Parade
Memories. Clara Marini-91 with her nephew Larry Tocci. Larry converted
to digital,home movies of the Quincy Christmas Parade which her
husband Dan had taken 50 years ago.
In compiling his family history, Larry Tocci dug up a bit of Quincy history as well.
He
was searching through old photographs in his aunt’s West Quincy home
when he came upon VHS reproductions of 8mm reels. He gave the tapes a
look and was
transported to Christmas in the 1950s when Quincy Center was known as Shopperstown USA.
It’s
some of the only footage known to exist of the formative years of the
city’s Christmas parade, a community tradition that began in 1952 and
continues this Sunday.
Ed
Fitzgerald, director of the Quincy Historical Society,
enthusiastically accepted Tocci’s offer of copies of the tapes, which
Tocci has posted on YouTube.
“We
have some ’50s footage, but we don’t have a lot,” Fitzgerald said.
“The holiday parade stuff is fun. It’s a great little capsule of a
whole other time. You’ve got these street scenes of places that are
long gone.”
Holly
and garlands hang from lampposts, majorettes twirl batons and Santa
waves from a holiday float as it passes department stores on Hancock
Street.
“We’d
bundle up the kids and we’d all go over to watch the parade,”
remembered Clara Marini, 91, Tocci’s aunt, who has lived in Quincy since
1942. “It was a big thing. All my friends, all my neighbors over here,
we all went. We walked.”
Clara’s
husband, Donato – he went by Dan – had a documentarian’s eye. He
didn’t just film his daughters Linda & Janet majorettes in the
parade, but the entire event, as if he were covering it for live
television.
“Imagine
me, I’m scanning this and going, ‘What is he doing? What is he trying
to shoot? Who is he trying to get?’” Tocci said. “He just filmed the
parade.”
Dan
Marini, a carpenter from New York, moved his family to Quincy in 1942
to take a job at the Fore River shipyard. He built barracks during the
war.
He
and Clara raised their two daughters, Janet and Linda, in Quincy. In
the 1950s – which Fitzgerald called “the great age of home movies” –
Marini began documenting family events with an 8-millimeter camera.
The
footage – of weddings and birthdays and anniversary celebrations –
proved invaluable as Larry Tocci compiled the family history.
Clara Marini said her husband was careful with his film. “He was very meticulous,” she said. “He kept it just so.”
Dan Marini died three and a half years ago. Shortly thereafter, his nephew found the tapes.
As
he combed through the footage, studying the vintage cars and
Sunday-best clothing, Tocci realized his uncle was preserving a record
of the time, not just of the family.
“This
speaks of a very simple time,” Tocci said. “They didn’t need to have
just quick edits, fast pace, almost like a video game or an action
movie. This is very simple. You can see all the local townspeople just
out, watching their family and friends in a parade. That’s just simple,
pure Americana.”
Quincy Ma. Holiday Parades Late 1950's
