The Old Neighborhood and Stanley’s Quality Market

I’ve lived in the same neighborhood for sixty-six of my seventy-three years on this planet. I often joke that I not only can’t get out of Shelton, I can’t even get out of this neighborhood. Here’s a little something I wrote a few years ago about my neighborhood:

For me, I am bonded to certain people because I grew up in a certain neighborhood during a certain time period in a city known as Shelton and a country known as America. It was a family neighborhood with cement sidewalks lined with enormous Maple trees.

That neighborhood began on Hill Street in Shelton, Connecticut, where two small markets – Stanley’s Quality Market and Vollaro’s Market – sat diagonally across the street from one another. The neighborhood extended to the parallel streets of Maltby Street and lower Kneen Street as well as the perpendicular avenues: Prospect, Division, and Coram.

 

I can name pretty much every kid that lived in that neighborhood. Starting at Hill Street above the store, there were Stanley’s children: Gail, Helene, and Andre Jankauskas; and right next to Vollaro’s Market there were Lou, Joe, and Mary Ellen Mihok. Moving north on Division Avenue, there were Maureen Menustik; Sue Jablonski; Norine and Dot Dziamba; and Jim and Ronnie Connery. To the south, Patti, John, and Marge Kafargo, and at the Division Avenue dead end, Wally and Susan Ramatowski. From the dead end on the Maltby Street side, there were Stanley and Dan Folta; Bobby and Richard Zuraw; Bill and Tom Federowicz; Betty and John Barsevich, John and Clay Larson; the Cribbins family (there were 7 kids); and my brother Edmund and me. Moving across Prospect to the north, there was Edmund’s best buddy, Nick Aconfora; Georgie Jupin (he had an older sister); Art and Dave “Mouse” Martin; Ed and Armand Grande; Tony, Frank, and Paula D’Angelo; another Martin family, Frankie and his two sisters whose names I’ve forgotten; and Craig Anderson. Going south on Prospect from Maltby – Debbie, Dave, and Wendy Keller and Bill, DeeDee, and Kevin Ahearn. A block above on Kneen, there were Billy and Dennis Bryce and right across the street, my best buddy, Jack Bouteiller. Moving down past the Good Shepherd Church on Kneen, there were Jim, Joe, and Terry Sedlock and Ned and Wayne Rydzy. Across the street from the Rydzys and the Sedlocks, there was another market – Somo’s – run by the parents of Nancy, Mary Ann, and Theresa Somo and of the Pepe twins (two sets), Sandy and Linda and Jane and Jean.

That’s well over 50 kids, and I’m probably forgetting some. Growing up, I had personal contact with most every one of these kids in one way or another. And there probably wasn’t a mother in the neighborhood who didn’t know every single one.  That’s how it was back then.

These were the kids who played wiffle ball in the streets…set up corner “Kool-Aid” stands…enjoyed trick or treating (without parent chaperones)…went sledding on the small hill at Fowler School…rang doorbells and ran away…learned how to fight and how to get along…and so much more.

In a sense, the neighborhood kind of ended there. Sure, there were kids further up Hill Street above Stanley’s or further up Kneen Street on the far ends of our neighborhood. They were friends too, but not exactly part of this neighborhood. Neighborhoods have a funny way of establishing their own boundaries.

 

Just about everyone lived in multi-family dwellings, many with grandparents upstairs or downstairs. Everyone’s parents seemed to stay married with hardly any exceptions.

 

And in the midst of it all were the small markets. I have very vivid memories of standing at the candy counter at Stanley’s or Vollaro’s, trying to decide what I was going to buy with my nickels and dimes…or sliding the freezer door open, feeling a blast of frigid air, and choosing what flavor popsicle or ice cream bar I would have that day. Big decisions! Hardly a day went by when I didn’t stop by Stanley’s or Vollaro’s to buy candy or a popsicle or baseball cards…or because my mother had sent me on an errand to buy milk or butter for that night’s dinner.

I remember being perhaps seven or eight, barely able to see over the counter, and asking Stanley, time and time again, for a pack of baseball cards with Mickey Mantle in it. Each time, I was perplexed when, walking back home, I opened the pack only to find there was no Mickey Mantle card. Didn’t he hear me? I would wonder. The bubble gum inside still tasted good, though. 

I have different memories of that corner of Hill Street and Division Avenue where Stanley’s sat…like a big water balloon war between our neighborhood and the kids from the neighborhood above us – one of the “boyhood” stories I would tell my daughters and my grandson when they were growing up. I threw a balloon at Pat Carey that day with such force that it kind of bounced off of him, landed in the grass, and didn’t even break. Pat then picked it up and sent it flying at me, hitting me squarely in the back and soaking me. 

I also remember being a small boy and witnessing a fight on that corner between two older teens who weren’t really from our immediate neighborhood but just “passing through.” I recall that one was much smaller than the other, but he jumped on the bigger kid’s back and repeatedly landed vicious punches to the back and sides of his adversary’s head and face from behind. It was probably the first real act of violence I had ever witnessed. I also learned that the bigger kid doesn’t always win a fight.

As teens, a small, cement terrace outside the corner door of Stanley’s served as our hangout. It was commonplace for a half a dozen or more of us boys to relax there, soaked in sweat, having played hours of intense

basketball games, and to cool off with a few bottles of “Giant Cola.” Taking turns, we’d pass bottles around, wipe the top “clean” with our wet t-shirts, and start chugging. I’ve not tasted a more refreshing drink to this day.

Stanley himself seemed a little grumpy at times, and probably for good reason. Across the street at Vollaro’s Market, old Mrs. Vollaro, an Italian immigrant, and her adult children working in the store, seemed more gentle and less intimidating than Stanley. 

But when I moved back to the old neighborhood as a married man, Stanley was much more amicable. I always enjoyed talking to him.

 

I recall Stanley telling me that, at one time, there were over a hundred little family businesses like his in the Lower Naugatuck Valley. When he said it, besides thinking of Vollaro’s and Somo’s, I remembered Lanzi’s, which was directly across the street from St. Joseph School, Skretchko’s, close to Lanzi’s near Commodore Hull School, and another store on upper Kneen Street, which I believe was owned by the Santilli family.

 

But Stanley’s Market survived them all. Stanley told me he opened the place when he was a callow boy of sixteen. Hard to believe — being in business for yourself at sixteen. He closed the store during the war and joined the military, fought in the European theater, then came home and reopened it. Stanley’s brothers, Lou and Joe, worked for him. All three had snow white hair for as long as I knew them. Lou was a nice guy who seemed to be the main butcher. I can still picture the bloody aprons Lou and Stanley wore and seeing them sometimes carve big sides of beef. Joe was a man of few words who only made deliveries, probably to the older folks in the neighborhood. Kind of like Peapod, more than a half century before its time.

 

In the early years of our marriage, we had some great chicken and pork chop dinners thanks to the kindness of Stanley, who allowed us to buy on credit when we were broke. He kept a record of our debt on a slip of paper that he filed away in a little metal box, and I don’t recall him asking for the money. But I always paid him back. I’m sure we weren’t the only people in the neighborhood who enjoyed good meals because of Stanley. 

 

When our daughter Gina was a toddler, I used to come home from school and let my wife take a nap. Gina and I would take her hot-wheels and go over to Stanley’s (or Vollaro’s) and get a candy bar or a popsicle and then hang out at City Hall for awhile. When Mia arrived, she joined us on those rendezvous.

 

As an adult, I found Stanley’s to be a most welcoming place. I would call it an experience. Stanley, his daughter Gail (who was only a year or two older than me), and Lou were in no big hurry, and we regulars expected to relax and socialize for at least fifteen or twenty minutes. And Stanley, Lou, and Gail were great at facilitating that socializing. Stanley would talk about memories of the Valley as it used to be…or Lou, who used to go fishing with my dad and some other friends, would talk about their fishing expeditions. I recall Lou saying that my father drove his boat like he was the captain of a PT boat in the Pacific. It wasn’t uncommon for Stanley to take a bottle out from under the counter and offer a customer a drink, especially around the holidays. Not exactly the hospitality one enjoys at a Stop and Shop.

 

In their last years, I would stop by Stanley’s with my grandson Michael, the fourth generation in our family to enjoy the corner market. Stanley and especially Gail were wonderful to Michael. I hope that Michael will remember Stanley’s Market — and especially Gail!

 

Stanley passed in 2003 at the ripe old age of ninety, and, sadly, Gail died three years later at only fifty-six. At the time, she was still living above the store, a block away from my home. Though we had lived very near each other and had even gone to the same grade school, St. Joseph’s, Gail and I never really played together as children. Generally speaking, boys played with boys and girls played with girls. As adults, though, she and I shared a bond that began at her father’s store and extended into the greater neighborhood. I would go so far as to say that my experience of her when I visited Stanley’s in those adult years was one of love. Partly because she radiated kindness, and partly because she and I came from the same place and knew it. I’m speaking of a love born out of a neighborhood bond…a bond that I still feel deep in my heart whenever I run into any of the “kids” from the old neighborhood. 

 

The difference is that Gail and I never left the neighborhood!

 

I mourned the loss of Stanley, Gail, and, ultimately, Stanley’s Quality Market. The same with the closing of Vollaro’s and Somo’s years before. I still feel the loss today. 

For me, it was the end of an era…of a simpler time when our neighborhoods were bonded together by little family owned markets. It’s still a great old neighborhood with the same sidewalks and Maple trees. But there’s no recapturing the void left by the closing of the local markets – where those of us who lived in a neighborhood enjoyed community, kindness,  generosity, and a special brand of love.