Editor’s Note: Donald Orne, 84, is a lifelong Marblehead resident whose family has been part of the town for generations. His father, Bud Orne, owned the barber shop at 120 Pleasant St., where the family also lived. This series shares Orne’s memories of growing up in Marblehead during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. The essays have been edited only for length, grammar and clarity. This is the second installment of Orne’s writings. You can read the first installment HERE.
After entering 120 Pleasant St, my father found only one person inside: an elderly woman named Mrs. Reed. She and Bud had a long conversation.
Mrs. Reed had been left the property but could no longer keep up with the taxes and other expenses. Bud presented her with a solution that would help both of them.
She could remain in her first-floor apartment, paying no bills, until she passed away. Bud would sell his little home on Sewell Street and purchase the property for about $7,000.
It would become his future.
His plan was to build a four-chair barber shop on the first floor, provide a home for his family on the second and third floors, and begin what would become his lifelong love of 120 Pleasant St.
Bud was a carpenter and renovated the entire inside of the two floors where we lived with the help of his buddies from the war.
Over time, he replaced every wall, ceiling and window. He extended the back stairs and built a porch for my mother to dry the towels from the shop and the family laundry.
My father literally never stopped working. When he wasn’t cutting hair or working on some other project, he painted the entire house, one side each year.
While Bud was doing all this, my mother ran the house like a Swiss watch. She went food shopping, prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, knitted, sewed and presented each of us with a hand-knit sweater at Christmas.
Every day she laundered the 50 towels I brought up from the barber shop. She had a washing machine but no dryer. She put hundreds of Bud’s barber towels out to dry, first on a clothesline in the yard and later on a porch he built for her.
The house was becoming more than a place to live. It was becoming the heart of our family.
A backyard full of adventures
For a kid growing up in Marblehead, our backyard at 120 Pleasant St. was a magical place.
My father loved flowers and planted hundreds of roses and other flowers for his girl, Muriel. Six different kinds of trees surrounded the yard, making it feel like our own little world in the middle of town.
Then Bud built us a real clubhouse.
This wasn’t just a few boards nailed together. It had a foundation, a trap door, an escape hatch, a skylight, two large double windows and even a secret tunnel. To us, it was the greatest clubhouse in Marblehead.
We spent countless hours there. We had sleepovers, played card games and staged water pistol fights. Every day seemed to bring another adventure.
Looking back, it was a magical childhood from start to finish.
As I got older, I began helping out in my father’s barber shop.
During my grammar school years, before supper each day, I went downstairs to sweep up the hair and clean the shop. That little job stayed with me all the way through high school.
Things were different then. People were allowed to smoke almost everywhere, and every barber chair had two built-in ashtrays. Nearly everyone smoked.
My father installed a three-foot-by-three-foot fan to blow the smoke outside, but the nicotine still found its way onto everything. One of my jobs was taking a garden hose and washing the brown nicotine stains from the side of the house. I also washed and buffed the floors, cleaned the mirrors and straightened the magazines customers read while waiting for a haircut.
My father never smoked a day in his life, but secondhand smoke affected everyone in one way or another.
‘Kick the Can’ kind of fun
The cellar beneath the house had another purpose. Bud stored hockey equipment there for local boys and girls. Many of us, including me, earned our equipment by selling Fanny Farmer chocolates that Bud bought on consignment. Cases of candy were stacked in the cellar waiting for young salespeople to carry them around town.
Whether it was figure skating, boys and girls ice hockey, tennis, or street hockey, it always involved kids having fun. “Kick the can” kind of fun.
I had a white bunny that was given to me on Easter. He had his own special safe place away from danger with all he could eat or drink. He lasted 10 years. His name was Pinky Pop. I had a little cat collar and leash and walked him around our block.
During these years my grandfather took Bud and me to the White Mountains to hike and enjoy the majesty of the mountains and streams in all the seasons.
Orne will share memories of his father starting Marblehead’s youth hockey program in his next installment.
