1957 Lake Shore Drive, Center Harbor, New Hampshire

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

I have miles to tell, try to remember, exchange memories from what I remember as a child there and then from the early to mid 1950's till the day we were thrown out of Paradise in 1962.......



Anyone game...... Joe yesterday was my 58th birthday

[catherine anthony erickson]

Joseph

My name is Catherine Anthony Erickson, my mother was Catherine Chiarello Anthony. I am your cousin. My father's name was Francis (Frank or Chatta), my parents had three children, Francine (who passed away 21 Jan 2009, Francis (Oscar) and myself. My entire family was thrown off the compound in Center Harbor, NH 12 years before you were. We stayed in Aunt Angie's house in Center Harbor until her death.
My family continued to vacation in the area until my father passed away in 1992; my mom passed away in 1998 and we just lost Francine. I tried calling your mother (since she and Franny communicated) but got a message that the line was disconnected. I hope Aunt Gloria is well. I remember your sister Gloria, we are around the same age. I recently moved after 38 years in Savannah, GA to Lake Lure, NC. My husband and I love fresh water fishing, and seasonal changes. You can contact my on [e-mail] if you wish to.

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

Catherine,

Of course I remember you. A matter a fact I married and she divorced me a 'Catherine'...so I oftewn thought of you when I said her name over 20 years ago. Never remarried just me and my dear Doggie, Dublin', a Wheaton Terrier (Benji Dog).

Mom, your Aunt Gloria, is the last survivor of that generation line, and her daughter my 12-year younger sister (Lisa) born that same last year is the youngest of all our cousins...some kind of simile or metaphor..or whatever..

Mom lives near me in Southampton, NY with Gloria-Lina (Pasqualina/Grandma & Dad's Chris Craft 'The Lena") at 631.283.5039.

There is a great story called Center Harbor Memories by a Professor Vissner (??) who gets that period of ours in Center Harbor right on the button....

I conversed with him a few years back and had him add the lines about the white picket fence and the black cadillacs...

best wishes... your cousin ...that is your first cousin...Joseph A. Chiarello

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

Catherine,

In case you never saw them, I have posted many, many photos from our days of youth in the 1950's on this site under My Photos...Joseph and thank you again for your blog ..uyou made my day...say hello please to Fancis

[catherine anthony erickson]

Joseph
So nice hearing from you and that your mom is well. Please give her my regards, and please let her know that Francine passed away 21 January 2009. My brother is well, and we were both in Larchmont, NY last Thurs, Friday, Saturday and departed Sunday, for Franny's Memorial Service with her 2 children and 4 grandchildren.

You can reach me on [e-mail] or 828-625-8194.

Have a great day.

Cousin Cathy

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

Catherine,

Aunt Angie and her Accoridan with Champion on his hine legs singing with her

Aunt Camella's (spelling) in her long (like Aunt Angie) log deep blue dresses with big white poka dots

Fried dough on the old wood stove in the kitchen off the Dining Room towards the rear part of the house that I never got to venture into..it seemed like a place of no entry

The barn in the rear of the property

Uncle Felix's stacks of cut wood that we made beds & pillows out of

Badmitton (sp) on the front lawn that had a few rolls beneath the front porch

the hook rugs

Dad would kid my Mom that Felix, Camella & Angie being real New Enngland misers would not regularly flush the toilets but rather wait for them to be ful to save the electricity for the toilet pumps ...because of Dad's joke my Mom (Aunt gloria) never would step into their house

I never remembered but at one time both your family and mine shared the same Chiarello compound house to the west of Grandpa chiarello's. That house which we eventually stayed in for my 12 summers on the compound had a front enclosed window porch with with a leather cushion window seat, there was a small window and the top right of this room that if you stood on the first landing of the stair going up you could open it and paly a few different kid cames with it, then you walked into the hall that led to the left a Living Room ((2-Moose heads on both sides of the fieldstone fireplace, 2-owls that eyes glowed when the fire was lit, bats in the chimney, and an old tall radio console fiulled with buttons) to the right was the stair going upstairs to the 4-bedrooms & 1-bathroom), to the lef to the stair was a telephone that was a party line phone connecting all the chiarello compound houses), then a mysterious closet, then a bathroom w/a lion's paw tub, then the entry to the dining room, then the wall between the dining room entyr & livning room entry a wall with a balck & white kind of photo image of Jesus Christ with the bleeding crown of thorn & parts of the crucifix on his right shoulder with his head facing the street and his dark angry piercing eyes following you where ever you were in that space with the black floor grill between the dining room entry/bathroom/& mysterious closet that at times had ambers glowing deep below from the dirt cellar's pot belly stove with cut wood stacked from dirt to exposed wood ceiling joists against the west wall.... towards the lake's south side wall in the c3ellar was a wringer to run the clothes through...then to the left towards grandpa's house was the cellar stairs that led to the kitchen...upon the left stairs were shelves that held thousands of cherio ceral boxes that then led to the pale green (?)linoleum solid floor to the kitchen, the cooking stove on the street wall (adjoing wall to the dining rm), then the North Carolina black maid's bedroom, then the porch where the refigerator stood closest to the driveway, black maid's cabin, and the cottages for rent on the west...then the small room that where the sishes , wood overhead cinets, dishes, & forks lived...with a window that stared into Winnespesaukee...;
...to continue another day

the imperfect words and memory of mine above was for you, francis, and most important a gift for Francine...

Joseph ..your first cousin

[catherine anthony erickson]

Thanks for the beautiful memories Joseph. Will try to scan in some photos of our entire family..Franny's and Frank's. Franny had two children and 4 grandchildren.
Frank has 4 children, and 6 grandchildren. They are all beautiful children.
Give your mom my regards, and I remember all those items mentioned above. having lived in Aunt Angie's house until she died, they are very vivid. Frank was here over the weekend and we did a lot of "memory lane", and Frank loved aunt Angie.
My mother and father taught us that the most important thing in life was love for each other, and we've tried to live up to their teaching. They were incredible parents, and we may not have had the riches of the Chiarello's(money) but we were rich in love and memories.

Keep in touch.

Your cousin, Cathy

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

Catherine/Cathy,

Will tell my Mom about our correspondences and the passing of Francine on Monday. Every Monday after work, I stop by her home and check in. I am not big on telephone calls. If you ever could download any photos from our early years in the 50's, I would appreciate them plus current photos of Francine & her children & grandchildren,....as well as Frnacis and yourself. ...if you can...fine...if not also fine...

Another image....

a Saturday night in 1957 or 1958, your Mom had a party in your brooklyn apartment. Early that Sat morning, I closed a metal folding table on my wrist an bled pretty bad and had to get stiches but I came to your home that night anyway. I remember in the background there was quiet grown-up whispers talk between both our Mom's about your having to move out of your home/apartment because the new roads to be built to go to & fro the about to be built Verrazzano Bridge to be built Verrazanno Bridge. All I could think on top of the NH images of the anthony's exile from the white picket fences of Lake Shore Drive, was now another exile ... being cast out of the Chiarello Compound. YOu got the double whammy. It either had to break your spirits or make you incrediblt residual/resourceful.

It appears that you all were the better for it. Our family also was the better for being thrown out of NH .... for the years that followed turned out to be a blessing and in the end we were the better for it via earning everything on our own...forging our own paths.... no longer subjegated to the whims of a patrachial family structure.


Due to all this and her many years since those early years, Francine must have gone straight to heaven without even a lay over prior, or any being scanned, frisked, or checked at the gate.....

jac

god bless you and wishing you some peace.
Joseph Chiarello ...your cousin

the son of my dad who was the sister of your mom
... your Mom was the youngest of daughter of the 3-daughters of the 7-children
... my dad was the youngest of the 4-sons of the 7-children & the youngest of all 7

here is a good one:

my Mom's (Gloria Coppola-Chiarello) older sister (Aunt Louise Coppola-Chiarello) married my Dad's older brother, James (Uncle Jimmy) Chiarello....

[Lynne]

Joseph - you keep referring to being thrown out of NH - what are you talking about and why didn't you return as an adult? I was asking my mom about it and she doesn't remember it - or maybe she's blocked it. I know that she really liked your parents very much.

[Joseph A. Chiarello]

The immediate summer after Grandpa die (1962?..3?), for what ever reasons or who ever gave the word, Jos. Chiarello and his wife, Gloria, oldest daughter , Gloria Lina, Son, Joseph, and the now new 6 month old daughter, Liza could not return to their yearly summer house on the west side of Lake Shore Drive. We spent July in a beach cabana at Far Rockaway's Breezey Point, and then we rented for 3 to 4 weeks in August beach cabana cottage motel in a Lakefront area east of Merideth. This cabin area was approx. 5 miles south of Center Harbor and probable 5 miles east of Weirs Beach. The reason that we could not just go back into our Lake Shore Drive House on the west was never fully explained. It was never to be brought up or talked about. Another Chiarello off limits area of answers. We had to as kids just accept and not question. We were there for 4 weeks and poor Dad (UNCLE JOE) contracted his first bout with the 'Gout'. Dad was in severe crippling bed ridden pain for 3 of the 4 there in his family vacation that was miles from the family vacation center/heart for my dad's entire life upto that summer with Dad being in his mid 30's., The Gout, a family disease, swelled all his joints in his feet, legsw, wrists, knees, sholders, and neck to 3 fold to up to 10 fold. His pain was unbearable and he laid curled on a summer cot screened in poorch in one of those cabins for the first three weeks of our 4 week stay. joints swell ten fold) (Grandpa Chiarello had the Gout as well) And god forbid we tried to take the boat to the Center Harbor property or walk, bike, ...whateveer, we would be in big trouble back at the Merideth Beach cabins. We the kids and did not understand why and felt great loss, bewilderment, unworthiness, emptiness, and saddness. The next summer my Dad found the eastern end of Long Island, Southampton, and here we found a new beginning. Here is where I was fortunate find many new friends and their growing for over the 45 years. I made personally trips back to Lake Shore Drive a few time over the past 30 years but it is all nothing more that an nearly chapter ... admidding most important and impressive periord in wasw the end of NH for us. and last days of his ever beiung in New Hampshire. We found Southton, NY with its rich beaches, endless bays, beatifil night light, and much closer ride for dad to drive to and fro to work everyweek. Dad loved Southampton and found great contentment there till his death in 1992 at age of 66.

[catherine anthony erickson]

Joseph

Being ejected out of the Chiarello compound in NH for no reason is one My family knows well. But my parents returned to the area each summer in rented cabins, and enjoyed the lake and fishing. All of the Chiarello's were on Lake Shore Drive, but no one was allowed to talk to any of us, so we made our own friends, and had our own family.

Glad you and yours found the Hamptons...and enjoyed the area there.

The last time I was in NH was to spread my mother's ashes with my dad's. Now, I will be making another trip soon, (when the ice is gone) to do the same with Francine's.

Take care..

Cousin Cathy

[Lynne]

Hi Cathy - don't forget that my dad and mom & step dad never paid attention to that -we were all fond of you and didn't stay away. Lucky for me that my grandparents still continued to talk to me regardless. Perhaps, they mellowed a bit as time passed. I was lucky to have a wonderful relationship with them. Yes, the Chiarello's were quite the crew - a very closed community/clan and didn't like "outsiders". It was interesting growing up like that - especially, given my age and the rebel that I was! But, I made it through just fine, in spite of it all. I have very good memories and spent the best times of my life on the lake and continue to make my new memories. Please let me know when you'll be up. Christi has invited me brother & I to be up for Francine. take care and nice chatting with you.

Love,
Lynne

[catherine anthony erickson]

Lynne

I can never forget your mom or my cousin Stephen..my parents loved them both and you are right, they were good to my folks.
I look forward to meeting you, it looks like sometime in May. Not sure if Chris and Robert as well as Peter (Franny's companion of 17 years) have set a firm date. You will get a chance to meet my brother Frank also. Look forward to it.

Take care

Cathy