Although I hate to belabor Mount Sugarloaf as a topic, I can’t seem to shake it. Wait a second, though. I can’t say I fear over-hyping Sugarloaf. No. My hometown’s visual anchor is iconic. I could probe the New England landmark ad infinitum. Its Beaver Myth symbolism and deep-history implications fascinate me. Then, maybe even its evolution to current state-park status — framed by its classic, panoramic summit view displaying that bowl of fertile pro-glacial Lake Hitchcock bed between the South Deerfield ridge’s southern tip and the Holyoke Range below — is worthy of print.
But how about study of a short-lived dance pavilion built during the first decade of the 20th century on a small geological shelf overlooking the road passing the mountain’s southern base? Well, I’m not sure readers won’t soon tire of that discussion and cry uncle. An Indian lookout or spiritual cliffside seclusion-chamber is one thing, brass bands, weddings and weekend polka dances quite another.
Problem is that additional information about this pavilion, all of it interesting indeed, just keeps flying at me, a native South Deerfield son descended from many first families carved into village gravestones. These tidbits of related information come by email, phone calls, discussion and third-party messages. Plus — Get this! — new information came to me late last week from a reader who indicated that the old pavilion of small-town lore is alive and well … in South Deerfield, no less. Better still, unbeknownst to me until last week, as a boy I often walked on the rustic old dance floor when accompanying my mother on her frequent trips to a local market.
So, how’bout them apples?
Raymond Boron Sr. was a discharged, decorated, World War II infantryman veteran from the European theater when he purchased the old pavilion from the Franklin County Commissioners, who set the date by which the building had to be removed. His plan was to disassemble the pavilion and use the recycled materials to construct what in 1948 became Thayer Street Market on family property across the street from his childhood home. His father, Stanley, a handyman who had built the family homestead, helped Ray tear down the pavilion and build the market. Then Ray, his dad and younger brother Fred ran the market from its inception, father and son Ray completing in their “spare time” the upstairs apartment where Ray lived into the 1950s. Eventually Ray and high school sweetheart Regina (Skalski) moved to a Mill River home a few miles due west of the market, where they raised three children. There, Ray resided until his 2010 death at 86.
Many sources who could have filled in minute details of the pavilion-to-market transition are today gone or difficult to reach, but not Fred’s wife Teresa, who until recently remained in the market’s upstairs apartment where they raised two daughters. This spring, the 85-year-old Turners Falls native who in 1958 married Fred and moved to the apartment, bought a house around the corner. Contacted by phone Monday at her new West Street home and familiar with me as the son of a former loyal customer, she didn’t hesitate to share the market history.
“Yes, you are absolutely right,” she responded when asked if the floor had previously been the pavilion dancefloor. “Fred and his father salvaged it and pieced it back together for the store.”
Sensing from our conversation that Ms. Boron was not a South Deerfield native, I discovered she was a Whiteman from Turners Falls. Brother Paul Whiteman, who died in March at 93, was one of the last survivors from the immortal 1942 state-championship Turners Falls High School baseball team of forever Powertown fame. But why digress further. That team and those ballplayers have received effusive press and praise.
Now, although true that this is not the first time this newspaper has documented Thayer Street Market history, I know that the Sugarloaf angle is not common knowledge among townspeople. Thus, it’s worth repeating. I, myself, grew up in South Deerfield, knew the Borons and their children, shopped at the store with my mother, then as a parent, but had no clue that the worn wooden floor had once been a dancefloor or that the building had been recycled from a dance pavilion dating back to my father, grandfather and great-grandfather’s day. Judging from the interior patina and floor wear, I always assumed the building dated back 100 years or more. Now I know why.
Still under Boron ownership, the building is today rented to the BBA Deli Market, a busy market and delicatessen that attracts a big lunchtime takeout crowd. Its history gives the old, maple tongue-and-groove floor a multidimensional spirituality that brings in a festive as well as retail flow. I hope now that the word is again out, folks will appreciate it for its forgotten Sugarloaf past.
Listen for the subtle squeaks, cracks and groans. That floor harbors many secrets.
Recorder Sports Editor Gary Sanderson is a senior-active member of the outdoor-writers associations of America and New England. Send your questions, stories about our area to him at: gsanderson@recorder.com.