I live at 11 Elsinore Street and was born and brought up in the house that I live in. My father bought this house and all the family has been raised here.
My grandfather Bernardo Venti came to this country in 1884, and he worked for a contractor that was puttinq in the sewer pipes in Concord. There was a group of Italian men that were heading for Argentina and by mishap landed in Boston and settled there. The contractor recruited the Italians in Boston to come to Concord on this job and my father, Giuseppi, happened to be one of them. They lived in little shacks down on Lowell Road. It was the hard times because they didn't get much pay.
My grandfather stayed here for a while and then went back to Italy. On his return he brought my father, who was ten years old. He served as the errand boy and did the cooking for these Italian men. They weren't too welcomed because they were foreigners at that time. They had to stay by themselves because they didn't know the language to get along with other people. My father stayed here for a few years and then he went back to Italy and served in the army there for two years. He came back here and settled in Concord even though his ties were in Boston, where he met my mother.
They were married in the North Square church, Sacred Heart, which is still there across from the Paul Revere house, in 1903. They moved to Concord and were living over by the tracks, but later he was able to buy a house from the Blanchard estate. The Blanchards were from the Nashawtuc Hill area and a lumber company family. And most of my family were born right here in this house that I live in today. Dr. Titcomb performed all the births around here at that time. My mother was Dr. Titcomb's midwife for all the Italian families around here.
I was born in 1918 which was the flu epidemic year. My aunt and uncle and one of their boys died and my mother and father took in the rest of their family so that at one time there thirteen of
us in this house. My mother's name was Theresa DiCicco, and there were six of us in our family and the rest were cousins.All of our family except for my brother, Ricco, went through the school system and graduated. My father worked for the water department and Ricco went to work there after two years of high school. I even worked as a water boy in high school for the water department. In all to this day with the fourth generation, we have over 125 years of labor for the town of Concord if you add us all up.
I went to school in Concord through the first year of high school. Then I decided I wanted to be a priest and went with the Stigmatine Fathers in Waltham. I had my high school and college education there, and I left after the first year of theology. At that time I decided it wasn't my vocation, and my parents accepted it even though Italian families were very proud to have someone become a priest. I got a job with the Andy Boy products, and then I met my wife, and we have lived here ever since.
My brothers and sisters all stayed in Concord, also. My cousins that my mother took in went to various families in Concord. There were some very nice people here such as Mrs. Victoria Wood, whose husband owned the coal company in Concord, and she took one girl; Mrs. Towle, whose husband was president of a bank, she took another girl; my mother kept one girl here, one of the boys went into the service, and another boy lived next door in Mrs. Ida O'Brien's house. The families were very good because they knew there was a tragedy with the 1918 flu and they knew the Italians didn't have much and they needed domestic help. So it helped everyone.
...What makes Concord so appealing and gives many of the people I've talked with a happy feeling about being raised in the town?
I think it was because the atmosphere between the various ethnic groups was really one group. You had the Norwegians, Italians, French, Irish, and we all seemed to get along, especially in this area around the depot where I have always lived. I think it was because we were all the same class. I will have to say there were some people who didn't want to associate with the lower classes. But all of us here got along as one and helped each other. My best friend was a Yankee.
We got together from different sections such as Heronville,
which is Willow Street and Fielding Street and Thoreau Street, and
Hubbardville, on Sudbury Road going toward Route 2, and Bedford
Street, East Quarter, which is down Lexington Road, and the
Monument Street group, which took in Monument Street and Lowell
Road. These different groups formed a baseball league, and it
helped all the young fellows. Two of the finest men around were
Father Sears of St. Bernard's and Minister Daniels, of the
Unitarian Church, and they formed these leagues including the
Asparagus League. We used to play at the Emerson playground, and
the place would be jammed. This would be around the 1920's and
1930's. Father Sears is still living up on Plum Island and is in
his eighties. The last time I saw him was earlier this year at my
sister, Tillie's funeral.
When we were young, up at the end of Elsinore Street was the fairgrounds. We used to call it the cattle show grounds. They had everything up there, races, shows. The land was owned by the insurance company of which Judge Prescott Keyes was the head person. Judge Keyes was very strict but very kind. He was a man that really looked to the lower class people to help them out. If you had any problems, you could go to Judge Keyes. I remember father going to him one time and he helped him out.
One instance I can tell you involves the paint shop of Hub Neeley's that used to be where Wilson Lumber is now. Hub would paint wagons and carriages and there was also the McGann blacksmith shop. When we were real young at Halloween, we used to take the wagons and take them up the street and ride down the hill with them. We got caught a couple of times, and we went to Judge Keyes and he really reprimanded us and then we would go home and get double the amount he gave. He wouldn't put you on probation, he would just give us a good whack and tell our father and then we would go home and get double that amount.
We had Mr. Varley and Mr. Craig who were about the first policemen in Concord, and we were really scared of them because if we ever got out of line, in those days they wouldn't hesitate to give you a good boot or hit you, and then tell your father and you got double when you got home. But they were very nice people and we really respected them a lot.
My family was a very religious family. We attended St. Bernard's. The hard part of it was when we were small we had Sunday School on a Sunday afternoon. That really spoiled the afternoon for us. Every time we would go we would ask our mother for a nickel and that nickel would go a long way. We would always stop at John Bart's store. He was John Bartelomeo but we always called him John Bart. His store was on Thoreau Street where the liquor store is now across from the depot. We would go in there and buy a lot of penny candy and then go to church in the afternoon.
Every evening from when I was a little kid about six or seven years old, the depot steps and John Bart's steps would be loaded with all of us kids. We would just go over there, and sit and chat. There might be some horsing around but we wouldn't be destructive or anything. We would chew the fat there until it got dark and then once the street lights came on, everyone would disperse. It was an old tradition.
When I got into eighth grade we got to know all the other kids from Fairhaven Hill or Nashawtuc Hill. One of our very best friends was Henry Thompson, who just retired from the Concord Cooperative Bank. He was very friendly with all the fellows in back of the depot and Hubbardville. Another one who was very friendly was Fred Edgarton whose family lived on Nashawtuc Hill. They were very nice people; we always used to chum around with them. A lot of the so called Yankees were very close and a lot of them kept their distance.
...How did you feel the bigotry of those people that didn't want to associate with you?
You noticed it more on a Sunday when you were going to church and they were going to church, they sort of looked down on you. They wouldn't say anything but they might sneer or something like that. But not all of them. It's just like today when people say the kids are bad, there's really only a small percentage that are bad. And that's what everybody looks at that small percentage. It was the same in those days. Maybe we all looked at the small percentage but the majority of them were good.
In politics it was really noticed. You couldn't get anything in here in this town unless you were a Republican. The majority of Italians if you look back are Republicans because their bosses were Republicans and they would say "If you want anything, you have to join the Republicans." That's why my father was a Republican. I really think that was true of other Italians in Concord. That's why I'm a Republican to be honest with you because my father was. That's how I got into politics at the time. I was Otis Whitney's aide. I was with him and helped him a lot but I didn't want anything from him. I didn't want any political position or anything. I was satisfied where I was.
The Irish were predominantly Democrats. They weren't influenced like the Italians.
The first Italian selectman as far as I can make out is John Marabello, the present selectman. It was a decision that we made at St. Bernard's Church. John said to me, "Lou, I hear you're going to run for selectman," and I said, "John, I hear you're going to run," and he said, "Well, one of us," so I said, "You run and I'll be your chairman." So I was his chairman and I got a good crowd together, and thanks to the crowd and the townspeople they elected John.
... People were well aware that Jim Nagle was the first Irishman elected as selectman in 1922 and felt it was a real milestone, do you feel people were aware that John Marabello was the first Italian and was there talk among other Italians about it?
I don't think people really made anything big about it. They may have made a comment about being the first Italian but didn't dwell on it.
I know when Ed Sheehan was elected as the second Irishman as selectman, there used to be a little bigotry there because all the catholics would say that we had to keep at least one catholic in there and Ed was in there for years. But at that time the talk was about the religion part of it, being a catholic and a selectman among all the Yankees.
...A lot of people have said that there were not really ethnic differences in Concord over the years, but the division has been religious, that it has been for a number of years even into the fifties and that it has been only in the last fifteen or twenty years that that has died down. Do you feel that is true?
When we were kids, we used to be called the Cats and things like that. But we just went along with it. They sort of went on the other side of the street when we were going to church and things like that.
Cardinal Cushing wanted to put a school in Concord. Jim Powers was the instigator in trying to get the property where Rose Hawthorne is now. Mrs. Pratt owned the property, I don't know which Pratt it was, (Jessica) but there was a big house where the convent building is now. There was also a little house in which Mrs. Irwin lived and that was moved over behind the state armory. Mrs. Irwin could live there for the rest of her life. When that school was built, the catholics had a hard time supporting it, and there were a lot of good catholics that supported it and went out hard working for it. The protestants at that time resented the school being right in the center. Not all of them because there were two or three families that did send their children to Rose Hawthorne School. But the majority of them resented getting that property. But as the years went on, they saw how that school was functioning and they accepted it. And they accepted the sisters. When the sisters first came, they didn't accept them at all. At the end there were guite a few protestants that went to the school.
There was a woman that lived on Main Street right across from
the main office of Concord Academy and she had a big religious
picture. Even though she was protestant, she said there was no way
anybody would get that picture but St. Bernard's rectory, and she
gave it to Monsignor York. I don't know where that picture is
today, probably still down at the rectory.
Also, behind St. Bernard's there was a lady that lived in a big white house, and we wanted to buy the property to enlarge the church. At the time Monsignor York had a statue of the blessed virgin there and the lady always loved it. She said she would only sell her property to the catholic church, and that's where the parking lot is today. She was also protestant.
So the differences broke down after a while, but when we were kids it was really rough. It wasn't the ethnic groups, it was the religion, catholics and protestants.
When we were kids, we had the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts but we couldn't join the Boy Scouts because the catholics didn't have the Boy Scout troops at that time. Father Ryan gave an awful big lecture because some of the kids joined the Boy Scouts and they met in the protestant church. Peanut Macone joined and he really got chewed out but he stuck to it. I joined the Sea Scouts and we met at the Trinity Church, and I caught hell too. I had to get out because the priest really laid into me. This would have been between 1925 and 1930.
The churches these days are much more relaxed and there seems to be no differences between them. The ecumenical council helped that. You don't hear that now, that someone is a protestant or a catholic.
...Do you see that in your own son in talking about high school days and so on?
My brother married a protestant girl and it wasn't even mentioned. My sister also married a protestant fellow and it wasn't even mentioned and they've each been married 37 and 40 years.
...Was that any concern from your mother and father?
It was a concern to my mother, but she got over it. While my brother was going with my sister-in-law, it was a ticklish situation but once they said they were going to get married, my mother couldn't do enough for her.
My son-in-law is also a protestant and you couldn't find a nicer guy.
...What kinds of hopes did you have raising your kids in Concord? Did you have expectations, in terms of them settling down here?
My daughter and son went to Rose Hawthorne. My son went to eighth grade and then to Concord High, but my daughter went all the way through. My daughter then went to Emory to become a court stenographer and to this day she is still using it. I was wishing she would settle in the vicinity here, but after going to Washington to work for the CIA, she met her husband, who was from Hudson, and they moved up here to Maynard.
My son graduated from Concord High and went into the Marines, and he now works for the road department. That's why I say our family has so many years in the town of Concord. My grandfather, father, brother, son and nephew all worked for or now work for the town. I think I've got the most years of them all.
But I'm proud of being in Concord and working for Concord because I like Concord. The only time I was away was when I went to Niagara University for two years, but I came back. Good ole Concord!