Crown Hill/ Nashua NH Strong Roots

By Dean Shalhoup, Telegraph Staff

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2003

Nashua's Changing Neighborhoods

Seconds after the driver has turned onto Crown Street from Arlington Street, passenger Paul Girouard commands him to stop the car.

"Right here - take a look," he says, scanning the horizon before him with a sweeping arm gesture.

Sure enough, at least parts of several Nashua landmark buildings are visible, the most noticeable being three church steeples rising above the landscape. The view is one of comparative serenity compared to the busy nearby intersection of East Hollis and Allds streets.

The spot is an unlikely vantage point from which to look out over the city, but that's part of what makes it unique, Girouard says.

More than that, there's a good possibility that this location and its view inspired not only the name of this short, hilly street that rises rapidly from a railroad freight yard near the Merrimack River to its peak near Infant Jesus Church, it also may have inspired the name of what is perhaps the city's most defined neighborhood - Crown Hill.

Generally understood to encompass a mostly residential and light commercial section of Nashua south of East Hollis Street, north and east of Salmon Brook, and east of Harbor Avenue to the Merrimack River, Crown Hill is probably the city's most resilient neighborhood, its people having overcome a massive fire, a devastating flood and even a creepy cockroach infestation - all in one decade.

Add the Hurricane of '38 and the Great Depression and it's obvious why growing up in Crown Hill during the 1930s was a character-building experience.

In the early and middle part of the 20th century, as many as a dozen small, family-operated markets dotted corner lots, and a couple farms were in business off Holds Street. Crown Hillers didn't have to go far for everything they needed.

Today, despite the surge of giant supermarkets in town, several stores still operate, as do a handful of small businesses.

A large percentage of Crown Hill residents have lived there for years, and many are natives. They cite the friendliness and convenience of the area for keeping them there. -"Mom & Pop' stores

Girouard knows a lot about Crown Hill. He and his brothers, Roger and Maurice, grew up stocking shelves, sweeping floors and making sandwiches in the family market that was an extension of their home on the corner of Burke and Arlington streets.

Their parents, Raymond and Bernice Girouard, started the market in 1949. When Raymond Girouard died in 1963, "Bea," as she was called, kept the store going until she retired in 1988.

Around the corner from the Girouards, a giant plastics machinery-making plant, founded as the Bates Machine Co. in 1896 and later called Improved Paper Machinery Co., then Ingersoll-Rand and finally IMPCO, was thriving in the years after World War II. Hundreds of hands worked there, and the meal breaks were typically short.

"We made between 150 and 200 sandwiches si" days a week and delivered them down there," Girouard said. "They had three shifts working 24 hours back then - we delivered food at noon and again at 8 p.m."

They had it down to a science.

"They'd start lining up, and by the time we had laid out all the sandwiches on a long table, the line would be already moving," Girouard said.

Many of the workers would stop for cigarettes, coffee or a cut of meat for dinner on the way to or from work. The whole process was rife with a strong sense of community; many workers were walkers who lived on Crown Hill, and the store was one of the ways to keep in touch with neighbors.

Girouard's wasn't the only "Mom & Pop" grocery in Crown Hill, by far. There was Boisvert Brothers Market at the corner of Newbury and McKean streets, where many would call in their orders and have them delivered, usually by an ambitious young boy on his bike.

The Kozy Korner operated on Allds Street at the corner of Bowers Street, and it's now R & M Variety. Up the road was Belanger's Market, and anyone who ever played or skated at the old Marshall Street Field, now Lyons Field, knows of Chartrain's, the combination market and skate-sharpening shop across Marshall Street from the field.

There were still others - Ravenelle's Market, on McKean Street near Newbury Street, and Lussier's Pharmacy, at the corner of Harbor Avenue and Bowers Street, with Naro's Market right behind it. Denault's, once operated by the family of former Mayor Don Davidson's wife, Chip, was on Burke Street; today it's called Stage Mart.

Joining Girouard's up on Arlington Street was Guerette's Market, now Baez Grocery and Deli, on the corner of Gillis Street - a building especially rich in Crown Hill history. It's also a building through which 79-year-old Roger Gaskill, a born, brought-up and to-this-day Crown Hill man, can follow several limbs of his family tree.-- Family ties

When Gaskill's great-grandfather, Samuel Gaskill, chose that corner to set up a grocery and provisions trade in 1893 after coming to Nashua from Clintonville, N.Y., it was the start of things for the Gaskill name on the Hill.

And when a growing number of 1890s Methodists in the neighborhood found great hardship in traipsing the family all the way downtown for church, it was Samuel Gaskill to the rescue - he opened the Crown Hill Chapel, a branch of the Main Street United Methodist Church, on the second floor of his store.

Soon, Samuel Gaskill and his son, Burton - Roger Gaskill's grandfather - spearheaded a drive to build a real church on Crown Hill.

"It was completed in 1901, with 52 charter members," Roger Gaskill said of the current Arlington Street United Methodist Church at Arlington and Haines streets.

Later, Roger Gaskill's father, Ralph, worked at the store before taking a job at the former Wonalancet Mills - later Bemis Co. - off Gillis Street.

"I can remember him delivering groceries with a horse and wagon," Gaskill said. "In the winter, he'd use a sleigh, because they didn't plow the roads then, they just rolled them to pack down the snow."

Gaskill and his wife, Sylvia, live in the McKean Street house in which he was born.

"We had a fire, a flood and hurricane within eight years, and my house survived them all," he said.

A prolific musician and longtime member of Nashua's Rising Sun Lodge No. 39 of the Free and Accepted Masons, Roger Gaskill describes his lifelong neighborhood as one of hard-working, mostly blue-collar people that is full of natural resources to keep kids busy.

It's been that way since he can remember.

Behind the current Dr. Norman W. Crisp School, between Bowers and Haines streets, was a huge sandpit that also served as a dump, Gaskill said. In recent years, some of the refuse - including asbestos - has surfaced, prompting city crews to clean it up and make it a safe play area for school kids and those using Roussel-Gardner Memorial Park.

One of Gaskill's favorite stops was Theode Durocher's place on Arlington Street near Williams Street.

Durocher "came from Canada and opened a filling station there, but I don't think he sold much gas," Gaskill said.

Instead, it was Durocher's sideline that eventually made him popular.

"He started making ice cream," Gaskill said. "And he began showing movies there. Soon he needed more room, so he bought the Morrison house at Arlington and Burke streets."

That site soon became Durocher's Ice Cream, and is still used by the Hershey Corp. today.

One of Durocher's claims to fame is the invention of the ice cream sandwich; he was said to have run out of bowls at one of his "ice cream movies," so he served the frozen treat between two cookies.

Another was when he froze ice cream on a stick - when kids in the youth group at the Methodist church were asked to give it a name, they came up with "Teddy Pop," Gaskill recalled. Self-sufficient

Driving out to Hollis or Litchfield for fresh produce wasn't necessary for mid-century Crown Hillers. All it took was a brisk jaunt over to "Old Man" Howard's farm, as it was affectionately called, where he sold what he grew on his then-expansive land off Allds Street where Crown Hill Commons condominiums are now.

Or, if you lived closer to Underhill and Newbury streets, you might instead choose Malouin's farm stand, owned by the parents of former Hudson selectman Leon Malouin.

Ask any old-timers from Crown Hill about baked beans and their first thought would be Landry's Bakery. Sure, you could get plenty of fresh baked goods there, but what people loved most was the tradition of preparing a pot of baked beans at home and bringing them to Landry's, where, for a buck, they'd slow-cook them overnight in the huge ovens. Return the next day, and presto - the Saturday night staple supper was ready to serve.

For years, neighborhood kids got their balloon-tire bikes, and later their Schwinns and Raleighs, fixed at Larry's Bike Shop on Allds Street. By the mid-1960s, they could go to the same building for sandwiches and pizza, when Atomic Subs moved in after Larry's went to Bridge Street. Today, the sub shop is called Danelly's, after owners Dan and Elly Fulton.

Before there were sanitary landfills and tightly regulated refuse disposal practices, most sections of Nashua had public dumps, and Crown Hill was no exception.

There were small ones on Marshall Street near Dolan Street and off Gillis Street near the freight yard, and probably a

few other "personal" ones at the edges of people's property. But the most prolific of all was the pit off Haines Street, which gained dubious notoriety in 1937.

It seems the raw refuse was the perfect breeding ground for cockroaches, and breed they did - until they became so populous that they threatened to ravage scores of homes on Crown Hill. Understandably, residents were on the verge of panic over the thought of such a ghastly invasion.

But contemporary, low-tech ingenuity saved the day - hundreds of gallons of kerosene were poured over the affected area and set on fire. The drastic measure did the trick. Growing up

Lifelong Crown Hill resident Paul Roussel, a former Ward 7 alderman, was just a boy during that calamity, but his involvement in the neighborhood grew exponentially when he won his seat on the Board of Aldermen from the incumbent, future mayor Dennis Sullivan.

As a kid, Roussel said he knew the Chartrains well from his days skating at the former Marshall Street Field.

"What wonderful people the Chartrains were. Every kid in the neighborhood went skating over there. They had a big stove inside where we'd go to warm up," said Roussel, who still lives in the same Haines Street home in which he was born 72 years ago.

With the Great Depression in full swing, times were tough, even for the kids, Roussel said.

"Most of us were so poor . . . and Mr. Chartrain knew it. He'd see us in the window, call us in and give us Tootsie Rolls or something. He was a great man," he said.

A little girl named Veronica Hickey, whose family lived next to the field at Marshall and Dolan streets, was a contemporary of Roussel's - she could be found on the skating rink pretty much all winter in those days. Today she's "Sis" Williams, a vibrant 70-something woman still living in Nashua, although not on Crown Hill.

She remembers what the Chartrains' shop was called: The Shanty.

"They came and flooded the field so we could skate all winter," Williams said. "And when they put lights up, I thought I was Sonja Henie - and I wasn't even that good," she added with a laugh. "The Chartrains were terrific people - they always welcomed us inside."

If sledding was a kid's preference, he could head over to a mostly undeveloped section of Bowers Street east of Arlington and slide down Strawberry Hill into the Crown Street freight yard - a dangerous adventure that thrilled the kids but gave parents great anxiety.

Gaskill remembers the hill well.

"There were three guys who called themselves "The Strawberry Hill Trio,' " he said, naming them as Richard Trufant, Skyler Snow and Glendon Puckett.

For Girouard and his buddies, however, that was too tame. They preferred climbing huge piles of frozen sawdust onto the snowy roof of a former sawmill and sliding down onto the ice-covered Salmon Brook. When they got bored of that, Girouard said, they would jump through holes in the sawmill roof and grab the rafters.

"We swung from them like monkeys above those giant saws," Girouard said, shaking his head. "We're lucky we didn't get killed."

When summer came, attention turned to "the dugout," a big sandpit on King Street that beckoned adventurous youngsters, and, of course, the infamous swimming hole in Salmon Brook named "bare-ass beach" - or, to the more polite, simply "BAB."

Even after 60 or so years, Roussel can't tell his favorite BAB story without laughing up a storm.

"We had left our clothes up on the embankment; boy, it was a hot day," he said. "We went down and jumped in the water, when (friend) Roland Gagne started yelling, "Here comes Brown, stay in the water,' " Roussel said, indicating that "Brown" was a neighborhood cop who didn't much like kids.

"The (expletive) took all our clothes. So here's Gagne - he lived the closest - covering himself with branches and running to his house to get clothes for us."

Walking everywhere was as routine as breathing for kids back then, Williams said, whether it was to school, to get to Main Street by first crossing the old Harbor Pond on a rope swing, or to any one of the neighborhood markets.

"My mother would give me all the shoes (that needed repairs) and I'd run up to the old cobbler shop on Allds Street and get new soles for a quarter," she said. "That's when kids didn't have to be driven everywhere they went, unlike today."

Although kids would play pretty much anywhere, they all stopped and jumped to attention at the sound of the universally accepted signal to start for home - the 8 p.m. blast of the fire whistle atop Central Station.

"As soon as we heard that, it was time to go, wherever we were," Williams said.

Gary Ledou", 51, now a Moreno Valley, Calif., resident, lived on Crown Hill until he was 21. His childhood memories include lying awake at night in his Thomas Street home and listening to the activity in what was then the Boston & Maine Railroad yard.

"The engine was moving cars around the yard - I could tell when they were coupled because of the dull Ôthud' sound," he said. "A train also passed through at the same time every night - even with the windows closed I could easily hear it."

Ledou" said he remembers aromatic extremes in the neighborhood - from the fragrant bakery smells coming from Landry's to the acrid stench of a former factory near East Hollis Street. Deep roots

Up on Williams Street, within sight of the spot where the statuesque Arlington Street School once stood, Albert "Berdie" Laflamme, his wife, Joan, and neighbor Joe Hogan sit around the Laflammes' table and talk about Crown Hill.

Hogan, a 38-year employee at the former Ingersoll-Rand, found a big, bronze arrow one day on a wall at the Burke Street company. He learned the chest-high arrow was the high-water mark for the March 1936 flood.

He remembers when much of Williams Street - before most of the houses were built - was one of those impromptu dumps. He already lived on the street, in an apartment at No. 47, when he got married and built his present house at 31 Williams.

Berdie Laflamme was born and grew up on Spalding Street. He didn't know it at the time, but the young girl who was pumping gas and changing oil over at Messier Tire Co. at the other end of Crown Hill would one day figure prominently in his life.

Joan Messier was only 14, but as the daughter of shop owner Arthur Messier, she had no problem getting greasy working on cars with the boys. Berdie Laflamme apparently had no problem with that, either - it wasn't long before the two met, dated and eventually married, living at first in an apartment over the shop, which was on Allds Street between Crown and East Hollis streets, where Bell Auto is now.

"It was great being a kid around here," Berdie Laflamme said. "We played cops and robbers in the huge lumber stacks (near American Bo" & Lumber Co. along Salmon Brook), and we had our own baseball and football fields, which a bunch of us kids all took care of ourselves. Most of where we played (along Salmon Brook and Burke Street) is all parking lot now."

When longtime Nashua teacher and guidance counselor Yolande Marshall retired and considered selling her large Arlington Avenue home about a decade ago, a flood of pleasant memories of her family's 40 years on Crown Hill eventually persuaded her to stay.

A single mom whose husband left before her youngest child was born, Marshall was a pioneer of sorts in running a single-parent family in early 1960s Nashua. At first a business teacher, she applied to be a guidance counselor because she knew her personal experiences would give her the insight necessary to advise high school students.

Her four children grown and gone, Marshall gets help from neighbors with exterior upkeep projects so she can stay on Crown Hill.

"I thought I'd downsize after I retired - this house is awful big for just me," she said.

"But when it came to the nitty-gritty, I just couldn't do it."