Our Arrival
My family (me, my mother, brother, and aunt) arrived at Boston's Logan Airport on February 3, 1960 on a TWA flight from Santa Maria, Açores. I remember that the flight took all night( probably at least 9 hours). I also remember that it was a rough flight with turbulence and lightning. I was scared and couldn't wait to get to our destination.We landed in Boston and there was some snow on the ground. It was very cold and windy. When we stepped out of the plane, a gust of wind blew my brother's new woolen cap off his head.None of us spoke any English so I don't know (and don't remember) how we made it through immigration and customs.
Out waiting for us were our cousins, the two sons- Junior and Arnold- of my mother's uncle (tio Fernando, one of her father's seven siblings). We had never met them before except in pictures which their father would send to my mother. They spoke enough Portuguese to welcome us and make conversation on our ride to east Cambridge where they lived and where we would live also.
The ride was a bit of a disappointment through the streets of the North End with their dark brick buildings and mounds of dirty brown snow. In the few american movies I had seen the houses were light in color and the snow was pure white.
In east Cambridge the houses were wooden three story buildings closely set next to each other. No yards with lawns and no picket fences like in the movies.We arrived at Thorndike Street where the Machado family lived in a 3-story house, tio Fernando on one floor and the other two occupied by his sons and their respective families. Later I found that it was the typical extended family arrangement of the families in that neighborhood. We met the cousins' wives and children and there was a table of food waiting for us in Junior's kitchen. It was all very different but very exciting.
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My mother, 48 years old
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In 1960, minors still were included in the parent's passport. My brother was 13 and I had just turned 11.
As I mentioned above, my aunt Alda who was my mother's older sister went with us to the United States. She and my mother lived together most of their lives except for a period of a few years after my mother got married. When my father died, she came to live with us once a gain. Among her things, my brother found her boarding pass for our flight to the states.
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Alda Machado
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TWA Flight 901 on February 3 from Santa Maria to Boston, Seat 6-B
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My brother fills in the details that I don't remember from our trip:
Adding some details to your blog it looks like we went on the ship to Santa Maria on Feb 1. It was a very stormy day and the departure kept getting delay due to very bad weather. Finally we left Ponta Delgada about 6PM. When we got to Santa Maria, the weather was still bad and raining and big waves. At the time, Santa Maria didn't have a harbor that the ship tied up to, so we had to go from the big ship to a boat that took us ashore. The smaller boat was bobbing up and down on the big waves. We had to walk down on the staircase on the side of the ship, then wait at the landing until the boat was level with it. Some men, then threw us into the boat along with our luggage. Once we got to shore, the same thing happened. I was carrying the German battleship that father made in 1939. I don't know how that survived. We were picked up and stayed with some acquaintance. I don't know who they were, but I think were related to Olga, Mario Alberto's mother.
They took us to the airport late on Feb. 2. It was still stormy. It seems to me that we departed Santa Maria early in the morning of Feb. 3. The airplane was a TWA Constellation (nicknamed Connie), a classic pre-jet age plane, distinguished by its three tails. I brought a paperback novel to read on the flight, Os Abutres do Rio, a cowboy story that I still have and should see if I can read it.
I sat by a window over the wing. During the flight, I could see flame exhaust coming out of the engines and was sure that the plane was going burn up. When we got to Boston, my hat flew when I got outside the plane (way before jetways) at the top of the stairs. I ran down the stairs to get it and slipped when I got to the icy tarmac. It was my first encounter with ice.
When we got to immigration, there was a large woman with red hair and a coat with a big collar who served as the translator. She spoke the brand of Portuguese-American that we weren't used to yet, so it was difficult to understand what she was asking. We did eventually get through immigration, got our luggage and were picked by Freddie. There had been a pretty big snowstorm a few days before, so the streets were still snowy and there were big piles on the sidewalk. We stayed in Freddie's3rd floor apartment where he lived with his wife, Gilda, and daughter Debby. I don't think their son was born yet. There we were introduced to black and white TV, drip coffee, and cigarette smoking. I remember the coffee and cigarette smells, and watching Saturday morning cowboy shows (Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy) with Debby. Tio Fernando lived with Arnold, his wife Mimi, and their son, Bill on the second floor. Bill nicknamed me Charlie and that's how I was known in the Thorndike Street neighborhood. Arnold's mother-in-law lived on the first floor of the three-decker. Her apartment was the first one where I encountered plastic-covered furniture and lamps, and a plastic runner across the carpeted floor going from the living room door to the couch! Tio Fernando spent his time writing music for different instruments in the Santo Cristo Clube marching band. Arnold played tuba in the band. I am pretty sure that Arnold and Freddie worked at the casket company, where our mother worked later.
Our First Home
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| 129 Thorndike Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts |
We stayed with our relatives until our apartment was ready. It was on the third floor of a brown wooden shingled house and just a few doors away from Tio Fernando and his sons and families. It had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. Off the kitchen was a decent size porch with stairs which led down to the first floor in case of fire. My mother didn't like me to play on the street so one day when the weather was nice I went out there to jump rope. I jumped to my heart's content. Then when my mother got home from work, the second floor neighbor came to complain that I had made too much noise! I'm not exactly sure how she got that message across to my mother since she didn't speak English but somehow she made my mother understand. The porch was over their kitchen. How was I supposed to know?
On the first floor lived a Portuguese couple with 2 daughters our ages and on the second floor and Italian middle-aged couple with no children and little sense of humor. I was glad to have the girls to play with. There were lots of kids on the street but we didn't speak English to be able to play with them. It wasn't long though before we could communicate enough to play.
I revisited Thorndike Street a couple of years ago with one of our neighbors, Stevie who lived across the street, from the time we lived there. This is a picture of the house, now painted white.
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| Our old house with a new face (2008) |
My brother's contribution to this chapter:
They found the third-floor, no heat, $30 a month apartment for us a couple of houses us from theirs and donated some furniture. They got jobs for mom and Alda at the factory by the Lechmere subway station that made rain slickers. Arnold took us to Putnam School where we met with Mr. Tobin and were sent to Longfellow School. As I learned later, we should have gone to Thorndike School where everyone from our neighborhood went. They also showed us how to shop at the A&P market on Cambridge Street. There was nothing like the self-serve concept in Sao Miguel. A couple of weeks later, we moved into our apartment and started going to Longfellow School.
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.
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 in the French class.
There was also the nurse, Mrs. Young and the custodian, Mr. Dottin who was 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 with the distinction of being the Salutatorian. It meant that I finished with the second highest grades in my class and delivered the greeting/opening speech in the graduation ceremony.
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 slowly 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. We still keep in touch.
Many years after leaving the ESL class, I encountered two classmates from that 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 enough, 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.
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