Saint Anne's School and Church. Life in my grammar and high school years centered around the parishchurch of St. Anne, pictured on the right. St. Anne's parish was formed by and for the French speaking people in the south end of Waterbury. Most of the residents there descended from immigrants of Canada, or were immigrants themselves, as were my parents, My father was born in Isle Verte, P.Q. my mother was born in St. Boniface, P.Q. Canada. My father came to Waterbury as a result of a need for factory workers in Waterbury, known as the Brass City. My father and his brother "Slim" were working as lumberjacks in Maine when they were recruited to work at the Scovill Mfg. Co. a huge brass mill in the city. He was then in his early 20's.
There was no work on the farm in Canada in the winter and too many mouths to feed, so the older boys walked to the Maine woods to work as lumberjacks near Mt. Katahdin.
My mother, Bibiane LaPerriere, came to Waterbury as a teenager when the family moved there from Canada. Pepere LaPerriere was a carpenter and a cabinet maker and work was plentiful in Waterbury at that time due to the influx of workers for the brass mills. So it came to be that they all settled in the south end of Waterbury and became a part of the French parroise de St Anne. There they met and were married in June of 1929 at St. Anne's church. The parish also had its own school.
Saint Anne's School consisted of two buildings. The one pictured to the left, below wasfor the lower grades, and the one on the right was for grades 5 - 8. Both buildings have since been demolished and replaced with two newer structures as seen in the church picture above. (click on the pictures for a larger view,) After the '50s, the parish population fell as families moved out of the city, as we did, and eventually, with a dwindling population base, the parish could no longer support the schools. The buildings were sold to the city and I believe were then used as a senior center. As soon as I was able, I became an altar boy. I also sang in the church choir.
In 1942, We bought a home in Wolcott and moved out into the country (It was country back then), I was no longer able to perform those duties as we lived too far from the church. But myself, my brother Larry and my sister Rollie continued going to St. Anne's school until graduation. I believe Fernand and Claudette attended school in Wolcott for one year, but finished and graduated from St. Anne's. Because we weren't attending the local public schools, we were not allowed to take the school bus, so we walked to a public bus stop about a mile away. Once we started high school, we were able to take the school bus from in front of our house. The town of Wolcott did not have a high school then, so they bussed us to Waterbury High Schools.
Before moving to Wolcott, we moved from East Liberty St. to Scovill St, from there to Pleasant St., and from there to Baldwin St. We were living at Baldwin Street in December of 1941, when I remember hearing on the radio on that Sunday, the 7th, that Pearl Harbor being had been bombed by the Japanese. I had no idea what or where Pearl Harbor was. But that would soon change all our lives. In June of 1941 we climbed into the 1939 Buick Special, with the WS377 license plates, (see 3rd picture below) and drove up to Isle Verte, Canada for the ordination of my uncle Jean Charles into the priesthood. Being a city boy, I loved being on that farm. I have returned to visit the farm a couple of times since, (as the pictures above and below show). On the way back, the car suffered a blowout. My father lost control and we went off the road and overturned. With the car resting on its roof, we all crawled out through the car windows. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Farmers from nearby came to our aid. They rolled the car back onto its wheels, towed the car to a garage in Sherbrooke where they refilled the car with gas, water and oil and we continued on our way. Back home, the car was un-dented (except for a lower roof line) and continued in service for many more years. That car had to last for the duration of the war, because they weren't making cars thru the war time. I learned to drive in that car and drove it until the summer of 1950 . They don't make them like that anymore, as they say.
About 1940 I enrolled in a music class and learned to play the guitar. Later, I took private lessons from Freddie Bredice in Waterbury. The guitar has always been my favorite musical instrument. When we moved to Wolcott, the house came with a piano. My father bought it at an auction from the previous owner of the house, the Atkinsons. I guess no one wanted to move it, so he got it for 15 bucks. From my knowledge of the guitar, I was able to teach myself the piano. Again, later I took lessons, but this all came to halt in 1950 when the Army butted in. Also, in 1940 I got my first paper route. I would be delivering papers both in Waterbury and Wolcott. On my birthday in 1944, I was delivering papers in Waterbury for another boy who's family went away on vacation, when I read the front page about the circus fire in Hartford that had occurred the day before. Back then, without TV, you got the news the following day. I also worked at the newspaper office bundling papers for other delivery boys.
