Mary Parker / Peggy O’Connell O’Neill
I am going to tell you a story that happened in Oakdale, a neighborhood in Dedham, Mass. We were just moving into a home right across the street from the Oakdale Elementary School! This was going to be great!The Elementary school was a really nice-looking building. It was all brick and stone and had this round entryway surrounding the big wooden front doors. If you went around the back, there was a big courtyard with back doors that led to the classrooms for all the grades. That is where we would have recess every day!I was six, soon to be seven and was starting second grade! I was nervous but mostly excited to go to public school. It had to be better than my old school In Franklin, Mass. The teachers were nuns and they hit us with rulers on our hands if we were bad! Really, they did!!Take a step back into the 1960’s like you are in a dream... as my Mom, Karen, my baby sister Amy, and I enter our house for the first time on 130 Cedar Street in Dedham, Mass.