't know where we were
10:17
but she said do you remember Harvey’s and
10:19
the animals and I said oh yes
10:22
Harvey had a monkey there he had that
10:24
monkey there all year long and it was
10:26
inside
10:28
and he had a Christmas time for at least
10:31
a couple of years I don't know how long
10:33
it went on but he had reindeer and sheep
10:36
now I can't remember whether they were
10:38
penned inside or whether they were
10:40
penned outside but it was a whole
10:42
different time it was an innocent time
10:44
and people and he used it crowds came
10:47
look at the reindeer it was yes and in
10:50
addition to looking it was a hardware
10:52
store it was a hardware store and Harvey
10:55
Martin owned it and he'd bring some of
10:57
his farm animals in from Hatchville
11:00
right and off and on throughout the year
11:02
but the one I remember the most is the
11:04
reindeer and Christmas yes yes
11:07
and
11:08
Nancy I understand that we had a five and
11:11
dime that you're quite familiar with
10
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
11:14
um yes well it was almost across the
11:18
street from where I lived
11:21
and
11:22
it was called Newberry’s and
#jjnewberrys
Gunning_Village_Sts_0025
11:25
it really did have things that were
11:29
5 and 10 cents um
11:32
if you can imagine it most of them were
11:34
a dollar or under
11:36
and actually when I was a teenager at
11:39
Christmas time
11:42
I actually got a job working there for a
11:45
couple of weeks to earn Christmas money
11:48
which was a treat for me and one of my
11:51
first jobs
11:53
now as I recall five and dimes used to
11:57
have lunch counters too it did have a
12:00
lunch counter and um
12:03
I think that a lot of people would come
12:06
in to have their lunch there are
12:08
merchants who were working on Main
12:11
Street
12:12
and that was consisted of
12:14
maybe a hot dog or something exactly
12:17
they were very
12:20
uh you know lunches under a dollar right
12:24
I see I see
11
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
12:26
can I just tell you about one store that
12:28
was kind of interesting yes yes on the
12:31
corner of Walker
12:33
there were you know where the ice cream
12:35
place is now
12:36
there was a store called the Store of
12:38
Three Wonders
12:39
and if you go to those postcards you'll
12:42
see that store
12:44
and you will see white sheets of paper
12:46
in the window because he used to put the
12:48
sale items
12:49
on the
12:51
white sheets of paper and post them I
12:53
see sort of handwritten signs
12:55
and it the three wonders were “you wonder
12:58
if I have it
13:00
I wonder where it is
13:02
and everybody wonders how I found it”
13:06
and it was kind of a precursor to Job
13:08
Lot I think because he had kind of
13:11
you know the tail end of inventories
13:14
that he had purchased I suspected
13:16
anything you needed in a hurry you could
13:18
probably find there yes yes yeah right
13:21
that that's that's charming then they
13:23
were also um
#storeofthreewonders
12
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
13:26
what did people do about clothing uh
13:29
well there were no malls no no no no
13:32
malls and there were clothing stores
13:34
where you could buy adult clothing
13:37
Malchman’s was mostly women's clothes
13:40
they did have some men but mostly women
13:42
Isaacson’s
13:45
was a clothing store for mostly men's
13:48
clothing
13:49
and Butner’s carried clothing they
13:52
carried
13:53
all kinds of things curtains they were
13:55
more of a department store they had
13:58
collectibles
13:59
but
14:00
a lot of people who wanted to buy
14:02
clothing for their youngsters
14:04
would get the ferry
14:06
in Woods Hole and go over to New Bedford
14:10
and they would purchase their
14:12
maybe school clothing for September yes
14:15
from
14:16
Cherry & Webb
14:18
and the story goes that Mrs. Beale Ruth
14:22
took Barry over one day
14:24
got the ferry went to New Bedford picked
14:27
out school clothing he wasn't feeling so
#ferry
13
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
14:30
great they got back on the ferry to come
14:32
home and by the time he got off he had
14:35
chickenpox and of course two days later
14:38
he was an item in the Enterprise
14:41
you know that he had gotten the
14:42
chickenpox on his his trip to New
14:45
Bedford for school clothing
14:47
I remember making that school that was
14:50
school shopping
14:52
yes
14:54
and perhaps Cherry & Webb was a bit
14:56
more economical indeed it was yes
14:59
and had a greater selection yes yes yes
15:02
that's true
15:04
and um
15:05
and so we have um
15:08
interesting that
15:10
that the stores reflected what people
15:12
needed and what people were doing at the
15:14
time for example the you spoke of a
15:18
linen store that had embroidery
15:21
and
15:22
the kinds of things that women who were
15:24
doing handcrafts
15:26
could go to for supplies exactly and my
15:30
mother was one of their best customers
15:32
because she was never without needlework
14
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
15:36
she
15:36
knitted and crocheted constantly
15:40
had did it so well that she could
15:43
read a book while doing it and
15:47
that so as I say she was Jane Russell’s
15:50
best customer yes yes I remember buying
15:53
my gloves there for when I was married
15:58
and I went in and she had all these
16:00
boxes with gloves in it and then she
16:03
took out one short long medium which one
16:06
do you want
16:07
took them out I got the short ones she
16:09
put them out on the counter
16:11
you know laid them out lovely and I
16:14
purchased my gloves I wore the short
16:16
gloves so that's so interesting because
16:19
there was a time when gloves were
16:22
important items in a woman's wardrobe
16:24
and hats and hats as well right gloves
16:27
and hats you always had to have a pair
16:29
of white gloves
16:31
wear to church yes yes interesting
16:33
interesting and then there was um your
16:37
uh
16:38
in-laws shoe store right at the Beale Shoe
16:42
Store right Granny Beale
16:44
Granny right he was called Granny
#granvillebeale
15
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
16:46
because his name was Granville and
16:48
everybody in town called him Granny
16:50
Beale
16:51
he was on the Board of Trade which is
16:54
now the Chamber of Commerce
16:56
he was
16:57
on the board of the Salvation Army and
16:59
he was quite active in town and
17:02
and in politics yes um he
17:06
is however the shoe store is really
17:08
quite well known for
17:10
the x-ray machine an x-ray machine oh
17:13
yes
17:14
it was uh
17:16
considered really a babysitter of the
17:19
day because people would go into Mrs.
17:22
Weeks’ shop which was next door and send
17:24
their children in to gaze down through
17:27
the x-ray machine to see the bones in
17:29
their feet
17:30
I’m not sure that that would be
17:32
appropriate today no
17:35
uh so that was uh
17:38
the interesting part of that and Nancy
17:40
you have a really interesting story
17:42
about uh Granny yeah yes um yes I
17:47
lived
16
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
17:48
in an old apartment building that is no
17:51
longer there now right behind the shoe
17:54
store
17:56
by the back entrance of the shoe store
17:59
I’m sure you used to have fun
18:01
with the x-ray machine
18:04
I did but it didn't come along until I
18:07
was older it wasn't there when I was a
18:10
young child it was more like when I was
18:12
a teenager but I did use it a lot and
18:15
play with it nevertheless what it
18:18
faceted fascinated me as a teenager so
18:21
yes um so I’m sure that I had my
18:25
good dose of x-ray
18:28
and
18:29
but I
18:30
was
18:32
very fortunate in
18:35
Granny Beale was a very kind and gentle
18:37
and wonderful man and and I would bop in
18:41
and out the back door of the shoe store
18:45
often I bopped in and out of
18:48
many of the Main Street stores because I
18:51
lived right there
18:53
near them or by them or behind them
18:55
right next to them
18:57
and
17
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
19:00
he
19:04
I
19:06
my mother was a single parent and I my I
19:10
was rough on shoes and so my shoes
19:13
didn't always
19:14
look so good even though she tried to
19:17
keep they always fit
19:19
but they didn't always look pretty
19:22
and
19:22
um
19:24
every
19:25
now and then at least once a year
19:29
um
19:30
we would get a note
19:32
or a message from Granny Beale
19:35
that there was a an old gentleman who
19:39
would like
19:40
me to have a new pair of shoes
19:44
and so I was to come in and choose a
19:46
pair
19:47
and it was always an old kind old
19:51
gentleman
19:52
he might we might have assumed he was
19:55
rich
19:56
or maybe
19:58
that was part of his description but I
20:00
always went in and picked out
18
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
20:03
any pair of shoes in the store that I
20:05
wanted from of course it
20:08
took
20:09
I was out of college before I figured
20:11
out it was Granny Beale who was the kind
20:14
old man no no mysterious benefactor it
20:18
was Granny Beale yeah it was um
20:21
um yes that um
20:24
the people it was more personal once
20:25
it's much more personal the smaller
20:27
population people tend to
20:29
yes
20:31
yes
20:32
and then I um have heard mention of
20:36
an exciting place in town called the
20:38
Smith Surrey Room yeah that was quite
#smithsoldesurreyroom
Gunning_Village_Bldg_0384
20:40
active during the war actually and after
20:42
the war too and we used to go from ‘53 on
20:47
but they he Dan Smith owned it
20:50
and he would have a
20:53
what they called the annual venison
20:57
dinner
20:58
and he would invite all his hunting
21:01
buddies and some dignitaries from the
21:03
town but mostly people from Main Street
21:07
and they would go down there and have a
#danielsmith
19
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
21:09
night out and enjoy
21:11
their catch 10 more minutes
21:15
so I just remember that and I remember
21:18
the special
21:20
that
21:21
that um
21:23
that
21:24
he they had there and it was baked
21:26
potato
21:27
filet
21:28
mignon
21:30
I’m looking
21:34
Barbara
21:35
yes
21:37
yes
21:38
and a uh
21:39
and canned peas
21:41
and a free drink and an alcoholic drink
21:45
like an alcoholic drink and it was music
21:49
there was lots of music
21:51
uh
21:52
it was townies all showed up so you
21:55
always knew someone yeah it was
21:57
gathering place yes yes yes you're right
22:01
one of the postcards so it's so
22:03
interesting because it's just a plethora
22:06
of signs
20
Gunning_Village_Sts_0032
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
22:08
large small neon painted and
22:12
the um
22:13
a rifle uh showing
22:16
guns for sale right yeah and uh tell us
22:19
so tell us about it well I think that's
22:21
interesting because there was
22:24
it was an Eastman’s block that that gun
22:27
shows up as an advertisement and uh I
22:31
think that there was upstairs there was
22:34
Mr. Harvey who
22:37
did
22:38
have a
22:39
a buy and sell antique guns
22:42
and so that could have been from him or
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it could have been from Eastman who sold
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guns and ammunition
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and it was interesting because there's
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so much signage in that one picture that
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one postcard that you you know there was
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no signage law as there is today yes
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exactly you know and nobody questioned
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you know in fact this
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question the fact that there was a gun
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as an advertisement
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also there was a
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speaking of things that would
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would bring into thought today was there
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#eastmanshardware
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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was a restaurant called the Wigwam and
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nobody questioned that at that time yes
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it was a
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a casual a more casual a more innocent
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time yes exactly now and the
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Eastman’s block um
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is isn't there something about
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how they got their supplies well that's
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an interesting thing I was talking to
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Chucky Eastman young Chuck and he was
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telling me that the train brought
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a lot of their supplies and left them at
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the grain mill
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and then people from Eastman’s would go
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up and pick them up from the early 1900s
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to the 50s right that a lot of their
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supplies came in through train right and
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the train would then continue down to
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Woods Hole where they'd unload and then it
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would go on the supplies would go on the
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ferry and go over to the island
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so the train was an important part we
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didn't have the the trucks the
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you know the 16 wheelers or whatever
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they call them that we have today and so
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the train was the way to get supplies to
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the merchants
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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and then the merchants on Main Street
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always had their promotions Nancy I
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think as a child you remember taking
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part in one of those promotions
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on that the Eastman’s Hardware store
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carried
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oh yes um
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there was a
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it was a it was a special day that
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Falmouth used to have to I think to
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promote the businesses all up and down
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Main Street and every business would
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have
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something special to draw people in
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um
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over
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you know from maybe
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uh four to
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seven in in the evening or
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whatever I what I remember is that
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Eastman’s um
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had a
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display in their
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window and
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they had a sign that said that in the
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display there were 20
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mistakes
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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or
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anomalies that
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needed to be found and it was a contest
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and if you
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found them all you or you
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found the most you would get
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ten dollars or twenty dollars I can't it
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might have been 20. okay
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um
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and
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uh so I spent a lot of time right
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writing them all down
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and um I won it you won you won the ten
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dollars I did yes
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and um I think you were also the
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Enterprise picked up on lots of stories
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like that and was reported in the paper
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that
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you won the contest
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I won the contest yes and as a matter of
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fact I found one more than 20.
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I see I see
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it was um an interesting time Main
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Street was a
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pretty busy camp well during the war it
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was a beehive of activity yes
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and uh of course Camp Edwards brought in
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#campedwards
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a lot of service people and their
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families
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oh yes and of course we rose to the
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occasion with entertainment for them
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right and it went on quite late into the
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evenings most nights yes but after the
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war it
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Main Street still was the center of
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business and social life
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and
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those stores were owned by mostly local
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people
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and people seemed to know each other
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if they didn't know each other they at
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least knew each other when they passed
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each other on the street yes they
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recognized each other so it was a small
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town still back then yes right and
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things have changed over a period of
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time and we have to adjust I guess yes
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exactly in fact you never went to the
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store without meeting someone you knew
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that's correct
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well I want to thank you so much for
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being here and telling us these stories
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and I want to thank viewers for tuning
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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in
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and for
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learning about these stories about Main
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Street that are
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along with the
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historic postcards I remind us to all of
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us that
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places everywhere Falmouth and every
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place are always constantly changing
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thank you
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[Music]
26
�
Text
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Title
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Transcript of Nancy Eldridge and Camille Beale's Oral History on Falmouth Main Street
Barbara Kanellopoulos
Beale's Shoe Store
Camille Beale
Camp Edwards
Daniel Smith
Eastman's Hardware
Elizabeth Theater
Falmouth Main Street
Falmouth Town Hall
Falmouth Village Green
ferry
Granville Beale
Harvey's Hardware
jj newberry's
lawrence school
nancy eldridge
oral history
peg noonan park
Postcards from Falmouth
shiverick's pond
smith's olde surrey room
store of three wonders
ten acre
transcript
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/32209/archive/files/a30d2a1e0689b12852205b232cf6e0c9.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=RXiH4fSHbScNP9YXuucF6MM0DK-%7EGtYiuYmjSYwtN8WmzuMal4N4o4MmkbQg7FniYz5wgrB5E9AUHgp9baRpgqmS8FHztxcuAYx-Dxk5s4djw%7E07c6KqmSKtQYKlRAN4%7EBro7rtXs62ND7G04TF%7Et8YhJ-VcVgr%7EUISfo%7EBDsZ97XtQXrgLKhP-AJxwgUda3p7G64jnz3yKIYpAJfujFKP-ySqu7WbboE6KXI918KWuDNZtZd0hXLIEWpCujyLrMlRVfKgQKeT8MREEhgw%7EQomGfPVoOjygeJ-LbeTKHVG9dd%7EjwJjs9EvMivu2SOCmVLoU7QY70W0gMFe%7EwRGHA%7Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ec3b3137fadfe46d0fd4231f01001f07
PDF Text
Text
Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
Postcards from Falmouth Zoom Program Transcript
Recorded: September 23, 2020
Presenter: Tom Turkington
Host: Jill Erickson
Topic: Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama, by Tom Turkington
Available from Falmouth Public Library under 920.71 Turkington
Note: The right column references postcards by identifiers searchable in the Digital
Commonwealth online collection.
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[Music]
good morning everyone this is a big
adventure
for both uh Tom and I this is the first
time
that I’ve done such a large Zoom event
with
people that I don't necessarily know
we've been doing a lot of
Zoom staff meetings um but this is quite
of a different level
and um I’ve also been hoping that we
could have Tom Turkington
talk to us for some time and I’m glad
that this this
morning is finally the time that it can
happen
um it's really a delight uh to
to be here and I’m glad that you're all
here
so let me just tell you a little bit
about what
what was the beginnings of this program
and
that is uh Postcards from Falmouth which
was
which is a special local history project
of the Falmouth Public Library
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that is based upon our historical
postcard collection of noted buildings
landmarks
and locations within the town of
Falmouth
introduced in 1869 as a way of sending a
simple message
postcards quickly evolved beyond their
practical purpose
to become the universal souvenir that
brightens everyone's mailboxes
and I have to say one of the things we
did when we were closed we would send
a lot of our patrons postcards which was
people
were delighted with um however postcards
also provide us with rare glimpses into
the past
and serve as a way of documenting
history
that is why we jumped at the chance when
we saw the opportunity
for a grant to develop projects that use
historical documents
such as our historical postcard
collection to discover unknown facts and
stories about
Falmouth during days gone by after all
to collect preserve and share such
resources
is what the Falmouth Public Library has
been doing since 1792
Postcards from Falmouth has been made
possible through a Library Services
and Technology Act grant which is
administered through the Massachusetts
Board of Library Commissioners
this series of talks is also made
possible thanks to the Falmouth Public
Library Trustees
and of course FCTV and we hope by the
end of this series
that those of you listening will be
inspired to look at our postcard
collections
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#1869
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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and share your memories of Falmouth and
somebody who has
a lot of memories of Falmouth is Tom
Turkington
and I have to say I I have been
delighted um reading the book and I
think you will be
as well um Tom did write a memoir of his
childhood
in Falmouth which is a revelation in so
many ways for those of us
I’ve been here 30 years and I still
learn lots of things from his book
Before I Forget A Boyhood of Little
Drama
and there will be time for questions at
the end which you can type
into the chat so without further ado
although I will say I particularly Tom
liked
all the information about Panis
silversmiths I have a Panis ring right
here on my finger
and um uh Matt Pearson with whom I live
remembers this has many of the same
memories you have of Panis so
um a really uh a treat to read about
Panis and
and your relationship with Panis
silversmiths um
for those of you that don't know Panis
read the book if he doesn't mention it
this morning so I will now
give over the screen to Tom Turkington
thanks Jill for that nice introduction
after a long
awkward wait uh but that's Zoom for
you um
just myself I was born in Falmouth in
1949
and spent most of the first 18 years of
my life there
uh I was there for another 15 years as a
young adult I live in New Hampshire
now
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#panis
#1949
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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the book was my entry to this
program but you got to understand the
book
is not there was no research
everything in here um
just I drew it from my memory bank and
um
surprisingly enough people have looked
and said uh hey
there's a lot of details that how do you
remember those things
uh and so accurately and I guess I just
have a mind that that does that sort of
thing
it came about because I found as I was
I actually wrote it four or five years
ago I found as I was getting into my 50s
and 60s that
I sort of developed an interest in my
parents’
history my grandparents what were they
like when their kids
and what was the world like around them
what did they do with their time
and all that and of course they weren't
around to tell me
and it occurred to me that probably my
kids someday would get into their 50s
and 60s
and they would begin to develop the same
interest about me
and I wouldn't be around to tell them so
I put it down a book
and my own kids in
30 or 40 years can refer back and
know a little bit more about where they
came from
uh it is a memoir
so it's not about Falmouth per se
it's about me uh memoirs are like that
but of course because I was in Falmouth
people places events things that were
going on in Falmouth between
in the 50s and 60s are scattered
throughout the book
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this project as Jill was saying sort of
sprang forth from
postcards old postcards and uh
I don't have any postcards here as props
but the way I’m going to approach this
is to just sort of imagine what might be
on a postcard
and then ruminate a little bit about
that thing that could have been on a
postcard
and uh and do some readings from the
books that relate to it
one of the uh one of the most
photographed places in Falmouth
is probably Main Street and uh when I’m
#mainstreet
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back in Falmouth which I often am
uh it's kind of fun to go down Main
Street and
look and of course there's been massive
turnover
as there always always has been but in
some respects hasn't changed too much
Main Street when I was a kid yeah you
could
you could get auto parts there you could
get your photos developed at Ortin’s
photo shop
you could uh yeah you could go to a
movie
there were two movie theaters on main
street uh
okay none of those are there anymore but
pretty much what you have now
is places to eat and places to buy
clothes
and gifts and really 50 years ago
there were plenty of places to eat most
of them were lunch counters at J.J.
Newberry’s
and that at the Rexall Drugs
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#jjnewberrys
#rexall
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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and at the Sandbar and you know all up
and down Main Street there were places
to eat but they were
fast food and it wasn't junk food it was
fast because you'd go in you sit down
Ralph Sullivan’d and come over say what do
you want
tell them a ham and cheese sandwich and
two minutes later there it was in front
of you
uh so now we have high-end restaurants
instead
okay that says something about the
economy
um and one of the uh
one of the other things that you used to
do on Main Street that you don't do
anymore is
you go shopping for your food
and there's a little something in my
book about
food shop
one indicator of the growth and
modernization of Falmouth has been the
evolution of the food stores
when I was little and we lived on Mill
#sandbar
#millroad
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Road the closest thing to a supermarket
in town was the A&P on Main Street
it was right next to Town Hall which was
razed in the 60s to make way for a
parking lot in a nice little park
that's Peg Noonan Park there were other
food stores besides the A&P
S.S. Pierce for example but the A&P was
about it for general food shops
it was a little bit larger though not
nearly as neat and clean as the standard
convenience store today
there were maybe four or five aisles
half the width and one-third the length
of what we're used to now
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#a&p
#townhall
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#sspierce
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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if you were over by the butcher shop the
smell all around was
meat getting old by the checkout lines
they kept the coffee grinders
very large machines considering their
simple function
and that whole end of the store smelled
of ground up eight o'clock coffee which
never got swept up
my lingering impression of a trip to the
A&P with mom in my early years is one of
having to deal with inconvenience
no place to park hard walking on a badly
ruptured sidewalk
difficulty opening the door sticking
wheels on the shopping cart
traffic jams throughout the store piles
of merchandise stacked in the way
long waits in line but the reward was to
watch
hear and smell the coffee grinder at
work
oh this is more I’m talking about the
evolution of Falmouth I’m not just
reminiscing on going to the A&P when I
was a kid
now comes the evolution first National
Stores was the first chain to offer
shopping relief to the beleaguered
Falmouth housewife
they opened up a snazzy new supermarket
at the foot of Shore Street
#nationalstores
#shorestreet
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either just before just after we moved
back to town
it had a parking lot automatic doors
wide aisles new carts
and sales and promotions of course it
was an instant success
which was noted by the Stop and Shop
chain which acted quickly and
radically they got away from Main Street
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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and onto some vacant eight acreage of
Heights corner where they opened up the
store that was bigger yet
and had a modernistic arched roof and a
huge parking lot and a few other little
stores attached
and reachable by a covered walkway and
they called it Falmouth Plaza
trying not to be outdone but being
outdone nonetheless the A&P
put up a new store on a vacant lot just
off Main Street
it was a whole lot bigger cleaner and
more amenable than their outworn old
place which became a stationary store
but not as much as the new Stop and Shop
or even bigger supermarket that was
later to come to the Jones Road
intersection
and most disastrous of all the fools
built it on Scranton Avenue
there it remained for decades poorly
managed
lightly patronized constantly emblematic
of the decline of the great Atlantic and
Pacific Tea Company
well if you were to buy a modern day
postcard
you wouldn't have to look long to find
one of Falmouth Harbor
#falmouthheights
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#jonesroad
#scrantonavenue
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now Falmouth Harbor was on
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understand it Deacon's Pond was not open
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it was land locked and if you were
driving down Clinton Avenue towards the
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#vineyardsound
#clintonavenue
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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you get to where the Clam Shack is now
and you just kept right on going
and the next thing you know you were
heading up into Falmouth Heights
uh of course this was pretty much before
automobiles existed
and I’m not sure exactly how it happened
but uh
I would say the town realized that there
were a lot of rich people now
starting to move into town during the
summer and they had
pleasure craft and the Old Stone Dock at
#oldstonedock
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the
foot of Shore Street was a was pretty
much a failure
and um so it's decided to
open up Deacon's Pond dredge it and make
a harbor out of it
at the time I lived there Scranton
Avenue was
practically a wasteland and I don't know
why it was very close to the center of
town
but Scranton Avenue which paralleled
right along the side of the harbor
uh there was nothing there there was if
you were heading up from Main Street
towards the mouth of the harbor
it was all field on your right there was
a carnival there every summer could have
had
the Barnstable County Fair there there
was that much open space
uh you got to Queen Street still nothing
still just feels
um and then
three quarters of the way down Scranton
Avenue it was bing bing bing bing there
were four or five
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#queenstreet
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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very modest kind of weather beaten homes
um
in a row and then again nothing until
you got to the mouth of the harbor
I’m not sure why Scranton Avenue was uh
such a pariah in town but
hardly anybody lived there um
but there was there was something
special about Scranton Avenue
I’m going to tell you about it
we moved there in
June of ‘58.
this was not the first time the
Turkingtons took up residence on
Scranton Avenue
the uninhabited wasteland between us and
Main Street
had been for one brief shining moment in
the late 40s
most densely populated neighborhood in
whole town whatever federal agency came
into being for the purpose of providing
cheap housing for returning veterans
built a colony of concrete blocked
road buildings dwellings
when Mom and Dad and baby Eric first
moved to town from upstate New York
that's where they lived we did not
coddle our young veterans
life here was rather spare and the
grateful residents moved out as soon as
they could find something better
which in our case was the house on
Fairview Avenue
just down the street my first home
the block dwellings were demolished when
the need for them passed but one
dominant structure remains until the
early 60s
it consisted of one very large room with
a couple of little ones at one end
I’m guessing now but it may have served
as a play and gathering place for the
residents
so here were rows of apartment-style
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#fairviewavenue
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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dwelling units
with a community recreation building
open space
all around and an unobstructed view of
the harbor
dig it a rock bottom low budget
disposable development for penniless
veterans
served as the model for the vacation
communities for the bourgeoisie that now
infests
practically every harborfront site in
New England
any pictures taken of Surf Drive
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um Surf Drive was my beach and um
I think was was the first widely used
public beach
in Falmouth the first beach that was
treated as such with
parking lot and bath house and
snack bar and lifeguards and all that
I lived about a mile away and I used to
go there quite regularly
during the summer time um that's where
the Old Stone Dock was
you look at the Old Stone Dock now and
it's it's just a
pile of rocks that have been gradually
settling into the into the sea but at
one time it was
um it was built to be kind of the
original
Falmouth Harbor um
people would unload there and come in in
little boats and unload on the dock and
then
ship the stuff down Shore Street to
center it down
and other stuff would get shipped back
uh
I I don't think it ever worked out very
well just to look at it you see it just
wasn't that big and uh certainly wasn't
#surfdrive #surfdrivebeach
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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that stable because it had to be rebuilt
a couple of times
but it was my beach and it was very
popular beach in those days
and one of its most popular features
and enjoyable ones was the raft
not there anymore hasn't been there in a
long time
I spent a lot of summer days hanging out
at Surf Drive Beach which was a public
beach a mile from home
the town had a multi-faceted raft about
50 yards offshore that offered all kinds
of opportunities for fun
it had a diving board just a few feet
above the water
a platform about six feet up and another
about 10 feet up
and it had a long slide with a shiny
metal surface that had a couple of burrs
on it that you had to watch out for
or you'd rip your bathing suit on the
way down if not your flesh
floated on two massive pontoons which as
long as they stayed watertight
kept the raft a foot above the water
this allowed daredevil boys to dive off
the raft swim under a pontoon
and come up for air under the raft we
played a lot of tag on that raft
there were all sorts of tricky extremely
hazardous ways to tag someone if you
were hit
one was to jump off the high platform
and tag a kid standing on the raft as
you went by
then swim under the pontoons and get
away
this meant that you'd be jumping from 10
feet up missing the edge of the raft by
inches
then going underwater and not being seen
again for a while
the beach committee provided this raft
for the amusement of their beachgoers
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with never a thought for liability
accidents that's what lifeguards were
for
now I it's hard to photograph
Beebe’s Woods but Beebe’s Woods has uh
#beebewoods
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um become if anything ever more
important part of uh center of town
uh there were two mansions up there uh
there is one remaining and it's been uh
grandly and uh oh
beautifully overdone redone
fixed up made into its original state
that that would be Highfield
it was also Tanglewood and these were
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the mansions that were owned by the Beebes
who uh bought
really just about all the land between
the railroad tracks
the bike path and Sippewissett Road east to
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west
north to south pretty much Sippewissett Road
almost down to um
huge parcel of land uh
in my time as as a kid uh
some sections of that all Beebe’s Woods
were kind of
sold off I think uh Greengate became
one of them
uh one development and Marvin
Gardens Marvin Circle became another
uh there's still a huge parcel of land
out there that
as of late 60s was about to be developed
it was very close to being sold to
some people who were going to just build
more green gates
uh and then J. K. Lilly great
uh benefactor of Falmouth
bought the whole place and gave
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#highfieldhall
#tanglewood
Gunning_Village_Bldg_0473
#beebe
#shiningseabikeway
#sippewissettroad
#greengate
#marvincircle
#lilly
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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most of it to the town the town has
since put in nice wide trails for
walking
and it's become a very popular place for
walkers hikers joggers people with dogs
uh it's a wonderful asset of course
and the crown jewel in Beebe’s Woods is the
Punch Bowl
which is a kettle hole a large pond kind
of way out and
you know back then it was out in the
middle of nowhere I think a lot of
uh most most
growing boys in town knew where to find
it could direct you to it but uh
you know they're just little beaten
paths i was very easy to get lost in
there
and uh but the Punch Bowl was um
was a real attraction and I had an
episode there I had many episodes there
there was one episode in particular that
stuck in my mind all these years later
Mark Denman and I hiked up into Beebe’s
Woods fairly often
not always with a trip to the Punch Bowl
in mind but we usually wound up there at
some point
our main activities were skinny dipping
smoking cigarettes when we could procure
them
catching and releasing bullfrogs
throwing rocks making funny sounds and
listening for the echoes
one fine June afternoon we were swimming
in the middle of the pond when we heard
shouts from the little rocky landing at
the foot of the trail
Denman Turkington
we looked over and saw Donnie Kudo and
Jimmy Carey
two kids a couple of years older than us
standing on the rocks
we've got your clothes and so they did
by the time we got out of the water they
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#punchbowl
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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had a long head start and all of our
duds
shoes included we had that empty feeling
that he falls all of us from time to
time
usually when we least expect it this
time I’m really screwed
walking on clothes through the woods
wasn't the problem we were unlikely to
encounter anybody there
the problem was what happened when the
woods end
getting to mark's house was our only
viable option as he lived pretty close
to the edge of the woods
trouble was once we were out in the open
we would have to cross the railroad
tracks
run down a short unoccupied dirt road
then get to the other side of palmer
avenue
which was route 28 which was the busiest
road in town however we got through
all that we then would have to cut
through a neighbor's yard to get to the
little wooded area surrounding the
Denmans’
and then what hi mom I’m home and I’m
stark naked
so is Tom well we had plenty of time to
think all this through
and what we came up with was we'd skulk
through the backyards of some of the
homes this side of Palmer Ave
#palmeravenue
Gunning_Village_Sts_0043 through
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Hunt_Village_Sts_167 through 170
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looking for laundry we could steal from
somebody's clothesline to cover
ourselves up with
we couldn't find any which we probably
wouldn't we'd crouch in the bushes
besides route 28
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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in broad daylight in a heavily populated
section of town
hoping to remain unseen until there was
a break in the traffic
then we'd streak across the road through
the neighbor's yard to Mark's house
get some clothes on and catch hell it
wasn't much of a plan but it was the
best we could do
then just a while before the end of the
trail we saw something up in the
branches a pair of underpants
and look over there a shirt and a pair
of sneakers in the middle of the trail
what good guys thanks Donnie thanks
Jimmy
sorry about all those awful things we
said about you hiking back
from the Punch Bowl it's truly amazing
how in a distressing situation appears
to be heading for the worst
and for some reason the worst doesn't
come to pass
we not only are grateful for whatever
prevented the worst from happening
but wholly unresentful of whoever
created the distressing situation in the
first place
relief is surely one of life's most
rewarding feelings
Falmouth managed to cluster all its
schools right in the center of the
village
first there was Lawrence Academy then
#lawrenceacademy
that became Lawrence High School
Gunning_Village_Bldg_236 & 237
#lawrencehighschool
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through 0257
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next to the library right on Main Street
and that got too big well right across
what is now Bates Road from from the
high school
was the village school
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#katharineleebatesroad
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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elementary school now the Margaret A.
#mullenhallschool
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Mullen School right over there was a
Hall School which was for fifth and
sixth graders
and then when it came time to build a
new high school they just went across
Shivericks Pond
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built a really fine new high school I
think this was 1953.
and to my mind that building
now called the Lawrence School and
Junior High School uh it's the best
school building this town ever had
and I hope it's there forever uh I spent
six years there
I was in the last uh the last class
it was built as a 7 through 12
and of course within not very many years
after it was built
it was overcrowded and
so they built a middle school over on
Morse Pond
um so I was the last in the last class
that started in seventh grade and stayed
there
through twelfth grade
um it's a very functional building very
attractive building
and I probably didn't feel so at the
time but
now that I look back on it I realized
that
most of my teachers there were really
very good
um I had one
at least one real loser of a teacher and
and uh
that fellow is get some play in the in
my book here
um but uh most of them
were really good um Miss Buchanan I
#shiverickspond
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#1953
#lawrencejuniorhighschool
#morsepondschool
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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locked horns with her a lot but she was
a fine teacher
um Jim Kinney
Earl Mills through the athletic
department and phys ed
these are people I have a lot to say
about
and I can't help thinking back on Pat
Moorman
she was my sophomore year English
teacher
she was very much one of a kind craggy of
feature and lean of build she had an
outsized personality
she was the tallest woman nay even the
tallest person in the school
her nickname among the kids was Moose
she was close friends or perhaps shared
a home with
a secretarial teacher Miss Ogden who was
the shortest
together they looked like Mutt and Jeff
like most staff members in the English
department
Miss Moorman had an undisguised love of
the language in its greatest classic
works
her personal predilection was for
grammar and syntax
we spent quite a bit of time diagramming
sentences in the classroom
and if there was within a kid the
slightest potential interest in this
highly analytic activity
as there was in me Miss Moorman could
come to it
she could get very animated trying to
get across to us the subtleties of a
complicated sentence
what really distinguished Miss Moorman;s
class aside from the total immersion
and grammar was her readiness to put the
lesson aside and expound upon subjects
unrelated to our work
prejudice politics human foibles life's
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#earlmills
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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ironies
she didn't so much engendered discussion
as inform us of her views and passions
she did so with vigor and then it was
back to the lesson
she was a tough grader and not very
understanding of excuses
but after many years at LHS she still
got a kick out of the kids
didn't hide that fact like most of our
teachers
she had her moments of cluelessness
concerning the ways of fifteen-year-olds
I wonder if there are any teachers left
who still instruct a room full of silly
boys
that an abrupt exclamation is properly
termed
an ejaculation not many I bet
together with my parents and a few
others she was on the team that left me
with a great appreciation for proper
artful use of English
low tolerance for those who care not to
use it correctly
when I’m confronted with a
professionally butchered piece of
writing
as happens more and more frequently as I
age
I can't help thinking or saying this
person
just wasn't paying attention in English
class
it's Miss Moorman’s class I think of them
um another thing about Lawrence was
um
why was it Lawrence I mean it was
Falmouth it was
the public high school in Falmouth
Barnstable High School Bourne High School
Sandwich High School every time you go
to
town has a high school supports the high
school
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�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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high school is named after that town
except in Falmouth it was Lawrence and
um
I didn't really mind that but
uh I was on an athletic team
an athletic team that had an
extraordinary amount of success
go to big track meets and uh
a lot of us performed high and placed
very high in championship
events well one third of the people
watching
would think that we're from the city of
Lawrence oh no wonder they're good
they're
a big city they they got a lot of kids
to drop draw from
and about a third of the people thought
we were some hot shot prep school
downtown
ah no wonder they're good they uh they
can recruit from all over
and then the rest of people knew that we
were we were the public high school in
town
well we were we're proud of our town we
were
pleased to be from Falmouth and uh it
kind of irked us
that um most people thought we were
not what we actually were um
but this goes back to uh again correct
me if I’m wrong hey
nobody's out there to correct me so uh
1840s maybe 1850s there was a Mr.
Lawrence
had a lot of money big man in town
and uh offered the town a
substantial piece of money to um
build an academy uh sort of the first
secondary school and Falmouth
and um well thrifty Cape Cod is
only too happy to take him up on his
offer so
the only obligation was they had to name
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#shubaellawrence
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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it after him
so that was the first Lawrence Academy
which I believe to be
now the building that is the Chamber of
Commerce
off of Main uh
town grew number of high school kids
kids going to
high school grew so they built a new
building but the name came with
that building was bursting at the seams
after a while so they built a new high
school and the name came with it
finally in I think it was 73
uh they built that new high school out
on Gifford Street
and decided to call it Falmouth High
School
any true history of Falmouth
any comprehensive history of Falmouth
especially mid-century families
would not be complete unless it had some
material
on the track teams
at the high school um
a little bit of self-interest here uh
I was involved with uh running sports in
two different ways
one as a runner in high school very
extremely dedicated and pretty
successful one
and then um as a coach I coached uh
cross-country at Falmouth for 13 years
later on
and was successful and also
lucky but
there was from the through the 60s 70s
80s um Falmouth
running sports at the high school were
were
known statewide for excellence
um it was Jim Kalperis
had the track teams in the 60s
John Carroll started up the girls track
and had
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#falmouthchamberofcommerce
#giffordstreet
#falmouthhighschool
#jameskalperis
�Falmouth Public Library – Postcards from Falmouth
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extraordinary success through the 70s I
was coaching cross country in the 80s
but it all started with Kalpe
and I’d like to tell you a little bit
about it
now about Kalpe some new kids
including myself at one time might call
him Mr. Kalperis
and there are a few ass kissers who'd
call him Coach but to everyone else he
was Kalpe
he bore considerable resemblance to
Groucho Marx
from the hustling gait bent slightly at
the waist
to the mischievous dancing eyebrows to
the ever-present cigar
to the offhand commentary from the
corner of the mouth
to the vague but usually accurate sense
you got when he talked to you
that you were being caught you knew not
he was an operator who saw more clearly
than most
that if everybody follows all the rules
to the letter all the time
nothing worthwhile will ever happen
of course he was not all things to all
people there were those who felt he came
up and might
in the teaching of science which was his
primary job description
he was probably an energetic
knowledgeable instructor but he could be
distracted with
any is the time I’d wander off from a
study hall or a lunch break or another
class with a teammate to drop in on Kalpe
seeing us at the door he would assign
someone to monitor the class while we
all went into the adjoining
audio visual storage room to screw
spikes into racing shoes or
discuss the day's workout plot strategy
for the Dartmouth meet
22
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there was a rare enlivening mix of humor
gravity
and intensity of purpose in dealing with
Kalpe and participating on his teams
he became a coach of runners a year
after the LHS cross country program was
successfully begun under Don Jocelyn
moved on after that inaugural 1960
season
the team was then made up largely of
underprivileged black kids who so often
went through four years of high school
without ever tasting success in
school-related endeavor
the principal Mr. Marshall wanted to see
the program continue after Jocelyn left
and presently recognized Kalpe as a good
man to take it over so he asked him if
he would
he did Kalpe knew nothing about distance
running when he took over the
cross-country team
and nothing about track events when he
subsequently took over the track teams
but he started winning state titles
right away
as a coach he did not take an
authoritarian stance to put it mildly
I don't believe he ever took attendance
why bother
attendance was not required he never
said he had to be there
he established an atmosphere that made
me want to do that
he never made athletes do the work he
made them want to do the work what a
difference
it wasn't possible to rebel against the
requirements of team membership or the
demands of the coach because there
weren't any
he gave people a whole lot of leeway and
encouraged an atmosphere in which every
kid
felt he could be himself and achieve
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respect for
first from the coach and by extension
from his teammates
he was a master at reading an individual
and figuring out what he was in it for
and this applied to the adult world as
well as the track team
in later years when he was dealing with
the broader spectrum than sports
people often came to him asking for
something
his first inclination was to see to it
that they got it
that couldn't be done he tried to
persuade them that they really didn't
want
that failed he convinced them that they
already had it
it didn't often need to go further than
just looking at my watch here and uh huh
I could go on by the way I ought to warn
you
if you have an interest in this book
I’ll tell you for one thing
it's not out there on the bookshelves at
the
at the bookstores which aren't open
anyway uh
I believe it's still available on Amazon
if you want to get a copy that's the
place to go
um most of the second half of the book
I enter high school I enter Lawrence
high school
as a freshman about midway through the
book
and to be honest with you from then on
the narrative is very heavy on the track
the book's about me and
track was very important to me all
through high school I was extremely
dedicated and
it was my main focus so of course the
book is
the second half the book is full of
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track stuff
um I find a lot of my
memories of track some some pathos
some sorrow some joys some
humor so you know the narrative
continues but
a lot of it's about traffic be warned
but I also cover mentioned
I mean Cuban Missile Crisis
uh assassination of JFK uh
you know just the
you know nuclear test bans
um all the cultural and
world world impact
events that were going on that I recall
a lot of them are in here because I’m
not just talking about because these
things
affected me these things gave me
something to think about
and to wonder about so it goes into my
book
there's one here that we can
finish up with it has nothing to do with
postcards
very little to do with Falmouth um I
have a pretty long
uh section here about being a paperboy
delivering the Falmouth Enterprise to my
customers
but I closed it off with there was a
curious little advertisement that
regularly appeared in the quiet corner
of the enterprise
it read as follows are you having a
problem with alcohol
do you want to do something about it
call KIA
ding ding ding ding that was it
I wasn't sure what to make of it and
apparently worldlier minds than mine
weren't even
the New Yorker frequently lifted
published items or quotations that were
considered so
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#falmouthenterprise
#newyorker
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peculiar or amusing that they merited
reprinting as space fillers at the end
of an article
in that venerable weekly
one day I ran across that familiar item
from the Enterprise
while leafing through the magazine in
search of humor
the notion of admitting to having a
problem with alcohol
and deciding to do something about it
was a laughing matter
to the editors of the New Yorker
it's it's funny we we talk about history
we talk about events of the past and
very often it's just little items like
that that you'd hardly
hardly ever think of that
really highlight major cultural changes
from one generation to another from one
decade to another
and here back in back in 1960
uh the idea of
wanting to do something about drinking
too much it was just
who would do that but there it was
so I’m going to call myself done here I
uh boy I could keep going through this
it's worth writing a book if for no
other reason than that
you'll love every word I can go back and
reread this
every month for the rest of my life and
still enjoy it
I wish I could do that with other books
but I can't I’m gonna
um close with a little bit of um
a little bit of an observation that was
originally uh it was past
passed to me by my brother Eric
um and I think this
might warm the cockles of the heart of
any librarian anywhere
long after the clown has been hacked to
death and our tweets and blogs and
26
#ericturkington
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postings and e-titles have vanished in
obsolescence
we'll still have the books
thank you if you have any questions I
should have mentioned this earlier if
you have any
questions or comments you'd like to make
please I think you're in contact with
Jill
she will be in contact she is in contact
with me
and uh let her know
thanks for joining in thank you so much
tom that was
great and so many great so many really
delightful stories um if anybody does
have a question that they'd like to ask
Tom
right now or a comment you can just open
up your chat
and I will read him the question if you
have something
um I want to also mention that I loved
hearing the bit
again about Clinton Avenue because I
think about Clinton Avenue all the time
and how it just
ends and then picks up in Falmouth
heights and how I would love to have
like we should do something to make them
connect again
you know a bridge a bridge or we should
have little
boats to go across there or something
seems like it must have been such a
different town
when Clinton Ave went right through and
that the people who live downtown
had would have had such great access to
the Falmouth
Heights beaches so except they would
have had to go up Scranton Avenue and
nobody went upstairs
for any reason that too is really
fascinating that Scranton Avenue
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it was you know just not there was a
place that wasn't there
and the the stuff about the grocery
stores is great I mean
it's just so delightful to hear about
what the town was like at that moment in
time
um and we're actually the the fellow
that's going to be talking tomorrow as
part of this series
um Gus Widmayer um has written a book
called the Belvidere
Plain Revisited and he talks
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also about Clinton Ave and how things
again
sort of developed and it will be very
interesting I think to hear that talk
as well it does not look like anybody
has
any questions at this moment in time
but I am uh really delighted
to have had you finally come to the
library if only virtually
I hope next time in your when you're in
found with you stop by the library and
say hello
we reopened the public yesterday so feel
free
to stop by um it was a real pleasure
uh to have you talk about your memories
of Falmouth
and a great addition um to this series
of talks that we're doing
so and thank to all of you that um have
shown up today for this we really
appreciate it um
and thank you to FCTV for making this
all possible
um in terms of making this this
tv part the work the um
it is again our first time doing quite
something quite of this level so
28
Available from Falmouth Public
Library under REF LocHist 974.492
WID
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we really look forward to it a pleasure
tom
to uh hear you talk and I
hope that you all will take a look at
his book and which of course the library
has copies of
as well as um the postcard collections
so thanks so much well thank you thank
you Jill so sorry to have uh
put you on edge at 9 55 this morning
when I wasn't
down but uh I it worked out fine and uh
this is fun for me too that's great it
and it did indeed work out we're we're
delighted
thank you again and um we hope some of
us who
join you to that some of us some of you
here will be able to join tomorrow
for Gus Widmayer’s talk um and then
we have a third uh story third
one coming up um on Thursday which is
Mary L. Martin who is actually
the author and owner of the world's
largest postcard shop that has just come
out
with a new book about collecting
postcards in fact she's written many
many books about collecting postcards
so that will be sort of a different
angle of this week is the postcards
angle
um thank you so much for attending thank
you Tom
checking out thanks Jill
[Music]
29
�
Text
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Title
A name given to the resource
Transcript of Thomas Turkington's Zoom Presentation on Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama
1869
1949
1953
A&P
author talk
Barnstable County Fair
Beebe
Beebe Woods
Clinton Avenue
Deacon's Pond
Earl Mills
Eric Turkington
Fairview Avenue
Falmouth Chamber of Commerce
Falmouth Enterprise
Falmouth Harbor
Falmouth Heights
Falmouth High School
Falmouth Main Street
Falmouth Plaza
Falmouth Public Library
Falmouth Town Hall
Gifford Street
Greengate
Highfield Hall
James Kalperis
jj newberry's
jones road
katharine lee bates road
lawrence academy
lawrence high school
lawrence junior high school
lilly
marvin circle
mill road
morse pond school
mullen hall school
national stores
new yorker
Old Stone Dock
ortin's photo supply
palmer avenue
panis
peg noonan park
Postcards from Falmouth
punchbowl
queen street
rexall
sandbar
scranton avenue
shining sea bikeway
shiverick's pond
Shore Street
shubael lawrence
sippewissett road
ss pierce
stop and shop
Surf Drive
surf drive beach
tanglewood
tom turkington
transcript
vineyard sound