The Start of a New Life-School

8th Grade Diploma from the Putnam School

After getting settled with the living accommodations, my brother and I had to go to school. In 1960 Cambridge was already ahead of its time,  it had one ESL class for the whole city located in a basement classroom of the Longfellow School on Broadway and that's where we ended up. There was one teacher and maybe 20 students from 5 to 18 years of age.  It was a multicultural, multilingual, and multilevel classroom: Portuguese, Chinese, Italians.  There were probably others but I don't remember now.  Like today, students arrived in the class at different times of the school year and with different levels of English but somehow the teacher managed.  At the end of that school year my brother and I were declared ready to be mainstreamed with the students at our neighborhood school.  

I have fond memories of my days in the ESL class.  I remember this girl who used to peer into our classroom through the window on the door.  One day, she finally approached me and we became friends.  Her name was Anita and she was like my big sister.  At the end of that school year we went to different schools, she to high school and me to my neighborhood school but she didn't forget me. She never forgot my birthday. We continued to see each other for many years.  The last time we were together was in Austria maybe ten years ago.  We went to a dog show near Vienna where she was living and she, her husband and their daughter came out to spend the day with me and my family. It was great to see her again especially as she was leaving Europe after many years to return to the states.

Years later I encountered two classmates from the ESL class.  My first car was a Renault 16 and at some point it needed work.  I found a garage which worked on French cars.  When I took the car there I thought I recognized the mechanics.  Sure enought it was Charlie and his brother Frank! The Souza Brothers. They remained my mechanics until I left the states.  I went to visit their shop on one of my recent trips and the years had caught up with Charlie.  He had had open heart surgery and didn't know how long he could keep working.

In September we were registered at the Putnam Grammar School on Otis Street just one block from our house.   Mr. Toomey was the Master of the School but I think that the person who really ran the school was Miss Kelly, the much feared 8th grade teacher. 

There were no placement tests to check either academic level or English language competence. To figure out where we should be placed, we were asked how many years of schooling we had completed before leaving the Azores.  I said 4 years so I was placed in the fifth grade.

The fifth grade teacher was a man (young and handsome)! I had never had a male teacher before.  In the Azores I went to an all girls catholic school and all the teachers were women and my ESL teacher was also a woman.  I soon got over that initial shock and enjoyed having him as a teacher even though I felt the work was too easy.  I generally got the best grades in the class which earned me the praise and attention of Mr. Gearty, which I didn't mind at all.  Of course, I also earned the envy of mostly the other girls in the class who among other things called me "the teachers' pet".

The Putnam School had a diverse student population which reflected the residents of the neighborhood: Irish, Italians, Polish and Portuguese.

I can still remember the names of my teachers: Mr. Gearty, Miss Walsh, Mr. Morris, Miss Kelly, Mr. Sheehan, Mr. Caufield, the French teacher.  French was one of my favorite classes and Mr. Caulfield like having such an enthusiastic student.  At the beginning of the year he gave each student big card with his/her equivalent French name and we had to put the cards on our desk at the beginning of each of his classes.  Since there is no French equivalent for my name he named me Nannette.  So for the next four years I was Nannette at least in the French class..

There was also the nurse, Mrs. Young and the custodian, Mr. Dottin from Jamaica.  Many years later when I worked in the Cambridge Public Schools, I got to work at the same school as Mr. Gearty. I still thought of him as my teacher even though we were now colleagues.

My best friend was Mary Costa and she lived on Second Street in East Cambridge with her parents and brothers.  Her  parents were from the same island as me, São Miguel. 

I graduated from the 8th grade at the Putnam School in June of 1964