pt at large

A look at Westport's Portuguese community

The Dartmouth-Westport Chronicle
Westport Historical Society Meeting September 16, 2004
Immigration in Westport Series: The Portuguese Around Us

A look at Westport's Portuguese community

Similar to other parts of America, the history and culture of the south coast of Massachusetts was shaped by immigration patterns of the early 20th century. In two recent programs about immigration, the Westport Historical Society highlighted the impact of the Irish and the French -Canadians on Westport. The most recent spot light was on the Portuguese and State Representative Michael Rodrigues was its torch bearer.

As a backdrop for his talk, Rodrigues summarized Portugal’s history from the time it wrested control of its borders from the Moors in 1143 AD to the present day, saying Portugal “ranks as one of world’s longest established countries. ” One of its preeminent rulers, Prince Henry the Navigator, was a leader with the spirit of an adventurer, the brain of a visionary, and the ingenuity of an inventor (he made the first astrolabe for navigation in open waters and designed faster ships). The training Prince Henry’s school of navigation presented his sea captains led them southeast to Madeira, the Azores, and Cape Verde, and then south along the coast of Africa, past the Cape of Good Hope, and on to India. By establishing trade routes to the East, Rodrigues noted, “for one brief moment in time Portugal, only 325 miles long and 135 miles wide, was the richest country in the world.”

Immigration to the US has often been spurred by famine, war, or oppression in other parts of the world. In Portugal’s case, the oppressive, iron-fisted rule of Antonio Salazar from 1926 until 1974 was enough reason for many to leave the villages and towns they had inhabited for centuries and embark on their own voyage of discovery. By then, the world’s horizons had been explored and the route to their future led to America, the land of opportunity and equality. The newcomers first found larger cities like New Bedford, Fall River,and Providence. In time, scores of families whose names populate the 508 area code ended up right here in Westport.

The stories of the families of Representative Rodrigues, Charlie Costa, and Manny Martin, both of whom Rodrigues invited to tell stories with him, are the stuff of American history. Each family’s saga could fill a documentary mini series about the assimilation of immigrants into the melting pot that became America. Their anecdotes described classic immigrant stories: a tight network of families with solid work ethics who struck out on their own but could always count on one another in time of need. Midwives in the middle of the night or help in the fields early in the morning were only one call away.

Photo: Rep. Rodrigues, Manny Martin, Alex Silva

Charlie Costa’s father, born in 1893, was not only industrious but also entrepreneurial. He ended up owning four farms in this area. “I guess it must have rubbed off because after I graduated from Westport High School, I decided to go into farming myself,” says Costa. He bought what became known as the Harbor View Farm on Adamsville Road in 1946 and worked it for 47 years. The impact of families like Costa’s wasn’t limited to their vegetables or fresh milk which reached the tables of local families. Along with operating a successful farming operation, Costa spoke with earned pride about his involvement in civic life. Representative Rodrigues listed Costa’s 16 years as an elected member of the board of health, 12 years as a selectman, his appointment as Deputy Commissioner for the MA Department of agriculture, an appointment as State Executive Director for MA in the Farm Service Agency for 8 years, then 2 more as a selectman, and rightly concluded, “Charlie, you’ve contributed alot not only to the land of Westport but to its people.”

Costa’s love of farming inspired him to be one of the first farmers in the state use the Agricultural Preservation Restriction Act (APR) to sell the development rights to his land ,thereby insuring its fields would continue to feel the weight of the plow or hooves of the cows. “Once you make a living from the land, it stays with you. I could be a millionaire if I wanted to develop that land but money isn't everything.” (applause from the audience)

“The Martin family on Sodom Road has been friends with my family for generations,” said Rodrigues as he introduced 83 year old Manny Martin. Martin’s father, who came to these shores from the island of Saint Michael in the Azores, met his mother as they worked in Fall River. “Like many Portuguese, they came to Fall River, New Bedford, Lawrence, and Lowell to work in the cotton mills,” said Rodrigues. The Martins married, bought a 122 acre farm in Westport in 1919, and planted vegetables and raised cattle for milk.

We’ve all heard the saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. The Martins gave this story a dairy queen twist. In the 1920s, there were no price controls and dairy farmers were at the mercy of the milk processors (“We hated Mr.Hood’s guts,” said Martin, whose family eventually got the last laugh). After one hard period in which much of their milk spoiled because the processors didn’t pick it up, Martin’s father thought why don’t we make cheese from this? “My mother got the cheese recipe from Charlie’s grandmother,” laughed Mr. Martin.

Thus, growing from jugs of spoiling milk, the Martins started a business, Martin’s Cheese, “queijos frescos"” , fresh cheese. Manny Martin thinks it’s the oldest business in town. According to Rodrigues sources, “Martin’s Cheese is the oldest Portuguese run cheese business in the country.” Rodrigues made many mouths water as he described how good this milky white cheese tastes when it’s spread on homemade bread and sprinkled with red pepper.

Mr.Rodrigues finished the evening by talking about his own family’s roots from the mainland of Portugal. His grandfather immigrated here in 1918 at the age of 17, followed by his grandmother a year later. They took the path of many others and in 1920 left Fall River for Westport, joining families like the Machados, the Fernandez, the Oliveiros, who all reared large families. For years, they had a network of mid wives amongst themselves who always showed up in time to help bring another of their own into the world.

When Rodrigues told of his father rebuilding Hix Bridge in one year after the hurricane of 1938, an audience member shouted out ,”Bring him back!”. The comment didn’t reincarnate Mr. Rodrigues but did generate one of the biggest laughs of the night. Rodrigues reminisced about day-long Sunday dinners served in three shifts to accommodate the children and adults, the annual pig slaughtering weekends, and his family’s sixth trip to Portugal, where they found the answer to a genealogical question that had puzzled them for years.

Representative Rodrigues spoke knowledgeably and affectionately about Westport’s Portuguese community. His stories and those of Manny Martin and Charlie Costa painted a picture of loyalty and connectedness within the first generation of immigrants, whose legacy to their children was love of family and the will to succeed. In his opening remarks, Rodrigues said, “if you came from Portugal, you knew one of two things, farming or fishing,.and you knew hard work.”

When they reached Westport, Massachusetts, these immigrants found all three.

NOTE:
Rodrigues and Alex Silva of UMass Dartmouth have begun collecting information to include in a book they’d like to publish on this subject. If you would like to offer stories or information, call Mike Rodrigues at 508-646-0650

Dartmouth family finds success with Westport pizza restaurant

Dartmouth family finds success with Westport pizza restaurant
September 22, 2004

Hang out in Main Road’s Village Pizza on a summer weekend night, and you’d swear that every third person in Westport is eating ‘Italian’. The place is humming.

Young men and women, with the ease of a drill team, stand ready to take orders behind the counter, a straight six steps from the front door. As one of them steps back to prepare an order, another pops up to take the next. And in the middle of all this choreography is owner Tony Ferreira. The boss spins back and forth between the stainless steel pizza oven a few feet behind the counter and a list of orders that are coming in by phone and over the counter.Tacked up at eye level three paces from the oven, they are lined up as neatly as floats ready to enter a parade and Mr. Ferreira, the grand marshal, makes sure they’re dispatched quickly. Efficiency is everything on a busy night and this operation is field tested and seasoned.

Ferreira, who seems to know everyone entering the door, will have been holding court here for 25 years come May, 2005. “My wife and I used to enjoy driving to Westport on Sundays from our home in Dartmouth,” said Mr. Ferreira. “I’d always been interested in the seafood business since my in-laws owned fishing boats. Then, we noticed this business for sale and since I’ve always loved to cook, we thought we’d give it a try.” He will have been married to Kathy, his high school sweetheart, for twenty five years this October. Many Wesporters think he’s married to Village Pizza as well.

In the early years of their marriage, they were raising a family plus a business. “I was a stay-at-home dad till early afternoon, diapers and all!” said Ferreira with his ever-present smile, “then I’d go in and take over from Kathy. Those were long days for both of us.”

Diaper days now a distant memory, their college age children, Nicholas, 21, and Kristen, 19, are on the front lines at the ordering counter. “They’re my right hand force,” says Ferreira with pride. Nicholas has a dentistry career in mind, while Kristen, whose sights are set on nursing, hasn’t totally dismissed a future at Village Pizza.

For long stretches of time in the early evening, everything in the joint is in motion. Customers buzz in and out of the twenty by thirty foot emporium with the familiarity of bees returning to their hive. T-shirts and flip flops, overalls and workbooks, their outfits differ, but they’ve got the same thing on their minds, tasty food, delivered hot and ready to eat. Some customers, with an array of calzones precariously perched atop several boxes of pizza, can barely see over the spicy payload as they aim for the exit.

Every so often, as when the eye of a storm passes overhead, everything quiets down, and the help braces themselves for the next wave of hungry customers. In this “to go” atmosphere, Tony Ferreira is the master of the sixty second conversation. “I love people!” says Ferriera.

Sit for five minutes in Village Pizza and you’ll get ample evidence. His hearty ”Hey, howareya?” or “Where are the kids?” greetings are answered by brief informative responses as a customer pays up and hurries home. During these dialogues in one twenty minute stretch, Ferreira found out that “My kid has a temp of 101”, and “My lab had thirteen puppies!” and a host of other tidbits from his “regulars”.

“Our customers come from all over,” says Ferreira, “ South Westport, Adamsville, South Dartmouth, even Little Compton.”

Ferreira himself came to the Westport area from considerably farther. “I was born in the Azores on the island of St. Michael’s and came to New Bedford when I was five. I was raised in my teenage years in Dartmouth, and have lived there ever since.”

Like the pizza, the atmosphere in Village Pizza is layered. The distinct aromas of garlic, onion, fresh bread, and baking dough are layered over the sounds of whirring fans, phones ringing, music piped in from a local station, customers chatting, and the incessant creaking open and thunking shut of the insulated oven door as Ferreira expertly assesses when each pizza is cooked through.

Lately, even the pizza menu has changed. “We’re beginning to feature specialty pizzas like a pesto vegetarian pizza and bruschetta.” The new “white pizza” has been a hit, too. “A friend of mine got me one a while back and I've been hooked since,” said a teenager eating at one of the six small tables lining the perimeter of the eatery.

The Ferreira family has actually bookended the strip of stores in the little mall on Main Road. In addition to Village Pizza, they opened an ice cream window next door (literally). Kathy Ferreira owns Tippy Toez at the other end of the strip and Nicholas and Kristen own and operate Village Video. “Pizza and videos are a real mesh,” says Ferreira. “Customers will come here, order a pepperoni pizza,and say, ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes’, and walk down to rent a video. It’s all about convenience.”

It’s plain to see that scores of the Ferreira family’s customers agree. And they would undoubtedly concur that Tony Ferreira’s love of people is as important an ingredient to Village Pizza’s success as the onions and peppers in his pizzas.

Hurricane recalled by Westport Point residents

The Dartmouth-Westport Chronicle
Hurricane recalled by Westport Point residents
By Paul Tamburello
September 15, 2004

The anniversary of Hurricane Carol inspired many Westporters to look back at its wrath from a safe distance in time. The Westport Point Neighborhood Association hosted a "Fiftieth Anniversary of Hurricane Carol" party on Saturday, August 28 at a residence on Drift Road in Westport Point. The event featured a short parade of bicycles, a picnic lunch, and lawn games for young and old, and a talk by a man who witnessed the hurricane at close range. Lynn Carter recalled his memories of Hurricane Carol's blow to Westport in August, 1954, in which the "Point" area was hard hit.

At 8 AM on the morning of August 31, Mr. Carter had driven off to work from his home a few doors up from the Paquechuck Inn, unaware that a hurricane was rampaging along eastern Long Island and southeastern Connecticut and was about to pounce on Westport. During the next two hours, Carter’s wife Sue saw the wind begin to whip through the harbor, carrying away boats and their anchor lines with them. Some of the boats belonged to the Carters, one of them just purchased earlier in the summer. Mrs. Carter telephoned her husband who made a steeplechase journey from Providence back to Westport, trying to avoid downed trees, wires, and wind driven debris. By the time he arrived home at noon, the Point was under swirling flood waters made more treacherous by sustained winds of 80 to 100 mph.

Water sluiced through Lees Fish Market like one of the holes of a miniature golf course, entering a door at the front and gushing out the door at the rear, equalizing the pressure on the building and keeping it from being torn off its foundation.

Laura’s Restaurant didn’t fare as well, recalled Carter. During the morning, the popular seafood establishment joined the fleet of sailboats in the harbor when the flood water lifted it off its foundation in two pieces. Carter told the story of the bartender, a skeptic by nature, who didn’t believe that a storm would strike and literally had to ride out the tempest in his half of the restaurant, which ran aground on a sandbar after floating into the harbor. As water rose in the remnant of the building, bartender Jim Hickey, then 64, climbed to higher ground, ending up neck deep in the attic, with fleeing rats for company. He was rescued mid afternoon by two intrepid ax toting residents of the Point who freed Hickey, and crew of frightened rats right behind him, from a window in the peak of Laura’s upper story. Mr. Carter chuckled when he recalled that many regulars at Laura’s, although grateful their favorite bartender was rescued, were equally relieved that their bar tabs were not.

Hurricane prediction has become big business since 1954. No longer do we need to worry about a hurricane swooping down upon us with as little notice as Carol in 1954.

Both Harry Tripp, service manager at F.L. Tripp and Sons Boatyard and Marina and Harbormaster Richie Earle agree that our most recent brush with meteorological mayhem came with Hurricane Bob in 1991.

“I saw boats wash up on marshes, sand bars, and the north shores of the west branch. The lucky ones ended up in the mud. It was quite a sight seeing helicopters lifting boats from the marsh” so they could be repaired or refloated after the storm, said Mr. Tripp. He recalls one boat, an “old timer” which ended up on the rocks, that was too big to be “air lifted” and had to be hauled off the rocks by a barge.

“Weather forecasting is much better these days but we still have to make a decision two or three days in advance of a hurricane” says Tripp. “Once we start hauling boats out of the water, we work around the clock, and when we’re done with boat hauling, we have to worry about our own boat yard.” Securing the big boat shed doors, getting material off shed floors, and putting movable equipment on high ground are all part of the drill.

“If the water reaches the high ground where we bring the crane, then we have a pretty bad problem all over the place,” said Tripp with a classic New England understatement.

Both Harry Tripp and Harbor Master Richie Earle agree that there are lots of slowpokes when it comes to hurricane preparations. “Many owners have a tendency to put things off,” says Earle. “The three day forecasts are much better now so if they’re local, they know they can wait for the latest forecast and can come right down” if the forecast gets dire. “In the old days, people would only run down here when the trees started shaking,” he says.

“Hurricane Bob in 1991 was well forecast,” recalls the Harbor Master. “Tripp hauled day and night with cranes and trailers,” and people got down to the the boat ramps at Hix Bridge, Spindle Rock, the state boat ramp next to the Fontaine Bridge, and the yacht club with their trailers to remove their own boats.

“There were 20 failures in 1991. One was a shackle failure, one mooring weight was too light and the boat dragged it ashore, and 18 boats ended up in the woods because they chafed through their lines at the bow chocks,” says Earle. “Seamanship is out the window,” he laments. “Owners don’t use proper chafing gear and boat manufacturers try to cut costs by not making bow chocks big enough,” he says. “ Older boats have wider bow chocks that accept one inch or at least 3/4 inch lines, with chafing gear, that are necessary to hold the boat during the stresses of a storm.”

And nothing will help the mariner who doesn't pay attention to weather warnings during hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. “The national weather service puts out two types of alerts, a hurricane watch and a hurricane warning. The hurricane watch is an announcement that hurricane conditions pose a threat to that area within 36 hours. A hurricane warning says that hurricane conditions, including sustained winds of 74 mph or greater, are expected in a specific area within 24 hours.” In order to entice owners, Mr. Earle says that some insurance companies offer to pay for hauling a boat out of the water during a hurricane watch.

The key for the boat owner is to take evasive action fast enough to prepare for the intimidating force of nature that a hurricane really is. Some time ago, Richie Earle created his personal punch list for hurricane season. The first item on his list? “ If any named storm comes out of the Bahamas, watch it like a hawk!”

Enough said.