November 1, 2007 Hopedale History No. 94 Sand in the Attic  Over the last couple of weeks, I've added pictures to Hopedale in October.   The Little Red Shop Museum project is moving along on schedule. Here are a few pictures of the progress.     Week 6 -  Week 7 -  Week 8     Pictures of the Vehicle Fun Fair.  For those of you who would be interested in names to go with the pictures of the Hopedale scouts in the mid-sixties that I put on the website a year or two ago, Kathi Wright sent some additions. Here's one page   and here's the other.  Peter Arenstam, ship caretaker of the Mayflower II, will speak about the building of the ship and sailing it to the United States, at the Bancroft Library on November 7 at 7 PM. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the ship in Plymouth.  From the Hopedale town website:  The Mill Street Bridge will be closed for renovation/construction beginning October 30, 2007. The Bridge is projected to re-open in November of 2008. Residents are encouraged to plan their travel routes accordingly. We apologize for any inconveniences the closure may cause. For an interactive map, please click here.  The Board of Health will be holding a household hazardous waste day on November 3. For details, check their website.                                                                   ***********************************                                                                                                                                   Sand in the Attic     Two weeks ago I sent some memories of life in Hopedale during World War II. Since then, I've received more. Here are a few of them.      During World War II, the top half of car headlights had to be painted black. We had practice air raid drills. Air raid wardens would walk around the neighborhood and let you know if any light was showing from your house. My father had put a couple of pails of sand in our attic, which had been recommended, in case of an attack by incendiary bombs.     On days that ration stamps were issued, school would be dismissed at noon. Our teachers, Miss Cressey, Miss Gover, Miss Crowell and others, helped us register for the stamp books. Since my father was a farmer, he could get more gas than many other people.     Some of the kids would go to the Mendon airport to watch for enemy planes for the Civil Air Patrol. I don't remember how they got over there.      When I graduated from high school in 1943 (there were only about six boys still in our class by then), we stayed out most of the night. I don't think we did much. There was no gas to go anywhere and nothing was open. The next day, my mother woke me up around noon. Drapers had called. They were hiring for war work. I got down there by one and went to work, without a day off after graduation.    One summer I worked there spray painting magnetos, which was one of their "war jobs." Another summer I worked in the shipping room. Orders would come in for parts and we'd get them out of bins. They weren?t making looms during the war, but there would be orders for shuttles, bobbins and various parts.      After I graduated from high school, I went to Bates College. When I'd come home for a vacation, I'd take a bus to Portland and the train to North Station. Sometimes the train would have to pull over on a siding to let a troop train go by. We'd wonder where they were going and what would happen to them.      When the milkweed pods were ripe, we'd pick them and put them in paper grocery bags. I think they were used as insulation in vests and jackets. My father must have passed them on to the people who were in charge of dealing with such things.     I was working at Drapers again in the summer of '45 when the war ended. On VJ Day, Howard Kinsley and Marion Billings came roaring up the street in a roadster, yelling that the war was over. Drapers closed for the day. People were all over the streets; it was like a parade. There was nothing organized, but I remember that there was lots of activity, and people were excited and happy. Muriel Tinkham                                               My family and I came from Orange. We had moved to Hopedale before Pearl Harbor, but we were visiting there when we heard about it. My father, brother and uncle had gone out somewhere and had come back to the house with the news. We turned the radio on and listened to the reports of the story.     I was a senior in high school at that time. Back then we had what was called the "main room." It was large enough so that all four high school grades would start their day there. The day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Winburn Dennett, the school principal, turned on the big Atwater-Kent radio at the back of the room and we all listened to President Roosevelt's speech.     In those days the senior class would go to Washington during the April vacation. We had done our fund-raising and had money in the class treasury for the trip, but because of the war, we didn't know until about three weeks before that we'd actually be able to go. We couldn't get into a lot of the places that classes before us had visited, but we did get to see the House of Representatives.    I didn't get a driver's license for a few years. No one could do much driving anyway. Under rationing, my father was allowed three gallons of gas a week. I suppose some people got more, but we lived on Hope Street, and he worked at Drapers, so he walked to work. My mother did most of her grocery shopping by phone. She'd call in her order and they'd deliver. Shirley MacNevin                                                  I remember standing on the front seat of my parents car holding the steering wheel at Westcott's Mill when Ike Look, my uncles, John and Andrew Nealley, and a few others, had a huge siren that someone had to stand on for weight while others took turns cranking it. Everybody was celebrating the end of the war by making noise. I must have been four and usually I wanted to blow the horn and my parents would tell me no, but that day they wanted me to blow the horn but I was afraid to. My brother John remembers going up in an airplane with David Moroney at the Mendon airport and letting toilet paper fly out of the window of the plane to celebrate. David Atkinson                                                                                               **************************************** Here's a bit of Hopedale trivia sent by Dick Orff.  You asked about Chet Sanborn's years of service to the Town of Hopedale. Here is a re-cap:       COA.........................5 yrs     Dog Officer.............28 yrs     Lock-up Keeper......12 yrs     Police Officer..........36 yrs    (12 as Chief)     Pest Control............36 yrs     Sealer wght & mea..20 yrs     Truant Officer..........31 yrs    Tree Warden............28 yrs    Constable.................42 yrs     Inspec. of Animals....31 yrs       Total 269 man years of service...............Quite a record of service, I'd say !!!!   Dick O.  And from Peter Metzke, some Draper trivia. The Draper Company was selling looms to Japan as early as 1898, just four years after the sale of their first looms.                                                                                               ************************************ Recent death:  Noella D. (Tetreault) Cederholm, 91, October 11, 2007.                                October 15, 2007                     November 15, 2007                              HOME