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This is Jenna Barry. It is June 18th at the Medford Public Library, and I am chatting with Mary Grace DiMartino and her husband Doug Packer. Um, and Mary Grace, you're going to tell us a little bit about the neighborhood in Medford where you grew up. What

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were, what did you call the neighborhood? Um, well, we live in Fulton Heights, um, but originally it was called Tar Paper Village, and it was called that because not too far away from us is, um, Wright's Pond. OK, so the tar paper village signified that the

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houses that were first built around Wright's Pond were cottages, seasonal cottages. However, there were two brothers and like Doug said, a historian De Mars could tell you there were two brothers who came up with this idea that they could sell people a piece of property on

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time and they were the first ones who had this lucrative idea, so. Like a timeshare. Well, it was a mortgage basically it was a layaway plan. OK, so North Medford built was built and it attracted Irish and Italian immigrants who are from middle class families and

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this was a way that they could provide a home for their family. And you can still go around the neighborhood and see some of these little bungalows that didn't change much in size. Many of the other houses have changed, but when you come to Fulton Heights,

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it's basically, you know, one family residences, there's not a lot of two families up there. There are houses that have grown over the years, but, you know, myself, all these years I. Purchased a home next to my home, uh, my family home, and many of the

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houses in the area are still owned by relatives of people who were there when I was a youngster, so our neighborhood, it's, uh, you know, I know all my neighbors I can count on my neighbors um they have great families there's not as many children. In

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the neighborhood as there used to be, we used to have like a gang of like 10 kids now and all your names are on the our names are on Plymouth Rock in front of my house, yes, as we called it, um, but it was a great

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place to to grow up. We had Bright's Pond. We had Crane Hill which everybody would slide down and you know use their skis or sleds to come down in the middle. We had what we called 7 bumps on another side of us, so it was a

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wonderful place to go and as I said we had neighborhood schools so my mother could actually stand at the foot of Barrett Street and watch me walk up to the Fulton school, um, so the Fulton School and the Davenport, which are now condos, they were what

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we called sister schools, and we did a lot together. So it really was a great neighborhood and still is a great neighborhood today. We had the Hudson bus, the little brown and yellow Hudson bus that would take us to the square for like 10 cents, and

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we'd come down to Medford Square on Saturdays and we would go to the bowling alley. We'd go to the pet store, we would wait on Tuesdays for the new records to come in at the record store. Um, we'd have a sub for like $1 at the

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sub shop, um, so it was a great existence, you know. The bowling alley is now where Atrias Health is. Oh, OK. That was a bowling alley at one time. Then it was, um, a place called LJ's which was I guess kind of like you'd call it

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a Costco of that day and then it was bought by the Andre family who owned it for a while, um, and they had businesses out of there, um, I know a lot of the schools had bowling clubs that went there after school. We had a movie

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theater. You know it was a, it's Medford Square was thriving in those days and it was the place to go on a Saturday morning, you know, you come down and spend a whole day. It's a great, I, I love Medford and you know we were talking

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a little bit about '93. I remember when they were blasting to build 93 and I mean whoever would have thought that 6.5, 7 miles out of Boston we would have such a thriving community that is really so prestigious because of its location to the highway and

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how fast we can connect to any which direction we wanna go, um, but I think Medford has always been a great place to live, a great place to raise families. I, you know, you were asking me some of my best memories. I had some of the

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best teachers in elementary school, junior high and high school. I think they inspired me to wanting to become a teacher. I never knew I wanted to be a teacher. Were you a teacher here in Medford? I, well, yeah. I, I've taught in Medfod but I was

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always also principal of Saint Francis of Assissy school which was my home parish, and I taught there as well. Um, Mayor McGlynn always asked me to come to the public system, but I stayed in the Catholic system all these years just been kind of a, a

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personal love of mine, um, but I think Medford's a great place, you know, we've, we've always had great neighbors that we can count on. Um, like I say, people don't get in each other's business, but they care about one another and they notice if anything is

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wrong, and they'll come to your aid in a second, but there's not a lot of. Movement up in Medford, you know, people love the neighborhood and as I said they've passed on a lot of houses to people and their families because it's a great place to

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be. That's something special. It is, it is, and we had, you know, of course we had the skating rink too which wasn't too far down the street. That was the Friday night hangout was the skating rink On Friday, Friday. Um, Saturday usually went to the movies,

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but, um, you know, between Wright's Pond and the skating rink, um, they had the dill, well, not the dill boy pool, the tops pool the kids went to down in that area of the city, and then of course we had the high school pool that we

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would use to when, um, community schools open, but uh, you know, it's a, it's a fascinating place it's a very interesting community to look. You know, over my 60+ years and see what's happened, but what if, you know, I feel blessed to live here and you

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know to know neighbors and know who they are.