MEMORY LANE: “Whenever I see something about ‘Little Chicago,’
it brings back a few memories.”

So writes Bill McCloskey, whose remembrances we share below:

“Loblaws was first at 70 Main St., at the corner of Chestnut. I
was a Saturday boy in the mid 30’s, and worked from 7 a.m. to about
10 or 11 p.m. for ,3.00. No minimum wage then.

“My dad worked for H.C. Bemis at the end of Hilton Street. We
lived on Bishop Street at the head of Foreman Street. Some nights,
I took his lunch to him and stayed with him during the evening.
When it was time to go home, he would walk with me to the foot of
Foreman.

“One night, I was about a block from the curve when I heard a
terrific bang. When I got home, my mother asked me if I had seen
anything. I hadn’t. She said my dad had just gotten by a house on
the left side of Hilton Street. A bomb had exploded and blew in the
front of the house. I think it is the one portrayed in ‘Little
Chicago.’

‘I knew who Al Ritchie was. At one time he lived with his wife
(a real pretty girl) in a house about where the Bradford Club is
now.

“The day Ritchie was shot, I bought 100 papers, and they were
sold before I got by the Public Square. I ended up selling nearly
250 papers, Later that evening, we kids found out Ritchie was at
Still’s Funeral home on Main Street – about where McDonalds is now.
At a parking lot in the back, we kids took turns climbing up the
fire escape and looking over the transom to see Ritchie laying on a
table. Kids are the same always.

“During the Depression, a few fathers would hop a coal train
south of Bradford. When they came to Bradford, they would throw
coal from the top of the car to the ground. Their kids came along
with ‘little red wagons’ and burlap bags to pick up the coal so
they could be warm at home. People did what was necessary to live.
We all hope we don’t have to go back to the ‘Good Old Days’ when
bread was 10 cents a loaf, butter 2 pounds for 25 cents (at the
A&P) and bananas 4 pounds for 25 cents.”