File #6202: "ParkhurstDoug(interview).pdf"

Interview with Doug Parkhurst by Nancy London on October 9, 2003
NL: Thank you for being here.
DP: It’s my pleasure, Nancy.
NL: Tell me about where you were born and when.
DP: Ok, well my, my full name is Douglas H. Parkhurst. I was born on January
27, 1952, in the Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Connecticut.
NL: So, they had hospitals back then?
DP: They did. Right up the hill here.
NL: Ok.
DP: It was a little smaller than it is now though.
NL: And your folks were they originally from Danbury?
DP: Ah, my folks were both born in Massachusetts. Uh, my mother was born in
Boston and grew up in Somerville, Mass., which is a city outside of Boston. My
father was born in Rockport, Massachusetts, and when he was about three
months old, his family moved to Vermont, and he grew up in Springfield,
Vermont, ah, in first in Bethel? Vermont, and then in Springfield, Vermont, and
then the family, when he was about high school age, moved to Woodsville, New
Hampshire, and he finished his schooling, public schooling in Woodsville, NH.
NL: Ok and what brought them to Danbury?
DP: My folks came to Danbury in 1944. My father was a teacher and athletic
coach. He had worked in Dartmouth, Mass., was a teacher and coach at
Southbury, at Dartmouth High School in Dartmouth, Mass., and he was the
principal of the high school in Scituate, Mass., in the 30s and early 1940s, and in
1944 he was offered a job as coach, teacher, and head of the Math Department
at Danbury High School and so he and my mother, who had been married a few
years at that point, moved to Danbury.
NL: Now, Danbury High School used to be right here on this campus, am I right?
DP: Yes. When my folks first came to Danbury and my father first taught in
Danbury, the high school is what is now the White Hall, which is the building,
well…just almost next door to where we are sitting in the Library.

NL: Right, right…
DP: In the Haas Library.
NL: All right, so growing up in Danbury, so now your folks are in Danbury, your
mother and father reside in town, and your father teaches at Danbury High
School…what about your mom? What was she doing?
DP: Well, my mother had worked after graduating from high school, in
Somerville, Mass.; she had gotten a job with the John Hancock Life Insurance
Company as a clerk typist. And, she worked in that office, in the home office for
the John Hancock, for several years before she got married. And when she got
married, she moved to South Dartmouth, Mass., where my father was teaching at
the time. When she came to Danbury, she got a job working for the Motor
Vehicle Department as a clerk, uh I guess doing licenses and handing out license
plates and things like that, doing registrations and so on. And she worked part
time in that job, I believe, for several years, then she was a housewife and later
on when I was in elementary school she took a job as the school secretary at the
South Street School in Danbury.
NL: Your father was at the high school and your mother was at an elementary
school?
DP: Yes, she was the secretary at the South Street School, an elementary
school.
NL: All right. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
DP: I have no brothers and no sisters.
NL: Oh, so you are an only child.
DP: I am an only child.
NL: All right, that is, that is a whole topic in and of itself, I guess. All right, so
your folks had you, and your mom was a stay at home mom while you were
growing up, or was she already working at that point?
DP: Well, she had worked part time before I was on the scene, and when I was
very small she was a stay at home mom. My grandmother also lived with us.
This was my father’s mother and she was your typical traditional grandmother
who, um you know, baked cookies and did things like that and socialized with her
friends. And I remember her making lye soap out of ashes
NL: Oh wow!

DP: From the furnace and things like that. So there are actually…my
grandmother was at home and my mother was at home when I was very small
and then my mother went to work at South Street School when I was maybe 8, 9,
10 years old. Something like that.
NL: Well, all right. In those days when you were 8 or 9 as you mentioned and
your mom was working, did you feel that the other moms were home? Was it
different then than it is now?
DP: I would say by and large they were. I know I had a friend who lived on my
street whose mother worked. I believe she was a secretary in a, a business
although I don’t remember what particular business it was. And I remember her
going to work every day. But, by and large…oh, I had another friend whose
mother was a nurse and she went to work. I believed she worked in an, in as
industrial nursing situation. Ah, but by and large most of the mothers were at
home, it seemed, most of the time.
NL: Yeah. All right, so now you’re born at Danbury Hospital, and uh…. what do
you remember when you were growing up…. very small, a…. what do you
remember about the house you lived in or about special occasions?
DP: Well, I grew up on Washington Avenue in Danbury. It was a two family
house and I very remember very well the people on the other side of the house,
the Winokos???? ? Close. They were very good friends of ours. Ah, at the
time the neighborhood was and still is, although I don’t live there any more, I
don’t live on that street any more, but at the time and it still is a middle class type
neighborhood.
NL: Uh huh.
DP: One of my earliest memories is of the floods of 1955 when I was about
three, between three and four years old. I remember there were two floods.
There was one in the summer, I believe in August, and then there was another
one either in late September or early October, maybe a month or month and a
half apart. And one of them, we came back from a trip, although I don’t
remember which one it was, whether it was the summer the August one, or the
October one, but I remember we being, I think we were up in Massachusetts
visiting my mother’s family for the weekend or something like that, and I
remember my folks talking about you know possibility of flooding and stuff so we
left early to come home. My grandmother who lived with us, this is my father’s
mother, was home alone. No one else was there, you know, in our house, and I
think my father was a little bit worried about her and I remember we came home
and kind of had to wind around some of the streets because of downed trees and
stuff. And I remember coming in and running up the stairs and finding my
grandmother sitting in her bedroom kind of looking out the window waiting for us
to come home. There was…..

NL: Right, right. Was it a hurricane? The flood?
DP: It was yeah, I believe it was caused by one or two hurricane and you know a
lot of rainy weather, and kind of an accumulation of those things, incidents,
caused the flooding. There was a brook that ran next to my back yard, and I
remember seeing the water come up over the brook and flooded the back yard.
And I remember, also, probably this would be after the height of the flood and
driving in the car with my father and seeing water on White Street. Umm, it must
have been receding at the time because I believe we were driving on Main
Street, but I can in my mind’s eye, I can still see the water still on White Street
and the road was closed, and you know there was no traffic going up and down
White Street.
NL: So, you know, do you remember when you were younger what the traffic
looked like at the time?
DP: You mean the, you mean how heavy was the traffic?
NL: Yeah, yeah.
DP: Around in the center of town, and actually where I grew up was it, it a city
neighborhood, Washington Avenue it’s near Wooster Village off of West Wooster
Street and Division, Division Street, and it is not that far from downtown. It is
probably a mile or less. Ah, and one of the neighboring streets to me was one of
the, kind of the through streets for Danbury, and there was quite a bit of traffic,
you know, on an ordinary basis, and Main Street was heavily traveled because it
was either Route 6 or Route 7, or both, at the time, and along with just the local
traffic and parking on Main Street, you know for shopping and things like that,
Main Street always seemed to have a lot of traffic on it.
NL: All right, tell me what Main Street looked like, what kind of stores were
there?
DP: Ah, well when I was little we lived within walking distance of Main Street and
we had only one car, or my family had one car. Normally, my father took that to
work, although I remember him taking the bus. There was a bus service, a bus
route that ran through Wooster Village and I believe down Division Street and
West Street, and I can remember him taking the bus some days if my mother
needed to use the car, or he would take the car if she, on that particular day,
didn’t need to go anywhere, or didn’t need the car to go anywhere.
NL: Mmmm
DP: So, before I was old enough to go to school, I am going to say once or twice
a week in nice weather, my mother would take me walking down to Main Street

to shop. It was before, I don’t think there were any shopping centers at the time,
I believe the first one was the Berkshire Shopping Center and maybe that was
when I was around 10 years old. That, that came, was built, that’s off of
Newtown Road near exit 8 now, uh, but we would go up and down Main Street.
There was a store my mother like, kind of a department store called Genung’s,
and
NL: Oh.
DP: then it became Howland’s, and then became Steinbeck’s, and then it
closed.
NL: Then it closed, yeah..
DP: And I think there is a restaurant now in the back, I think it is the Colorado
Breweries is in the back part of that building, but that building used to go from
Main Street all the way back to Delay, Delay Street. And it was a nice
department store. They had clothing and household furnishings and I remember
there was a beauty parlor up on the balcony. So she liked to shop in there.
There was Woolworth’s, there was a McCory’s, which are like 5 and 10 type
stores, but they were smaller not big like the Wal*Marts now. They sold that kind
of merchandise but they were much smaller stores.
NL: Right.
DP: size-wise and didn’t have as much in them. Of course, the banks were on
Main Street. I remember going into the bank what is now the City Trust, well it is
not now the City Trust, it used to be the City Trust. Now I believe it is a church.
Um and I remember going in there and seeing the tellers in behind the cages.
There was, you know, the …what to you call it?
NL: The counter….
DP: The counter?
NL: Yeah.
DP: And they had, I guess they were brass, it was metal cages, and so in order
to talk to the teller you had to look at them through the bars. And I was impressed
by that, having to look at the people through the bars. I don’t know that banks
have that any more. I guess most of them at least around here don’t have that.
It was an old fashioned looking bank, but I believe there is a church in there. It is
the one that has the Indian relief over the door, and I remember going in that
bank.
NL: What about grocery stores? Were there any markets?

DP: The grocery store that we went in most, well, I know my mother used to talk
about going into the Mohegan Market which was on Main Street near the, ah…..
where the corner of now Liberty and West Street across from the Danbury
Library. And, she liked that. It was a grocery store, small grocery store. There
was a grocery store where, on West Street, where the….well it used to be the
Unemployment Office, and now, I believe; it’s the Western Connecticut Mental
Health Center on West Street.
NL: OK.
DP: That was a grocery store, I remember going in there because that was not
a very long walk for us. Umm…and also there was a First National Grocery
Store on Main Street where the News Times is located now. That was a grocery
store. And that was probably the biggest one in town, at least on Main Street,
and…..
NL: It had it’s own parking lot too?
DP: It had a parking lot on the side and then in the back, and I remember the
water fountain in the back because I always had to get a drink of water at the
fountain..
NL: Ok.
DP: when we went into the First National. And I think my mother probably liked
that one the best. It seems we went into that one a lot.
NL: Did they give stamps, Green Stamps or something?
DP: Yes, I think they were S&H Green Stamps. Oh, and there was well.. one of
the stores gave S&H green stamps, which I think stood for Sperry and
Hutchinson, and depending on how much you bought you would get a certain
number of stamps and you would paste them into a little book and then you got a
catalog and depending on how many books of stamps you had pasted in you
could choose a gift from the catalog, like a an electric fan, or a lawn chair,
something like that.
NL: Right.
DP: So we used to, my mother would collect the stamps, and I remember we
would sit down, when I was small and paste the stamps in the books.
NL: Do you remember ever picking out anything at the Redemption Center?
DP: I remember going to the Redemption Center and I don’t recall particularly
picking anything….well I do remember once getting a lawn chair at the

Redemption Center, but I think usually my mother had her eye on something and
she had already decided what she wanted, so…..
NL: Was the Redemption Center close by? Do you remember where that was?
DP: Off hand, I don’t remember where it was.
NL: You had to drive though, I bet.
DP: I think we went in the car
NL: Yeah.
DP: because usually you have an item that you have to get home.
NL: All right, now on Main Street there is still the Palace Theater. Was that a
movie theater at the time?
DP: Yeah. The Palace Theater was one of; there was three movie theaters in
the downtown area. There was the Palace, the Empress which was almost next
door to the Palace; I believe it was just south of the Palace. And then, there was
a movie, a movie theater on Elm Street called the Capitol Theater, and when we
went to the movies we would often go to either to the Empress or the Palace.
The Capitol had movies like westerns, and things like that and I always wanted to
go to that one but my mother tried to steer me to the other movies.
NL: Did they have cartoons before the movies, or news ah items?
DP: Yes
NL: Double features?
DP: Yep. They had, I remember double features, and they did have a cartoon
either before or in between the movies, or they had a newsreel of the events of
the day or week.
NL: Right. What about color? Was it black and white? Do you remember when
the color started?
DP: Well I remember both, both color movies and black and white. I think the
newsreels generally were black and white. The cartoons were color.
NL: Yes.
DP: And the movies, depending on what the movie was, was either black and
white or color.

NL: Now at the time, a, the theater had one screen, I am sure. Right?
DP: It had one screen.
NL: And a balcony?
DP: Yep.
NL: Yeah, so it was nice, right?
DP: Oh, yeah. It was nicely appointed inside. You know, it was fancy.
NL: Yeah.
DP: It was, for, you know, a small town, or a smaller town theater it was nice,
and had nice lights, and….
NL: Now, along Main Street you mentioned banks, that there was the movie
theater we talked about, what about, and you mentioned it there was a church
now, but were there churches back then on Main Street?
DP: Yea. There was, where the Danbury Library is now and the bank next door
to it, it is now the Union Savings but that bank has gone through a couple of
different incarnations. Well where the library is now, on that corner, was the old
Danbury City Hall, which had been there for, I am going to say back into the 18late 1800’s, and the Police Station was in the basement of the City Hall. That
was a big building with a tower on it, a big red brick building, and next to that
going south on Main Street, where the bank is now, was the Methodist Church,
and I believe there was their parsonage or their parish house was also there.
That was a brick building, an old fashion type church, not a Colonial style; it was
more of a Gothic, as you call it, or a Victorian style building. That was on Main
Street. St. Peter’s Church was on Main Street, and, where it still is. Across the
street was the, were the Rectory and then where the nuns lived. I can’t think of
what you call the place, where nuns lived, but
NL: Convent?
DP: The convent. Right. St. Peter’s Covent on the corner of Wooster and Main,
near the park there, near Elmwood Park. Ahh, on West Street, now the Savings
Bank of Danbury is on the corner in a new building, but there was a big Baptist
Church there. And that, I remember that being torn down when I was small and it
had a big steeple on it and I remember seeing it being torn down and thinking
how immense that building looked.
NL: Mmm.

DP:

When you are a little kid standing

NL: Yeah.
BP: and looking up at it, uh St. James Church the Episcopal is on West Street
where it was. The Congregational Church on the corner of Deer Hill and West is
where it was. The Disciples of Christ Church on West Street a little bit west and
across from the Congregational Church was there. The United Jewish Center
was there on Deer Hill Avenue. On Main Street as you go north, near.. closer to
the railroad tracks, between the First National Store which is now the News
Times and the railroad tracks was the Universalist Church, and that’s where my
family attended church.
NL: OK, all right. So, you said your neighborhood was middle class.
DP: Uh huh.
NL: Were there any ethnic groups when you went to school? Why don’t we talk
about that?
DP: Ok.
NL: What was the elementary school that you went to?
DP: I went to Park Avenue School.
NL: All right. And was it a large school, a lot of kids? Or?
DP: It was, for Danbury, it was probably, at the time, one of the larger ones but it
wasn’t the largest one. I think in the early 50s, I started school in 1956 in
September of 1956, and Park Avenue was a relatively new school, new building.
I think it was two or three years old at the time, or maybe five years old, but it
was not an old building and is located on Park Avenue now. Was then and still
is. Ah, I believe that Hayestown School was built around the same time, and Mill
Ridge School was built around the same time, the original first Mill Ridge School,
and I believe those were bigger schools. But Park Avenue was maybe the next
size lower than that, next size smaller. Then there were small schools in
Danbury like South Street, and Beaver Brook.
NL: Now did you walk or were there buses?
DP: I walked because I lived close enough. I lived probably half a mile from
school, so I would go to the end of my street, which was Washington Avenue,
and turn left and go up West Wooster Street for a block, cross over, go another

block to Winthrop Place, and then walk up the hill and into the big field behind the
school, and then just walk down to the school.
NL: Do you remember any of your teachers?
DP: Oh yes. I remember them very well. My first teacher was, kindergarten
teacher was Mrs. Wells, and I was in her class, I remember going to school very
bravely the first morning, but then it turned out I wasn’t very brave, because I
didn’t want to stay.
NL: Laugh.
DP: But, I got used to it after while. And Mrs. Wells was my first kindergarten
teacher and after a couple of weeks she was transferred to another grade or
another classroom, I think. And, I was transferred to Miss Ryan’s class, Jane
Ryan. And she’s from a Danbury family. I don’t know, her family lived on Deer
Hill Avenue for many years, believe still does. I think she still does. And so she
was my second kindergarten teacher who I had for most of the year. They had
two sessions, a morning session and afternoon session, and I was in the
afternoon group. So I went to kindergarten, from I guess, 12:30 or 1:00 o’clock to
3 o’clock, or something like that.
NL: All right. And at the time, going through elementary school, was it all white,
were there any ethnicity represented in Danbury at that time?
DP: I would say the majority of the kids were white. There were, we did have
black families in the area. I remember East Pearl Street was, in my memory East
Pearl Street had several black families living there. I remember a family named
Bush who I believe still lives on East Pearl Street. There were, well Danbury
historically has had a lot of ethnic groups and so yeah, to answer your question I
guess broadly is that there were a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but we didn’t
really think that much about it because most of the people, most of the kids who
were in class, I think, came from families who, you know, someone who knew
someone who knew someone, or they were related, and you know were just ….
NL: Just kids?
DP: Just kids.
NL: Just kids.
DP: Right.
NL: So people got along well?
DP: As I remember, yea, I never, I was never aware of any particular problems.

NL: Yeah, OK, so there wasn’t where there was a neighborhood and you said,
“this was the black church,” and “this is the Polish church?” I mean, people just
kind of mixed up together.
DP: Well, I think that, ah as far as churches go, there were, were and are
several what we called “black churches” in Danbury. Primarily African American
people go there. New Hope Baptist Church on Cherry Street, which is now
Aaron Samuels Boulevard, would be one of the black churches. I remember
Sacred Heart Church, a Catholic Church, I think was primarily Polish orientation,
Polish families. In fact I had a very good friend who, one of my very earliest
friends, whose family went to Sacred Heart and our neighbors went to Sacred
Hearth. So, in, in that sense different ethnic groups, you know, congregated in
different places.
NL: Has it changed? I mean, when you look at Danbury today, do you think that
it’s remained the same or have people mixed up a little?
DP: Well, there is a lot more people.
NL: Hmmm
DP: There are a lot more people in Danbury now than there was when I was
growing up. Probably the population has doubled since, in my memory.
NL: Is that because there is a lot more housing now, or what were the industries
that were bringing people into the Danbury area?
DP: Well, I have to say that from what I know of it, the City fathers back in the
1920s and 30s saw perhaps that the hatting industry would not continue as a big
industry the way it had been and they made plans to try diversify Danbury. I
think it was called the Danbury Industrial Corporation which was a group of
businessmen and industrial people and I guess government, local government.
Leaders, who tried to attract other types of businesses to come into Danbury so
that we were not a one industry town at the time, when I was growing up, there
other types of businesses in town and people came to work in those as well as
you know, local people who went to work in those places as well as the hat
shops closed down. I think people also came here during years when I was
growing up and afterwards, you know the intervening time, because it was too
expensive to live down in, say, Norwalk, Stamford, White Plains, Westchester
areas, and a lot of people would commute, so they would live in, in and around
Danbury and commute down to lower Fairfield County or to Westchester. So I
think that brought people in. The surrounding towns of Danbury, Bethel, New
Fairfield, Ridgefield, Redding, Brewster, Brookfield, New Milford, Newtown,
Sherman, have all grown. None of them are small towns like they were fifty
years ago. They have all added population. I think a lot of it is bedroom type

population and, you know, people from Danbury who wanted to live more in the
country who might have moved to New Fairfield or Brookfield.
NL: So, when you were growing up and you were in elementary school and then
junior high and high school, I guess, there was one high school in the town?
DP: Yeah, when I went to, well all, all in my memory there has only been one
public high school.
NL: Right, Ok.
DP: Immaculate High School was built when I was growing up. It was actually
built on the next street over from where I lived and before it was built we used to
play, my friends and I would play, over in the cow pasture over there where
Immaculate now is. And then around say the mid-60s I think it was, I was around
12 or 13, and Immaculate High School was built. Wooster School had been here
I think going back to the 20s. And Henry Abbott Tech, you know that’s the
vocational technical state high school, was also here.
NL: When you went to school though, do you remember what you had to wear?
Was there a uniform or dress code?
DP: Not in public school, although it was expected that you wouldn’t show up
with shorts and you know, t-shirts, and stuff like that. I mean, kids were expected
to dress nicely.
NL: Girls wore skirts and dresses, right?
DP: Ahhh, in elementary, yeah. And I think pretty much through, although that
changed maybe when I was in high school. You know, slacks came for girls, or
junior high even. But in elementary school, I think primarily girls wore skirts or
dresses. Boys wore, you know, a nice pair of slacks and a shirt like I am wearing
now. I went to, after Park Avenue School, I was there seven years, from
kindergarten through 6th grade, you asked about some other teachers. Other
teachers that I remembered, my first grade teacher was, well at the end of the
kindergarten year, we all trooped over to our first grade classroom so we would
know where it was and the teacher, and it was Miss Gleisner, and she got
married over the summer and she became Mrs. Schultz. So she was my first
grade teacher. And then, my second grade teacher was Miss Helin. Marjorie
Helin who was one of, probably one of my favorite teachers of all time in school.
And she just passed away, I’m gonna say, a year or two ago. I think she was in
her 90s and I saw it in the newspaper that she passed away. She lived out on
Beaver Brook Road. Third grade was well, Miss Coughlin? In the spring and
Mrs. Edwards in the fall. Her husband was a teacher at Danbury High School, a
guidance counselor and a coach. And my fourth grade teacher was Miss
Schultz. Miss Schultz was a different person than my first grade teacher, and

she lived on West Wooster Street. I remember she lived not very far from where
I lived. And fifth grade was Miss Kelly, and we also started to change classes in
fifth grade so we would have different teachers for different subjects. And I had,
let’s see, well, in fifth grade say fifth and sixth grade we changed classes and I
had Miss Kelley, and I had Mr. Moore who became an administrator in the central
office in Danbury, the main office. Umm I had Mr. Esposito who lived on
Mountainville Avenue, and Miss Blackburn, and Miss, Mrs. Prebenna, was
another one she lived on Locust Avenue. My father was a schoolteacher so I
knew a lot of these teachers, or knew of them, and knew where they lived. Umm,
so after, let’s see, after sixth grade, I went to Main Street School for one year.
And Main Street School is now where the Danbury Police Station is. And that
was the seventh and eighth grade for the part of the town where I lived, just
seven and eighth grade. And other kids went to Mill Ridge for seventh and
eighth grade or Hayestown School for seventh and eight grade, but where I lived
Main Street School was the school. And then, after my seventh grade, they
closed Main Street School. The new Danbury High School, the Clapboard Ridge
Road Danbury High School, had opened and we, all of the seventh the eight
graders was called junior high then, nowadays it is called the Middle School, in
those days it was junior high. All of the seventh and eight grades in Danbury
went to the old Danbury High School, which is now White Hall here on White
Street, part of WestConn. So, I went to eighth grade in that building and then I
went to ninth grade in Danbury High School on Clapboard Ridge Road.
NL: And so that a fairly new school at that point, right?
DP: Right, it had been open one year. My class was the second full four-year
graduating class at Danbury High School on Clapboard Ridge Road.
NL: Has that school changed over the years, or does it look pretty much the
same?
DP: It’s changed and they have added a couple of buildings. And I haven’t been
in there recently. I believe they have remodeled down by the gymnasium area. I
think that has been changed from when I was there. I think they rebuilt the
gymnasiums. There was a girl’s gym and a boy’s gym. I believe they made,
what used to be called the girl’s gym, larger. Umm, they put an addition in the
front. That is just recent in the past couple of years in front of what was called C
building. That was the science building and Business Department. And I think
they have added in the back. I believe they have added onto D building. But I
don’t believe I have been in there since, in the school since that was done.
NL: Ok, now we talked a little bit about the movie theater.
DP: Yep.
NL: Was there a bowling alley, or miniature golf, or anything else?

DP: There were a couple of bowling alleys. There was one on Foster Street,
and my folks used to go and bowl. They were in a league. I don’t remember
bowling there myself. I was little. But I remember them going in the evening. I
would stay home and my grandmother would baby-sit me. My folks would go out
for an evening with their friends and bowl. There was duckpin bowling at, umm,
at the War Memorial. The War Memorial was new when I was little. Of course it
was post-WWII, when it was kind of in place of, we didn’t have a Y in Danbury at
the time, and the War Memorial offered programs like what the Y would offer.
NL: Right.
DP: There was duckpin bowling in there. There was bowling up at, ummm, at
the Lake in Hayestown they called the Sokol Lanes. And it was like a club,
gymnasium. They had a bowling alley up there, and over on Federal Road there
was the Bowlarama. There were two. There was another pla… There was a
Bowlarama, which is; it’s around where, ummm, well I can’t what’s the name of
the store? …Home Depot. There are several stores. There’s Home Depot, and
then an electronic store, and a bookstore. Then on the other side, used to be
Reads, it was a big department store.
NL: Read’s. Yeah, I remember Reads, yeah.
DP: Now that store where Read’s is, that is on the corner of Nabby Road, has
been divided up into several stores, but the Bowlarama was in that area there.
One of those, I can’t tell you which lot it was in, but it was along that strip. And
then there was another bowling alley over in Brookfield, the southern part of
Brookfield, near the corner of Federal Road and White Turkey Road. Kind of
across from the White Turkey, what used to be the White Turkey Inn, which is
now a shopping center. So there were several, yeah, there were bowling
alleys….
NL: Was that the kind of thing you did maybe on a Friday night? Did you take a
date there?
DP: You could. Yeah, you had to kind of work around the leagues.
NL: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
DP: There were a lot of bowling leagues, you know. People at their jobs, like my
folks, it was the school teacher’s group or something, or you know, people in the
shop would have a league. Also, at Rodgers Park there was a lot of like softball,
softball leagues, then and now. And Little League, and farm teams for Little
League. You asked about a golf course, of course Ridgewood was there.
NL: Ok.

DP: That’s a private country club type golf course. It was before the one was
built, umm, up the hill.
NL: Was it Candlewood? No?
DP: Well, there is one in New Milford called Candlewood Valley, but the big
public course on the Westside…now that you are asking, I am losing names…
NL: Oh, I, I know what you mean. I know where it is. Up at Richter Park.
DP: Richter Park. Yeah. Richter Park Golf Course. That hadn’t been built at
the time. That was built later. Ummm. And there were some miniature golf
courses around. Or driving ranges.
NL: Now, if somebody had a wedding, like today sometimes they have a big
banquet hall and throw like an orchestra or band, or what have you, were
weddings celebrated as they are now?
DP: I think pretty much.
NL: Yeah.
DP: Yeah. You know people would have it in a church and then go to a
restaurant, or to a hall. In Danbury there are, and I suppose it’s like many towns
around here, there are a lot of clubs. Whether they are fraternal organizations, or
ethnic type clubs, you know, the Polish American Club, or the Lebanese
American Club, or you know, you have the Elks, the Masonic Lodge…
NL: Right.
DP: Oddfellows, and so you know, people could say have a church wedding and
then go rent space in a restaurant or in one of the halls, in like the Elks Lodge. In
the back there is a big hall.
NL: Right. Do you think that, were weddings, of course the money is not the
same, but relatively, were weddings costly as they are today? Did people, you
know, of course the dollar is different, but in relative standing were the weddings
quite as huge as they are today, some of them are today?
DP: Well, I haven’t been to one recently, but I would guess. I mean, it always
seemed like it was a big thing, you know, especially if it was church wedding.
NL: Yeah.

DP: You know. Sometimes people would get married you know, at their house
or in their backyard or something like that, but it always seemed as if it was a
church wedding, and there was a reception afterwards, that it was at least
moderately a big thing, you know, a big deal. As far as the value of the dollar,
that’s probably, you know a lot different than it was then.
NL: Hard to say, I guess. Now you mentioned there was some shopping
downtown, but you also mentioned that the Berkshire Shopping Center was built.
What was there? Was it just cow land, pastures, what?
DP: There was, as I recall it was before I-84, or around the time that I-84 was
built. And we had friends, family friends, who lived on Pocono Lane, which is
right off of Exit 8, and if you can picture at least in 2003, when we are talking,
there are a couple of gas stations there in that circle around Exit 8, and this was
the neighborhood up kind of behind where the gas stations were, up on the hill,
going towards Brookfield, going north.
And I can remember visiting them. They had a couple of boys that were more or
less my age and we used to visit them sometimes, of course we had to drive over
there. It was across town. And it was before the highway was built, and you just
had basically Newtown Road, which was Route 6, and it connected onto those
streets, and where the, what is now the Berkshire Shopping Center, in my
memory was more like a woody area or the river runs kind of on the side of that,
so it was maybe a swampy, woods type of area. And that was built, I am going
to say ‘61 or ‘62, and I say that, not because I was particularly aware of it as a
shopping center, but I had a friend whose father was a manager at Bradlees, and
Bradlees was I think the first, or one of the first tenants in that shopping center.
And he was a kid who lived near me and we went to school together in the same
class, and his father was the manager there at Bradlees, and it was when I was
in around the fifth or sixth grade. So, that’s how I can date that. So there was
Bradlees, and then some smaller shops, I think Zemel Brothers Appliance Store
was in there, and some other stores, but it was not, it was maybe half the size
that shopping center is now. And Bradlees was where, let’s see, is where the
Service Merchandise is now.
NL: Oh, so that’s….
DP: It’s the oldest part of the….
NL: Oh, I didn’t know.
DP: Service Merchandise used to be there, and then it went down to about
where, there’s a toy store I think….
NL: Yes, Ok.

DP: And then it stopped. And Marshall’s came in, Marshall’s clothing store,
discount clothing stare and that, was at the other end.
NL: Well that used to be the Stop & Shop where Marshall’s is.
DP: Oh, that was? Ok.
NL: Yes.
DP: I don’t remember…
NL: Before the Super Stop & Shop, the Stop & Shop was where Marshall’s is
now.
DP: Ok. So they had Bradlees at one end and then the grocery store at the
other end.
NL: I guess, yeah.
DP: There was also a big store over on Mill Plain Road, grocery store, called
Safeway, and I believe that is a large chain in the west, western United States.
And I can remember when that came into town, because my folks were talking
abut it, and it was the first, I believe, the first super sized, at least for the times,
super sized grocery store that was coming in. Not like the smaller ones. And it
was over, kind of across where the Ethan Allen Inn is now, there is a gas station
there and a little, I think it’s a small rib place where you can drive in and buy ribs.
The Safeway Store was there and I remember that was not very far from where
we lived, and I remember going in there when it first opened and walking around
and everybody was saying “wow, what a big store. Look at all the things they
have.”
NL: Right.
DP: And now it would be dwarfed by the super stores they have. This was…
NL: Right, that’s quite a difference.
DP: Forty plus years ago.
NL: Do you remember the Danbury Fair?
DP: Oh, very well. I think I went most years that I was growing up. There may
have been a few that I missed because we had went away on a trip or
something, but the kids in Danbury, public and parochial schools, always got, at
least when in my memory, when I was growing up we always got a free pass on

the Friday of Fair Week, and I remember Thursday afternoon you had to be in
school to get the pass…
NL: Oh, yeah.
DP:. …Unless you were sick and had a note or something like that.
NL: Right, right.
DP: Your mother might come to pick up the pass for you, but Thursday
afternoon the principal would come around with the tickets, you know the free
passes, and they count them out and every child in the school would get one,
from kindergarten right up to high school would get a pass, and that would be for
Friday. And most of them, most of the Fridays were good weather, but I can
remember a few times when it rained like mad, but we went anyway, you know,
and just stayed inside.
NL: How did you feel when the fair was torn down?
DP: I was sad about that because it was part of my growing up, at about
something that was always there, always been there. And we knew people who
worked there. It was a great place for if you wanted a part time job for a couple
of weeks in the fall. You know, be a security guard or if you had a little business
and you wanted to put up a booth. You know, there was a lot of local type
businesses that had booths or churches or organizations that had booths. You
know, to sell food or wares of some kind, and it was, it was a community event,
really. It was privately owned when I was familiar with the fair. Of course it went
back to the, I think to the 1860s in various incarnations, but my memories of the
fair it was privately owned, the Leahy Fuel Oil. John Leahy owned the fair, and
a…but was a community gathering place, and of course, a lot of people came
from out of town to go, to attend the fair, but you always saw people you knew
there. You know, either walking around or visiting or working there or….
NL: What, what was the fair used for except for the 10 days or so it was open?
What was there?
DP: Well, in the summer they had races, stock car races.
NL: Were they popular?
DP: Oh, yeah, they were very popular although I actually never attended a stock
car race.
NL: Oh.

DP: We often went away in the summer and the one, the closest I ever came to
attending a race was at the fair, and we only lived about a mile away so we could
hear it at night. Oh, it was on Saturday nights, and you could hear on a pleasant
Saturday night in the summer, they didn’t run it if it was raining, but you could
hear the engines revving up and then the noise.
NL: Right.
DP: But they had the stock car races, from I guess June to September. The
summer season basically. And later on they started having craft fairs and things
like that. But the grounds really were, as I recall, were not used particularly for
anything other than the fair and stock car races. Cough.
NL: I am sorry, you have been doing a lot of talking I know, I know. Just sitting
here I remember when the….how did you feel when the Danbury Fair Mall
started being built.
DP: Well we knew it was coming. When the fair closed we knew why, why it
was being closed. And, so it’s not the fair. It’s different than the fair, but it
certainly had been I think an economic benefit to Danbury. I don’t personally go
into the mall too often, but I go in there when I need something, you know into
Sears or walk around, or you know for and get Christmas presents or something
like that.
NL: Yeah, sure, sure.
DP: I know the mall is very well attended, you know it’s very well used, and there
are groups that walk there in the morning. You know it is open 7 days a week
pretty much, I guess all the time, seven days a week other than Christmas and
New Years and Thanksgiving. Maybe it provided a lot of jobs to the local people
and brought a lot of money in.
NL: I remember before the mall was built, if you wanted to go to a mall, maybe
you are not a mall shopper, but if you wanted to, you just, you had to drive to
either Waterbury, which had the Naugatuck Valley Mall, which I don’t think it is
there anymore, or to Trumbull.
DP: Or to White Plains.
NL: Or to White Plains, that’s right. So when the mall was being built I was
thrilled. I was thrilled. I didn’t care so much about the fair because it just brought
traffic as far as I was concerned, and there are just so many giant pumpkins a
person can appreciate. But you know, I didn’t grow up in this area, so maybe
that’s why I really didn’t mind so much.

DP: Well, I can remember people going to Trumbull frequently if they wanted to,
I think there was a Tops or something like that down there.
NL: I don’t know what that is.
DP: It was a store like Bradlees, I think there was a Tops, and
NL: I remember a G. Fox was there.
DP: G. Fox and I think Read’s was there too.
NL: Read’s was there you’re right.
DP: And then White Plains. People from here used Togo to White Plains. I
remember we would go to White Plains to go to the eye doctor.
NL: Eye doctor? There were no doctors around here?
DP: Well, there were, but for some reason a lot of people went to White Plains. I
don’t know, maybe they sold discount glasses, you know, or it was less
expensive or something like that.
NL: What about drinking? What was the, when you were growing up when was
the age that you could start to drink?
DP: The age was 21. I believe it changed when I was in college. I think it went
to18 when I was in college. But I went to college in Massachusetts, so I was
away for a few years while I was in college. But it was 21 in Connecticut but in
New York it was 18.
NL: Right.
DP: So if you know, teenagers wanted to have a drink, they would go over to
Brewster. Over in that area, and they could be legally served at 18, but probably,
there may have been a few who were under 18 who went as well.
NL: Did you?
DP: I won’t comment on that.
NL: Laughs.
DP: I don’t think I did very much of that.
NL: Ok. What have we left out?

DP: Umm, what, is there anything else, remembrance or….
NL: They are interested in knowing, I guess it would be the Viet Nam War.
Side B:
NL: What was it like during the Viet Nam War here in Danbury?
DP: The Viet Nam War coincides basically with my high school and college
years. When things heated up in Viet Nam, I was just starting high school in
1965, and when the peace treaty, the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973,
I was a senior in college. So my high school four years, and my four years of
college kind of corresponds to that era. I think at first, locally and I guess
throughout the United States, I think at first people were, more or less, behind the
president, President Johnson, at the time Lyndon Johnson, and they supported
the war for a couple years, but that started to change, I think, maybe in 1967 or
1968, or 1969 around the Tet Offensive, and then the Kent State. Actually Kent
State happened when I was in college. I think I was a freshman or sophomore. I
think I was a freshman in college when that happened. And, a lot of people who
previously had either not had an opinion or were generally favorable because
you know, the president said we should be doing this, and so on, changed their
opinions. There were people of course, locally, as in many places, who were
anti-war and worked to try to raise the awareness of other people to the type of
situation we were in or we were getting into deeper and deeper. I don’t
remember it so much as it being as big an issue when I was in high school as it
was when I was in college, because by then it had, Johnson had left office, Nixon
was in office, and for awhile it looked like Nixon was trying to expand the war. But
looking back looking back I guess he was attempting to, if he was expanding it
then, it was then he was really trying to contract it. But it took so long. It just
seemed to be endless. It dragged on and on and on. And I remember one of my
neighbors who was a little older than I was, Ricky Repole, Richard Repole, I think
he was three or four years older than I was, had gone to the Citadel. He lived on
my street on Washington Avenue. And he graduated, he went into the army and
he went to Viet Nam within I guess a month or two from when he graduated and
he was killed within a week or so of the time he arrived.
NL: Whoa.
DP: So that was, for our neighborhood and I mean for the people of Danbury as
well, his family was well known, his father was a teacher and principal in
Danbury, and he had several siblings, so that was a big you know loss for the
neighborhood.
NL: The other thing I wanted to ask you was this school, Western Connecticut
State University, was it always a university or did it begin as a college? Do you
remember?

DP: Well, I remember when I was a kid it was called Danbury State Teachers
College.
NL: It was.
DP: And then it has gone through a lot of name changes, I think it was called
Western Connecticut State College, let’s see, Danbury State Teacher’s College,
maybe Danbury Teacher’s College, or Danbury State Teacher’s College,
Western Connecticut State College, and then Western Connecticut State
University.
NL: So you have seen it come a long way.
DP: Well, when I was growing up the campus was, this campus where we are
sitting now which is on White Street, um, where we are now, the building that we
are in, which is the Haas Library, ah this was an athletic field for the Danbury
High School which was to the back here to the other side.
NL: Ok, right.
DP: And then there is a building in between, I’m not and I guess it is an
administration or class….
NL: Yeah, I don’t even know what it is.
DP: room building or something. But this was part of the athletic field for the
Danbury High School which was over there. Ah, and the college was over on,
would be on the east side of where the high school was. It is now White Hall.
And it was a smaller school. A lot of local people attended, a lot of commuters,
and I think it is still the same way, I think there are still a lot of community
students here.. Although I never attended a program here, I have never been a
student at WestConn. A lot of people I know have and taken classes here or you
know graduated from WestConn and so on. Back in I think in the 70s, the state
bought land on Mill Plain Road or Lake Avenue Extension up to Middle River and
the idea, I think the idea at the time was that eventually the campus would move
from downtown over to the Westside, but there are so many buildings here that it
would be, very difficult I think, to move all of these buildings and all of these
people completely over there. The Westside campus has grown quite a bit since
it started. I can remember when it was being started. They cut the road and so
on. I think there is still a lot of open land so maybe 100 years from now who
knows, this campus might not be here and may all be over there. There are so
many buildings here that I think it would be difficult to replace these.
NL: So, if you had to just wrap up your life, well I know what I didn’t even ask
you. Why you are still in Danbury. Why did you never leave? I mean you went

away to college and all, but why did you return? Why did you, why are you still
here?
DP: That’s a good question. I like Danbury. It is my hometown. Ah, (pause)
when I was away in college, I went to school in the Boston area and I always
assumed that I would come back. I know a lot of kids that I went to college with,
uh I went to Tufts for informational purposes, which is just outside of Boston in
Medford, Mass. A lot of the kids who attended with me stayed in that area, or
went somewhere else. They didn’t necessarily go back to their hometown either
for job purposes or because they wanted something different or something new.
I guess I came back because, you know, felt I had connections here, you know,
and my family was still here. Um, my immediate family. Um, I could get a job
here, and you know, I liked the people that I knew…..
NL: Right. What about when you got married?
DP: Well, when I got married, my wife is originally from New York, from New
York City, but her family has had, or had a summer home in New Fairfield for
many, many years, so she was coming up here from New York as a child up to
the lake. They had a cottage up by the lake, so the would spend a lot of their
summer vacations up here by the lake. So for her, it was kind of like her second
home, it’s here first home now. Uh, so she has been familiar with this area for,
more or less, as long as I have although she didn’t grow up here in the sense…..
NL: You met during the summer up in New Fairfield?
DP: No, we met actually when we were adults. We met through a square dance
club.
NL: Oh (surprise)
DP: We both belonged to the Mad Hatters Dance Club, and we met that way,
and got acquainted, and one thing led to another.
NL: And she was happy to be here?
DP: Oh yeah.
NL: Settle here?
DP: She had moved up here. Her family had sold the cottage in New Fairfield, it
was on Candlewood Hills, and they had bought this property in Sherman, a few
miles away, and had built a larger house over there with the intention that her
folks were going to retire there, which they did. And her brother, one of her
brothers, came up here to live after he got out of the army before the rest of the
family came and they would come up on weekends or vacations and stuff, and

then finally my wife said her mother wanted to move up here but her father was
still working and he liked living in the City because he liked his job, so on. But
she, finally, my wife said “look, we are going to move because, you know, we
want to do this, we are going to move.” So I guess she kind of put her foot down
and her father consented. Ok, he would move but then he wanted to keep his
apartment in the City but I think they prevailed upon him to give it up because
they wanted him to make the move. So, she had been living here as an adult
when we met. I didn’t know her when we were growing up. We were both
adults.
NL: Well, just to wrap it up, um, are you happy with the progress that, if you want
to call it progress, the changes that have been made or would you prefer the old
life to what is going on now?
DP: I guess when you look back and remember the old neighborhood and the
people who were there….one of my neighbors, by the way, who still lives in the
same house on Washington Avenue, she lived across, when I was there growing
up she was across the street and she is still living there, was Mary Edgett who
was a teacher in Danbury and she just turned 100 last, I guess she will be 101
this November…
NL: Wow.
DP: Next month. And she was, I believe, the oldest living graduate of WestConn
last year and I guess she still is.
NL: I am sure she still is.
DP: I have known her since I was a baby because she was there when I was
there on Washington Avenue, and, so you remember you know your neighbors
and your friends from the neighborhood, and you know your schoolmates and
things you used to do and stuff, and you look at it nostalgically and so, yeah, I
guess in a sense you would like to go back to those days, but you probably don’t
remember al of the negative parts, you know, of living because living is partly
positive and partly negative.
NL: Sure.
DP: And, I mean, people got sick and died and you know, I had a couple of
schoolmates who passed away when they were kids, things like that. You
remember those things but you probably tend to remember the more fun parts.
NL: Yeah.
DP: You know, the things you like to remember, and, so in that sense, yeah, you
get nostalgic and say it would be nice to go back and, you know, have Danbury

the way it used to be. Ah, one thing I would like would be if there wouldn’t be so
much traffic.
NL: Yeah, that’s true.
DP: The traffic gets worse, it seems, by the week, and if there is a problem on I84, you know the traffic comes through the Main Street.
NL: Did you see that being built?
DP: Yes.
NL: Yeah.
DP: Yes, as a matter of fact I remember it was built in stages, and you know you
would have a block that would be opened up and you could only go a mile or two,
from one exit to the next but it was finished.
NL: Right.
DP: And I remember you could drive eventually from Danbury over to Newtown
and then it became a two-lane road on this side of Lake Zoar. There was a twolane road; I guess it was Route 6. But when it first opened, believe it or not, you
could go, you could drive from Danbury to Newtown and if you saw a couple of
cars you would say “wow, there is a lot of traffic here on I-84 today.”
NL: Yeah, right.
DP: Nowadays if you saw one or two cars there would be something drastically
wrong.
NL: Yeah.
DP: So of course that helped to bring more people in because it was easier,
easier for people to get from place to place, but I think if Danbury…well, it was
inevitable that Danbury would grow. Given its location, close to, within
commuting distance of lower Fairfield County, you know the Stamford, Norwalk,
Bridgeport area. I mean, when I was growing up I remember people driving,
hearing of people who worked down at General Electric in Bridgeport. They were
driving down the same road, I guess, that you drive down now, down through
Redding Ridge. And Route 7 between Danbury and Norwalk is basically the
same road.
NL: Horrible road.

DP: That it was. I told this story to a lot of people, but I will tell you on tape
because I think it is a good story. When I was first learning to drive, excuse me,
when I was first learning to read when I was 4 or 5 years old, and we were
driving around with my folks, I would see bumper stickers that said “New 7 Now.”
And this would be in, say, the late 50s.
NL: Right.
DP: And I remember asking my folks what does that mean “New 7 Now”
because to me, as a little kid it didn’t make much sense. What is new? And they
said people would like to have a new Route 7, you know that is Sugar Hollow
Road. Well, that means that they would like to have it rebuilt so that it could
handle more traffic. And we are still working on a new 7 now.
NL: Isn’t that true.
DP: And it’s almost 50 years later.
NL: Yeah.
DP: But 684 over in, going from Brewster south certainly helps because it’s easy
for people to get to Brewster and than drive south to White Plains, or drive south
and then come back up to Fairfield County. So that brought a lot of people in,
and inevitably Danbury had to grow.
NL: Well, are you surprised at all the immigrants that are here?
DP: Not really, no because I know a little about Danbury history, and immigrant
populations have been coming to Danbury, immigrant groups have been coming
to Danbury to work and to live, since, well for 150 or more years. You know to
work in the hat shops, machine shops, so I am not really surprised. No, I think
we are in a good location, and it is just a continuation, you know, say the newer
immigrant groups that are coming now are a continuation of previous groups that
came before and established themselves, you know, 50, 75, 100 years ago, and
50, 75, 100 years from now, the immigrant groups that are arriving now will have
established themselves.
NL: Do you think that Danbury has much room for any more growth?
DP: Well it doesn’t have as much land room as it used to because a lot of it has
been built on but if you, if you build apartment buildings and condo complexes
then there will be room for people to live. I mean, you won’t necessarily have a
suburban type lot, or even a large city lot anymore. But if you take a place, well I
have noticed in city neighborhoods, you would have an old house, maybe it might
have been a two family house, that has been there for 100 years and a new
owner has taken over, you know bought the house, and remodeled and perhaps

put two more apartments on the back, you know into the back yard. Either
condos, or you know, houses turning into condos, or things like that.
NL: Right, right.
DP: So with that kind of work being done, I think that there is plenty more room
for people to live here, physically.
NL: Right.
DP: It just that the room has to be used, the space has to be utilized and either
condos put up, apartments added to houses, or apartment buildings built, things
like that.
NL: Right. The other thing I wanted to know is Candlewood Lake. Were you
here when that was put together or whatever?
DP: That was built in the 20s.
NL: Oh, that was before you.
DP: I will always remember the lake, the town park up at Hayestown, off of
Hayestown Road. That was kind of one of the places where you know, people
would go in the summer. And you know, I remember we used to go up there,
you know, to sometimes swim. We had friends who lived near by.
NL: It was always here for you.
DP: Yes, it was always here.
NL: Is there anything, I think we have covered just about everything unless you
can think of anything you would like to add.
DP: Uhhh.
NL: Were you a member of any other organizations or anything like that.
DP: Well,I belonged to, I think I said earlier when we were talking about the
churches, my family was active in the Universalist Church which was on Main
Street for 75 years. It was the last building on Main Street from the 1890s to the
1960s. My folks attended, my grandmother attended, I went to Sunday school
and grew up there, and my wife and I now belong to the Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of Danbury, which is the successor to that Church, and
coincidentally we are building, in the process of building, a new building on
Clapboard Ridge Road, number 24 Clapboard Ridge Road. That church
actually moved, the Universalist Church merged with the Redding Unitarian

Church, Unitarian Fellowship, I said Redding, I mean the Ridgefield, let me start
again.
NL: OK
DP: The Universalist, the Unitarian Church of Danbury in the 1960s merged with
the Ridgefield Unitarian Fellowship, which was a fairly new group and
subsequent to that in the late 60s early 70s moved over to West Redding to
Pickett’s Ridge Road, we were at 9 Pickett’s Ridge Road for a long time, and just
this year, coincidentally to this interview, we moved back to Danbury and are
meeting here on the WestConn campus while our new facility is being built. We
are meeting in Alumni Hall, which is an old church. It wasn’t a UU church, but it
was another denomination.
NL: What was it?
DP: It was St. Nicholas Byzantine Church, which is now on PadanarumRoad
across from the Amber Room.
NL: Ok.
DP: I guess it is Pembrook Road now. It is Padanarum partway and then turns
into Pembrook Road, and this is off Pembrook Road. So anyway, my wife and I
are members of that Unitarian Universalist Congregation. I belong to the Elks
Lodge in Danbury, and I belong to the Union Lodge of Masons in Danbury.
NL: What is a Mason?
DP: It is a paternal order. The Masonic Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted
Masons there is a paternal order than in its current incarnation goes back about
250 years…
NL: Wow.
DP: 275 years back to England and lodges, small groups, have been
established in many countries in the world, and there are many, many Masonic
lodges in the United States, and Connecticut.
NL: Ok. And you do civic things?
DP: It is a paternal group. Yeah, there are some civic projects. You have heard
of the Shriners I am sure, or the Eastern Star, and those are Masonic associated
groups to the, to the local Masonic lodges. My wife and I belong to the Mad
Hatters Square Dance Club still, which is where we met originally.
NL: Where does that meet?

DP: Currently it meets in Hayestown School, Hayestown Avenue School which
is over near Henry Abbott Tech.
NL: Do you have to get dressed up?
DP: Yes, we wear, well, the women generally wear kind of like, it’s kind of
western style clothing, and women wear, traditionally they have worn the skirts or
the dress with the big petticoats, and the guys always wear always long sleeve
shirts because they say women don’t like to grab a sweaty arm.
NL: Laugh.
DP: You know, generally a western style shirt and slacks.
NL: Are there a lot of people whosquare dance?
DP: Oh yeah. We have been members for 25 or more years, and a lot of people
have come and gone from the club, but in this area there are several square
dance clubs. In Connecticut there are a number of clubs in this Connecticut and
New York area.
NL: Nice, nice, well anything else you want to just add?
DP: Well, I hope this has been helpful and my remembrances. And maybe
someday someone will be able to use some of the information I have for some
kind of a research project.
NL: I hope so.
DP: It has been a pleasure talking to you.
NL: Ok. Thank you. I think that should just about wrap it up.
DP: Ok, Nancy.
NL: Thanks, Doug.
DP: Thanks for asking me.
NL: Ok.