Jack, where were you born?

I was born in Cambridge.

And where in Cambridge?

Actually Brighton, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, 1921

Where's your family from?

On the Sullivan side, they're from the Willard Street section of Cambridge. On the Sheridan side, it was Buckingham Street which was considered Cambridge, but not the Marsh.

What does the Marsh mean to you?

Well, the Marsh means a couple of things. Of course my grandfather, grandmother and uncles lived in the Marsh area on Willard Street. If you were to go down there today, it would be right opposite the skating club, the ice skating club. The other thing I remember is we used to say "Don't go down the Marsh because they're a bunch of roughnecks down there," but I usto go quite often because I would go visit my grandmother. When we were kids we were kind of afraid of the kids who were from the Marsh because they were Italian and Irish and they were inclined to be more of a roughneck kind of group. For instance, at Buckingham street, I usto go down there quite often especially on birthdays, I had a Saturday Evening Post route when I was a kid and a lot of my customers were down along Brattle, Willard, and Brown streets, and all that area through there. I usto deliver Saturday Evening Posts for a nickel to the maids in the big houses there, but the main reason I went down there was to visit my grandmother's place; that was a focal point for all our family. Of course my uncles were very well known at the time, not at the time I was a boy, but before then because they were both in the boxing game. There was a man named Mike, I'm not sure if he won as a welterweight, but he made world champion, and he held a title you'd find it in the world almanac. My sister Phyllis says it was featherweight, but I don't think so. I believe it was welterweight, and one of the dubious honors was that he held the title for the shortest length of time. It's in the World Almanac. My Uncle Jack was a twin of Mike, and also a fighter. He was a heavyweight and he fought for the championship. I believe a man named Kercal defeated him and became the new champion. Uncle Mike and Kercal were both from the Marsh and lived all their lives on Willard Street. On the day that Uncle Jack died, I happened to be at my grandmother's house, and he was up in a little room on the third floor. I remember going up to see him to ask how he was. He said to me, "You know, Jack, my one regret is that I'm not gonna see you get married to a nice black girl." My uncles were heroes of the Marsh. They made a lot of money. They helped my grandfather get into the excavating business. Grandpa did the excavating for the Harvard Stadium. He started to tell this story to my son, John, but my grandfather came from Ireland and my grandmother was here. My grandfather I don't know what year, Phyllis would know. Well that would be the early 1800's. If your mother was alive she would be a hundred or something or other so probably about the 1850's.

Gertrude: But Jack's maternal grandmother's name was Haley and she was born in Cambridge. I think she lived on Sparks Street. The only place I knew her was in Lexington at the Haley Farm. I thought someone mentioned that she came from Sparks Street. We do have an antique desk that belonged to Jack's great grandmother. She gave the desk to Jack's granduncle on his birthday, and it's over one hundred years old. It has the date on it. So Grandma was from Cambridge and Jack came from Ireland. He was from the Kilarney section of Ireland because when we visited Kilarney, we looked up members of the family who were descendents still residing there. They called themselves O'Sullivan and they were very, very prosperous. They lived in a summer home, and he was a prime minister in Ireland or something. I think it was John Haley, and I have a birthday of November 2, 1885.

Jack:Does it say which birthday it was?

Gertrude: His 26th birthday, in 1885. But their branch of the family was already living in the country. They were great for moving, even the Pilgrims were moving things around.

Where in Ireland did John (Murnane)come from?

Gertrude:I think Janet knows. I think Auntie Mae told her.

Jack: Getting back to my grandfather, I said he was in the excavation business. He started, as my mother told me "with a blind horse and a cart." He would dig a foundation, take the dirt in the cart, and sell it to somebody else who wanted fill. He'd get paid for digging it out and he'd get paid for dumping it. He built the business up to be one of the largest contractors in all of Cambridge, with help from Mike and Jack. My mother usto say they'd come in after a fight, my grandmother sitting in the dining room, and throw wads of money on the table. They'd say to my mother and grandmother, "take what you want," which they did of course in those days. In the back of the house on Willard Street, there was a very large barn where they had all the horses. Everything in those days was done by horse and cart. God knows how many horse they had in there. But I can remember as a kid , being out in the barn with my uncles. One uncle would threaten "this is the way you write," and one would whack me from one end of the barn. Then the other one would say, "No, that isn't the way to do it," and the other one would whack me from the other end of the barn. But it's a shame how things change - the name Jeremiah Sullivan and Sons is still on the trucks today, but there isn't anybody in the family connected with it now. I guess it was passed on to my cousin Ellen, and she was the last to own the business. She sold it, but they usto come from miles around for my grandmother's birthdays and everybody had to perform. She was quite a woman.

Gertrude: The Sullivans were one of the outstanding families in the Marsh.

Jack: They had sides of beef in the cellar. My grandmother was very good about giving things away to people, and I can remember to this day sitting on her porch, she always carried a handkerchief with a whistle tied to it. When she blew that whistle, a cop would arrive, and there had better be a cop there within five minutes or there was hell to pay.

When you usto do your paper route, what did it look like?

Jack: Brattle Street is more or less the way it is today. There was very little changes on Brattle, especially the lower end of Brattle from Harvard Square up to where it joins Mt. Auburn hasn't changed that much. There are some new buildings, some nicer homes and so forth, but the lower end where the Longfellow and Bradford houses are up through the end is more or less the same. There isn't too many changes there and Willard Street is almost the same as it was then. Now at Brown Street which comes into Willard, there are some new houses there and some upgrading of the old houses. At Sparks Street, I think the houses are pretty much the same, except the stores are gone.

Gertrude: There was a Chinese laundry, Soo Li Wash on the corner of Mt. Auburn and Sparks and that's where the boys used to hang out. And of course as we were saying before, the trolley cars went up Mt. Auburn street, but ah I'd say the Marsh hasn't really, the houses have ah improved upon them. The yuppies have moved in and the families have moved out, Yuppies bought these little cottage type houses and improved them.

Why did people move out?

Gertrude: To better their lifestyle. They moved to Belmont. Belmont was a place to go, and Arlington. Even some moved up to Lexington Avenue in Cambridge like the firemen and the policemen, they all moved out. And I think too with the advent of the automobile, transportation probably was a factor but I think as their lot in life improved, they moved away.

Jack: The houses were small, so they wanted to go to a bigger house. I bet you can't touch that property today. I worked for the Cambridge Electric for 26 years and I'd say from Harvard Square to the Marsh, Brattle Street and all through that area has changed, but not greatly. You see changes in North Cambridge and even East Cambridge. Industry has taken over more of East Cambridge, but I don't think the Marsh has changed a lot. The streets are more or less the same.

Gertrude: Jack's mother's family was a good size family with 17 kids. Ma had 13 children. Jack's mother and a couple of his sisters are older than my mother; they went to school together at St. Peter's. My mother was in the same class as his Aunt Julia. Uncle Herbie was talking about your uncle? Danny, Joe -- they all had nicknames. Uncle Herbie used to talk about it, they all had nicknames. Uncle Herbie's nickname was Hoover. He must have been a little bit younger than Jack's uncle, Joe Sullivan. He admired him so much. Uncle Joe had a nickname, Uncle Eddie had a nickname, and they called Jimmy Shamus, and Elizabeth, Liz. They all had large families with kids about the same age, and they were probably more Irish. They all went to St. Peter's Church. I can remember walking with Ma through this field where Shaler Lane is now. All I know is that I had this teddy bear suit and I had to be careful because there were all these sticky burrs that would stick to this fuzzy little suit. We'd come out on a short street where Minnie Brown lived, and Ma told me that Minnie Brown was the lady who lent her the money to build the house up on Mt. Auburn Street. They didn't go to a bank; they went to someone they knew who had money. She told me that Minnie Brown was her banker. I don't know if you know what street that street was. Brown Street runs all the way from Willard up to Lowell. She was just off Brown and her name was Minnie Brown. That's my recollection - that Minnie Brown was her banker.

What year were you born?

Gertrude: 1922, I was born on Sparks Street at Biddie Dees house, no no Biddie Dees. and ah I guess that okay so I was born when I was born the family left Maynard Place and moved into the new house up on Mt. Auburn Street so it must have been shortly after that...

Now Gertrude you say that you were born on Sparks Street. You don’t know what number?

Gertrude: No I don’t know what number. It was then that the twins were born, at Maynard Place.

Didn't they revive Harold with some whiskey?

Gertrude: Yeah, some brandy. They were premature because Aunt Katie drowned in March and my mother was so upset that they were born early.

Do you remember Katie drowning?

Gertrude: Well in a way I do. I can remember my father taking me to his sister Kate’s house. I can remember they sent me down to Cape Cod that summer. My mother had her hands full with the twins, and they sent me to school. I spent two years in Kindergarten. They had so few kids in that school. What was it, the Lowell School, when the teachers usto take turns going out walking and knock on doors asking if there were any children of school age. They didn't’t have very many students in the school. I remember I went to kindergarten when I was age 3 and 4, and we moved to Watertown when I was almost five. There weren't many children apparently in that neighborhood at that time.

Jack: I went to St. Peter’s School, then to the Peabody School, Cambridge High and Latin, and then Wentworth.

Gertrude: Did your mother tell you about Jelly Bean Lewis, the man on Sparks Street? Well if your going up Sparks Street from Mt. Auburn street just beyond the Soo Li Laundry, I don’t know what’s there. I know there’s a big apartment building there where the Soo Li Laundry was. Isn’t there an apartment house now?
Yeah right there on Mt. Auburn, but Soo Li Laundry was right on the corner of Sparks Street and Mt. Auburn. Just beyond the laundry a couple of houses, there was a small house, they’re all small I guess. There was a black couple. In their front room there was a store and I used to call him Jelly Bean Lewis because they would give me a little wooden cup full of jelly beans. Mr. Lewis thought the twins were named after him because his name was James Lewis, and Herbie is James Herbert. I don’t know about Mr. Lewis, but my mother told me that Mrs. Lewis was very, very highly educated, but because she was black, there was nothing for her. They were the only blacks in the neighborhood. They were very well educated blacks and highly regarded in the neighborhood. I remember a girl who lived next to the Sanseverino’s. She was our babysitter. You went down an alleyway next to Sanseverinos, and there was a house back there between Shaler Lane and I can’t remember, isn’t that awful. I can remember my father chasing Rose over there. He wanted her to do something and she wouldn't’t do it and she ran around the car, she...

And what about Maynard Place?

Gertrude: It was condemned I think. I’d love to see it.Do you still have to go up the steps?

Yeah, down.

Gertrude: Isn’t that nice. Are the garages still there?

Yeah.

Gertrude: Is the Stillman Infirmary still there?

Jack: I think Harvard Square was more upper society. You had traders like the Sage brothers, who are still there. A lot of the Brattle Street crowd got all their meats from there and then there was a pharmacy. Opposite the Brattle Pharmacy, (I’m thinking of Brattle Street) there was a theater. But the stores coming up on the left-hand side are more or less the same as I remember them. Like Brines, the sporting goods store, that’s been there for as long as I can remember and Sages which is up at the corner of Brattle and Church Streets. My cousin Ellen that I spoke of earlier who was really the last Sullivan that was interested in the business, she bought Olsen’s and her son owns it now. It’s a nice store. She really brought that store along.

Gertrude: What was her marriage name?

Jack: Kenney. The Kenney’s run that now. That side of Brattle if you’re coming up Brattle going toward Longfellow’s house, a lot of those stores on the curb are the old time stores. On the left hand side, where Touraine was, that’s all changed. Of course, there’s no thru traffic there like there used to be.

Gertrude: Wasn’t there an ice cream parlor?

Jack: Yes, there was Schrafts usto be there. Maybe it was Shrafts, and then it became Bailey’s right near the Five and Dime. And of course the Harvard Coop that’s still there. I don’t know whether I should say the upper society went there. Everybody went there. It was the one place to go to do a lot of your shopping. You would also go to "?" Drug store. That was on the other side. But it used to be Fisk . That was another ice cream place. My father had a charge account there. I got away with this for about two months, but I usto invite all the kids down and charge it. Everybody went to Harvard Square I remember. Do they still have that little hot dog stand right at Boylston, where the road goes from Harvard towards the stadium? There used to be a little store that used to sell hot dogs right on the bend there, great hot dogs. In fact my father went to Harvard and as a kid I usto go to the Harvard football games. When we couldn’t afford to buy the season tickets anymore, we’d buy hot dogs like hell. He graduated from Harvard.

Did you go swimming in the river?

Gertrude: Yeah, at Gerry’s Landing. There was a woman, the matron, she had a brogue. She used to say "snotty nose Jim." Then they moved it up around the bend to where the boathouse is. We could just cross the street, and down in back of the hospital there was a bath house. The road didn’t go up to it, it was all grass there. Memorial Drive came up closer to Harvard Square where those houses are on the bend, it swung in there. It was like a park across the street, the bath house was right there in back of the hospital. Then you had to go over a couple of brooks to get to where they moved it. Then there was always a path where you walked in back of the hospital and you came out to the left of the old people’s home. Ma usto go walking there. It was a great walk, to cross the street, come down and walk the path. From there it was like a park. They had a memorial to Gerry’s Landing and it had this black pipe all around the thing which we used to swing on.

Who was Gerry?

Gertrude: Way, way, way back, they were one of the first families. I’m quite sure that Ma told me when we were out walking. Ma also talked about a poet? When Ma when out, she usto see him.

Why was my mother born at Maynard Place?

Gertrude: My father joined the navy, my mother was pregnant with Rose and so it was a few years after Aunt Pauline died. So Rose was born at home.

Jack: Would they take him in the Army if he was married?

Gertrude: I don't know. I never knew what. My mother had money, but was very thrifty. When they got married, she had all new furniture and she had nice things. I guess when you were pregnant, you couldn't work. My father enlisted in the Navy and he went in as a single man, and she didn't get any money. I don't think she did. So then, she didn't have any money to pay the rent and she lived in her mother-in-law's house in Watertown, just over the Cambridge line. She said she usto walk down to see her mother and, ah, she came home this one day and the furniture was all up on the sidewalk, the furniture that wasn't paid for and, ah, my grandmother Daley kept all the wedding presents and all the stuff. She lived at maynard Place and Ma paid for the rest of the furniture and she kept it, and...

Jack: Ma is your grandmother and she kept the furniture?

Gertrude: Well and then Rose was about six months old before my father saw her. My mother had to sneak him in the house. So then when they went housekeeping they had to start from scratch. That's when they lived at Sparks street. Pauline's about a year and a half younger than Rose and two years older than I am. So they must have been living over there when Pauline was born. She was born in a hospital and, ah, then I was born.

When did you move to Watertown?

Gertrude: When I was almost, I think we moved in April, and I wasfive in May, and the twins were 2, yeah, three years younger than me.

What year were you two married?

Gertrude: 1950.

Jack: Took the words right out of my mouth.

Gertrude: Just like yesterday.

Jack: But there were some interesting people down at the Marsh. I know down on Willard Street a classmate of my father's Arthur Dewey, has a or had a home right down from Brattle on Willard and he was quite a character. He taught economics at Harvard and he was asked to leave because he was teaching, ah, unethical practices. And he was a millionaire, and he and my father grew up together, and they didn't really have too much money either one of them and Arthur had less than my father ha,. but, ah, he invested in utilities and he bought, ah, orange groves down in Florida and he died a millionaire. But I can remember when I got out of the service I went to, ah, to see him because there was a chance I might get a job up in New Hampshire working for a utility he, ah, up there and it was a small, a very small house on Willard Street, probably one of the oldest houses on the street and, ah, I remember sitting in the living room and it was dark and I saw this thing move in the corner and I didn't know what the hell it was. I didn't know if it was a dog or moving awful slow and it was awful big and come to find out it was a turtle, a huge turtle he had in the living room, and he really was quite a character and I did go to work for him. Anyhow that's how I got into the utility business. Worked up there for a year and then came and worked for the Cambridge Electric for the remainder of my working career, 36 years time flies,37.

Gertrude: It is funny it is, and to think that Amy(granddaughter) went to school in Cambridge. Jimmy(nephew) isn't he in business for himself ? You know that he and his family were St. Peters Catholic Family of the year. I guess that Ginny's, Michael's (son) wife's, mother in law was born in Cambridge or they lived in Cambridge, Upland Rd or something.

What about Lexington Avenue?

Jack: That's where all the firemen and the police, they lived off of Huron Avenue and it was alot of two family houses went up in the area at that time. That was middle class, I'd say if not upper middle class, because if you were a fireman or a policeman for the city those were big jobs in those days because let's face it, it wasn't too long before the depression happened. If you had a good steady salary job you could afford to buy a house. The bank would much rather give it to, you weren't worried about being fired next week. So they were the people who bought most of, alot of the houses.

Gertrude: Orchard street is off Huron Avenue?

Jack: No Orchard's off, no Concord and Huron comes up from Harvard Square at Hickey's. It was always funny because I never knew where one started and one ended by the common. Well Garden street, you know the two apartment buildings, but Concord comes from the other side of Cambridge Common. I do remember something. As a kid, which was very common in those days which was a rally. Did you ever hear of political rallies?. Well, they'd hold them on street corners and I can remember going to one. Who was the one who was the mayor of Cambridge?

Gertrude: O'Brien.

Jack: Yeah, Jackie O'Brien's father ran for mayor and I remember going up to a torchlight rally at the corner of Concord and Huron and Eddie Cantor coming there that night and performing which was quite a thing, and that whole... It was huge, the number of people there with Eddie Cantor there. But the torchlight rally which was very common in my father's time and before that that's when they'd give all their political speeches was at the rally at night and I can visualize now the torch lights, the crowd and Eddie Cantor standing there. And he won incidentally. He was mayor of whatever term.

So people were very aware of politics?

Jack: Politics, aware, yes, and Paul Dever, he lived right up on the corner of Buckingham and Concord Ave and of course you know Paul, he ended up in jail.

Gertrude: All I know is that when Jack and I were married in June and then come July we rented a cottage down on the Cape, Dennisport and ah, Jack's sister Margaret ,also, rented a cottage in the same area, and your mother came down for a weeks vacation and Mary Sheridan came down for a weeks vacation to stay with her sister, and they took my car and they went tooting off and I think they went up to the Belmont, and Mary Sheridan would... they went in the dining room and I guess it was pretty busy and Mary said "Is Paul Dever here? Has he arrived yet? And they said "Oh, your a friend of Paul Dever's?" And she said yes, and they said he's not here yet, but if your a friend of Paul Devers we got a table, and Rose couldn't get over it, thefact that Mary used his name and they got in. But anyway Mary did didn't she, she was alot of fun.

Why were so many Irish politicians?

Jack: Because I think that they represented the working class, and the working class for the first time had a chance. At one time, if you were Catholic, you could never work for the insurance companies. You had to be Protestant to work in insurance. At Cambridge Electric, there usto be a sign, "Irish need not apply."

Gertrude: In politics, someone who would run for office, and they improved the lot of the working class. For the first time, the working class had an opportunity to be something other than service people. Although I think the telephone company always had the Irish and the Catholics, didn't they? Even Aunt Rose worked for the telephone company. They were operators. A lot of Nova Scotian's went to work for telephone and electric.

Jack: When you think what comes around, goes around, the Marsh really started with the poor people and when they got money, they went up to the middle class section and their kids went to the suburbs. Now, the Marsh is the spot. It's closer to Boston, it has nice ambiance, and they're upgrading all the houses. So nowthe ones that are out in the suburbs would love to live in the Marsh.

Gertrude: Now that their families are grown and they don't need a big place.

Jack:Even the yuppies would love to live there. I can imagine they're the ones who are living there because even down here on the Cape, you'll find it's the young ones, husband and wife who are both working. They're the ones who are buying the places down here because they're the only ones who can afford them.

Gertrude: There was a couple who came to look at this place about a month ago and they live at Longfellow Place in Boston. They had the cutest little baby boy with red hair, gorgeous. They're just looking for a second home on the Cape. This is on the market for 260,000 and that's what they're looking for. So, I couldn't imagine living there with a baby, but if they want to be on top of everything....

Jack: Getting back to politics, I just wanted to mention Tip O'Neill, his following and his beginnings up in North Cambridge. That's what it was like. He probably got them jobs. He took care of his cronies, the gang. There's a shoe store, repair place, and he has a big picture of Kennedy and Tip O'Neill.

Gertrude: Tip's father was in politics too, wasn't he?

Jack: Yes.

Gertrude: That's what it was all about. They got into politics to elevate the working class. They were maids, chauffeurs, ditch diggers and all this stuff and to give them an opportunity to make a better life for themselves. But the Irish did it through getting the jobs like police officers and firemen. They were in a position in the Depression to raise a family. We had friends here from that we met in Florida and they came from Long Island and the impression they have is that everyone around Boston is Irish, and talking, you know, they thought everyone was, well, Curley, but there's also French, Italian, Lithuania.

Jack: Catholic too, a big area for Catholics.

Gertrude: Still there weren't too many Italians.

Jack: Look at alot of the politicians today have Italian names. But they're not from the Marsh. You know when your in politics you have power, you have authority. Park wherever you want to park. All politics is all the same. You got to be in a position of authority and you took are of your friends and that's what happened with Curley, Bush.

Gertrude: Thank God its over. You're not in the Marsh. As a kid I always thought that the Marsh was Sparks Street, that was always the heart of the Marsh. When someone said they were from the Marsh I always thought Sparks Street.

Jack: Anywhere near the river where the water probably could come across. Willard Street was Marsh too, that was open to the river. Anywhere to where the river could have flowed over when the tides came in, it was marshland, and the little houses were for the cooks and the upstairs maid. It would be interesting to see a picture what it was like. If you come up Brattle STreet, before Longfellow's there's Hawthorn Street. What's that house? Is that, ah, that's a historical spot now, that's where they brought Johnny Begoynne to Benedict Arnold and held in that house and that's not too far from the Marsh. I don't know if it was always there, it's been there for a number of years.

So, everybody was very private?

Jack: Private, yes private. From my grandmother's house and the next one going toward the river was my aunt's house where Danny Sullivan, they knocked him out in the first round. Right from the windows, it overlooks the skating rink. That's a pretty sight at night. I remember when Anna was dying.

Gertrude: Do you remember Julia Sullivan who was your neighbor up Buckingham Street? Well, she was a teacher and I remember, um, the story that she told that her mother was a governess for Longfellow's family and her father was the coachman. She had one of the hatboxes from Longfellow, but her mother was a governess and she married the coachman, and the hatbox.

Jack: But getting back to that feeling that those people in the Marsh were the servants of the people who lived up in the big houses. Julia Sullivan she was a longtime school teacher if she were living she'd be in her nineties. On the fourth of July they usto have a parade that would come up from Harvard Square, up Brattle street and end up at the cemetery and I can remember civil war veterans marching.

Gertrude: I can remember civil war veterans coming up to the school in Watertown, Marshall Spring School. He said "You put your wheel to the shoulder," and no one said a word. You just sort of swallow. He was nervous, he was up on a stage.

Jack: I can remember looking at the WWI veterans and thinking God they look so old, look at the pot bellies on them you know and now WWII if there's that many around now, they must be shrinking down. But those were real parades in those days.