Interviewer - No problem, it's got this all lit up.

Okay, we're here with... We're in business. Francis Miskell again, on 38 Groton Road, and it's now February 25, and we have a little bit more to talk about. So why don't you start off?

There's a picture of the Paramount Diner. Oh my goodness. That's the Paramount, huh?

Francis Miskell - Yeah, that's... That building is still here now, it's a travel agency, and I guess there's a hairdresser in there too now. You're saying this building that looks like a railroad car diner?

That's what it was, it came in there on rollers, yeah.

Interviewer - Huh.

Francis Miskell - So they've just built around it? They built onto it, yeah. They built a kitchen and all that back in it.

That was just... It had a bar, and there was maybe four booths, and then my sisters never wrote nothing. Nothing.

It says 2-1940 on the back, is it February 1940? But she should have said something, what, you know. Well, that's better than nothing.

You can have it. Really? Yeah.

This is priceless. And then on the side, on your left-hand door there, they built, at the back of it, there was a bar room, and we used to call it the bucket of blood, because every weekend there'd be fights in there. The cops would be there all the time.

Every Saturday night, you could guarantee there'd be fights in there. So that was in the back? Right along the side, the entrance was right there along the side.

Okay. And it was just a small bar. Had a few booths and a drinking bar, and that was the only bar in town.

I think George mentioned something about the quarrymen and the mill guys. The what? The quarrymen and the mill guys would duke it out.

They were like opposing teams. Oh, yeah, yeah, that could be. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The quarrymen were more stronger. Yes, I would imagine. The quarrymen were more stronger, but that was the hangout, the bar.

And then later on, down on Tingler Road where Kastore's is now, there used to be another bar, the Meadow Grill. I don't have any pictures of that one. The first owner that I know that had that was that Paul McGovern's friend and father.

Okay. Dick McGovern had the automotive. Yeah, and you said his father worked at Paramount.

His father worked at Paramount. He was a short order cook. And was his grandfather working at the other place?

His grandfather owned, he ran the bar on Meadow Grill. Was that still there in the 1970s? I'd say yes.

Because it seems like Kastore, did they take over another business like the Dairy Queen? And before the Dairy Queen, was there something else there? Maybe not.

Maybe I'm thinking of the convenience store that was trying to get their liquor license. That might have been... I don't know.

I know Kastore's was Dairy Queen before that. And then Kastore took it over. And now it's gone into where Kastore's is now is where the Meadow Grill was.

Okay. That was the bar room. So after the Meadow Grill, then the Dairy Queen took over.

No, the Dairy Queen was in a special building. The building now that Kastore's left. Oh, okay.

Kastore's was Meadow Grill. I mean, Dairy Queen had their own building. All they had was the ice cream.

And then the bar room, Meadow Grill was another building. Another building. Coming this way towards the square.

And McLaughlin's grandfather was the owner of the bar. And then they had an apartment upstairs. And now the Meadow Grill was owned by Frank DeAmicis.

And then it passed on to his kids. And then after the kids left, I don't know, it just went downhill. And it went into office.

They've had I don't know how many offices down here. So that's in on the Meadow Grill. Now I'm going to tell you about the Varney Playground.

Okay. Have you heard anything on that? Well, Fred Varney, was he a lawyer?

No, a doctor. He was the doctor? He was a doctor.

And he lived, as you go down the post office now, the house right there on the corner. Right opposite Dr. Crane. Dr. Crane is on the left. Yes. Dr. Varney's house is right there on the right. Oh, okay.

I didn't know that. Yeah, that's where Dr. Varney lived. Okay.

And right across the street from him was a Dr. Phillips. I never knew much about Dr. Phillips. But Dr. Varney, he owned where the playground is now. All the way to the water? The beach too or just? Yeah, all the way.

He had the whole thing. And then he gave it to the town. And the town, through WPA, built a park, a baseball park.

Interviewer - Mm-hmm.

Francis Miskell - And when the first ones that laid out the diamonds, it used to be where Wright Field is now was home plate. Because Weldon Hare, Milton Hare rather, his son Weldon was a left-hand batter. And where the archway is now used to be a dump.

We could go up there and throw things in the dump, cans and anything else. And when they'd hit a ball, and if it happened to go into the dump. They'd lose it?

They lost it because us kids used to get them. We'd put them in a can until after the ball game was over. And then that was our ball.

We didn't give it back. We'd hide it somewhere in the yard. And we didn't know where it was.

We had to tell them we knew. But that's how we had our... Because we used to play in Shaw's Field.

Where's that? But right in back of McGovern's Garage right now in the square. There's a house there now.

And it used to... There's Mr. Morris that owned the quarry. If we hit it over the fence, the ball was lost.

Because he'd never let us into the yard to get the ball. But then WPA built the diamond. So did they fix the dump too?

Take out the diamond? Oh yeah, yeah. They leveled everything off.

Yeah, filled it all in. Filled it all in. That's why you get that drop with the fence.

As you go up there now, there's a quick drop. Yeah, by making it level, they had to cut and fill. Yeah.

If you went digging under that archway, you'd find cans. Okay. For sure, and bottles, and everything else.

But then WPA put the granite, the rocks, to make the walls on both sides. And then the Varney AA was a semi-pro baseball team. They were in a little league.

I can remember Forge Village Arrows. Purple had something. Westlands had a baseball team.

And Lowell had a baseball team. And the Varneys, the Varneys kept their own end of the ball all the time. And they'd travel.

Home and home games. They didn't all play all the games up here. But all of them guys, the Varney AA, they're almost all gone.

They're almost all gone to heaven there. So, and then after the field was that way for years, and then they changed it around and put home plate almost where the archway is now. The way the field is right now.

The home plate is back there. And you hit a little out there. And the biggest home run I ever see up there was hit by Sammy Puliot.

He was from Lowell, played with Lowell. He hit it out onto Sherman Street. That was one big wallop.

Yeah. Yeah, big, big snap. That's about the holiday.

Changed the field around, I don't know why. But they, when they put the archway up. Do you remember about when Dr. Varney donated the land?

Oh, no, Dr. Varney, the land, he gave the land first. He gave it, but do you remember about when that was? Was it in the 20s or?

Oh, no, it was in the 30s, I'd say. Oh, it was just before the WPA then. Yeah, yeah, WPA fixed the walls.

That was a Depression-era project. Yeah. And they built the field house too.

Yeah, yeah, that was a part of the deal. Yeah. And then the home plate is the way it is now.

And then there used to be bleachers when they moved the field around. It was bleachers on both sides. The first, third base side was for the Varneys.

The first base side was for the visiting team. And they had the backstop there to keep the ball from going down in towards the lake. Yeah.

I want to see where I am. And they used to pass the hat in between innings, maybe about the fourth or fifth inning. Everybody would pass.

There may be two guys, one would go up over the bank and come around and then meet, say, on Sherman Street. So that was to help buy equipment? That was help to buy equipment, yeah, baseball and the bats.

Because their uniforms were always donated by businesses. They always had their advertisement on the back. So that's the Varney A part of it.

Now go down to the bowling alleys. George, give you any dope on that or you got enough on that? Well, we actually toured it.

But I don't have probably the same dope that you have. So why don't you... You were actually a pin setter there.

Yeah, yeah. So tell me about that. Yeah.

There was always duck pins. Yes. We had duck pins.

They're the short ones. And you used to get... There were six alleys, number six, as you looked at the alleys.

No one wanted to bowl number six. Was it the right side? The right side.

Because the ball wouldn't go down the way you want it on number six. You had a hard time controlling a ball on number six. Nobody liked to bowl number six.

You used to have one and two would be team matches. Three and four would be another team match and five and six. And when we came home from the service, we had matches.

We had leagues down there. Still do. They still sponsor you.

Interviewer - Yeah, I just think they still do now.

Francis Miskell - Yeah, I think they still do now. Because I know one woman there, Mrs. Nasha Curran. She goes down there and bowls one night a week.

I don't know what the heck night she's down there, but I know she's down there. And when we would set up pins, I don't know what I think it was, maybe 15 cents or a quarter to her strength. But we used to get three cents.

Three cents out of the quarter. Out of the quarter. That was our pay.

And then the pins would fly. Sometimes you'd get hit because you used to.

Interviewer - How did this work now?

Francis Miskell - Did you sit in a chair up over the alley? You know how the balls would go into the thing? And you had a runner like to send the balls back.

A gutter, yeah. We used to. No, no, not the gutter.

OK, the tractor to give it power to roll the balls back to the bowler. OK, like a. Yeah, it's a little higher.

Yeah, a little higher than the alley. And that's where we used to sit. Up on the ball return.

OK, on the ball return. Yeah, that's where we used to sit on the ball return. And then when they come down and the ball might, the pin might not even be coming from your own alley that you're setting up.

But you're right in the firing line. You're on a fire line. And usually one kid would take care of two alleys.

Oh, one kid would take care of two alleys. Is there a frame or were they just spots on the floor? You had to set them on the floor.

OK, so is this an alley right to the wall? Right to the floor. Yeah, it was like a little circle with a point in it.

A pad or something to keep the ball from hitting the granite wall? No, there was a pad in back of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was a pad at the end. So the ball would bounce off of that. The pins would bounce off of it.

And then they just sit in a tray, kind of a depressed area? It'd sit on like a little, you know, dugout like. OK, so you'd take the ball out of the dugout.

Pick it up. Put it on the return. Put it on the return.

It would roll back by gravity. It would roll back automatically to the... You'd set the pins up and you'd hop back up on the return.

Hop back up on the thing and hope you don't get hit. And the good, one of the best ballers down there was Charlie Dinnigan. And he had one bad eye, but Charlie was a good baller.

He went and did a lot of tournaments. He made a lot of money. I think before he bought the old alleys, he bought them off of Joe Ryan.

Joe Ryan used to be the fire chief in town. And he bought them off of Joe Ryan. But when Joe Ryan owned them, Joe Ryan, Angelo Squizzy, now, who was the other one?

I got it down here somewhere. Oh, and Al DeAmos. They used to be down there every Saturday afternoon, bowling for money.

Every Saturday afternoon. Just betting with each other? Huh?

Betting with each other? No, against each other. Against each other?

Yeah, the best against each other. Did anybody else put their money on it too, or it was just... You could have, yeah.

I don't know if they did or not. You could have, yeah. Uh, Squizzy and DeAmos were both stonecutters.

They worked at Fletcher's. And Joe Ryan, well, he owned that building. And then he was, uh, when we had a fire chief, he was a fire chief.

Like I said, we had leagues after the ball, uh, after the war. But now they've got leagues. I don't know what's in them.

I'm not, I'm not a bowler anymore. I'm too old now. Now, uh, we used to have a blacksmith, blacksmith shop in town.

Really? I didn't know that. Yeah?

I knew there was one in the center. There's one in South Chelmsford. We actually have pictures of those.

Yeah, well, the one you won't get no pictures of this one now. I don't know who'd have them. Hmm.

But it used to be right in back of the, uh, where we lived. The red brick block. On Tyngsboro Road.

Where, who lives? There's nobody there now. There's no place, no building there now.

At the end of, uh, Charlie Parley's land, there used to be a building there. It was a blacksmith shop. Okay, so north on Tyngsboro Road, just past the end of the Charlie Parley's block.

Yeah. There was an ATM machine there recently, but it's gone now. Yeah, well, just a little further down.

Okay. Maybe 30, 30, 40 yards down. It was just a single building with a blacksmith shop.

And they had the, the crank to get the coals hot.

Interviewer - Mm-hmm.

Francis Miskell - You'd throw them in the, the iron in there and then it'd bang away. Do you remember when he was still doing horseshoes? Yeah, most of his business was horseshoes.

Most of his business was, I can't remember the guy's name, but he was there for a long time. And we had, he used to crank the old coals, get them hot, put the, the iron in there and then he could shape it, bang it to whatever the hell way he wanted it.

Yeah, that, that was way, way back.

I will go to the next page. You didn't know the First National? No, I wasn't sure exactly where.

I knew there was an A&P and the First National. Yeah, there was two. Apparently there was one on either side of Watton Street.

One of them was above the bowling alley. That was the First National. First National, okay.

That was the First National. Tommy Gibbons was a manager there and he lived, he was, he lived in town. He lived right up here on Newfield, not Newfield, Sherman.

And then across the, well, where the hell am I going to get this in now? Across the street was the Village House, where the open parking lot is now. Yes.

Next to Rosie's. The Village House, there was, on the furthest end near McLaughlin's garage, was an ice cream parlor. And then there was this door, Anderson's Market.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Francis Miskell - And Patty Murphy was the partner of Herb Anderson. They used to have a delivery to the door of your house. You'd call up and tell them what you wanted.

You didn't have much in there, mostly meats and a few canned goods and a few vegetables, not much. One thing I want to ask you, I was reading somewhere that in those days it was common for everybody to have a credit account, an account at the grocery store. Yeah, you could, yeah.

So you could go in and just charge it to your account and then they'd send you a bill. Yeah. And the grocery bill was one of the last things people paid after they paid their fuel.

That's for sure.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Francis Miskell - It must have been hard to be a grocery guy then. They never pushed you. And then on 4th of July, Patty Murphy, Tom Gibbons, they used to show cherry bombs across the street at one another.

That was the excitement down there on 4th of July. They'd be throwing cherry bombs at each other down there, Murphy and Tommy Gibbons. And who else?

No, no. Was there a barbershop on the right end? There was, yeah, right next to Anderson's, the Anderson Market.

There was the ice cream, Anderson's, and then the barbershop, yeah. And now we're, where will we go from there? The firehouse.

The firehouse was at the end of the building, just above the bowling alleys is where we had a firehouse. It was just big enough for the truck and maybe a couple of chairs in there. We had no permanent men.

We had three guys after a while. If they hear the fire whistle, they have to tell where the fire was? The fire, yeah.

Would they go to the station, hop on the truck, or would they go right to the fire? No, there was always somebody running to grab the truck. Somebody grab the truck, everybody else go straight to the fire?

Interviewer - Is that how it worked?

Francis Miskell - Yeah, yeah, because we all had cars. I was a call man, too. Okay.

My brother was a call man, too. We had recalls. Now, who ran the air horn on the town hall?

It's still there. I know. Who ran it?

Who actually blew the whistle on it? I couldn't tell you. I don't know.

Was it automated, or did somebody actually have to pull the lever? I don't know. I wouldn't say.

I don't know on that one. You got me there. I don't know.

But then there was boxes, too, on the street. The pull boxes, yeah.

Interviewer - They're still there. It's still maintained, though.

Francis Miskell - Yeah, they're still there. I don't know. But the whistle would blow, and you'd count the whistles, and you had your card.

You knew where the hell the fire was and take off. There weren't that many fires then. You didn't need permanent men.

But then, after a while, we got Joe Ryan was the chief, and we had three permanent men. Ray McGlinchy, Joe Picard, and Ira Baldwin.

Interviewer - Mm-hmm.

Francis Miskell - Ray McGlinchy was from West Chester. Joe Picard lived on Highland Avenue, and Ira Baldwin lived on North Road, almost over to the center, up on a hill. And then everybody was a volunteer, and when they come back to the station, somebody would take a list of those who helped, and they'd send a list over to the town.

Sometimes you got your name on a list. Sometimes you didn't. And you'd get maybe a little bit of change, a check or something from the town for doing firework.

And then when they got permanent, that was all the call men were gone then. Yeah, then they just got a regular call. Some of them stayed in as firemen, but not all of them, because Jerry Wallace.

Remember Jerry Wallace? He was the president of Lowell 5. No.

No. Jerry Wallace, he was a call man. He lived right up here on, what's the hell's the name?

Chatham Avenue. He lived right here on Chatham Avenue. Yep, Jerry went for it.

So then, with Arthur Fittner, the ParleeBuilding now, Arthur Frost was in them furthest end going down Wotton Lane. Then there was a little shoe fix, a cobbler shop, Charlie Pelletier. He ran that.

And then was the first National. And then George Hill's little restaurant, something like Rosie's. He just had a, you know, go in and get a sandwich.

No big deals. And then, still in ParleeBuilding is where Robinson had his garage. P.T. Robinson had a garage. But then P.T. got bigger and built on further. That was all torn down now. And then where the garage was, Power's Package going in.

That was way, way back. Power's, is that the same one that was down at Wood Street later? No.

The big one? No relation. Power's Liquor?

No relation. Yeah, no relation. And then they moved to Parkhurst.

And now they're off Parkhurst. It might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Might be called Drum Hill. But there was a Power's over there by Wood Street. There's one down there by the Wallace's.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Francis Miskell - Yeah, no relation, no. There was Billy, the father, died. Then Billy took it over.

Because I remember we helped them move. First, when they had the package door, they had the first license in town. All liquor, you know, wine, beer, whiskey, the whole bit.

And that was on Adams Street, right across from the Howard House. That's where the first package door was. And then on a Sunday.

Now, you're saying it's at the corner of the square? Vinyl Square. I mean, it's directly across from where the Howard House was.

Yeah, right opposite the Howard House. And it was probably before that brick building was put in where the bank was originally. And then it's not a bank now.

No, no, no, no. That wasn't there, right? No, no.

Where the bank is now used to be garage. First, there used to be... Marinel lived there, was a house.

And when in Waltham, they all disappeared. A wooden house? Huh?

That was a wooden house? Wooden house, yeah. Tore it down?

Huh? They tore that down and built a brick building? Yeah, no, it was not Marinel.

Captain Reynolds lived there. Marinel lived right here where the telephone is. Oh, okay.

And that got torn down and replaced? That got replaced, yeah. Marinelgot replaced.

The bank bought Capuano's and built the bank.

And then Walter Marinel was right here next door to me. And that's now AT&T, I guess, is over there now. I don't know.

There's a couple of telephone office there now. Verizon's in there too. But that was way back.

That was way back. So Marinel, he was a... I don't know what he ever did for a living.

He wasn't like a mechanic, but he worked mostly out of his garage. Well, his family ran school buses? No, no relation.

No relation, no relation. He had two daughters, Alix, I don't know, Alix, and he had one son, Donald, because Donald was with me in school. And Donald, last I heard of him, he's out there in California somewhere.

I don't know where. And Alix is going to heaven. And I went to him.

There was another daughter there, but I don't recall her name. But Marinel, he worked mostly on cars out of his garage. He was a pretty good mechanic.

That takes you up to the... So there's one question I have. You mentioned P.T. Robinson had two different garage sites over in the Parleebuilding, the former building. Yeah, he moved. Didn't he go across the street in the cement block building? And then he went next, where Rosie's is now.

So that's where we're headed.

Interviewer - That's where he ended up.

Francis Miskell - That's where we're heading. That's where he wound up. And then there was somebody else came in there after P.T. I don't know who it was. I don't know who came in there after that. But then P.T. died and Chandler, his son, took over. Now, that wasn't the post office.

The post office was to the right of that building, right? Yeah, no. To my side of it.

Post office was where the hairdresser is now. No, that's where... To the right of the garage was where Cap Elliott was.

He had a little store in there. And Cap was one of the characters in town. He was more efficient than...

Okay, let me ask you about Cap Elliott. I asked George who was in Pete's Barber Shop. And he thought Cap Elliott lived in the back of Pete's Barber Shop.

A little alcove there. And in the front of it, he used to sell newspapers and tobacco and candy, stuff like that. Candy, candy.

For kids, you know, stuff for kids. Not much. But he was a good fisherman.

Yeah. He had worms and stuff, too. And George said he had his car parked out back and he always had his fishing gear ready to go.

He did. Yeah. He's right there, yeah.

That was in Pete's Barber Shop. That was to the left of the Robinsons, right? Yeah, going away from Robinsons.

Going away from Robinsons, right. Yeah. So then on this side is where the post office was.

The post office was on this side of Robinsons. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. Let me see if I got everything there now.

Now, I told you about the Village Shop. There was two apartments up above it.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Francis Miskell - And that's where the parking lot is now. Yes. So that was a pretty good-sized house.

It had three stores and then a couple of floors above that. So three storey- Yeah, some apartments up above that. And now, as you come now, on the corner now, we've got Dunstable Road and Gorton Road.

It's all apartments now. In between the two roads, yes. That is a triangular-shaped building.

You got Harvey's, you get the hardware store- On the right. On one triangle and then that other building, which is- Yeah. Which they fixed up fairly nicely.

They got flowerpots. It's all painted up. That's all- It was a- That was a store there.

That's where Powers- Tell me about that. Powers had his variety store, Powers Variety. Okay. And he used to have a big- There was a porch there, but they've locked it in now, and it's apartments. And that's where we used to hang out on the porch. It wasn't cold.

He always let us inside. So he had a bar. They used to sell- I worked there, too, after school.

They used to have cookies. Sell them by the pound. Wow.

The box would come in, maybe a five-pound box, and you could sell them by the pound, half a pound or whatever the hell people wanted to buy. And he had a bar, and he had deli meats. And I remember I flew back.

I was working there. And if the hot dogs got moldy, all we did was wash them off and put them right back in the case. Oh, I didn't hear that.

That's the truth, I'm hoping. He'd say, I'll wash them off and put them back in the case. But we did what we were told, and then we'd sell them.

That's way, way back. That's way, way back. And then Billy moved a thing across the street, and there was apartments.

That was the only- I was right next to the package store. There was Economeau Cleaners. They had- Is that where the furniture place ended up?

Interviewer - No, no, no, no.

Francis Miskell - It's all apartments now. It's in the apartment building. Oh, in that building?

Yeah, in that building. The Economos, they'd come up there every morning, take the clothes, whatever you wanted clean, bring it to Lowell, and then they'd bring it back the next day. And all they had there was just- You could pick- You could bring it in and come back the next day.

Yeah, they had a rack to put it on. You'd come in and pick it up. Come back the next day, because they did all the cleaning in Lowell.

No chemicals and stuff. Yeah, yeah. They didn't have nothing down here.

They just had the racks with the numbers on it. That was the Economo. Now, I give you all my power of the store.

I think I might get near the end here. I gave you Bob Murphy, Paramount, Meadow Grill. Oh, the North School, that used to be Stephen's Sandbank.

Oh. And then we used to go up there. It was up, you were up on a hill, you know, because they were taking the sand out of there.

We used to keep jumping in the sand, roll down. And at the bottom of that, we called it Stumpy. It was water.

Uh, I don't know what the hell you call it today. To me, water was there all the time. Yeah.

But they filled it all in. They filled Stumpy in with the sand when they leveled it off. Made so they could, uh, Marinel Avenue was there.

Marinel came later. And that was George Marinel, the bus driver. Okay.

The bus owner. He was the one that built Marinel Avenue. That's why it was named after him.

So he developed it. Huh? He developed it.

He developed it, yeah. Went up on the hill up there, where the senior citizen is now, and where they've got the elderly housing. That was all the sandbank in the town.

Then in the 50s, they leveled it off and put the brick school there. And then they built the North School. Yeah.

And then the North School burnt. I remember that. My son was a student there that year when it burned.

My wife and my sister were teachers. Teachers, huh? What grades?

My wife had first, and my sister-in-law had third. Because I was asleep, because I was working at the jail at the time. And my wife and my daughter, one of the kids went up with my wife.

And they came home, and they were both crying. Because the fire started down one end. And where did it go?

It crawled right up that end and down to the other end. Chancellor, in my opinion, let that fire building burn. Well, it's partly the construction, too.

There was an overhead ventilation passage.

Interviewer - That's what they say up and down.

Francis Miskell - But they had a hydrant right outside the kitchen door. And you know who hooked up to the hydrant? Lowell.

Chancellor didn't hook up to it. They had the lake right across the street. They didn't draft from that either.

Wow. You can't tell me they didn't let it burn. That's my opinion, though.

I don't know. My brother was a fireman, and I told him that all the time. That I think you guys let it burn.

Well, afterwards, the roof was all gone. But the kids' desks were there. So the teacher went in and went into their own kids' desks.

My son got his smock and a little professor calculator thing.

Interviewer - Oh, yeah.

Francis Miskell - Yeah, because I remember I went up with my wife after. Since she was cleaning up her desk and stuff. Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah. And then they got transposed into Harrington, which was kind of crowded. I think they went two shifts for a while there.

They did. Yeah, yeah. Well, my kid Bobby, I'll give you a letter on him.

I want you to read that before you go. Oh, this. Yeah, we'll get to him.

That's Bobby. My kid Bobby, he was transferred to Tyngsboro. He went to school in Tyngsboro.

They bused him up to Tyngsboro. I don't know what grade he was in then. But I remember him going to, I think the Tyngsboro school was empty at the time.

And he was dead. He must have rented, I suppose. I don't know what the hell he did.

But I remember Bobby got shipped out to Tyngsboro. But that was the end of the law school. Law school.

Long play. Never done that. Oh, then.

I think I gave you one picture. Let's see. What have we got here?

That's me on that horse. That's you. That's a fake horse.

Oh, it's the Moxie car. It's a Moxie car. It used to come around every once in a while.

It looks like a Rolls Royce. Yeah.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Francis Miskell - And they used to stop. That's Adams Street right now. Okay.

See. Is this the store? Ross's Market.

That's where that Indian store is now. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. That's still there. Wow.

That's a good shot. And there is the block we were talking about on the other side of the road. Right there.

That's across the road. That's Carlee block now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder if I blow that up, I may be able to pick out something there.

Now, that was the First National on that side? No, the First National would be more. First National would be more over here.

Interviewer - Yeah. Okay.

Francis Miskell - So it's on the east side over here. So I can almost see some words there, but I can't quite read it. You can have that one too.

Oh, thank you. That's me on top of the horse. How about that?

They'd stop and let anybody that wanted. Yeah, I'll have to label that tonight before I forget. Anybody that wanted to get up and let them take their pictures.

Do you have an idea what year? No, I haven't. Is there no date on that one?

No. No. I'd say in the 30s.

It'd have to be in the 30s. Nice rolls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the rolls, I mean, the horse was built on the back of it.

Interviewer - So the kids would be up there. The parks were open all the time.

Francis Miskell - It's a picture opportunity, yeah? Yeah, yeah. But that's all it was, advertisement for moxie.

That was me on the top. Now, another old roll building in town is demolished now. Donovan's Diner.

Did you ever hear of that? No. As you go into the mill yard at 71 Princeton Street now, there was a diner.

I don't think it was. It might be in this room. Well, is that the one where the canal went under the road?

The canal was right under it. Okay, I think I've actually seen a picture of that. I just wasn't aware it was called Donovan's Diner.

Donovan's Diner. Joe Donovan was the cook. Okay.

And he only worked while the mills were running during the day. He never worked at it. No, no, he never opened it at night.

He made a living there. Joe made a living there because people from Southwest would get a break. They'd come over and get a sandwich.

People from George Seymour, the truckers and them, they'd go get something. And then when we're working in the mill, they'd let somebody go out and get, you know, for the three or four guys. He'd get an order for three or four guys.

He wouldn't get it all. Oh, yeah, and then he'd take it all back. He'd take it all back.

The doctors take it all back so everybody wouldn't go at the same time. Now, was that open when you were working there? Yeah.

Interviewer - Oh, yeah. I was there all the time.

Francis Miskell - I mean, Donovan was there all the time. And when I was going to Princeton Street School, I was an altar boy, too, at St. John's. And when we had funeral masses, we always had, they always had altar boys then to go down and serve the mass.

Now they don't. So was this, when you say you went to school? At the Princeton Street.

We'd get excused to go down and serve mass at nine o'clock. Okay, okay. Of course, we'd walk.

And then we used to get paid, I think it was a half a dollar for serving the mass. Usually, there'd be three of us. Me, Paul Buregaard, Wilford Fremo, or Billy Barron.

They always had three. But we used to get paid. Then on our way back, we always stopped at Donovan's because I was eager for our pay before we got back to school.

But we got excused. That's all we got. That was it.

Joe Donovan, he made his living there. He brought up, he had two, a girl and a boy. And his wife wasn't, never worked.

And now, another market that I know you've never heard of, Steffens Market at the bridge. No. Did you know there was a market at the bridge?

Is this, no. Was the bridge there then, or was this before the bridge? No, no.

The bridge was there. The bridge was there. So it was on the Bainbridge side of the tracks?

Interviewer - No, it was on the other side of the street.

Francis Miskell - After you'd go by the railroad tracks, it was right there on the corner. A little store, not much. He had groceries and meat.

And John Steffen was the owner of that. And then when... What was the building?

Oh, the building was gone. The building was gone, yeah. But it was right, you could almost, if you were standing on a bridge, you would go maybe 15 yards, you'd be at the store.

It was very close to the road. Very close to the road. You could park down around the back.

And then when Rossler died, Siggy, he moved up here to the square where Rossler's market was done. This picture here? And he had, he operated there.

And then he died. His first name was Siggy? Siggy Rossler?

Siggy Rossler, yeah. Sigman. Okay.

Sigman Rossler. And then John Steffen moved up there and operated that store. And then with the North Chelmsford Hardware is now, there used to be a little clothing store owned by...

I don't know who owned the building. I couldn't say who owned the building. But Jack Cohen, he changed his name to Clonel.

They lived on Adams Street here. Just a short, halfway up the street. And he had a clothing store there.

And he and his wife, Jean, ran it. You could go in there and get shorts, pants, clothing and stuff, dresses and stuff. No, nothing, it was all clothing.

Nothing else. But that was where the North Chelmsford Hardware was now. And then where Cal Lawton is now.

Cal Lawton, it's Mahoney's now. But that used to be an open field. And they used to have motorcycle races down there.

They had a track. And then maybe every other week or something. Because the only one I can remember from town that used to race down there would be Whitey Minor.

He was a cop. He wasn't a cop at that time. He's young and full of health.

But they used to have motorcycle races down there. Where Mahoney's is now. So it was just an oval, informal dirt track?

It wasn't an oval dirt track. No, no, it was a dirt track. Yeah, it was a dirt track.

Steffen, Donovan, Hardware, Lawton's. I think we'll get there. Well, let me just go back to where the hardware store is.

I've seen pictures when the trolleys were running. They used to have kind of a porch on the front of it. And at one time there was an ice cream stand on that porch where you could buy an ice cream while you're waiting for the trolley?

Not that I can remember. No, it was just an open porch. It was just an open porch there.

And then along where the hardware now displays there, sometimes a snowblower and stuff. There was a wall, a wooden fence like, and they had benches. For waiting.

Yeah, you could sit there. Were the trolleys running when you were here? Do you remember?

Yeah, I remember the trolleys. I remember the trolleys, yeah. I think I might have a picture of a trolley.

If I do, I'll send it to you. I think I might have a picture of a trolley. I'm not sure.

But yeah, the trolleys, because the trolleys used to stop right there. Yeah, we have some postcards. One postcard is going up Tyngsboro Road.

Another postcard is going up. It's coming up this way. Groton-Dunstable, yeah.

No, Groton. Okay, and then I think it went Groton down to Brookside. I don't know where it went.

I don't know, because we never, that was our stop right there. Yeah, it went Groton, Main Street, and then down the hill to Brookside. And at Brookside, they couldn't cross the train track.

So they had to get out and pick up another car on the other side to go to Westford. Well, that could be, because we never went. That was our stop right there.

And it stopped both ways, coming and going. So you didn't need to take the trolley to school, because you were close. We had to.

We walked. You know, we walked. That's why I say today, the kids are lazy.

My grandchildren across the street there, of course now they have a little further to walk. But we walked. And when we were going to the North School, we lived right there in the brick building, where now 8 Dunstable Road.

Yeah. And we came home to dinner and went back to dinner in 45 minutes. Today, if, well, when the kids were, they were bussing kids then.

But there were no kids from around the local here. They all had to walk. And like today, where Dunshire Drive is, you know where Dunshire Drive is on Dunstable Road?

You go in, you circle up, and you come out the same road. Oh, it's a circle? It's a circle.

The bus goes down there to pick them up. OK. Now, them kids could well then walk to Dunstable Road and get the buses.

Is there a little pond in the middle of that circle? Or am I thinking of the wrong place? Just beyond the Senior Center, there's a road that has a circle.

The what? Beyond the Senior Center, there's a road that circles around a small pond. But it's the wrong one.

Beyond the Senior Center? Yeah, there's a road that goes to the right. It used to be Marty's Bay Chop and then the next right turn.

Oh, yeah, I know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interviewer - I don't know if they go up there or not.

Francis Miskell - But I was up there. I saw from one of the boys from the water park. I was up there helping a lady put up her awnings for the winter.

I was taking them down. I'd rather put them up in the spring. And I see the bus come down.

He stopped at the top of the hill. Kids got out. He went down, got into your drive, made a circle and came right back out again.

That was a waste of taxpayer money. That's all it was, a waste of money. I don't know if they got any more.

They're giving you everything, I think. Well, do you remember a racetrack down to the left of Southwell Field? Tell me about that.

They had Dunshire down there. Dunshire racing? Dunshire races down there, yeah.

And the guy that ran the sulkies, there used to be a house way down back there, right on the river. Was it? Oh, was that the one that had the chimneys?

The house was long gone, but the chimneys stayed there. Oh, I don't know. It could have been.

It was a good-sized house.

Interviewer - It was the only one there.

Francis Miskell - Yeah, house burn. It could have been. I think it burned actually before the 36th flood.

Oh, I couldn't say. But that was the guy that ran the horse races? Yeah, he had horses himself.

And he had a barn there too, right? Yeah, and he had the horses down there too, yeah. I can't think of the guy's name now.

But his house was almost on the riverbank, you know. Yeah, when they built Williamsburg, Williamsburg came almost up to that site where... Williamsburg was further up.

Was, right, but... Further up. I explored that site one time, and you could see it when they built Williamsburg, they had a big aerial picture, and it stood out.

The racetrack? No, the house with the chimneys, that stood out very easily. The racetrack, I didn't, I wasn't aware of until, believe it or not, last night.

Oh, yeah, yeah. George told me about the racetrack being down there. Yeah, there was a racetrack down there.

And he had the Salkys, it was all Salky races. I never, never seen it. So did people go down, local people go down to bet on the horses?

God, I don't know. I never did. I never did go down to see them, but I knew they were there.

It's like professional gambling racing? Could have been. You know, you were young.

I suppose if you're going to see a race, you're going to see betting. Yeah. I don't know.

But yeah, that was down there. I just can't recall who the hell it was. George, George, George is on a ball.

He was, and we never let them kids come up here, because the boundary line was the tracks. That's right. You know, he was telling me, if you live on the other side of the tracks, you went to Highland School.

Yeah, yeah. So he went to Highland School. George went to Highland School.

Yeah, yeah. And they had their own baseball team, and we had our own baseball team up here. That was the only team we ever played was Highland School.

Yeah, that was the boundary line. The kids on the other side of the track went to the Highland, and the other kids on this end. And then I don't know where the boundary line was up in West Chelmsford, because then we had the Quessy School, too.

Right. And that's the house now, too. Yes.

They tore the Quessy down and made it up a pile. I think, I don't know if it was a pile. It was a school there before the Quessy, and we have a picture of the original school on the site being taken apart, and the new Quessy School right behind it.

Oh, yeah? Together. And I think that was 1925.

Yeah, I don't know what was up that way. Yeah, 1980, they took down the Quessy. I think I covered all my dope that I had to cover, and my ice cream.

I was a school that was a hangout for us, Paramount. Oh, yeah, we used to have a Memorial Day parade, and it wasn't that long. I don't know what we'd have for bands.

The high school used to have, the grammar school used to have little bands, their own, you know. There wasn't much to it, but there'd be the Cub Scouts, the Regular Scouts, the Girl Scouts. I don't know if there was Brownies in it or not.

Roger Swallow, he used to gang up all the kids that wanted to march at the tail end of the parade, and the veterans would be at the end of the legion and that. We used to get a Dixie Cup for marching. That was our payoff.

The ice cream Dixie Cup, to pull the tab up, and a little wooden spoon. Yep, wooden spoon. Yeah, those were good.

And that was our payoff for the Memorial Day parade. Now, it seems like in the 70s when we moved to town, did they alternate between Center and North on Memorial Day? I don't know when they started, but yeah.

I remember bringing our kids out here back in the 70s. I think that the Center had their own parade way back, like we had our own parade, but then now they rotate. Yeah, maybe they didn't have enough people to support two separate parades.

Yeah, I think the Center had their own. But then now, every other year, we get it one year, they get it the next year. I don't know how they provide it off, but I remember marching and getting my Dixie Cup.

That would be our payoff. The grill, the school, the Sound of Senior Citizens. The motorcycle racing lot in Clonel, Donovan.

Something I was always curious about. Maybe you could help fill in Drum Hill. I guess there was a...

A slaughterhouse. Okay, but there was a pretty good hill that you went up, and then down the other side, right where Route 3 is, they cut right through the hill to go cart it away. But what was that area like before?

You said there was a slaughterhouse. There was a slaughterhouse in there where the apartments are now and where that school, uh, like a daycare is off of Princeton Street. You know where you go into Technology Drive?

Yeah, before that, there's a daycare down that way. Between there, Princeton Boulevard, and Technology, there's a daycare place down in there, kind of next to Middlesex Training School. Between the training school and Route 4, is that the area we're talking about?

No, it's, uh, just a short distance, I think, uh, uh, let's see, Reeds or number 356, I remember that from a postcard list, and just a short distance from that, there was a dirt road going up to the car, to the slaughterhouse. I can't remember. Well, was it all the way up to Drum Hill, or was it back to Princeton Boulevard?

It was back more, it was back more on Princeton Boulevard. It'd be like in the back of the shopping area now. Okay.

They've got a daycare now, and it was all woods, and you couldn't see the wall. If I remember back in the 70s, there was gravel pit operations in there. In the middle, between, let's see, Drum Hill Road and Princeton, uh, or Route 4, Route 4 and Drum Hill, it seemed like there was gravel operations there, and then over on the other side of Drum Hill, by the incinerator, there was another gravel operation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was Danny Brady. Okay. Danny Brady was the one, he was on low, his gravel pit was on low.

I don't recall the other one, no. And no, uh, Drum Hill, there was a slight grade, as there is now, and then when you got to the top, it was a drop. And at the bottom of the hill, there was nothing.

Zaya had a fruit stand at the bottom of the hill. So this would be where the Rotary is right now, the square? No, it'd be further down now.

Further down. You'd be going down the hill. Of course, let's see, it was Westford, oh, let's see, Westford, what is it called, Old Westford?

Yeah, I know where that is. The roads didn't join in a square before, they went separately across where Route 3 is now, right? Mm-hmm.

So, on the northerly branch, that would be Route 4. Now, let's see, let's go across this. Yeah, no.

You'll have to straighten me out, I'm a little confused. Yeah, yeah, Drum Hill was, Drum Hill was straight roads. I mean, uh, we called it Moss Road, all the way over to the center.

Okay. All the way to the center. But as you get, like, to the top of the hill now, where, just before the Rotary starts, there was a good drop, good hill, going downhill, and then Zayas had their fruit stand there, and then there was that, like,

Parkhurst Road was still there, that could connect you into, down into the city, whether it went down by that shopping area.

And then the rest of it was houses from there over to the center. The only little place there that was, uh, Zayas, uh, little, they had, like, a fruit stand. They closed up in the winter.

Were there some good-sized farms there? I know where the high school is. Oh, yeah, yeah, it was all farmland down there.

That was, that was a big farm. Yeah, there was all farmlands there, on both sides of the road, yeah. No, nothing, no.

The housing didn't start until you get down, uh, past where the police station is, down that way. Yeah, you'd go way past the police before you, it was all farmland. That's where, uh, Blackie, Blackie's Farm was down in there.

I never worked for Blackie's Farm. I did work, uh, Clark's Farm. Clark's Farm is down now.

Uh, a good part of, uh, Oh, Dun, Dun, Dun, Dunshire Drive, further, a little further up. Uh, uh, what the hell's the name of that? Taylor Drive.

And that's where, uh, Kastore is now. That was all farmland in back of that. Mr. Clark here. We used to get, I think, either two or three cents a row. So we're going up Tyngsboro Road now. Going up Tyngsboro Road now.

We used to get two or three cents a row for weeding, on your hands and knees, pulling the weeds out. That was back breaking job. And then all along the Merrimack River too, where there's some businesses now, that, that all used to be farms?

Yeah, there was farms down there too, yeah. A lot of cornfields? Cornfields, yeah, yeah.

Then Paul Hart had, uh, a lot of farming down there by the mill, all in that land down in there. By Southwell Field? Yeah.

No, no, no, not on Southwell Field, no. More towards the Tyngsboro side. Mm-hmm, north, north of the, uh, Yeah, and Mr. Wharton, Up, uh, north of, uh, Williamsburg?

Would be this side of Williamsburg. This side, okay. Because when, when Paul Hart, Paul Hart, he was a selectman.

And he picked what they wanted. They always left a hell of a lot of good stuff down there. We'd go down there and he'd say, take what you want.

He said, I've got what I want. So he would sell that and then leave the rest? He'd sell it, but we'd take it home for us.

We brought it home. And then I remember, Paul had a little place, a little garage like over there on, uh, by North Road, the Parkhurst Road. And he used to, butternut squash, he used to peel it over there and chop it up into squares and sell it to the markets.

Because he could get more by selling it. Chopped up? Chopped up and peeled.

So it's like retail versus wholesale. Yeah. And he had a little thing.

I don't know what the hell you'd call it. Like, not like, it'd be like something like a vice, but it had two prongs like in the end. And then it's spin.

It's spin, yes, yes. Put the squash in there. He had a V-shaped thing.

Back and forth. Peel it, throw it to one other kid. The other kid didn't get it.

Take the seeds out of it, chop it up, and then Paul would bag it. I remember seeing apple peelers like that. It had a hand crank.

It would spin pretty quick. And then it would have a peeler thing that would go around in an arc. It sounds like the end of a peeler.

But you'd just hold it there and go back and forth. And it would take the very light skin off because the butternut squash doesn't have a hell of a lot of skin. It's like turning a piece of wood.

Huh? Yeah. And it just back and forth, back and forth.

And he'd chop it up and then bag it and sell it. What was Paul Hart's main work? Was he a farmer?

He was a farmer. Yeah, his father was a farmer, too. Yeah, he took over.

Where was their home farm? Huh? Where was their home farm?

I don't know where their home farm, but they did a lot of it down there by Southwell Field. Not on this side of the T-Pro side of the mill. They rented the land.

I don't know who owned the land, if it was Southwell or not. Maybe it was Southwell that owned the field. I don't know.

But that's where we had big, big guns. He used to grow pepper, corn, tomatoes, butternut squash. They were about the only things that he used to grow down there.

But he picked the choice stuff and the rest of it he'd plow under for next year's fertilizer. Yeah. Yeah, he had quite a field down there.

I think I've covered all I can remember now. Okay. I'm going to see if I can find your...

What did you want to know? What did they say I was going to try to find you? A picture of...

Picture of something. Let's see.

Interviewer - Something local.

Francis Miskell - Well, let's wrap it up. You know, let's wrap up the recorder. Okay, go ahead.

Interviewer - We'll figure out what we're looking for.