What were the students like at the Boston Latin School?
Did the Great Depression impact such a prestigious school during that
time? What was the general feeling and atmosphere?
I
was at the Boston Latin School during the seventh grade, all of the
seventh and half of the eighth. The Boston Latin School, for those
of you that don't know, is a public school in Boston. It was all male,
it had great prestige and if you graduated from that school you could
go to Harvard without taking an examination or anything. If you wanted
to go to Harvard you just did. But if you didn't keep up your grades
you had to go to a regular high school. The school was made up—because
of the population and the interest in education in Boston—almost half
the class were Irish, or of Irish extraction and almost half the class
was Jewish. There often was competition, which wasn't all that pleasant,
but actually after a while the relationships began to change and there
was less hostility. They started in the seventh grade and by the end
of the year things changed but they did enter the class with considerable
hostility and they gradually mellowed, which was nice. I enjoyed the
school it was a great school.
Can you recall any specific experiences where you
felt hostility upon arriving there?
The
one thing that was not real hostile was when I first arrived and would
get up if they asked a question in class. If I wanted to answer it
everyone else would put their hands down because they loved to hear
the California
accent and they'd all roar with laughter. And so in defense you developed
a Boston accent. When I came back and went to school with all my
old friends here they all laughed at my Boston accent, so I soon got
rid of that. The other thing I got ribbed about a lot is when I went
to school in Boston I was dressed like we dress out here. I was dressed
like we dress out here. I was wearing a sweater and a shirt and everyone
at the school was wearing a jacket and tie and most of them were wearing
knickers. So I was out of uniform and they thought, "Is that the way
they dress in California?" All that kind of stuff. So in defense I
had to go get outfitted like they were outfitted.
Why did your family move to Boston?
My
father thought that he wanted to retire there because he had a lot
of relatives there. He thought that that would be a good place to retire.
We got a lovely home and all that sort of thing but he missed San Francisco
too much and the people he knew out here so we moved back and I was
happy about that.
Can you talk a little about what your father did before
he decided to retire?
My
father was—you know the the Woolworth Company, the five-and-ten cents stores—he was with them from the beginning. So he was one of the early people
in that firm of F W Woolworth. He started at a city at Fall River where
there was another firm called E P Charlton and they joined with Woolworth
and the whole thing was called the Woolworth Company. And he was the
one who came to western Canada and the western United States to open
stores for the company. He was in his early twenties when he was doing
that. He was very successful in that business.
Did you ever consider taking over his business when
he retired?
He
was working for another firm and when he retired I was only in the
seventh grade. So when he thought he was going to retire he came back
and went into business with himself later on. And then I considered
going into business with him but decided in favor of medicine,
which I don't regret.
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