The Maple Street Neighborhood

      Here is a little history about the Scalzi home just over the town line. [on Freedom Street] My family
    on my mother's side (Curley) owned all the land from the Hopedale/Milford town line to Route 140.
    which included the land that the former Scalzi house sits on. Sometime during the 1930s the land
    was divided....members of the Curley family got their lots and few were sold. Two larger pieces of
    land were sold to the Scalzis and Izzos. At the time the Scalzi family lived on Maple Street and the Izzo
    family lived across from them. The Scalzi and Izzo families were related thru what would be our
    grandparents' generation.  As I'm sure you can remember during the 20s, 30s, 40s and into the 50s
    many households had three generations living under one roof.

      During the 30s and 40s, both the Scalzi and Izzo families, as well as many others in Hopedale and
    Milford had backyard gardens or "victory garden" during the war years. The Scalzi and Izzo family had
    rather large gardens on the land purchased from the Curleys. In fact Johnny Izzo had chickens,
    ducks, several cats, a few goats and two barnyard geese. The Hill gang played ball in Scalzi's back
    yard and when the ball was hit into Izzo's garden, he who went to get it would be chased by the two
    geese. That was their job...to protect the barn yard.  I think I have a few scars on my ass as a result of
    geese bites.

      Anyway, in the late 1950s, the Draper Corporation decided to sell all their house assets in
    Hopedale. The Scalzis lived on one side of the Maple Street duplex but were there after the
    occupants of the other side. Hence the Scalzis had to move since they were not able to buy their half.
    They decided to build a home on the Milford side of the line. In the late 1950s the sewer line on the
    Milford side did not extend from 140 down Freedom to the Hopedale line. Pal Scalzi did not want to
    install a septic system. He convinced the Town of Hopedale to allow him to tie-into the Hopedale
    sewer line on Maple via a right of way across the town line. How he managed that I do not know. But
    he did. The house between the Scalzi house and Maple Street sewer line may still be in operation.
    When the Scalzi family moved to Milford, it would follow that both Jowena and Bobby Scalzi would go
    to Milford schools. Again Pal convinced the Hopedale School System to allow his kids to go to
    Hopedale schools while living in Milford. Pal did pay the tuition to Hopedale for this service. This may
    have been the first case of "out of towners" going to Hopedale Schools. And from Milford no less. As
    a side note the Izzos also built a home on their garden lot in Milford.  Al Marzetta, July 2006

      In the 1950s, (or possibly the late '40s) the Scalzi family opened a little neighborhood store on the
    Milford side of the town line at Freedom Street. The house Al mentioned above, was built next to the
    store. Some time after the store closed, the building became the home of the Mother Goose Nursery
    School. Eventually the school closed, and now it's used as a garage for the house the Scalzis built.

                                      
Don McGrath - Memories of the Northrop--Freedom Neighborhood.
  
                             
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