From the Louise Albertine Brooks Collection,
courtesy of Peter H. Spectre
The captions on this page have been written by Peter H. Spectre based on information from his mother Vivian Brooks Spectre and reflects their perspective on the Albertine family.
A Special "Thank You" to Peter for sharing these photos with my family.
Paul D. Albertine
The following is an excerpt from Peter's initial email to me on Thursday, January 7th, 2010.
Paul:
I have a book written by Connell Albertine (Yankee Doughboy, Brandon Press, 1968), my grandmother's cousin, and in the course of trying to find out more information about him on the internet came across your web site.
I'm having a little trouble sorting out our exact relationship -- too many Paolos and Pauls in the Albertine family -- but here is how it looks from my perspective: My mother was Vivian Brooks Spectre, daughter of Louise Albertine and Myer Brooks. My grandmother Louise (aka Louisa, aka Lulu) Albertine Brooks was the sister of your great-grandfather John Albertine and the daughter of Joseph Albertine and Margaretta (Opici) Albertine. (I'm no expert at this, so just writing it down makes my head swim.)
I'm writing because I have a rather large collection of photographs from my grandmother that includes lots of Albertines going back to Joseph and Margarita in various venues, including Ware and Onset. I inherited them from my mother and have put them in an album.
For your information, here is the introduction I wrote to the collection:
The photographs in this album are from a collection my grandmother Louise Albertine Brooks kept on a bureau in the back room of her house in South Harwich, Massachusetts. The bureau was the same one in which my grandmother kept her stash of Raleigh cigarettes, and the room was the same where, on a water pipe, my grandfather Myer Brooks periodically recorded my ever-increasing height when I was a boy. Having lived across the street and spent many happy hours in my grandparent's house, I well remember many of these photographs.
My mother took custody of the collection after my grandparents died; she gave it to me many years later when she was in a nursing home in Falmouth. I went over the photographs with her during a period of several months and made notes about them. My mother was in her early 90s at the time, yet her memory was as good as it ever had been.
Most of the people pictured here are central to my grandmother's large extended family, blood relatives and in-laws of Joseph and Margaretta (Opici) Albertine, who came to this country from Italy in the late 19th century, lived for awhile in the North End of Boston, where my grandmother was born, and eventually settled in Ware, Massachusetts (and summered in Onset). Their children were Louisa -- Louise, my mother's mother -- and John, Louis, and Mary.
My grandfather Myer Brooks, whose original last name was Lubosky (sometimes spelled Lubovsky), came from Vilna, Lithuania, then part of Poland. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and met my grandmother in Ware. His brothers and sisters were Janet, Rose, Louis, Fanny, and Max.
My grandparent's children were Vivian (my mother), James (Jim), Dorothea (Dorothy, who died of rheumatic fever when she was seventeen), and Bernard (Bunny, who, unaccountably, is not pictured here).
Almost all of the photographs in my grandmother's collection are in this album. Those that aren't are several that were unidentifiable and are in a box elsewhere, a framed photo of my father, and two photographs I like so much that I have them on display in the house. The latter are of my grandfather, grandmother, and mother on a street corner, and of my grandmother and grandfather with a large crowd of other people at a businessmen's picnic. There were documents in the collection, too, all of which are in the archival collection maintained by my daughter Maureen (Miriam) Spectre, with the exception of: My grandfather's naturalization certificate; it is framed, on a wall in the house. A telegram sent by my Uncle Bunny to my grandparents, announcing the birth of his first daughter, Dorothy; I gave that to Dorothy. And a telegram from my father to my grandparents, announcing the birth of my brother David; I gave that to David.
This is a rare album -- photographs of the people my grandmother loved, identified for the record by my mother, who knew them all.
Now the Photographs:
1
Margareta (Oppici) Albertine with her sons Louis (left) and John (right).
2
Joseph Albertine, seated, my mother's grandfather, born in Italy, the patriarch of the family. Standing at right is Louis, his son. Man at left is unidentified. The scene is Onset. The gent standing at left could very well be son John. My mother couldn't say for sure because his face is in shadow.
3
Louise Albertine, my mother's mother, my grandmother, seated on bench. She was born Louisa Maria Rosa Albertine in 1884 in the North End of Boston not long after the family came to America. Known to her friends and family as Lou and sometimes Lulu. I don't know where #3 was taken. Looks to me as if it were one of those
setup scenes in a photographer's studio.
4
Margareta Albertine with unidentified grandchild.
5
Margareta Albertine. Here she looks much like my grandmother and mother at about the same age.
6
Margareta Albertine, seated right.
Front: Shirley Albertine, her granddaughter, my mother's cousin.
Standing left: My mother's Aunt Nellie (Buckley) Albertine, wife of Louis.
The three women standing in back next to Aunt Nellie are Girard sisters; their mother is sitting, left.
7
Myer (Lubosky, Lubovsky) Brooks, right, my mother's father. "He had the bluest eyes," my mother said. "They could scare you."
8
Myer Brooks, seated left.
9
Myer Brooks, seated right, with cigar. A stylish gentleman, he told me he took great pleasure in dressing as a "sport" when he was young.
10
Louise Albertine as a young woman, probably in Ware.
11
Myer Brooks as a young man, probably in Ware.
12
Two families together, Levy and Brooks.
Back row, left to right: Fanny Lubosky Levy, Myer Brooks's sister; [don't know first name] Levy, her husband; Myer Brooks, holding his son James; Louise Albertine Brooks.
Front row: Gertrude Levy; Dorothy Brooks, my mother's sister; Vivian Brooks, my mother; Jack Levy.
Fanny was the oldest in the Lubosky family. She eventually divorced Levy. My mother said she was married several times. "She was a belle," she said.
13
Dorothy Brooks, left; Vivian Brooks, her sister, right.
14
Dorothy Brooks.
15
James Brooks, my mother's brother. "He was the cutest baby you ever saw," my mother said.
16
Vivian Brooks.
17
Myer Brooks with James.
18
Vivian Brooks.
19
Vivian Brooks, left, with unidentified friend. On the back: "VB & MS South Barre Reservoir."
20
On back: "Vivian Brooks 1919 age 13 (Sept.)"
21
Vivian Brooks.
22
At Camp Cook, near Ware, a popular picnic spot. "Some are Buckley's, some are Girards," my mother said. Shirley Albertine on right.
23
Myer Brooks, S&H Green Stamps redemption store, Trenton, New Jersey, December 1913. For a time my grandfather went from city to city establishing redemption stores for Sperry & Hutchinson Company. Eventually he returned to Massachusetts and opened his own men's clothing stores in Ware, Barre, and Fitchburg.
24
Albertine cousins on the beach in Onset.
25
Vivian Brooks, left; her friend Marguerite Fitzgerald, right.
26
Front, left to right: Shirley Albertine, Dorothy Brooks, Vivian Brooks.
Rear, left to right: Fred Bombard, Myer Brooks, Ruth Albertine.
Fred Bombard was the son of Mary Albertine and Frederick Bombard.
27
Dorothy Brooks, front.
This photo and numbers 28 and 29 were taken at the Sisters Faithful Companions of Jesus convent school, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The time was not long before Dorothy died.
28
Dorothy Brooks, front.
29
Dorothy Brooks, middle.
30
Vivian Brooks, first communion.
31
Vivian Brooks, right.
On back: "South Barre Reservoir"
32
Tootsie Albertine, left. John Albertine's daughter.
Shirley Albertine, right. Louis Albertine's daughter.
33
Vivian Brooks on the beach in Onset, before she was married.
34
Shirley Albertine showing off her new hair style.
35
Shirley Albertine with unidentified baby.
36
Dorothy Brooks, right.
37
Dorothy Brooks, on the day of her confirmation, Sisters Faithful Companions of Jesus convent school, Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
38
James Brooks, my mother's brother, on the fire escape at Converse Hall, University of Vermont. I also attended UVM, though several decades later; my dorm was just down the hill from Converse Hall. James -- Uncle Jim to me -- only attended UVM for a year and then transferred to Boston University. I stayed and graduated.
39
James Brooks.
40
Family gathering at Camp Cook, Ware.
Myer Brooks, back row, far right. Next to him, Nellie Buckley Albertine. In front of him, second from right, his daughter Vivian Brooks. On Vivian's right, her mother, Louise Albertine Brooks.
The gent in the second row, left, with his cap sideways, is Louis Albertine.
The rest are various Albertines and Buckleys.
41
The house where Girard Albertine, son of Louis Albertine, grew up, Clinton Street, Ware. Girard was my mother's cousin and great friend. My mother couldn't identify the people in the photo -- too small.
42
John Albertine, my grandmother's brother, in Onset.
43
Nellie Buckley Albertine, my mother's aunt, wife of Louis Albertine. "She was a very severe person," my mother said.
44
Shirley and Girard Albertine. Girard's first name came from his mother's last name.
45-49
These photographs were taken at Green Harbor, Massachusetts, on the South Shore between Marshfield and Duxbury. The extended family was there at the time of the funeral of my grandmother's sister Mary Albertine Bombard, wife of Frederick Bombard. I'm not sure who owned the cottage -- probably the Bombards.
45
Girard Albertine
46
James Brooks standing. Shirley Albertine in hammock.
47
James Brooks
48
Family gathering, Green Harbor, 1921.
Myer Brooks, row two, left, in tank top. Louis Albertine Brooks next to him.