Growing Up Glendale

By Bill Pepler

"Growing Up Glendale" is the true story of one boy's life as he experiences every day in a small New England village. Through his eyes, you meet all the residents, and learn of the events that made the village a magical place to be. The story winds through time as the boy grows and learns of all that the village has to offer. It's that intimate kind of old-school town where everyone knows you and your dog's name. The village was simple, it had a two-room schoolhouse, one market, one restaurant, one gas station, two churches, a volunteer fire company, a textile mill, and several dogs to go along with it all. Many events would be repeatedly discussed through the years as they cemented their place in the local folklore. The dramatic rescue of the boys who weather the great flood but ended up trapped on an island in the middle of a nearby, the meteor that once streaked through the night sky, and the Halloween nights filled with mischief and stolen pumpkins. The wonder and simplicity of this village could only last for so long however, and as the story pushes on you'll come to witness the gradual decline of this special place as local institutions close and neighborhood events stop. For those who remember these special times, they all say the magic has been gone for many years, and when the magic finally died, the village became nothing but a place to sleep.

This is an autobiographical account of the author Bill Pepler's fondest memories of life while growing up in Glendale, Rhode Island. This charming, small New England town had much to offer, including familiarity, kindness, and trustworthiness. In-depth descriptions of Glendale and the surrounding areas portray a place with brooks, bridges, rivers, blueberry patches, apple orchards, and more.

Join Pepler in reliving his experiences as a child, many of which relate to the adventures common in childhood– sledding down steep hills, ice skating on the pond, holiday get-togethers, riding bikes, building a tree house, playing baseball, and catching fireflies, to name just a few. The central theme, the fire station and the firemen, influenced his life's passion at an early age and is a touching tribute to first responders. He eventually became a junior fireman in high school and then a fire captain as an adult. Pepler describes various emergency calls that he responded to with his fellow junior firemen as well as the volunteer firemen. Take a trip down memory lane as he recalls the 1960s and 1970s, describing historical events of the time as well as rock and roll's famous bands and music, Saturday morning and Sunday night TV, movies, and more. This tale of another time in a special place will provide readers with a warm and enchanting look into the past that might feel long gone today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667839714

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Growing Up Glendale

© 2022 Bill Pepler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN 978-1-66783-970-7

eBook ISBN 978-1-66783-971-4

For Lieutenant Ryan J. Ferris,

you left us too early,

and the ache in our hearts

will never cease.

Table of Contents

1 What Glendale Was for Me

2 The Three Sides of Glendale

3 Feeding Ted

4 Riding with Willy

5 Rita T.

6 Early Recollections

7 Senator and Chief

8 The Very Best of Glendale

9 The Great Village Move

10 Seasons Turn

11 Winter Olympics

12 A Hero among Us

13 Kissing Buddies

14 Spring Lake Road

15 A Very Merry Christmas

16 Witness to History

17 Day to Day in Glendale

18 A Two-Room Schoolhouse

19 Special Times Indeed

20 We Built It, and They Came

21 The Heart and Soul

22 I Worked My Entire Life

23 Be Prepared

24 The Glendale Volunteer Fire Company

25 Early Days at the Firehouse

26 The Fire Truck Is Here but There Are No Firemen!

27 Flashover

28 40 Years of Progress and Service

29 St. Patrick’s Cathedral

30 The Sixth Love

31 Trees? Yes, Trees

32 Hazardous Duty

33 Who Called the Police?

34 The Best Days of My Life

35 The Lake

36 Service to My Country

37 Requiem

38 Goodbye Glendale

39 Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Glendale, Rhode Island, circa 1958. The village has three separate and distinct neighborhoods: The Main Village built around the mill, where most of the action in the book occurs; Spring Lake, where my grandfather built a summer camp and I learned to swim; and New Village, located across the river and built by the new owner of the mill after he purchased the mill in 1934. This map is not to scale and locations are approximate. It should not be considered an official map of Glendale. It is designed to highlight the locations described in this book. Map created for this book by Bill Pepler.

1

What Glendale Was for Me

I was born William Henry Harrison Willy Billy Joseph Pepler, Jr. in the fall of 1952 in Providence, Rhode Island. Why the name? That is what my father always called himself – in jest. Minus the junior, of course!

As the leaves started to turn color, my parents returned with me to Glendale, a small village in the Town of Burrillville. Burrillville is an old textile mill town located in the northwest corner of Rhode Island which shares contiguous borders with Massachusetts and Connecticut. It is comprised of eight distinct villages, each with its own fire district and post office. The villages were all built around textile mills many years ago. Most of the mills are long gone, either abandoned when the textile industry moved south or destroyed by fire under suspicious circumstances. What did Glendale have to offer – absolutely nothing! Except it was the greatest place in the world to grow up. It has always reminded me of the fictional Mayberry, North Carolina from the Andy Griffith Show, except that we had way cooler police cars.

This is a story of my life in Glendale. It is written so my children can understand what my life was like then and to preserve the memories of Glendale. The Glendale that I knew and loved is long gone. Even the firehouse was torn down by those who did not know any better. But most important is that the people are gone. From 1952 to 1970, the residents of Glendale made this little village a special place for me, although they were there long before my arrival. Many people lived in Glendale for their entire lives.

In a lifetime, my years in Glendale were limited. But the days in Glendale always seemed to last forever. Summer days went on and on. I graduated from high school in 1970 but would remain in Glendale until 1980, when, after three years of service to the United States Army, I graduated from college. That gave me a total of 28 years in this Heaven on Earth called Glendale. There is no other place in the world I would have wanted to grow up. This is when I abandoned Glendale in search of greater opportunities. I knew the opportunities I sought would never become available in Glendale. What were those opportunities? This is a story for another day. And there will always be a story for another day. In fact, there are many stories which need to be told on another day. But there are many Glendale stories that will never be told because there is simply not enough time. Here, I will attempt to capture the very best of Glendale.

Sure, you may say this could be anywhere and that many towns were great places to live. In Glendale, everyone knew not only your name but your dog’s name. Glendale was mystical; it was safe, simple, and fun. Glendale was not somewhere you lived – it was the place where you belonged. We were a community. We did everything together. Well, most things! Glendale was very reminiscent of the villages throughout the nation when soldiers returned from World War II. Everyone was close, everyone stayed close, and the community was the center of the universe.

Many things made Glendale the truly special place was. It was the apple orchard (which also doubled as the sledding hill in the winter), the brook behind my house, the Glendale Primary School (a two-room schoolhouse), the fire station, the field across from my house on Spring Lake Road which was transformed into a community ballpark, Lee’s Market, Johnny’s Clam Spa, Spring Lake, and many others. They are all gone now, existing only in the memories of those simple days in Glendale. And of course, there are several stories about each of these venues. Glendale was a self-sufficient village that had everything we needed. Except maybe a doctor – that was covered by Doctor Smith, who made house calls and lived just a few miles up the road in the Village of Oakland. It was a ten-minute drive. Doc Smith made visits to my home several times over the years. He was the quintessential country doctor.

In Glendale, it was the people in these places that made the difference. The people of Glendale were kind, friendly, hard-working, gentle, patriotic, religious, and easygoing. They were my next-door neighbor Ethel, and Billy Archer and Whitey Tessier who lived in the next duplex. There was Mr. Lee, who ran Lee’s Market with his son Bobby. There was also Mr. Davis, Spike, Fire Chief Jimmy Maher, Cookie, Charley and Ally Wilsonholm, Ida Orrell, Johnny, Billy, Charlie, Louie, Brother, Aunt Elsie and Uncle Ray Burlingame. Most are gone, having lived a full yet simple life in the hamlet we all called Glendale.

Growing up in Glendale, I do not remember many people dying. Most died after I left Glendale and unfortunately, I only made it back for a few of the funerals. They were all good people. They lived within their means and gave what they could. It took a community to be a community. In those days, many families lived close to one another, usually on the same street or at least in the same village. My mother’s brother and his family lived two doors down to the right of us. My grandmother, Margaret Burlingame, lived two doors to the left in the Block. The Block was an apartment building on the corner of Main Street and Spring Lake Road. My grandmother lived on the second floor. The building was owned by Jimmy Maher, the Glendale Fire Chief and State Senator.

One death I remember occurred when I was in high school when my godmother died. Her name was Margaret. I called her Miggy Prut, probably because I could not pronounce her name when I was young. She and her family lived in Pascoag, on a hill just above the railroad tracks. She was married to Billy, a good friend of my father’s. She was a tall, thin woman. One time when we were visiting, I was playing out in the yard. Somehow, a wagon ended up down a steep embankment while I was driving it along the edge. Miggy Prut came out and retrieved the wagon. She asked me why I did it. I said, I am very sorry Miggy Prut. It just slid out of my hands. Another time, they visited us on Spring Lake Road in the dead of summer. It must have been 100 degrees with 95% humidity. I think the trees were melting. Everyone sat in the basement, which was always cool, and ate cake. That was very cool. We had our cake and ate it too – in the basement!

You do not need a village to raise a child. But when the village serves as an extended family, and all children feel safe, secure, and free, it is a special place indeed. My life growing up was free of worries and problems, at least until I became interested in girls. That is a story for another day. Maybe a mini-series! Glendale was a place absent of stress, congestion, abuse, crime, and drugs. Frankly, there were no problems. The police were men you waved to when they drove by. We never saw them outside of their vehicles because no one ever needed to call them. Glendale was also a place where people paid their taxes, flew the American flag, and lived life the best that they could. While I suspect some problems may have existed below the surface, or behind the front doors of some homes, they never showed their face to those of us who walked, pushed our wagons, or rode our bikes by.

I toured Glendale on a daily basis without a care in the world. Actually, my only cares involved my daily meals. I never missed a meal. These meals would include breakfast, dinner, and supper. More on this later. My world consisted of a few streets and a few brooks. I can say I have been in every house in the village, some on a regular basis. To me, my world would always be there and never change. Change came slowly to Glendale, but looking back, you could see the changes. And none of the changes were good. Most of the changes led to the demise of this bucolic wonderland – that magical place we called Glendale.

The people of Glendale traveled at one speed – slow. No one ever hurried because no one needed to. And everyone was always on time. Even way back then we all had clocks. My mother would wind our Baby Ben alarm clock every night and every morning it woke the family for the day. Ah, technology. Ah, the good old days. Ah, Glendale.

The only exception to the collective travel speed was when the siren on the roof of the fire station started to sound. The siren sounded like an old WWII air raid siren. This caused the men of Glendale, the members of the Glendale Volunteer Fire Company, to travel quickly as they responded to the fire station. Otherwise, everyone always drove slowly and were safe.

To me, one special thing was that my children had the opportunity to live in the house on Spring Lake Road in Glendale that I grew up in, and met some of the same people who made my childhood so unique. This was especially true for my son Bill, who by virtue of being the eldest child, has the best recollection of the Glendale neighbors. Bill got to know Whitey Whitey O Tessier, Billy Archer, Ethel, Mr. Davis, Uncle Ray Burlingame, and many others. By the time my children moved into Spring Lake Road, the Pepler family had already been in this house for twenty-seven years. While this arrangement only lasted a few years longer, we will always have shared memories of Glendale.

2

The Three Sides of Glendale

The Village of Glendale consisted of three sections: the main village, Spring Lake, and New Village. The main village was located near the textile mill, built along the banks of Clear River. This was where everyone worked. Glendale dates back to the 1700s, when the first mill was built. This mill produced lumber. It was powered by water, when the first dam across the Branch (Clear) River was built in the 1780s. Several additions to the mill were added through the years. The original mill, built entirely of wood, was destroyed by fire in 1850. The mill was rebuilt using stone. Around 1890, William Orrell purchased the mill and became President of Orrell Mills, Inc. His son, Frederick W. Orrell, became Secretary of Orrell Mills. He married Ida L. Chilson and she became Ida Orrell, and would have a place in my young life. When I met Ida Orrell, she was an old woman. She lived in a large house next to the school and served as the local Glendale correspondent for The Woonsocket Call , a regional newspaper. I was her paperboy. She always paid me exactly 42 cents, the weekly charge for six-day home delivery. She never tipped me, but I theorized she was old and living on a limited budget so I was fine with it.

Mr. Orrell had many ideas as he looked to the future. He increased production, purchased new equipment, and even built homes for his workers. At one point, the mill owned many tenements in Glendale Village. By 1895, it was estimated that at least 300 people worked at the Glendale Mill. It was also estimated that 30% of the workers were female. To me, this was a significant percentage. In a time when a woman’s place was in the home, many women from Glendale worked at the mill. Apparently, these numbers continued throughout the century. After World War II, my mother became one of these women.

William Orrell was a self-made man. He started in the woolen industry at an early age and worked at many mills in the area. By the time he reached the age of 30, he had mastered every aspect of the industry. He held several significant positions at the mill including Boss Weaver and Designer before he became Superintendent. Mr. Orrell also served his community as a member of the Burrillville Town Council, and later as a Senator in the Rhode Island Senate.

In 1934, Austin T. Levy purchased the mill. He operated the mill until it finally closed around 1964. I was twelve years old the day the mill closed. This event took the collective wind out of Glendale. Many thought that was the end for Glendale. It was a huge loss and a significant factor in the demise of Glendale. In addition, many of the people I would come to know in Glendale worked in the mill. For many residents, the mill was the only job they had ever known. I recall many workers walking to work each morning carrying their lunch boxes. It was a tough time for the entire region as all the textile mills were closing. Textile operations were being moved down south where labor and energy were cheaper. My connection to Mr. Levy included the fact that both of my parents worked in his mills and I attended the school and skated at the ice rink that were named after him.

After the mill closed, it became a large flea market. This went on for a few years before the mill was reborn as a plastics manufacturing facility. The operation was expanded and it remains operating in the village today. These days, no one walks to work at the mill – and no one carries a lunch box.

The Glendale Mill in the 1800’s. Burrillville Historical & Preservation Society photo.

Used with permission.

As you continued up Spring Lake Road, you reach the Spring Lake Lounge. This was the halfway point to Spring Lake Beach. The Spring Lake Lounge was a bar/cocktail lounge that also served food. It was open year-round but was very busy during the summer. We will visit the Spring Lake Lounge later. This is where Spring Lake Road became sparsely populated. From there to the beach entrance, there were only two homes. During the summer, the trees in this area overhung the roadway, providing much needed shade. The trees also filtered the sun, as it shown through breaks in the foliage. This provided a feeling of being out in the country. I always loved riding my bike through this area.

At the end of Spring Lake Road is Spring Lake. It was surrounded by summer cottages. The lake was spring fed, which made the water very clear. Long ago, the State of Rhode Island banned the use of gasoline-powered motor boats. For those who wanted to go boating, the options included sailing, rowing, or renting a very slow boat with an electric motor. My grandfather, William P. Burlingame, built a cottage which sat on a hill overlooking Main Beach. He was long gone before I arrived. The cottage was a small single-story summer house, which was only used during the warm months. Some would call the cottage a shell of a house. Its main purpose was to keep us dry during a thunderstorm and keep all the mosquitoes outside. With no insulation or heat, no one even thought of going there in the winter. This required the cottage to be closed at the end of every summer season. The water was shut off and the pipes were drained to prevent freezing. Boards were then placed over all the windows and we left the lake to wait for the next summer.

The cottage had a large screened-in porch on the front which provided a commanding view of the lake. It always had a musty odor. It was furnished in basic cottage outdoor furnishings and was very comfortable. The cottage always had a welcoming vibe – it was where everyone wanted to be in the summer. We simply referred to as The Camp. In the evening, everyone would gather on the porch after supper for stories and cards. I usually played with whatever toys were available, or went outside to play. This adventure did not last long because of the mosquitoes. They were so large, they looked like small birds. Our cottage was surrounded by other similar cottages. They were lined up on top of the hill with only a few feet separation from your neighbor. A dirt road ran behind the cottages on the hill. Parking was next to your cottage, or any place you could find it. Leaving the front of the cottage, you walked down a long set of wooden stairs to the street below. The street was part of the parking area for Main Beach. It was a two-minute walk to the water.

My grandmother, whom we all called Nana, sold the cottage when I was a child. It was around 1960. I always wished she hadn’t sold the property because of its proximity to the lake. Location, location, location. But she was getting older and did not want to deal with the upkeep. This was the first change I witnessed to our lives in Glendale. None of the changes I experienced would be positive. It was the beginning of the end of Glendale. I just did not know it at that point.

My older sister Kathy would later live on the lake when she and her husband purchased a year-round home on Black Hut Road that had been converted from an original camp. It was just south of the Main Beach. The property had a great dock and regular issues with their septic system. I used to SCUBA dive off their dock.

Early on, Spring Lake was called Herring Pond. The story people told was the name of the lake was changed to attract more people from the city. Spring Lake sounded much more appealing than Herring Pond. The new name would generate thoughts of a majestic body of water fed by natural springs. The water would be pure. When the trolley service arrived in Glendale, it brought many people from Woonsocket who were seeking to escape the heat of the summer. Woonsocket was the largest city in the area. The Main Hall at Spring Lake hosted clambakes and dances, which were very popular. This activity dated back to 1900. The fire department would also use the hall for events including dances with a live band. These were used as fund raisers for the department. The lake was crowded on weekends, especially on Sunday, and those arriving late found parking difficult to find. Main Beach and Flynn’s Beach were great places to view girls in bikinis. And those girls were from the city. Wow! We all knew city girls were fast. My interest in the female population was growing rapidly.

As you approached Spring Lake on Spring Lake Road, there were three entrances to the lake. The first entrance had large stone pillars and a sign announcing your arrival at the lake. This was Black Hut Road. If you took this entrance, you would drive through the parking area on both sides of the street, as you headed around the lake. The field to the left doubled as a baseball field when it was not utilized for overflow parking. It also had a well with a hand pump for those looking for a cool drink on a hot day. Some days, we rode our bikes to the beach and pumped the well just because we could. But we usually drank what we pumped. Even back then, we didn’t want to waste water, especially when you had to work for it.

Black Hut Road became a dirt road halfway to Flynn’s Beach. Every summer, the town oiled the road to limit the amount of dust produced when vehicles drove around the lake. While it may not have been environmentally sound, the oil did work as intended. The State of Rhode Island controlled a large portion of land near the lake called the Black Hut Management Area. The state also maintained the boat ramp, located halfway between Main Beach and Flynn’s Beach. The fire department would utilize the boat ramp for rescue boat drills and drafting (pumping) water out of the lake.

The second entrance, named Hillside Drive, took you directly to the entrance of Main Beach. We took this road to reach my grandmother’s cottage This was no over the river and through the woods type of ride. In addition, it was the road in the worst shape. It was obvious that there had been no preparation to the base of the roadway. They simply cleared the land and paved the road. This worked until winter that year when the frost in the ground started pushing the rocks to the surface, through the pavement. But it did have the effect of slowing down all vehicles using the road.

The third entrance weaved its way around the north side of the lake and dead-ended about two-thirds of the way down the lake. It was called North Shore Road. I often wondered why the road was never completed. I always thought it would be a great drive, and provide great views of the lake. The more expensive camps and several year-round homes were located on this road.

The third section of Glendale was located across the river and was called New Village. After purchasing the mill, Austin T. Levy tore down several tenement buildings, including several duplexes located on the hill directly above the mill near the water tank. This was sometime after 1934. To replace the buildings, he created the New Village. It was still close enough to the mill where people could walk to work. This new neighborhood consisted of several streets with rows of one-story stucco homes. There were 31 one-story homes. The old wise men of Glendale said that New Village was based on houses that Mr. Levy had seen when he vacationed in the Bahamas.

As a child, I never visited New Village on my own. It was just too far from my home and there was no trolley service. I did, however, attend Nursery School there. Mrs. Burse ran the school in her basement. She was very nice. One summer, my sister Kathy babysat for a family in New Village on Maple Road. She was already watching my sister Polly and me and we spent every day hanging out there.

As I was approaching my 10th birthday, I was becoming interested in girls. I discovered there were two blonde girls in the neighborhood, both named Linda. Linda, Linda, Linda! They were both a year older than me, and I discovered I liked older women. My daily visits immediately got more interesting. As I grew older, I would ride my bike to New Village. The kids played Whiffle Ball in a backyard which had a high fence surrounding the yard. This allowed us to play home run derby. It also meant that someone was always running around to the next yard to retrieve the ball. We also caught frogs in the swamp and cruised the streets on our bikes. And we continued checking out the two Linda’s.

The Clear River was never clear. As a river that flowed past several textile mills in the town, it served as the means to dispose of waste, both industrial and human. Depending on the color of the dying operations up river, the waterway would turn different colors. Some days it was red; other days it was green. At the time, we thought it was cool. But we never set foot in it and never ate fish caught from the river. We were clear about those facts. Even more interesting is that Clear River was officially named Branch River. Clear River originated in a swamp near Wallum Lake. It flowed east through the Villages of Pascoag and Harrisville. At Oakland, it converged with the Chepachet River to form the Branch River. Growing up in Glendale, we all called it Clear River. And it is still Clear River to me.

Another interesting thing was the fact that very few homes were constructed after Mr. Levy created New Village. Growing up, I only recall three new homes being built, all of them on Main Street. It appeared Glendale was stuck in time, at least when it came to new buildings or development. This helped maintain the status quo in the village. In this case, smaller was better. It also had the effect of keeping the people of Glendale in place. Very few people left and very few moved in. While this may seem odd now, it was perfectly normal in the 1950s and 1960s. I literally grew up in a place where the people rarely changed. The people of Glendale did not even seem to grow old. Those who were already old, remained old, and those who were young, stayed forever young.

To reach Glendale, you had to travel North on Victory Highway from the Village of Oakland or South from the Village of Nasonville. You could also use the back roads from Spring Lake or a few other dirt roads. Traveling from the North, you would pass the Glendale Chapel on the hill, and then begin the gradual descent into Glendale. As you reached the bottom of the hill, you entered the commercial strip. From Nasonville, you would cross the bridge over clear river and be in the same location. Johnny’s Clam Spa was on the left. No one knew the reason Johnny gave this name to his restaurant. The building was designed as an octagon. Behind Johnny’s were the old bus garage and the four elevated fuel storage tanks. The tanks were based on a gravity system. From Victory Highway, a tanker truck could drive onto the old trolly track bed to a point above the storage tanks. They would then fill the storage tanks. This allowed the smaller oil delivery to drive under the tanks to fill up. Across the parking lot from Johnny’s was the dry cleaner. This building later became the new post office after the original was sold and the