Author: Manuel F. Simoes

During a visit to Main Street Arts and Antiques at 124 Main Street, David the proprietor, and also a GMG Contributor, showed me some old writings by his father Frank.

These writings were for the United States WPA (Work Project  Administration) around 1938

David thought that I may be interested in the writings, since it was about the Portuguese. I was born in the Azores and grew up here in Gloucester. I was very much interested. We both came to the conclusion, that we should capture these writings and share with others. Well we started by scanning the pages and creating a PDF document; however the old type written pages did not scan well, it was very difficult to read. Fred Buck from Cape Ann Museum encouraged us to have it transcribed.

One day I was talking to an old friend Joyce (Mitchell) Lacerda about the writings, and if she knew anyone who could transcribe the writings, she then offered to do it..

We added some photos and maps, and did some formatting for easy reading, but did NOT change Frank’s style or wording.

The final draft was printed, we than gave some copies to Cape Ann Museum.

We even sold a few to people that were interested, for about $20, which is basically our cost.  I believe David still has a few in his shop.

Frank also wrote about the “Finns in Gloucester”, which we are currently compiling.