In 1936, my parents, brother and I moved again to a second story apartment at 76 High St., Greenfield. This house once faced High Street but was moved back to make room for apartment buildings. It had logs for support in both the attic and cellar. It is still there — one of Greenfield’s oldest homes. Along with us came the player piano. Because of its size, it had to be in my parents’ bedroom when we lived on 19 Shattuck St. This time, it went into the living room. It is expensive to move an item like this, but it’s worth it for all the many hours of entertainment it provided. Many a person felt happier hearing it play and singing along.
This was the year of one of the worst floods in New England history. Deerfield Street in Greenfield was completely flooded, as was all of the Greenfield Tap and Die buildings at Plant 1. My father worked there and he was so worried that some of the buildings would be “washed away.” One main concern were the dams on the Connecticut River. If any of them had broken away, many communities in the Pioneer Valley would have been lost or suffered great damage. Many bridges were lost as well as highways and homes. Two years later was the hurricane of 1938. It had rained for several days prior to the actual hurricane. When it came, there was so much lost everywhere. High Street, from where we lived, to Main Street was full of downed and uprooted beautiful elm and other kinds of trees. The power lines were down and the street was closed to traffic for many days. There was so much destruction in Greenfield and New England that nowhere would look the same again.
I went to Federal Street South for fourth, fifth and sixth grades and had three wonderful teachers — Miss Gibson, Miss Fitzgerald and Miss Hartwell. I learned a great deal from them. On the land near the school was the Greenfield Band Stand, used for outdoor concerts during the summer months. Later, this was moved to the present high school parking lot.
We had a lot of fun playing ball at every available space in the neighborhood. My parents never had a car, neither of them knew how to drive, but we managed to get around. With my brother’s help, they bought me a beautiful two-wheel balloon tire bike from Sears. It had white sidewalls on the tires and its color was black and white. This bike was a birthday gift and I really loved that bike. I rode it all over town. That was the way it was during those years of my life.