SHIRLEY'S SECOND YAHRTZEIT: TAMMUZ 8 + BIRTHDAY July fifth

A POSITIVE CHILDHOOD MEMORY: The 'Good' Shirley in the Dorchester Years

When I was a little girl, my mother and I went shopping on Saturday down Blue Hill Avenue to Mattapan Square, the Jewish neighborhood shopping district next to Dorchester. (1950's-1963) First we went to the supermarket that delivered. Then we went to lunch at the G + G delicatessen where all the politicians went to schmooze with their constituents. I had a hot pastrami sandwich on a roll that came with potato chips and a half sour pickle. Blue Hill Avenue was teeming with people on saturdays and we would always run into some relatives....Irene, Faigie, Irene's mother I think. Then we continued shopping at the bakery. Shirley ordered danish pastry for herself, half moons for us and sometimes, cupcakes. Then we walked home or took the bus. By the time we got home, the groceries were delivered. (If only supermarkets would deliver today!)

After supper we would snuggle on the sofa and watch movies while sucking on our tootsie pops. Chocolate. At 11:30 horror movies would come on - with Feep and after that Creature Feature.....I got my love of classic movies and B science fiction movies that have become cult classics from her; we watched Them, Day of the Triphids, It Came From Outer Space, and my all time fave, The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie! Those movies are still running on TCM. I found those movies on DVD while cleaning out her apartment. Along with an assortment of Shirley Temple movies that I still love to this very day. She must have been named for Shirley Temple, don't you think ? I never asked her about that. Those saturdays were preceded by friday night Shabbat dinners at Bubbe's house, See Blog, September, 2009.

Scan of illustration in The Synagogues of Dorchester by Richard Heath, Sept. 2004, showing advertisement for the opening of the G and G Delicatessen, from The Jewish Advocate, Thursday, June 3, 1948. 



We lived at 92 American Legion Highway in a one bedroom apartment and then 104 American Legion Highway, a two bedroom in the Franklin Hill Avenue projects. My earliest memories are from there.