Four Letters Home

Four Letters Home. by Will Holton. , Ruggles Street , Roxbury Mass'ts, April 30, 1834, Wendell Jones , Vassalboro Maine, Dear Father and Mother,, Your letter was at the postal office yesterday morning. It was good to hear that everyone is well on the farm. The winter was not too hard, and spring will come soon, even in Maine., My beloved Miriam is feeling stronger, but she was very sick with the fever in March. Baby Michael is eating well and not so colicky. He will pass six months next week. Pretty little Lena walks now and likes to play in the yard on warmer days., We are happy with our new small farm in Roxbury Town just outside of Boston. It is on Ruggles Street between Tremont and Parker. Our clapboard house is small but tight and warm, and we have about two acres of rich low-lying land. Stoney Brook is just across the road with the mills a short way upstream. Behind our small Boston across the marsh to the Common and Beacon Hill on the other side. We can see the long dams for tide power and the few mills on Gravelly Point about half way across. At low tide there is a powerful stench from the mud flats. To reach Boston by road, we have to go around to the narrow neck at Washington Street, a lonely stretch sometimes covered by sea water in very high tides., I have been breaking ground with my old horse Jo since the thaw set in a few weeks ago. I will spread manure from nearby stables and plant various vegetables to sell at the Baylston market. Through the winter I delivered milk, butter and eggs from our cow and chickens, and I sold wood to rich folk on Beacon Hill or in the South End, around Tremont Street near the Common. There was plenty of work in that and odd hauling jobs with my horse and wagon. I think there is a good living here for us if, God willing, crops are good and my health holds., For church we go up the hill about a half mile to the First Parish of Roxbury, next to the Town House. The parish was formed by the Puritans in 1631 and the fine, white present building was built in 1805 - when an earlier church there burned. The Pastor, Doctor Putnam, is a fine man who has been with the parish five years. The Unitarian ideas are preached, not so strict as our Congregational service at home. The Universalist church is on Guild Row, and an Episcopal church was built recently on St. James Street. The square by our church is the center of Roxbury, on the old main road from Boston to Brookline and Cambridge. Many older Roxbury folk remember well how the parsonage was used about 60 years ago by General Thomas to watch the British movements in Boston across the marsh., Some afternoons after the chores are done, Miriam takes the children and visits with neighbor wives. She feels quite welcomed, although we are new in the town. We have had two of the neighbor families here on Sunday afternoons. Little Lena has some young friends. The older neighbor children enjoy fishing and games in summer and sledding the hills in winter., Changes are coming to our small town. The big news these days in Roxbury is that a railroad from Boston to Providence, in Rhode Island, will be started within a year. The plan is to have a trestle across the Back Bay marsh and run the rail south through the Stoney Brook valley. It will come near our farm and perhaps force us to move. We would certainly hate to lose our little farm so soon. So say a station will be just south at Tremont Street., Thank God for health and family., Respectfully your son,, Winslow, This church in Flint Square can be seen to the southeast from the Tremont Station entrance of the Ruggles Station., Ruggles Street , Roxbury, Mass., U.S., July 16, 1886, Patrick Kelley , Kilcogan, County Galway, Ireland, Dear Father and Mother,, We have got your letter telling of an early spring at home. We pray for sister Mary over her loss and trust that she and her children will do well. May warm weather bring health to the whole family., Bridget is forever pale and tired. Cousin Mary minds the children and takes in sewing. Peter helps his mother and picks up scrap wood for the stove. He will on to the Sherwin Grammar School near the Madison Square in September. Ann is stronger now and soon will be two., We have four rooms in a wooden house not far from Roxbury Station. It gives us much more room and air than our tenement in the North End. Houses are quite close together with Irish and Protestants, so we have no garden. Several factories are nearby and the unfilled part of the Back Bay comes close at the end of our street. The Boston Ball Grounds is beside the railroad. Stony Brook is mostly in culverts, but a bad flood in February covered our street and the low land up to West Roxbury. About once a month I go to Boston on the horse-drawn streetcar through the South End., I am now working at the Boston Belting Company factory south of Ruggles Street where 500 hands are employed. It is very hard work on a huge machine which vulcanizes rubber for drive belts and steam engine hoses. I work 10 hours, 6 days a week. The factory is very hot, noisy and full of fumes. When we complain, the Yankee bosses say we are lucky to have jobs. Bridget cooks and cleans in the house of Colonel Hodges from 6 in the morning to 5 at night. They have a girl who finishes suppers and works Sundays so Bridget can be with us. We are able to pay the rent and have enough food and send a little money home to you., We go to mass at the Mission Church up on Tremont Street near the puddingstone quarry. It is a very beautiful church with marble columns and high-vaulted ceiling but no spires. The Rector is Father Henning. Mission Church was built by German brewers, but there are many Irish now., Rich Yankees live on estates in Roxbury Highlands, but some of the fields are being divided for three-family houses for the most successful Irish. Roxbury has been part of Boston since 1868. The Mayor has the name of O'Brien, born in Ireland. Our countrymen are getting some good jobs, and the Boston Catholic College educates young men who have more money., We try to take the family on a horsecar ride some Sundays after mass. Recently we went up to Franklin Park which is now being finished at the edge of Dorchester. Patrick is off with his friends after chores, sometimes bringing home horned poul he has caught in the pond in French's Woods. I took him to one base ball game of the Boston national Association club., Change is coming. More telephones are being put in all the time. Many new 3-family house are going in on farm land. The population is now up to about 390,000., Many Italians and Russian Jews, with their strange ways, are landing in Boston and living in the North and West Ends, where it was all Irish a few years ago. Rich Yankees live in large Back Bay mansions., We pray to God and the Virgin Mother for good fortune. Our thoughts are with you., Your Faithful Son, , Patrick, This church on Mission Hill can be seen to the southwest from the Ruggles Station., Ruggles Street , Roxbury, Mass., U.S.A., October 20, 1929, Abraham Kontravitz , Baniocha, Poland, Dearest Parents,, We rejoice in your letter which came last week. We hope that Baniocha will continue to escape the worst repressions. We pray Uncle Isaac will recover from his sickness before winter., Dear Etta is well and again with child, but Baby Sadie remains weak with the diarrhea and coughing. David is almost four. He is very bright, and we are sure he will be a scholar and a good man., We have a four-room apartment in a brick building on Ruggles Street. It gives us more room than we had in the West End, and there are grass and trees. Jews, Irish, Armenians and some Protestants live in mostly older wooden tenements and get along quite well. Negroes are living just north near Northampton Street. We have streetcars on Tremont Street to Boston in about 25 minutes., There are many factories in Lower Roxbury, building pianos and organs, brewing beer, and producing cigars, paint, medicines, and such. Large shoe factories are in Jamaica Plain, as the Stony Brook valley in the other direction it is not far to the Back Bay with its wealthy gentile families, museums, concert halls and grand hotels. The Boston City Hospital is toward Boston in the South End, a dreary area of rooming houses. , I am now selling hardware wholesale to small stores in town south of Boston When I worked in the shoe factory I couldn't go to Synagogue on Sabbath. I get my goods from a large firm in the South End, Bay State Hardware Company, and I sell entirely on commission. I use the trains and streetcars to make my calls, carrying samples and catalogues in large cases. Business is not as good because the economy is faltering. I have to put in very long hours to make a small living. Stores are closed on Sunday, by state law. Etta does piecework, making paper flowers or doing finishing work on garments. Sometimes she cares for children of neighbor women who have to go out to work., We attend the Congregation Neneh Zedek on Ruggles Street near our home. The members are Polish and Russian families who are very devout Jews. I can sometimes join the minyan at the Synagogue for daily morning or evening prayers. I take David to Friday evening services while Etta prepares the meal and candles. Worship and study occupy long hours each Sabbath., Many Jews are moving into Roxbury from the West End and South End. The City of Boston, of which Roxbury is part, has a population of about 775,000. The Mayor is a colorful Irishman named James Michael Curley who lived near here as a boy. We hear that the public schools are good and Jewish boys, with hard work, can learn well and even study for the professions, but it is said that there are more opportunities in New York Chicago and other cities., David has several young Jewish friends. Etta shops and visits with women from our Synagogue. On Sundays we try to do something together by traveling on the streetcar. In warmer weather, we can go to the Boston Common, Franklin Park, or Carson Beach, in South Boston. We enjoy the Yiddish movies in Grove Hall. At home we have winding phonograph to play our Yiddish records., There are many more automobiles, and some wealthy people are moving to Newton, Milton and beyond. We often see aeroplanes in the sky, and it is said that before long one will be able to travel by air much more rapidly than by train., Your son, Morris, Ruggles Street , Roxbury, MA, February 2, 1960, Albert and Hattie Robinson , Pleasant Hill, Georgia, Dear Mother and Father,, We have gotten your letter about Christmas and the New Year. Praise the Lord that you and the others are feeling better this winter. We hope the sharecropping will be good this season so you can pay off the debts., My Susie has had the flu but she is her strongest now since the baby came. Leroy eats a lot and is happy. Pretty little Vanetta is three now. She loves to sing and skip to music on the radio. The last month has been very cold with much snow., Our apartment is on Ruggles Street near Westminster Street in Lower Roxbury. The roof leaks in heavy rains. There are vacant apartments, and some wooden houses nearby are empty. Our neighbors are mostly Negroes, from the South and the Islands. There are some stores, jazz joints and old factories near Tremont Street. The Whittier Street housing project is nearby, and Mission Main, across the railroad, is much larger. Northeastern University is building is campus to the North on Huntington Avenue. The Red Sox ballpark and the Charles River are beyond that. The shopping sections of Roxbury are at Dudley Station, in walking distance, and Grove Hall. There are some Jews and Irish, but Roxbury is mostly the Negro community of Boston. We have a bus to downtown Boston no Tremont Street which goes through the South End where there are Negroes, Greeks, Lebanese and many other groups., I am a custodian at the Wentworth Institute, a college only a short distance away on Ruggles Street. The work isn't bad but the people don't really appreciate what I do Sometimes I have to work evenings and weekends when there are special things going on. Susie takes in laundry and ironing, mostly shirts. She also minds two children for neighbors who work., We go to the New Hope Baptist Church on Tremont Street, about 8 blocks away. The Pastor is a good man, and many members are from Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. The preaching and singing are almost like at home. On Sundays we have Sunday School at 9, the main service at 10 and then church dinner. Prayer meetings are Sunday and Wednesday evenings., Roxbury is getting more run down. Most of the Jews have moved out to Mattapan and the suburbs. The landlords all live far away. Folks say that the schools for Negro children are in bad condition, and most of the teachers don't really try to give a good education. I think the prejudice is worse here than at home because many whites pretend that you are equal but really treat you badly. There are some pretty good jobs, and I am lucky. But many black men get frustrated with the struggle and leave their families, so the women and children have to go on welfare and move into public projects., Susie has made some good lady friends in the church, and I play in a softball league over at Carter Playground, right where the Boston Braves played years ago. Vanetta is beginning to have some little friends. On Sunday afternoons we try to take the kids in a park nearby or the Franklin Park Zoo on the bus. Sometimes in the summer the church bus takes members to a country picnic. Now, in the winter it is so cold we hardly get out., Change is coming. We hear that two big highways will be built and join at the corner of Ruggles Street and Columbus Avenue. Our building will probably be torn down in a few years for the Inner Belt Highway. We hope we can find a better place. , Thank the lord for his goodness to us., Your son,, Charlie