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More about Bob's Waban News

Chuck Yerkes wrote as follows:

I was googling around and trying to find someone I'd gone to school with at Angier long ago. Stumbled onto "Waban News" and your site.

I lived in Waban from '65 - '74 leaving after 5th grade. Our neighbor Sally has a couple sons and a daughter, Evelyn, whom I'm still in touch with.

Bob bought Waban News in the late 50s or early 60s as a young man. I remember him with reddish hair.

If you had a sore throat, he'd put extra syrup in your fountain coke. I remember hanging out in the comics area checking out the latest. Realizing how late it was, I scrammed. It was at home that I realized I had two comic books (a plan) and my $0.50 (not the plan).

Uh oh. After dinner, I biked back and apologized profusely. He'd noticed, he said, but figured I'd be back.

On the other hand he had no patience for evil Ricky down the street who was a clearly headed for juvee, even at the age of 8 (ok, I have no clue and lost track of him at 11).

I stopped by easily 12 years later in the late 80s when I found myself in the Boston area. I walked into the store for a soda and there was Bob, looking a little gray, but mostly the same. He gave me a can and I commented "no more fountain". This made him pause and look at me for a minute. And called me by my brother's name. Which he always did, to my annoyance.

I miss Waban (less during my Berkeley winters than in the not so lush summers). And Bob was an institute of Waban for every kid who stopped by on the way home from school; who bought cap guns or candy.

I was sorry to read of his passing.

Chuck is at chuck@yerkes.com.  He also sent in the following message from Evelyn Malinowitz, who is at evelyn@snew.com:

Ah! Waban Square once the center of my universe. When in 1951 I began first grade at Angier Memorial the square consisted of a shoe repair shop, the news store, run by two old men, the real estate office the cleaners, Mrs. Patrick's gift store, above which was a dance studio and Rhodes Drug store. In those days Rhodes was run by Mr. Rhodes, a pharmacist, and at the soda fountain the two soda jerks were Dusty, Mr. Rhodes' son and Bob. These were the days when a coca-cola cost a nickel and a hot fudge sunday
thirty-five cents. The fountain was always busy right after school and Dusty and Bob, both then teenagers knew everyone by name. It was Bob who taught me to order an ice cream soda without the ice cream which in the New York I now live in is called an egg cream.

In those days Mrs. Patrick was the meanest woman in the world who unless we were accompanied by an adult would not let children into her place of business. I moved from Waban in 1968. By then Waban Square had expanded to include a deli, a supermarket, a liquor store, Sal's Beauty Parlor. Mr. Rhodes had died years before and Dusty had become the pharmacist. The news store had been taken over by Bob, who never changed anything about it, except to add the penny candy. He always greeted me by name with a smile and a wink.

Bill Booth passed away

Today we learned of Bill Booth's passing.  Since it happened recently, I'm including here the e-mail I received from Tom Gillespie:

Jim,

The following tells it all. Bill was born on January 28, 1939. He was certainly one of the most outgoing students in our class and truly a funny guy. I'll miss knowing him.

William Stewart Booth of Sautee-Nacoochee, formerly of Snellville, died Saturday, Jan. 31, 2004, at home with his family. He was 65. Mr. Booth, fondly known as “Mr. Bill,” had lived in Skylake for eight years, having spent many years in Snellville. He was retired from Avery Dennison.

Survivors include his wife, Virginia Jones Booth; daughters, Suzanne Booth, Loganville, Carolyn Booth, Summit, N.J.; son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Leigh Booth, Conyers; sisters, Betty Whilhite, California, and Peggy Lyman, New York; eight grandchildren, Holly,
Alison, Julien, Emilie, Cason, Taylor, Slade and Bailey.

A memorial service was held Wednesday at Nacoochee Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Robert Prim and the Rev. Joel Jones officiated.

Memorial donations may be made to the Charles Smithgall Humane Society, P.O. Box 2090, Cleveland, Ga. 30528.

Alexander’s Gateway Chapel Funeral Home, Cleveland, had charge of arrangements.

White County News Telegraph

Cleveland, Ga. Feb. 5, 2004

Jim M. — 2/22/04

Joan Cantor Barnes Hebranson uncovered

Thanks yet again to the vigorous efforts of Chuckie Blaney, we were able to find Joanie in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Joan writes:

"Here's a quick recap of 40-some years. I left Angier in the 5th grade and went to Beaver Country Day School, and stayed there till I graduated HS. Then on to Syracuse University where I was a Speech Major. Then a quick summer stint at Radcliffe Secretarial School to get some job survival skills. During this era I remember declaring that I was going to marry a man who would give me a 3-carat emerald, and I would live in Boston forever. Well, none of the above happened.

After a couple of years of working I married a man in advertising and we lived in Manhattan for a year, the Hollywood Hills for 5 years, Chicago for 1.5 years, Malibu for 5 years, Bronxville, NY for 5 years, then in 1980 moved to Scottsdale, AZ (my choice), and here I've been ever since. Along the way, came 2 marvelous daughters who please me even more as adults then they did as kids.

My mother envisioned me as a princess. I thought I was going to be the perfect corporate wife, lunching and promoting my husband's rise to success. Instead, out of necessity, I ended becoming a Realtor, and before long discovered that I was very good at it. Now I look back and realize I've been selling homes for 27 years. Though the business can be discouraging at times, it's never boring, and that's addictive. Along the way, back in 1990, my husband and I divorced (something my mother did envision), and in 1994 I married Kai Herbranson, who is truly my blessing in life. I lured him into becoming my business partner as well (a second career for him...he spent 30 years as a top executive with Sheraton & Ramada Hotels) and we're having a ton of fun together. We have a Minnesota lake home where we hope to spend 2 months this summer....and keep extending till it's 4-5 months of the year. He's given me an ultimatum - retire by the end of 2005. We've brought on 3 Realtors to work with us, so eventually I can turn business over to them and just do the fun stuff myself. The glory of this business is that you can keep at it as long as your knees hold out. If you get a chance, check out our website at www.LiveInAZ.com.

To ease into retirement we're traveling more, playing golf more, trying not to put off enjoying the moment. Between us we have 4 kids, some nice sons/daughters in law, and 3 cutie-pie grandkids. 2 are in Minneapolis, but the newest is local and I've become a besotted grandma.

Do give my regards to any Angier-ites who remember. And my thanks for that wonderful website. I can't wait to have my kids look at it to see what my childhood was like!"

Jim M. — 2/22/04

Bob's Waban News

From former Wabanite, current attorney and historian Bill Albert we received the following message about Bob's Waban News:

"I lived in Waban as a child from 1960-1970 and attended Angier School for six years. I lived at 55 Gould Road, which is just across Quinobequin Road from the Charles. I have always enjoyed historical trivia about Waban, and your site is an excellent source. In this context, I was wondering if you remember a store called Bob's Waban News?  I know it was there from the early 1960's but I'm not sure about prior to then. Bob's was a real landmark, and anyone who grew up in Waban during its heyday (it went out of business a few years ago, and Bob passed away) will remember it well. I found a somewhat touching memorial article to Bob on the Internet and thought I would enclose it in case anyone was interested in reading it."

The nostalgic essay by Jared Kent on Bob's Waban News can be viewed at http://thorn.e-lite.org/bob.html. The store was known to our Fifties generation as Ide's, whose business was conducted in the late Forties by a horrific septuagenarian named Mr. Taylor, who had the habit of screaming at any unfortunate child who accidentally let the screen door slam shut during the summer months. He used to peddle water pistols and pea-shooters to the kids, until Angier School made him stop doing it, and otherwise did a brisk business with yo-yo's and cavity-inducing candies of all kinds.

Jim M. — 12/27/03

Judy Stitt Mollica uncovered

We were able to locate Judy thanks to a tip from Fritz Richmond. She has been living for many years with her family in Oakland, California, a scant dozen miles away from the Webmaster. Judy was in the same Angier class with Martha Bates and Alan Rogers, and she used to be at 733 Chestnut in Waban. Her husband Peter is a well-known Bay-Area stained-glass artist and has a gorgeous website at http://www.petermollica.com/.

Richard Meehan uncovered

Thanks to a tip from Tom Gillespie we were able to find fromer Angierite Dick Meehan, who has been teaching engineering at Stanford University for many years, and who is currently living in Thailand. His Stanford website is at www.stanford.edu/~meehan/flood/~meehan.html, and he might build you a dam if you can afford it.

Judith Presbrey and Bruce Harper uncovered

Judy is a long-time Florida-person and is now living in Rockledge FL on the Space Coast with her bassett hound, Mabel, and, tabby cat, Murphy. Her two daughters, Judy and Mary, live in the vicinity: Judy is an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center, and Mary pushes drugs for Glaxo Smith-Kline.

After graduating from Williams College, Bruce Harper became a naval aviator and eventually retired with the rank of captain. He is now mostly retired and lives in or near Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

On Sept. 26th Willa Marten wrote:

It would be nice to be included in the Waban website. I grew up on Woodward Street right at the dividing line between Angier and Hyde Schools. Those of us on the "even" side of the street went to Angier. I started in 1947 with Mrs. Anderson end ended up with Miss Blanchard in 1952. We moved to Windsor Road in about 1955. Took piano lessons with Mrs. Brown, Roger Kellaway's teacher...  also Mrs Nagy. I'm still in touch with several Wabanites from the fifties: Judy Stitt Mollica, Sarah Stitt Dukatz, Fritz and Steve Richmond, John Nagy, Janet Pippitt Winkler, Bonnie, Carol and Sue Curtin, Rob and Tim Gosch. At 62, I now live in Point Arena, California, raise chickens,work as an artist and community art center director. Two sons, three grandchildren.

Bessa Whitmore uncovered

Nancy Derr Polin e-mailed me that Esther Jacobson might point us to the whereabouts of Bessa Whitmore, which clicked all on the same day. Bessa has been living in Canada since 1973 and teaches Social Work at Carleton University in Ottawa. She appears to have accumulated more creds than the rest of us put together, as you can see for yourself at:

http://www.carleton.ca/ssw/whitmore.html

9/19/03 — Jim M.

Fritz Richmond uncovered

It's really a special pleasure to welcome Fritz to the website, who has become a widely-known, not to say altogether notorious luminary in the field of old-time American music. Nobody with even the slightest knowledge of jug band music and traditional string- and repertoire can overlook his contributions to this sadly neglected genre, which are indeed of historical significance. He's played for many years with Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, John Sebastian, and Geoff Muldaur, and is gigging somewhere in Pennsylvania at the time of this writing.

Here you can see Fritz with Geoff Muldaur, transported in a state of artistic rapture at a concert for famous Boston folkie Eric von Schmidt:

More photos of Fritz are to be seen at the reunion concert for Eric in Cambridge at:

lhttp://www.chrisyeager.com/z/eric_VS/eric.html.

Famous also for his duet performance with Roger Kellaway of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" in Miss Pilibosian's 2nd grade class, both of them wielding guitars as one recalls, Fritz now lives in Portland OR when he's not on tour somewhere, and his e-mail address is now on the contacts list.

9/18/03 — Jim M.

A recent e-mail from Cush Anthony:

Jim,

You did a great job on the Waban website. I spent some time perusing it, and enjoyed it a whole lot.

I am sure you know that I did not grow up in Waban, but rather in Newton Center, and went to Mason School and then to Weeks Junior High. I first thought that all this had little to do with me, and probably would have very little interest, but I must say, I have become quite intrigued. You may recall that I got involved in all you Wabanites in Sophomore year, when I took quite a liking to Karen Rak, and then also began going to the dances at the Waban Neighborhood Club. I never thought of you guys as particularly much my close friendship group during my high school years, and considered my church group in Newton Center my closest friends. But interestingly enough, I have no particular desire to see most of those folks. You guys, on the other hand, I would like to connect to, when you next have some sort of gathering.

In fact, I was dumbfounded to learn that you had gathered here in Maine at Karen's place in Belfast. Why, I did not even know she lived in Belfast -- the last I knew she was in Washington. I have lived here for over 30 years, in greater Portland, and very much consider this my home now. I would certainly have made a great effort to come to that gathering. Perhaps next time....

At any rate, thanks for all your work on the website, and thanks for keeping me on your list.

Cush Anthony

p.s. I probably never told you about all the Newton High class of 57 people here in Portland. Don Wilson is a brain surgeon here. Sally Foote is still married to Al Martin, and they live here as well. Al does some sort of business thing, I am not sure what, and Sally recently retired from a teaching career in Cape Elizabeth High School. John Chesebro is up here, and so is Elaine Leve who was married to a well-known lawyer here who died a few years back. And I see Linda Johnson all the time -- the former Linda Borden. She and I serve on the board of a local nonprofit together. And someday I will tell you the saga of David Koplow.

— 9/14/03

And then Cushman added:

Perhaps I should add a bit more about myself.

After Amherst came OCS and the Navy, and then law school at Michigan. I got married just before I started law school. I took a job in Portland, and we moved here in early 1968. Two kids followed in the next two years.

I have done a variety of things, really. I was in a law firm, then taught at the law school here and started their student-run legal aid clinic. Then I went out on my own as a sole practitioner of law, and slowly developed a small law firm. I left that for a few years to do advocacy work for a community mental health agency, which I enjoyed until the funding for that ran out. I then returned to my law work, which had evolved into a specialized practice in divorce and family law. I learned about divorce mediation, became trained, and gradually over time I have morphed into a divorce mediator. I do mediation full time now, and find it very fulfilling.

I should add that while I was working as a mental health advocate, I was going to the legislature to seek changes in the laws a great deal of the time, and that led me to decide to run for office as a legislator. I was a Representative in the Maine House for six years, partly while working as an advocate, and partly after I returned to my private practice.

Along the way, my marriage ended after ten years, and thankfully, I found a really wonderful woman shortly thereafter, to whom I have now been married for over 27 years. Karen and I have a wonderful relationship, which is a good thing since we spent a good bit of time raising my two kids as well as her two kids. We have learned that two plus two equals about sixteen, in that setting. But our kids all seem to have made it, with only minor scarring, and we now have two grandchildren, one by my daughter in Burlington, Vermont, and one by my stepson in Charlottesville, Virginia. One of our other two kids is in Honolulu where he has lived for quite a few years now. The other is in New Jersey at least for now (my son married a woman from Moscow, and they have spent most of their time together in Russia, Turkey, and assorted other foreign countries). We raised our kids to think of the whole world as their oyster, and damn it all, they did just that.

My wife would scold me if I just said that I work full time. I spend a lot of my time during workdays engaged in various volunteer activities, including serving on the Board of our local peace group, helping guide a community mediation center, teaching a course for divorcing parents about how to meet their children's needs while going through divorce, working with another group to get money out of political elections, serving as the Chair of a group that facilitates relations between Maine's Indian tribes and the state, and on the Board of my local Unitarian Universalist Church. It is a wonder that I manage to fit in time for mediation work at all.

Karen and I live in Falmouth, Maine, very close to an exit of the Maine Turnpike for those of you traveling through. We feel very blessed by all that life has given to us. We still go to the old family home on Cape Cod for part of each summer, and we love travel so we take about one trip a year to Europe.

Karen Rak Reports about the Scoops Reunion:

The first Waban reunion happened on July 31 at SCOOPS on Main Street in Belfast, Maine, the crossroads of the world, the pearl of Maine’s midcoast  (How did you find this place, everyone asked.)

Present: Ardith Clair and husband Walter Houghton (he said ahead of time that he was going to fish off the low bridge while we reuned); Eric O’Brien (he e-mailed ahead of time that spouses would not enjoy it); Matt Jones and Polly Kimball (she was the official photographer); Kathleen Carven (who found the website three days ahead of the reunion); John Griswold (lives next door to O’Brien and sent his wife Nancy shopping while we reuned – shopping in Belfast, that’s a laugh); Bill Christmas and Polly Raye, whose marriage was the cause of the reunion. (I make it four couples together all these years, plus the Christmases – Nancy Crowell and Jimmy Coleman, Matt and Polly, Craig Springer and Penny Warren, David Silliman and Bodil Westergren, these latter not strictly the growing up/Waban crowd.) Nancy Derr and Claude Polin drove over from Center Harbor, NH, toting a couple of her “memory books.” And your reporter and ice cream mover and shaker Karen Rak.

Tom Gillespie and Drexey Wile were with us by way of e-mails, which were on the tables to share. Drexey had sent a photograph of her daughter with newborn Gracie. It looked just like we all remember Drexey!

Suffice to say the spouses dove right in and had a ball – Walter did not go fishing, Nancy Griswold did go shopping, Claude talked to everybody, Matt threw his one-liners around, Eric demanded everyone’s life story, Kathleen’s laugh tinkled, Ardie held court in her wheelchair, Polly Raye was beautiful and happy and warm, while hubby Bill checked out life stories, too. John Griswold was a lot more quiet than memory suggested. Polly Kimball’s wit has, if anything, been sharpened by the time pill we have all taken; Nancy Derr talked and laughed without stopping (she never even ate ice cream, she claims), and Karen dished out ice cream.

When the fires needed stoking, Walter and Bill went across the street bearing a huge SCOOPS tray weighing about 20 pounds naked and brought back jerk and stewed chicken and cornbread for all.

Customers in the store looked on us indulgently, even though we were making a huge racket. Must have been obvious that we were a gang. It was certainly obvious that we were having a good time. Poring over Nancy’s photos and captions, guffawing, taking pictures, being together.

Some bits and pieces: Dr. Bill (Head of Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center) has another year before he retires, so he and Polly are sort of splitting their time between Taos, where she ran an inn/lodge, and Durham. Matt retired from John Hancock some years ago, and he and Polly split their time between a Framingham retirement community and Friendship, Maine.

Polly had a show of her photographs last year (yes, she is serious). Ardie and Walter are retired and living in Orland, Maine. Rak was retired for ten years, got bored, then started to run out of money, so started the ice cream store in June. Kathleen became a nun as she always told us she would, works in Roxbury; John Griswold became a man of the cloth as he always told us he would, recently retired; Nancy Derr taught in Paris for 30 years. She always spoke French with a rotten American accent (which the French hate, but they had to respect Derr’s superior knowledge of their language and especially their slang). And the best life story of all: inherited the family business (playground equipment), joined the Navy for five years, came home and fell in love. In that order. Eric, of course.

Exactly one week after the reunion, who walks into SCOOPS but Craig Springer and Penny Warren. He spent his career with the US Information Service in Germany, she’s a smart, terrific lady, and the three of us had a lovely time. They were planning a move from the DC area to Santa Rosa, California.

And just last week, who walks in but Don Springer and his pretty wife.
They report that Craig and Penny have in fact bought a house in Santa Rosa.

And now, I’m going to have lunch with Tom Gillespie on Sunday upcoming. And Polly and Matt are inviting him and his wife to Friendship Island.

Like I said, the crossroads of the world. Waban Central.

Enough. Enjoy the pictures. We’ll do it again.

— Karen Rak

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