A few memories from Sudbury,  MA., my growing up home town. 

     Patty Bancroft Roberts        

All of my childhood was spent in Sudbury, MA and what wonderful memories I have.  Living there during my informative years, has made a lot of the feelings, smells, sights, and sounds be burned into my very soul.  To this day, I love green and trees.  In fact, more trees the better.  I guess that is why that we have almost 150 of them on our property today.  Plus our 1 1/2 acres is kept green and mowed. We finally live in a place where we have the four seasons, (of sorts) but nothing can compare to my memories of Sudbury. 

First grade.                         End of high school                                Pretty recent

Just by talking about seasons, my mind wanders back to the time we had one particular snow storm where the winds blew so hard that it drifted the snow up against the side of our home on Concord Rd. in So. Sudbury.  My brothers, Sonny, Freddy, Charlie and Bobby,  climbed out of my bedroom window and slide down to the ground it was so high.  They even made an igloo in the side of that pile of snow and watered it down to where it was pure ice and it lasted a long time.

But lets put a few pictures here. I know I have some of these in my "Family Stories" section but I think that some of them need to be here also. Most of the pictures that pertain to Sudbury, not especially our family living there, but would pertain to the interest of the general public are going to the Historical Society for their archives and are posted here.

If you want to see the match books, cigar bands, and motel soaps that Sonny collected along the way to California and Dad's Legion Convention badges, be sure to go to the my Collection Section on the very first page of my site.  My Family Stories is about my life and kinda interesting I think. I have shown the homes I have lived in all of my life and the highlights also of my life.  Nothing really exciting as lives go, but it is mine nevertheless!  <smile>

I also have some copies of the "Herald" the small magazine published by "The Students of the Edison Institute Schools" that had articles written by students from the Redstone and Southwest schools by the Wayside Inn that will also be going to the Historical Society.  I tried scanning them to post here but they didn't turn out well enough on the text so I left them out for now.

Sudbury Town Hall

Memories come back from a time when all of us kids, in all of the grades in public school, stood in front of our parents and neighbors, and had spelling bees, recitals, talent shows, etc.  Going to the Redstone and Southwest schools in public speaking with us reciting Long Fellows poems  and such that we had to recite in front of the public did me well in my adult years.  I have never been afraid of speaking in front of people whether it be a hand full or a room full!

Photograph of oil painting of the depot that I took umpteen
years ago while visiting The  Bradshaw's.

For a while, Dad and Mum, (Lloyd and Kay Bancroft),  picked up the mail sacks from the depot and took them to the post offices in Sudbury.  I remember one cold morning when I went with him, that he threw a mail sack through the window into the back seat and the lock on the bag broke the window.  Dad wasn't a very happy camper!!!

Remember George Halloran?  He was the gate keeper for the rail road at the crossing on the Boston Post Road by the Kaffee Stuga.  He sat all day long in that tiny little building and when a train came he would crank down the gates.  We remained friends for many, many, years.

This is George the last time we saw him 
   during the 1980's at his home.

My brother, Fred, sitting on the bench in the "ballroom" of the Wayside Inn.

Every Friday afternoon the students of both the Redstone and Southwest schools, had ball room dance lessons from Mr. Haynes.  I can picture him standing there in his tuxedo, black shiny shoes and his collar on his shirt so stiff that it seemed to make his chin stick out..  I was also blessed with a love for dancing from those classes and to this day, I think I could probably still dance the Virginia Reel with a little practice!  <smile>

What your memory can do!  Just reading through all of this, I can picture
what some of the kids and people looked like even though it has been
well over 50 years!  WOW   

I just found the neatest site that has a lot of Sudbury information on it.  I received permission from the owner of the site to put a few of his pictures here and I am also going to include a url to get to his site.  You need to take the time to go in a see what he has!

Cut and paste these url's for some interesting information about Sudbury.

http://www3.telus.net/robertkline/

http://www3.telus.net/robertkline/wwbook.html