Maynard Outdoor Store - a History

Click on any photo to enlarge

The facade above the Maynard Outdoor Store features a panel that reads "CASE BLD 28."  Historic records show that the main building, at 24 Nason Street, was once known as the Case Block, and next door, 28-30 Nason Street as the Case Annex. The main building has a 112 year history.

The story starts when William B. Case moved from Maine to Maynard in 1874, age 22, to take a job at the Hayes store. Five years later - 1879 - he started his own store. By 1887 his business was in a larger space in the building at 100 Main Street. And five years after that he had a grand opening in his own new building, at the Nason Street address, as W.B. Case & Sons, dry goods. Newspaper advertisements of the era show the store as selling clothing, shoes, hats, gloves, etc.

Howard and Ralph Case (back row) with staff in front of the store. Date is
prior to 1923 because Ralph still alive. Courtesy Maynard Historical Society.

Case prospered. He had married Lucy Jane Whitney in 1877; she was of a well known and well off family that had been in the area for centuries. Her great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were among the first landowners in Stow, in 1683. Her father, Artemas Whitney, built the dam for the woolen mill. William and Lucy lived in a mansion at 4 Maple Street. Howard and Ralph, their two sons, helped manage the store.

In the collection of the Maynard Historical Society there is an interesting description of how the store operated. When salesclerks made a sale, the sales slip and the customer's money was placed in a small basket. This slid on a downward angled overhead wire to the manager at the back of the store who manned the only register. He would write a receipt and send it, with the customer's change, back on the same wire by raising his end to a higher hook.

Other side has grandson Frank, great-grandson Ralph
and space for great-grandson Frank and his wife, Mary

Town records have no information on when the store closed. The last Maynard newspaper mention was of the 50th anniversary, in 1929. A brief item in the Concord paper mentions a clearance sale in 1935. The mill and the town were in hard times as the Great Depression dragged on, so the store probably closed its doors soon after.

What is known is the next mention of business at 24 Nason Street (not including the Annex) was the grand opening of an A&P "supermarket" on January 8, 1942. The woolen mill was busy providing the U.S. military with uniforms and blankets, and the town was prospering again. A&P (short for The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company) was the Walmart of its era. Its self-service stores, with sections that provided groceries, baked goods, meat, produce and dairy, plus its low prices and preferential selling of its own A&P branded products, put thousands upon thousands of small shops and suppliers out of business.

Symbol on CASE tombstone
combines Freemasons and IOOF
(International Order of Odd Fellows)

From 1915 to 1975, A&P was the largest food retailer in the nation. But it failed to keep pace with new chains that opened larger, modern supermarkets in the suburbs, with their own parking lots. A&P still exists, but with only 300 stores in a handful of eastern states, it is a pale shadow of its 16,000 store peak.

Maynard's A&P closed in 1967. The next tenant was the one we know today. After World War II, three ex-servicemen started a small chain of Army & Navy Surplus stores in Framingham, Natick and Maynard - that last one opening in 1950. The Maynard store was on Nason Street, in one of the storefronts just south of the Peoples' Theatre building. A year after A&P closed, the Army & Navy business moved to that site and about the same time changed its name to the Maynard Outdoor Store, one reason given being that Levi Strauss & Co. would not sell jeans to Army & Navy stores.

Back then, the upstairs was office space, rented out to various tenants. Now, the Outdoor Store uses it for storage of inventory - come spring the parkas, sleds and Patriots clothing will disappear, to be replaced by polo shirts, swimsuits and Red Sox gear.

A clock over the front door dates back to the Army & Navy days; the pressed tin ceiling in the south building in all likelihood dates back to W.B. Case & Sons.

Tin ceiling, painted white

Today, we still have the Maynard Outdoor Store as one of the major retail businesses in downtown Maynard. Family owned, the store offers clothing and shoes for children, women and men, plus a wide range of sports and camping equipment. The Outdoor Store's stated goal is "To be #1 in Service, Savings, Selection." Which is likely the same approach that had kept family-owned Case & Sons in business for more than 60 years, selling much the same type of product.

Same front door as in photo of W.B. Case & Sons (above)

CASE FAMILY GENEALOGY (*buried in Glenwood Cemetery)

*William Bradford Case        1852-1938       Started store 1879

   M. *Lucy Jane Whitney      1854-1922       Her family (Whitney) had moved to Stow ~1683

*Ralph Whitney Case            1881-1923       Father of Frank Whitney Case

   M. *Sadie I. Rand               1881-1958

*Howard Bradford Case        1883-1952       Father of James B. Case 1915-1985; buried in Ohio

   M. *Ester E. Hall                1884-1965         (no known children)

*Frank Whitney Case            1904-1963       Lived in Maynard/Acton; three children

   M. *Hazel G. Reid             1905-1987

GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN

Elinor (Case) Curley             1930-2004       Lived in Stow; four children

*Ralph W. Case                    1931-2009       Lived in Maynard; did not marry; no children

Frank T. Case                       1933-alive        Lived in Melvin Village, NH; six children

  M. Mary E. Lehto               1932-alive       Her family was from Stow

GREAT-GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN

10: 6 with surname Case and 4 with surname Curley

Winter Moths - Invasive Species

Male Winter moth fits inside circle the size of a nickel.
Females are just under a half-inch in length.

In eastern Massachusetts the time to act is late November through early December, and then again late March through early April.

An insect invasion has plagued eastern Massachusetts for the past 10-15 years. Winter moths, native to northern Europe, reached parts of Canada in the 1930s. The introduction was accidental. The problem is monumental. Visual evidence of how bad it is will be upon us shortly, as the male moths, looking much like like tan-to-brown shaded triangles, are strongly attracted to outdoor lights. There will come evenings in late November or early December when upon arriving home, you may see scores of moths gathered round the light over your front door.     

The "winter" part of the name refers to an evolutionary strategy used to avoid predation. Most insect eaters (birds, bats, spiders, wasps and other insects) are active during warmer months. Winter moths shift the active parts of their life cycle into the colder months. Eggs are laid in late November and December and hatch in late March. The tiny hatchlings eat the beginning-to-open flower and leaf buds from the inside out.

Female, note small wings

By May, caterpillars are full sized, and descend to the ground where they transform into pupae, hidden in leaf litter. Pupae stay dormant until after the first frosts of November. The emerging adults, freeze-resistant thanks to anti-freeze compounds such as glycerol, use their short lives to procreate before dying.

Winter moths have an interesting dimorphism. Males have strong flight muscles, with an ability to pre-warm these muscles through shivering before cold weather flight. In contrast, females have only vestigial wings. Sacrificing flight capacity allows more than fifty percent of their adult body weight to be given over to eggs. Mating is achieved after the females climb up tree trunks and then release scent pheromones into the air. Males fly to them.

Winter moth larvae are generalists, but especially like fruit trees, maple, ash and birch trees, and blueberry bushes. Flower bud damage leads to low fruit and berry yield. Leaf loss can be so great that too many years in a row will kill trees, especially if dry conditions prevail during the time the trees are putting out replacement leaves. Treatment involves putting sticky products such as Tree Tanglefoot around tree trunks in November and then spraying a few times in early spring with dormant oil or other insecticides. There are organic treatments for those who do not want to use chemical pesticides.

        11/14/14 update: After a few night frosts, moths are beginning to appear in Maynard.
        11/26/14 update: My big birch tree has more than 500 males and females stuck in goo!
        12/15/14 update: No new sightings, so removed plastic wrap. 

TreeTanglefoot on birch tree. Applied
on plastic wrap, not directly on tree.
See photo below for results.

This is not the first time an invasive moth has had such a massive impact in the Northeast. European Gypsy moths were deliberately brought to the United States - specifically, Medford, MA - by Etienne Leopold Trouvelot, in the 1860s. As an amateur entomologist, Trouvelot was experimenting with Gypsy moths as a means of establishing silk manufacture in the Americas. He failed. Moths escaped.

Gypsy moths occupy a different portion of the calendar than winter moths. Eggs laid in August hatch the following May. The rest of the life cycle is compressed into a few months. Nearly 140 years later, this pest's territory is still expanding westward and southward, although a number of introduced biological controls, including parasitic insects, have blunted severity of the outbreaks.

Moth menage a trois stuck in the goop. Males are attracted
to pheromones released by females.
Click on any photo to enlarge.

"Ecological release" refers to situations in which a species undergoes massive population expansion, due mostly to lack of predators, parasites and diseases. The best known examples are for species introduced from one continent to another, but can also occur when apex predator species are removed from the top of the food chain (think whitetail deer without wolves or mountain lions, and not enough human hunters). For invasives, the resultant population expansion from point of entry is fast for species with high mobility, slow for creepy crawlers.

These two moth species are examples of slow expansion because females are unable to fly. Egg laying occurs on or near the tree they grew up on. Dispersion is achieved be a few methods. Post-hatch caterpillars can release a silk strand from the abdomen, then unclasp from the twig and allow wind to blow them to a new location.

This means of travel is better known for young spiders, and called 'ballooning.' Older caterpillars can descend to the ground and explore, one tiny footstep at a time. Either way, the failure rate is high, but enough succeed that territory continues to enlarge, and areas that are sprayed with pesticides will re-infest over time.

2015, and my birch trees' infestation was even worse. This year I got the goop on the tree by mid-November. Trapped so many that I had to remove it and reapply fresh wrap and goop on Thanksgiving, and then again December 1st. Will see come spring how much this slaughter benefited the trees. Biological control has proved successful in Canada - not clear if this method has yet been introduced to U.S. There are two insect species (a fly and a wasp) that specialize in winter moths. Their larvae consume the winter moth caterpillars from the inside.
2016: Less severe, and more males than females. That suggests I am getting my own local females and males, but additionally attracting males from the neighborhood. If this repeats in 2017, suggests that it is not necessary to wrap every tree, as wrapping only some trees will remove males from the mating equation. However, this is a strategy that works if males mate only once.     

Fleepo the Clown (Philip Bohunicky)

Plaque honoring Phil's contributions to Maynard
(Click on any photo to enlarge)

Ten years gone since Philip W. Bohunicky, aka "Fleepo the Clown" passed away on 11/11/04, a month shy of his 85th birthday. He had been a fixture in Maynard's parades and celebrations for close to 40 years. He, as have others, qualified for the honorary title "Mr. Maynard" in his time.

Phil wrote up part of his life's story for the Maynard Historical Society shortly before he died. As he told it, he began sponsoring and coordinating Maynard's Christmas parade in 1966 because of an event from his youth. His early memories were of growing up in a Catholic orphanage. He described a snowy winter evening when the nuns told the boys that after evening prayers they were to put on their winter outfits. They walked to the center of town, where he heard a small band playing "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells..." and everyone joined in to sing Christmas carols.

In his own words "All of a sudden a huge red fire engine appeared around the corner with its sirens and horns blasting away. Standing in the back of the fire engine was a huge Santa Claus waving and yelling 'Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Ho Ho Ho!' As Santa faded slowly in the distance I was mesmerized, and to this day, oh so long, long after, I never forgot when I first saw Santa Claus when I was only six years old and living in the orphanage."

   

Parade float for Happy Toes Square Dancers

In addition to starting the Maynard Christmas Parade tradition, behind the scenes he also personally covered much of the cost of putting on the event, a responsibility since taken on by the Rotary Club. Phil also organized the annual Easter Egg Hunt at Crowe Park and helped provide entertainment at the Fourth of July carnivals - same location. At many events he was joined by his children and others who performed as the Happy Toe Square Dancers.

Phil's main alter ego was "Fleepo the Clown," but he also put in appearances at children's and charity events as Grandpa Fleepo or Harmonica Phil. Many Maynardites remember Fleepo on WAVM's television channel as The Fleepo Show. Or in costume, on roller skates, handing out lollipops. Or seeing him drive by - in costume, on his way to an event - with a very, very large stuffed dog in the car as his sidekick. His license plate read FLEEPO. One story that made local news in April 1990 was that Fleepo was hatjacked of his signature antique top hat at the Easter Egg event. The hat was never recovered.

Fleepo, stuffed animals, perhaps two of his three children?

As to how his clown name came to be: Philip apprenticed for years with Chris Sclarppia, who went by the clown name "Bozo" (not the famous Bozo). Chris took the French pronunciation of Phil's name - think "Fe-leeep" - and from there mutated it to "Fleepo."

Out of costume, Bohunicky put in uncounted hours supporting Little League baseball, T-ball and the water safety swim program conducted at Lake Boon. He had served in the Army Medical Corp in Europe during World War II, and appeared in uniform at Memorial Day and Veterans Day remembrances. His post-war career was as an electronics technician at MIT's Lincoln Labs, in Lexington. He died on Veterans Day, 2004.

This is not to say that Philip Bohunicky was all sweetness and light. In his involvement in various town government activities and volunteer groups around town he was at times strongly opinionated and ornery.

Parade float honoring 25 years of Christmas parades
(photos courtesy of Bohunicky family)

Little is known about Bohunicky's early family history. One source mentions both of his parents dying when he was an infant, and with no other family member to take him, he ended up at St. John's Catholic Orphanage in Utica, New York, until he was eleven, and then with a series of foster families. His good luck was the last family insisting he attend high school, and then the G.I. Bill putting him through Massachusetts Trade School.

The surname Bohunicky is Slovakian, and can be taken to mean  from Bohunice," which turns out to be the name of a small village near the western border of the Slovak Republic. If his parents were immigrants from that region it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire back then. Phil's contributions to town spirit continue to be remembered. Each year, the Philip Bohunicky Humanitarian Award is presented at the WAVM banquet to a member of the town who exemplifies the same type of dedication to his/her community. 

Fifty of David Mark’s 2012-2014 columns were published in book "Hidden History of Maynard" available at The Paper Store, on-line, and as an e-book.

Fluctuating Birth Rate, 1880-2013

A column published earlier this year explored counting the dead in Maynard, or more specifically, counting the dead who were buried in Maynard's cemeteries. This column addresses those born here. Birth and death information in the chart was taken from Town of Maynard Annual Reports, 1880-2012, available at the Maynard Public Library. The population line, scale shown on the right side of the figure, comes from U.S. Census data.

At first glance, deaths look to be fairly constant at 50-100 per year, but in light of the fact that the population was increasing from 2,200 to 10,100 what the chart really shows is far, far fewer deaths per thousand over time. Not a surprise - cleaner water, safer food, modern medicine and a huge decline in tobacco use has dropped the death rate in the U.S. to under 8/1,000/year. Maynard's death rate now falls below the national average, suggesting either that the current population skews younger and/or healthier than the national average Or that older people are moving away to die elsewhere.

A sharp spike in deaths in 1918 was due to the influenza pandemic. Town records show that 35 deaths in the last quarter of 1918 alone were caused by the flu.

Much like deaths, births per thousand population have also decreased dramatically over time. One hundred years ago the national birth rate was on the order of 30/1,000/year, declining to the present day 14/1,000/year. As in many cultures, the desire to have many children decreased as the likelihood of infant and childhood death decreased, while at the same time the cost of raising a child to independent adulthood increased.

Births show three large, sustained peaks. The first two coincide with increases in population. By 1902 the moribund woolen mill (bankrupt in 1898) had been bought by the American Woolen Company, reopened, and started on a major expansion program. Young workers were being hired—mostly immigrant Finns, Poles, Italians and Russians - and the birthrate exploded accordingly. No surprise—there was an uptick in marriages which overlapped the first birth peak. From 1895-1902 the marriages average was 42/year, while from 1903-1917 the average was 100/year.

The second peak in births represents the post-WWII baby boom, and also the transition of Maynard from a factory town to a bedroom suburb for employees of new businesses on Route 128. New houses were being built, especially on the northwest side of town, and population was showing another growth spurt.

One mystery is why the birth rate dropped so dramatically after the 1960 peak. Looking back, this is the period when birth control pills became widely accepted, when birth control sales to unmarried women became legal (1972) and when abortion became legal (1973). Demographics also played a role. Locally, population growth had stalled, new housing had stalled, and what was left was a mature, post-child-birth population aging in place.

The third uptick in births, starting in 1983, is also a mystery. This birth boom was taking place against an unchanging total population and an absence of new home construction. There is a possibility that retired mill workers were either dying or moving away and being replaced by younger employees of Digital Equipment Corporation, as the 1980s were a fast-growth period for Digital.

Statewide, the current birth rate is about eleven births per thousand population per year. Maynard is averaging above that. One possible answer: Maynard's home-owning costs are 30 to 50 percent less than in the neighboring towns of Acton, Concord, Sudbury and Stow, so Maynard may be more attractive to young couples who are becoming first time home owners. Subjectively, this is borne out by all the strollers being pushed about the downtown sidewalks on good-weather weekends. 

Fire Station Horn as History

One hundred years ago, the Town of Maynard Annual Report mentioned in passing that the fire department was responsible for conducting a daily 12:10 PM test blast of the fire department's steam whistle, located at the woolen mill. That's historic, but the full history of 12:10 is older.

Down the years, the means of sounding an alarm for the Maynard fire department went through several evolutions. Originally, a battery-powered system triggered a striker to hit the school bell at the Nason Street School (current site of the Library). The year 1903 added a steam whistle at the woolen mill. Both systems operated until the school burned to the ground in 1916. Makes you wonder if the school bell was ringing to signal its own demise?  

Two compressed air horns date to 1950

The late 1930s saw installation of a diaphone horn at the fire station on Nason Street, but until the mill closed in 1950 the steam whistle was still used in addition to the horn. Later, the fire station bought a pair of compressed air powered horns for the Nason Street station, transferred to the roof of the current fire house in 1955. Yes, the horns are that old.

Why 12:10? The great majority of towns with a fire horn system conduct daily test blasts. According to "A History of the Maynard Fire Department, 1890-1970" an unpublished manuscript written by Henry T. Hanson, Maynard's 12:10 dates back to the 1890s. W.W. Oliver, a jeweler with a store in the Odd Fellows Hall (next to the Nason Street fire house) was paid $12 per year to conduct the daily test.

Oliver would walk to the train station to set his pocket watch to "Washington time," then walk back to Nason Street. As the walk was about five minutes, the daily test was set to ten minutes after the hour. He had this responsibility because there were no full time fire station employees back in the day.

A differently told story is that because the mill's lunch whistle blew at noon, the town's whistle was offset by ten minutes. Regardless of origin, the 12:10 tradition continued long after any need for either a daily time check or subservience to the mill. It's a tradition, one captured by the fact that the Seal of the Town of Maynard shows the clock at 12:10 on town documents, vehicles and street signs.

All this is prelude to the observation that the fire horn no longer sounds at 12:10. The decision was made by the fire department. According to former fire chief Stephen Kulik, the horn was still operative up through his retirement in June 2011. Anthony Stowers, the current fire chief, stated that the practice had stopped before he came aboard in February 2012. The timing puts the onus on the temporary, non-resident fire chief who filled in between Kulik and Stowers. Apparently, the town's government was not involved.

Truth to tell, the fire horn system is in poor repair and perhaps heading toward obsolescence. According to Kulik, "The horn stopped working now and then, and it was hard to get parts. Every time we triggered the fire signal we had our fingers crossed."

Stowers acknowledged the horn still works but has a tendency to stick. He said, "we have made the decision to restrict the use to actual emergencies in the effort to keep it functional for as long as possible." 

The historic purpose of fire station horns was to alert volunteer firefighters. In an increasing large number of locations this function has been replaced by cell phones and pagers. Same for reaching the salaried firefighters who are off duty. Across the country, many newspapers have run articles on debates about whether to continue, discontinue, or even resurrect the tradition of a working fire horn system. And separately, continue or discontinue a daily test blast.

Some towns are also getting rid of their outdoor
fire alarm call boxes, as most people reach
for a phone to call 9-1-1 rather than think
to run to the nearest alarm box.

Given that Maynard is on the cusp of abandoning its fire horn system, can the 12:10 daily blast be resurrected solely as part of town history?  One means of doing this would be to install a new system on Clock Tower Place property, perhaps near the intersection of Walnut and Main Streets. As a bonus, fire department staff would no longer be subjected to a daily tooth-rattling blast from their own rooftop. A new system of horns and control box from Sentry Sirens would cost between $3,000 and $12,000 depending on whether the town wants a sound heard only in the downtown area or a blast loud enough to wake the dead in Sudbury, Stow and Acton.

Can sounds be history? Three-quarters of a century ago, life in Maynard was punctuated by a chorus of steam whistles on trains, the mill, and the fire alarm. School snow days were broadcast by five blasts at 7:15 AM. None of that is coming back. But in this writer's opinion, Maynard deserves its 12:10.

Fifty of David Mark’s 2012-2014 columns were published in book "Hidden History of Maynard" available at The Paper Store, on-line, and as an e-book.