Hopedale History June 15, 2014 No. 254 Al Tarca Hopedale in June Hopedale High graduation - stills and video on YouTube. Thanks to Erik Kahler of Mendon (West River Technology) for a wonderful addition to Peter Hackett's historic hike of Hopedale and Mendon. It's an interactive Google Earth view of the hike area which allows you to bring up more information on each of the sites mentioned by Hackett. Here's a link to the page about the hike. Near the bottom of the page, you'll find a link to the Google Earth page.
interested in joining a group, we will meet in front of St. Mary's Church on Winter Street at 1:30 pm on Saturday, June 14 with a rain date of Sunday, June 15. More on this at the bottom of the website version of the June 1 ezine. During the past two weeks I've made additions to The Friends of Elders Shop (press release, name change to Curiosity Shoppe of Hopedale, etc.) William (the artist) Draper (Draper's portrait of President Kennedy, plus a newspaper photo of him painting the statue of his grandfather in Milford.) New Homes Built in the 1940s (Several more Milford News articles about the post-war building boom.) Tupper Lake (Additional information on Draper's bobbin plant at Tupper Lake, New York, sent by Bill Wright.) <><><><><><><><><><> The sight of the airplane bound from New York to Boston which passed over Milford shortly before 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon so low that the exhaust from the motors could be heard plainly on the ground sent a thrill through the minds of several in Milford and Hopedale, for they feared for a few minutes that it was an enemy plane. Children were hurried into homes. Prayers were offered for their safety and there was much excitement until the mail-carrying plane soared off in the direction of Boston. Milford Daily Journal, June 7, 1918 Hopedale, the home of the largest cotton loom manufacturing plant in the world, and one of the richest towns in the state, now boasts a tax rate of $25 per thousand, a cut of $2 over the 1939 rate, making one of the lowest tax rates in the state. Milford Daily News, May 7, 1940 <><><><><><><><><><>
served on during World War II. Al Tarca I grew up on Hayward Street in the Plains in Milford. There was a hill on East Walnut Street where we would slide in the winter. In the summer we'd go swimming and we'd pick blueberries. We'd swim in the quarries. The ones off of Route 16. We'd often go to Dodd's Quarry. We called it the BA beach. No girls, no clothes. I learned to swim in an area of the quarry called the bathtub. It was very shallow. I lost my balance there once, and fell into the deep part. I did the dog paddle to shore, and ever since then I've been able to swim. In time I learned how to do all the other common strokes. Another quarry we'd sometimes go to was Quirk's. It's right near where the Stop & Shop is now. The places we'd dive from had names. The low couch, the high couch, the chair, the peak, and the running jump. It was a feather in you cap if you could make that jump. We'd do our blueberrying wherever there were high tension wires. Later on we'd go to Rosenfeld's sandpit in Hopedale. There was a swamp back there where we'd get them. We'd pick them and sell them. During the summers, my father would work at B.H. Bristow Draper's estate as a gardener. The cook's name was Delia. I don't know her last name. She asked my father if I'd pick blueberries for her so that she could surprise Mr. Draper with them. I walked over there from the Plains to deliver them. I had a paper route, starting when I was eight years old. When I was ten, I had two routes and I hired kids to help me. I had the routes until I graduated from high school. Kids used to play marbles a lot in those days. I came up with an idea of my own. I had a board that I'd set upright. It had grooves at the bottom with numbers over them. If a kid tossed his marble and it went through the opening, he'd win as many marbles as the number was. If it didn't go through, I'd keep his marble. I won a lot of marbles with that game. It was like my little casino. After high school, before I went into the service, I used to hang around at a place they called the Hearts of Ben. It was on East Main Street in the Plains. During the week we'd play cards for peanuts and soda. On weekends they'd play poker there. I'd watch them. They'd play five card stud. The house would get a take on every pot. At the end of the night, the house would have all the money. That's when I learned not to go to the casino. I went to work at Porter Shoe in Milford. Drapers wasn't hiring at that time, but eventually I got a job there. I worked at the sewer plant. The town didn't own it. It belonged to Drapers. In 1984, Rockwell turned the sewer facility over to the town. When owned by Rockwell, they weren't eligible for any state aid to improve the plant, but the town would be, so it was turned over to the town. After some time working in the sewer plant, I went to the shop and worked in the drill room. During the time when I was in the drill room, I went to Wentworth nights where I took a steam course. Then the war broke out, and in 1942 I joined the Navy. I was on a tin can. (destroyer) On one trip we escorted a merchant ship convoy bringing supplies to Murmansk, Russia. We were at the invasion of Oran and Casablanca in North Africa, and also Sicily and other places in Italy. We were part of the invasion of southern France. We came back to the States and I was transferred to another ship. It was a merchant ship converted for amphibious work. It could carry LCMs (landing craft, machinery) and LCVPs. (landing craft, vehicle, personnel). Seventy years ago today (June 4) we were in England, getting ready to invade Normandy. On D-Day, we lay off with a mother ship, near other ships, maybe 100 yards or so offshore. We dropped these boats into the water. We had troops aboard along with half-tracks, and armored cars also. We'd load them onto the boats, and off they'd go to shore. D-Day was seventy years ago this week. June 6, 1944. Al Tarca, June 2104 Memories Menu Ezine Menu HOME |
Al Tarca, on left, outside his office at the Draper power plant. |
The Achenar - the second ship Al served on. |