Canton native Eleanor Durham Bowes takes stroll down memory lane

By Jeffrey Pickette

Don’t tell Eleanor Durham Bowes that “you can’t go home again.” Last Tuesday the 97-year-old Canton native returned to her childhood home at 238 Sherman Street for the first time since moving away in 1935.

(l-r) Michelle Weisse (granddaughter of Eleanor’s older sister, Nina Durham Weisse), Eleanor Durham Bowes, Richard Bowes, Dick Kelleher standing in front of house. Jeff Pickette photo

Richard Bowes, 61, picked up his mother at her home in Plympton — she lives there with her daughter, Christine Romano — and the two took the 45-minute drive to Canton, where the final destination turned out to be a welcome surprise.

“I had no idea [where we were going] … I was so busy talking to [Richard], I paid no attention,” Eleanor said. “When he said we were coming in here, I couldn’t believe it.”

She had driven by her childhood home before, but had never gone back for an official visit. When Richard and Eleanor pulled into the driveway at 3 p.m., current homeowner Dick Kelleher was there to greet them.

Kelleher’s parents, Jerry (a former Canton police chief) and Dorothy, bought the house from Eleanor’s parents in 1936. Dick Kelleher, 62, who later bought the house from his parents, has lived there his whole life. And for further proof of how small a world this really is, Richard and Eleanor and Kelleher are actually distant relatives — Eleanor’s brother Bill married Kelleher’s aunt Miriam Sykes.

Almost from the moment Eleanor was helped out of her son’s truck she was impressed with how “beautiful” the light-yellow, two-story New England-style farmhouse looked 75 years after she left Canton.

“I’ve often thought of the house, but never thought it would look this good,” she said.

For the next hour, Eleanor and Richard, Michelle Weisse, the granddaughter of Eleanor’s older sister, Nina Durham Weisse, and Kelleher reminisced about Eleanor’s time in Canton as the four toured the house and the scenic yard of the Sherman Street property.

“It was a great place to be a kid,” she said.

Eleanor attended St. John’s and graduated from Canton High School in 1930. Sitting in the kitchen of the house, roughly in the spot where the old cellar stairs were located when she lived there, Eleanor got a chance to recall her youth.

Eleanor Durham Bowes grew up in this Sherman Street home. Jeffrey Pickette photo

Playing outside in the yard and in the surrounding wooded areas was one of her favorite memories. She remembered sliding down the hill on nearby Leonard Street in the winters, although Kelleher was quick to point out that by the time he was growing up, he would have been “grounded” if he was caught doing the same. She could also rifle off the names of friends and neighbors that lived nearby, as if a single day hadn’t passed since she moved away.

“In those days there weren’t a lot of outsiders. You knew everybody,” she said. “You made your own entertainment — there was nothing there — but we were able to roam the whole town if we wanted to.”

Even though she walks with a cane now, she was able to make it upstairs and sit in her childhood bedroom, something that brought her to tears. Evidently, the house is conducive for raising large families, since both Eleanor and Kelleher were one of seven children.

Originally the house did not have indoor plumbing or heating and there was no electricity, although these amenities were all later added when Eleanor was growing up. The driveway was a dirt path and there was a chicken yard behind the house.

“We really roughed it in those days,” she quipped.

Eleanor, who will turn 98 on July 21, has five children, five grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. She credits her longevity to walking. Living not too far from the downtown, she “walked everywhere” growing up, whether it be a short trip to the Canton library or a longer trek to Stoughton Square to the one-time location of Webster’s Ice Cream parlor.

A couple of weeks before the trip to her childhood home, Richard took Eleanor back to the State House, where she worked as a clerk stenographer for the civil service board from 1931 to 1935. They rode the commuter rail into Boston, just as Eleanor had done every day. Richard is planning for their next outing to be to various locations around Newburyport, where Eleanor’s father was born and where her grandparents lived.

“I know that trip [to her childhood home] meant an awful lot to mom,” Richard said during a follow-up phone interview, “and to see how happy she was, that means a lot to me.”

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