January 4
New Year Breakfast

January 17
Executive Board Meeting

Meeting Dates
Events Schedule

ATTENTION ROBS MEMBERS RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY
POSTED 1/1/19
     You can find the membership application card for you to fill out on page 8 of the latest copy of the ROBS Newsletter, which you will be receiving in the mail. If you do not receive the newsletter, you can download the Membership Card here. The membership fee is $25. New members can also use this card to join ROBS and go to the ROBS Membership Page on this website for more information on joining ROBS and downloading the card.
    Simply fill out the card, and indicate if there are corrections to be made to your current listing in the directory. Return the card addressed to Carmen Roldan, 49 Linda Lane, North Babylon, NY 11703. Include your check made out to ROBS for $25 with "Dues" written on the memo line.

SAD SHARING
POSTED 1/2/19
   Ruth McCalla died on December 12, 2018. She retired from teaching at Brentwood Northeast Elementary School in 1991 and later moved to Maryland. Ruth was one of the first ROBS members and was our program and hospitality person for many years. She was a wonderful lady and will be sorely missed.
  Services were private. Donations can be made to Roberta's House, 2510 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21218. It provides a safe and supportive place for grieving families.

SAD SHARING
POSTED 1/17/19
   Eleanore Roode, a retired elementary shool teacher, passed away this week. She retired from Brentwood Twin Pines in 2001. She was an active member of ROBS and will be missed by all.

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SAD SHARING
POSTED 1/29/19

   Marie Jarolem, a Brentwood teacher who retired from Northeast Elementary School, passed away on Friday, January 25, 2019. She was 89 and died from lung cancer.
     Visitation: Saturday, February 2nd from 10:00am - 12:00am . Service will be at 11:30am
     Branch Funeral Home
     190 East Main Street, Smithtown.

BRENTWOOD: THIS IS OUR HOME
POSTED 1/17/19
   An article was published in Newsday on December 23, 2018 about four families of diverse backgrounds living in Brentwood. Reporter David Olson and photojournalist Alejandra Villa Loarca "chronicled the perseverance, pride and strong sense of commnity among these families as they look to the future." You can read the article here by selecting Brentwood this is our home. You can also view it online selecting the folowing link: Newsday.com

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Why did we do it?
     What was our purpose in taking on such an open ended “History Project”; for which we evolved a script of questions and got answers from over 150 subjects for two decades?
     We couldn’t answer the question in 1994 when people would ask “What are you going to do with the interviews?” All we could say was that for educational purposes we had to document our record now or lose the chance to preserve so many poignant accounts, funny stories and touching tales told by exemplary educators. We knew these dedicated public servants might shortly, for reasons yet unknown, be leaving Brentwood for good.
     So, we decided to let time sort out the details. We began scheduling appointments. We asked questions and listened saving for generations the essence of what it meant to have been an educator or employed, in this large public school system during the second half of the 20th century. Brentwood remains an exemplar to all others; a diverse microcosm of America reflecting 124 districts on Long Island while simultaneously resembling thousands across the U.S. We’ve accomplished something here to be proud of. Whether we were interviewed or not, ours is a claim of service that few professionals in the State of New York or elsewhere have positioned themselves to share in the way we have.
     INITIALLY the practice of sitting with a subject for an hour and giving them a hundred percent focused attention seemed somewhat daunting to a number of friends and colleagues. So much so in fact that many declined our repeated invitations to speak with us as they left careers or retired from full employment. Despite all assurances that we were not about investigative journalism or invading privacy, they deferred. Now, twenty years after we began, some are saying they may be ready. “Better late than never” we say. However, to all among you who were willing to share not only your classroom experiences and personal stories, but precious memories from your lives along with your fondest hopes for the future, we say “Thanks”. Thanks for allowing us to continue the process by paying it forward as we share these interviews with the Brentwood community and countless professionals and researchers near and far. Through an acceptance of ROBS offer of collaboration with Archivist Dr. Geri Solomon and The Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University our History Project lives on in academia as well as in the collection of the Brentwood Public Library, thanks to Director, Thomas A. Tarantowicz.
   You can enjoy unlimited visits to www.robsny.org where you can watch and listen to segments from featured Interviews in the ROBS History Project Section on our Announcements Page each month. Return here to listen and learn again and again.

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED HISTORY PROJECT
INTERVIEW:
Paula Moore - Secretary
October 2, 2006
  
  Her name is Paula Moore and her parents are Gladys and Paul Moore. She was born in St Mary’s Hospital on January 2nd in the Bedford-Stuyvescent section of Brooklyn. Retiring from the Brentwood School District in 2006, her sister gave her the nick name “Sissy” back during an age when she couldn’t pronounce sister, so her father embraced that nick-name for Paula. She was one of three girls in the family and has been married to James for over forty years. They met when they both worked for AT&T where she and her sister both worked. It was during the early sixties that her sister introduced them. In the years that followed Paula had two boys and a girl of her own. Son Kevin was forty one at the time of our interview, Danny was thirty six and Michelle, thirty three. Kevin was teaching Social Studies in Brentwood’s North Middle School. Danny was a Maintenance Mechanic with the Department of Buildings and Grounds, and Michele was working for Novene a Bond Company. Kevin, the oldest is the no nonsense person of the family. He was a Business Systems Analyst on Wall Street until 9-11 when he was let go and made the decision to seek retraining. He went back to school for a Masters Degree and ultimately found his work in Brentwood. Growing up he was the “neatnik”, his brother Danny was the exact opposite and Michele was Paula’s “best friend”. Paula said the feeling was mutual since she considered herself Michele’s best friend as well.
    Michele lives in Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, they see each other every six weeks when they visit one another. They talk on the phone every day. Her father was a gifted artist. That talent skipped over Paula, she said. Kevin is also a good artist. Her daughter plays piano like her father once did. Paula said she was a people person. She says her family all like to talk a lot. She talked about her four grandsons, Avery eleven, James eight, Miles six and Julius fifteen months. Avery she said, never stops talking. James is very artistic and a very smart young man. All of her grandchildren are open and friendly, Miles loves to talk and the baby hasn’t yet learned to talk but has reached the terrible two stage.
   They lived in Brooklyn until she was about six or seven when the family moved to Flushing, Queens where they stayed for another six years before moving again to St Albans, Queens. Paula remembers her Aunt who lived in St Albans. She was married to a doctor. She never had children. She would take them to the movies. and they’d always go back to her house afterwards. She had a beautiful house and her kitchen always smelled of cinnamon rolls. “She would inevitably have something there for us to eat – like cakes or hot chocolate or whatever - we would go there and spend time with her, and the floors were always waxed. ”She

lived not in a brownstone but in a white limestone house. Her husband had his practice downstairs, and we would go upstairs, and we used to run across the waxed floors and slip all the time. There are four years difference between me and my youngest sister and one of the earliest childhood memories I have took place in the summertime and my mother was standing me on the toilet seat dressing me. My aunt had a house on Martha’s Vineyard and my mother was dressing me to go to Martha’s Vineyard because my mother knew she was soon going to have a baby. “My sister was born in August, so she was dressing me to get ready for the trip to go up and spend the summer with my Aunt. That was about the earliest memory I had as a child and I had to be about four years old because when I came home again and saw this thing in the crib which was my baby sister I said to my mother - “What’s that?”
   Her mother’s maiden name was Shaw and her married name was Gilmore. What did she like to do? What gave her pleasure? “She was a very classy lady…a pretty lady who was very nice and gentle but if you crossed her she gave us that evil eye and we knew we had been doing something we shouldn’t have been doing’. According to Paula, she liked to have a good time. She was really into family. She totally enjoyed life. She enjoyed herself. She was a very determined person. Later in life she got a job setting up retail displays in stores for Avon. She hired representatives and gave fashion shows and demonstrated how to apply makeup and that sort of thing. She remembers when she went for that job she had to learn to drive because she didn’t know how to drive but she told them that she did and so she learned how to drive. She was in her forties when she did all that. That’s how determined she was.
    She was always in the top 10% of sales for Avon when she worked for them. She won trips and mink coats and vacations to the Bahamas. Her Aunt and her mother were both great role models for Paula.    Her dad was born in Brooklyn and he was also a people person. He was a cook for the railroad. Her mother had been born in Baltimore. They met her on the train when she was on her way to New York City for the first time. Her sister who was married to the doctor was bringing her to NY because there were more opportunities for African Americans there than there were in the South (which Baltimore was considered back then. Paula’s father pointed her out to a coworker and said, ”this is the woman I’m going to marry” but she wouldn’t talk to him. He first saw her at a dance and for him at least, it was a case of love at first sight.
   Paula’s grandmother died during the flu epidemic of 1919. Her father had an older sister named Hazel, who was still alive at 94, and quite a character. Born on Oct 31st she had come from Virginia. Paula’s grandfather came from Albany but was born in Barbados. He was raised by his grandmother who owned a rooming house in Saratoga because his mother’s death. She would rent out rooms during the racing season and after that would go back to Albany. Paula’s father actually grew up in Albany and when he came of age went back to live in Brooklyn. The earliest memory Paula has of her father was him teaching her the A,B,C’s. He taught her the alphabet and she remembers her parents going to the Savoy Ballroom to dance and her mother wearing a satin dress and Paula would watch her getting dressed and putting on make-up. They were sharp dressers. She remembers seeing photos of them visiting Joe Lewis’s Bar in the 1940’s. The biggest influences in her life were her mother and father, her aunt and a couple of teacher’s.
   Mrs. Threll took her to the UN and Mrs. Ashley was involved with the year book and knew Mr. Sardi of Sardi’s fame in 1961. After dinner at his restaurant one night, she and several other students were driven home in a limo after they met and were given autographs from famous celebrities in the restaurant that night. Mrs. Ashley also took a group of classmates including Paula to the opera. They were a musical family. Her father played classical music and jazz piano Her whole family was into music, especially jazz, even the youngest generation. Paula likes to listen to Shade’, David Benoit, Miles Davis, Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers, Chris Bodie, She loves old school R&B as well and classical depending upon her mood.
  Paula liked to play dodge ball. Her father ran track in 1943. He drove Trolleys in Brooklyn and when they disappeared he drove Subway trains for the E and the F lines. Her father belonged to a track club called the Pioneer Club where all the city workers used to run; - police, fire, and they had track meets on Randall’s Island. Her father ran the 440 and the 220. Their middle son Danny was also a runner and belonged to three running clubs. He ran in the 400 and 200 and he resembled his grandfather’s looks when he was young. He was rated # 8 on the East Coast. When he was in Junior High in Brentwood he was running with students from the High School.
   Paula’s first paying job was babysitting for a teacher at Andrew Jackson High School. She was a Physical Education teacher and she had two bad little boys that Paula simply adored.
  Christmas was the biggest family holiday during childhood and after. It was either at her mother’s house or her sister’s house, but they always had a big gathering which continues to this day.
   In school Social Studies and English were Paula’s favorite subjects. Math was her least favorite. Spring and Summer were and remain her favorite seasons. When asked about aromas she remembers as a child she told us about a tradition her father had of perking fresh coffee on Saturday and Sunday and going to the bakery on Union Turnpike in Flushing. He would buy and bring home Jelly Donuts or make waffles for the family. Her mother liked to sleep late and he was an early riser so he would bring the donuts and coffee up to her in bed. Then he would give the kids “cold coffee,” half coffee and more milk so they felt they were having coffee or Postum just like the adults. The aroma of perked coffee and cinnamon rolls that her aunt used to have in her own kitchen was what Paula most remembers.