Dick Russell - An original "Townie"

 

I came into this world as Richard Hamilton Russell, at the old Milton Hospital back behind Cunningham Park. We lived on Pleasant Street, which was then known as the Shadowlawn section - until the hurricane of 1938 blew down all the pine trees that had created the shadows. I went to the Collicot School and then on to Cunningham Junior High and Milton High School. My family survived the Great Depression and World War II by going into the dining car business, guaranteeing that the Russell family could keep food on the table. One of our Apple Tree Diners was located on the old Rte. 1 in Dedham; that diner is now in a museum in Malden, Massachusetts. Another diner was located on the Southern Artery in Quincy; that one is now being restored through a grant from the Smithsonian Institute. Shortly before World War II was declared my Dad opened up another diner under the family name on Adams Street in Quincy, and I worked at Russell’s Diner during high school.

In June of 1943 I and 19 of my classmates were inducted into the U.S. Army on the day we graduated from Milton High School. After I returned from the war, I service-managed a new diner on the same Quincy location until 1957. Then Dad sold the diner and I went to work with him representing the Cory Corporation in New England. Dad managed the Domestic Division, calling on companies such as Lechmere, and I managed the Commercial Division, calling on food service and restaurant supply companies. I met my wife, Alice Kenney, in the 10th grade at Milton High School. That meeting was arranged by Mr. Carne, the bookkeeping teacher. It seems I had a very short attention span, and if I was not interested in what was going on in class, I became “disruptive”. Mr. Carne moved pretty Alive from the back of the class to the front to sit beside me, separating me from the classmate with whom I was acting out. Fast forward -- in 1948 I married the only girl I had every dated, and settled at 11 Gibbons Street, where we still live today. (Thank you, Mr. Carne)

Alice delivered 2 boys and 2 girls, all of them with her good looks. When the fourth rabbit died, we considered moving into a larger house. We checked out Cohasset; but since my new job as Sales Manager for Beatrice Foods Company required me to fly out of Logan every Monday morning, I decided not to spend my life on Rte. 3. We also had a boat, a horse and a sheep at the time, so we checked out the rural town of Dover. They had no town water or sewer service, so we added on to 11 Gibbons Street instead. Upon retiring I met Pam Dorsey (a woman beyond Martha Stewart), who said “let’s start a neighborhood association”. You know the rest.

email: dickrussell@pinetreebrook.com