Audrey Hill shared this gem with me from her deceased mother Lydia Hill’s files a few months ago. Audrey and I and her six siblings were neighbors on Page Street in East Gloucester, and were fifth and sixth graders at the Eastern Avenue School in 1970 with Tory Bagshaw, Lenny Richardson, George Gale, Joey Bertolino, Anita Gillie, a whole bunch of other East Gloucester children.
Mr. Joseph (of Four Kings and a Queen at GHS hockey games in the late 1990’s (Herb Joseph, David Richardson, my dad Len Bolonsky, and Tommy and Sandy Spinola)) was our teacher.
Mr. Joseph’s punishment for classroom transgressions was for the miscreant to copy out and hand in an entire dictionary page. Andrew Gleason got the most dictionary pages, I think. He was fearless and never really seemed to mind getting in trouble.
Audrey and her friends – all girls – protested to the principal, Mr. White, that they didn’t have as much playground equipment as the boys.
GHS class of 1978 members will recognize the names of Eastern Avenue girls who became jocks in their own right (Judy Salah and so on) as well as the children of a local firefighter, the daughter of the owner of Brown’s Yacht Yard, the daughter of a local Coast Guardsman transferred to Gloucester from Hawaii, the daughter of the owner of one of Gloucester’s largest charter boat companies, and the daughter of one of Gloucester’s many, many artists, and the circulation manager for the Gloucester Daily.
It looks like one of the girls typed the petition: ome of the girls’ names are spelled wrong, and some girls’ last names are missing.
Later, emboldened by their success, the girls likewise petitioned for equal access to the lower playgrounds and ballfied.
Audrey and I had a brief romance in the 7th grade at the O’Maley. Audrey was a quite fickle girlfriend though, and within two weeks she had broken up with me and shifted her attention to someone else. But I already had my eye on Theresa Glenn, Janine DeCoaste, and a couple of other girls.
Here’s the text of the letter:
Dear Mr. White,
You should do something about the fact that the girls only have one ball. You should get another ball for them. IF you do, I am sure that they would thank you for it.
It really is not fair. The boys get 5 or 6 balls, but the girls, one.
YOURS TRULY,
Isabel Hamor
Audrey Hill
Francina Monel
Susan Jedrey
Mary Roudolf (sic.)
Regina Mikinnon (sic.)
Judy Salah
Kathy Brown
Cindy Hadley
Cindy OLeary (sic.)
Susan Myett
Deana Brown
Denise Oliver
Peggy Bagshaw
Christa Hern (sic.)
Carol Howard
Dede Chaisson
Jodi Cunningham
Shirley (Stottlemyer) (?)
Elizabeth Fish
Grace (Moceri) (?)
Louice (Louise)
Susan Dodge
Good Morning Gloucester 