1944-1967

By G. Wayne Miller, Journal staff writer

01:01 mins

...After living on Bluebell Lane in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for several months, the teenage Frank Beazley rented an apartment and took a full-time job at a bakery. As World War II ended, he found another job, gave up his apartment, and moved back in with his family, who still would not acknowledge him.
...The arrangement was untenable: Nellie’s hold on Edna continued and Frank could not break it. He was frustrated and sometimes angry at his mother and his grandmother. He was increasingly restless, a young man struggling to make sense of secrets and lies.
...In 1945, he moved into an apartment again. He enrolled in a bakers’ school, then served an apprenticeship making cookies for lumberjacks in New Brunswick. Returning to Halifax, he was hired by Ben’s Limited, the city’s largest bakery, where he worked the overnight shift, eight hours of hot ovens and lifting 100-pound sacks of flour. When his shift ended at 9 a.m., he worked a second job making pastries and pies at another bakery.
...He’d not forgotten Sister Rita Marie: If you’re going to have responsibilities, Francis, she’d said, you better have a good job.
...In the autumn of 1947, Frank decided to enlist in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, which operated vehicles and provided logistical support for the military. He needed his birth certificate to sign up, but Edna and Nellie said they knew nothing about any such document. Frank went to St. Joseph’s Orphanage, but the nuns insisted that their records were confidential and could not be released, not even to him. He obtained a copy only after contacting a government agency. The certificate did not list his parents’ names, only a registration number, a city of birth, and a date.
Frank still had no proof that Edna was his mother, but he finally knew his birthday and exact age — 19 years old on Dec. 13, 1947. Small though it was, he had regained a measure of dignity.
...The army assigned Frank to a base in Halifax. He drove trucks and worked in the mess hall. After a year, he was promoted to corporal. Off-duty, he frequented the bars and attended professional boxing and wrestling matches. He developed a passion for dancing. He ice-skated. He took long walks, always moving fast, as if he’d built an overload of energy during his invisible years.
...Frank had not dared to ask out Winnie, the girl from the soda fountain, but he introduced himself to a girl he met skating. They began to date, and while they talked of marriage, it went nowhere. She was a mama’s girl, and Frank knew more than enough about that. Frank took up with another woman, more worldly. They went steady for several months — but then she left him for a sailor.
...His friends from Bluebell Lane, meanwhile, were marrying, starting families and advancing in their careers. One would find distinction serving in the air force. Another would become a prominent lawyer. Still another would go on to become the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia.
...The decade ended and Frank, army corporal, remained restless.

...BY 1952, EDNA had enough money to purchase Bramley Gardens, a working-class tourist destination near the Bay of Fundy, some 90 miles west of Halifax. The family relocated to Bramley to tend the cottages and general store, which were the compound’s main attractions.
...Frank stayed in Halifax — but sometimes, after a day in the pubs, he got to thinking about Nellie and Edna. His anger resurfaced, and he drove in his Jeep to Bramley Gardens.
...Mom, he said to Edna, this is the time to do it. Tell me I’m your son.
...Nellie stepped in.
...I’ll take care of it, Edna, she said.
...Frank backed down. Nellie allowed him to stay, but the only person who was comfortable around him was Snookie, almost a teenager now. She remembered how well Frank had treated her on Bluebell Lane.
...Frank was wearying of being a ‘‘mystery man,’’ as he later put it. He knew he had to let his anger go.
...What has to be has to be and that’s it, he thought. If I can’t get answers from anybody, why should I keep harping? Life goes on.
...An army buddy who had an aunt living in Rhode Island told Frank about the higher-paying jobs in the States. We ought to check it out, Frankie, the friend said. Let’s pay my aunt a visit.
...That summer, Frank journeyed south. He liked what he saw — with its scenic seashore, Rhode Island reminded him of the nicer things about Nova Scotia. And bakers indeed earned more than in Canada. His friend’s aunt offered to post the bond for his immigration if he decided to move. She would rent him a room in her house.

This is the Providence Frank Beazley found when, in December 1953, he stepped off a train at Union Station. Journal file photo

...ON DEC. 28, 1953, Frank boarded a train at Halifax Station.
...Powered by a steam locomotive, the sleeper-car Gull carried him across New Brunswick and into Maine, then down to Boston’s North Station. From South Station, another train delivered him to Providence, 26 hours after leaving Nova Scotia. Are you a Red Sox fan? a man in Union Station greeted him. If you’re not, you better get back on that train!
...Frank reached the aunt’s house, located in Warwick near Rocky Point Amusement Park. He had been living there only a short while when he found work at a bakery in Providence’s Armory District. ...He commuted from Warwick for several months, then moved to an apartment near his workplace.
...Frank’s new neighbors were people like him: clerks, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, jewelry and textile workers, the men and women supporting Providence’s robust post-war economy. They put in long days and when the whistle blew, they packed the neighborhood bars — places like the Turf Club Cafe, where a patron could get a submarine sandwich, a draft beer, and a brandy chaser, all for less than a dollar. Frank became a regular.
...After two years, Frank took a job baking pies at the newly remodeled J.J. Newberry store in downtown Providence, a dazzling establishment that featured a popular lunch counter and a bakery. In his free time, he window-shopped and went to the movies. He roller-skated. He walked everywhere at his hurried pace. He spent weekend afternoons at Rocky Point, eating shore dinners, riding the roller coaster, playing the arcade games, and watching the children on the carousel. Seeing their smiling faces, Frank thought of the childhood that he’d been denied.
...Frank turned 30. Sometimes he wondered what had happened to Edna, Nellie, and Snookie — who knew nothing of where life had taken him — but the past had lost its toxicity, and Frank’s anger was mostly spent. He was an average guy, taking what was there for him, enjoying what he could.
Except for not having a steady girlfriend, he’d found the better life that he’d imagined under the northern lights.

...ONE SATURDAY NIGHT in 1961, when he was 32, Frank noticed a pretty redhead sitting alone at the Turf Club’s mahogany bar. She had a fair complexion and blue eyes, like him.
...Frank asked her to dance and she accepted. He dropped a coin into the jukebox and selected Fats Domino’s cover of ‘‘Blueberry Hill,’’ a tune that he figured might enchant a lady. He had no inkling, of course, that the lyrics would prove prophetic:

Mary E. Fields, shown holding her daughter, Patricia, at the Turf Club one night out in 1961. Photo Courtesy of Patricia Fera

...Like Frank, Mary E. Fields was a native of Nova Scotia.
...And like Frank, she’d had a difficult life.
...Mary’s mother died when she was 4, leaving her father to raise her. In her 20s, Mary fell in love with a married man who was separated from his wife, a Roman Catholic. Saying that her religion forbid it, the wife wouldn’t grant him a divorce — not even after Mary had his child, a baby girl. Nova Scotia had no shortage of family secrets.
...In the spring of 1956, Mary married an American jewelry worker who lived in Providence, and the next year, she immigrated to the States. The following summer, she filed for divorce, accusing her husband of neglect, inability to support her, and extreme cruelty.
...Five years older than Frank, Mary worked as a laborer at the Speidel Watch Co. and lived with her daughter, Patricia, who was 11 years old by then. In 1962, Mary and the girl moved in with Frank. He had found another job: overnight baker at the Dunkin’ Donuts store at the corner of Reservoir and Park Avenue in Cranston. The new doughnut chain prospered, and Frank planned on finishing his career there. He wanted to marry Mary and make Patricia his lawful daughter. He envisioned a long career followed by a happy retirement, when he and his wife would travel.
...In late 1966, Frank proposed to Mary.
...She accepted.
...The next summer, they would return to Halifax for the wedding.

...DAWN WAS BREAKING on Friday, Jan. 6, 1967, when Frank punched his time card and left Dunkin’ Donuts. It was payday.
...He went to the Public Street Tap. He had a cigar and a few drinks and played billiards with a friend. After settling with the bartender, Frank stepped into the morning cold, not noticing that his boots were untied. He hailed a taxi.
...Frank had moved again, to a three-room basement apartment on Arch Street, near the Turf Club Cafe. He paid the cab driver and went inside.
...Starting downstairs, he tripped on his laces and tumbled 10 steps to the bottom.
...He tried to get up.
...He couldn’t.
...Mary went to help him.
...Don’t touch me! he said. There’s something wrong. I’m numb. I think I’m paralyzed.

TOMORROW |ROCKY POINT

Read about the series

Source notes