Grey Collins, Sophomore
To students at MHS, it would feel like a dream to ice skate through Seaside Park, go to the Warwick movie theater for a dollar, and have pep rally parades through downtown, but to lifelong Marbleheader Marie Breen, it was a childhood reality. “We’d skate through the whole park,” said Marie about how the firefighters would spray water over the entire park so kids could ice skate. “You could start up the hill behind the grandstand and you could come all the way down and skate through the whole park.”
The daughter of a local firefighter and crossing guard, Marie grew up in Marblehead, attended Star of the Sea Parochial School, and graduated from MHS in 1967.
Marie recounted her many fond memories of growing up in Marblehead. “The band would lead us into town and we’d get on Washington Street and nobody honked the horn for us to get out of the way. They all tooted and cheered for us so it was really different then, and there was a lot of spirit in the town.”
She spoke about everything from Friday night dances to being a hockey cheerleader, when they did all their cheering on skates, to passing notes in study hall. “Study halls were fun, you could pass notes and stuff,” said Marie, who later became an elementary school teacher herself. “We had no phones, we just had notes to pass. You passing a note? No,no,no,no,no,no. That was the most trouble we got into. I have a phone now and I can’t stand it.”
Marie also talked about how she thinks that teenagers and their community have changed. “Kids today have way too much on their plate. They have to think all this politically correct stuff. It doesn’t seem like they have a happy-go-lucky feeling. They seem to have a lot of weight on their shoulders.”
Marie, who grew up in the shipyard area of Marblehead, reminisced about her tightknit community and about one neighbor in particular. “Millie was a neighbor and she’d get out on the steps every day when it was high tide, and she’d watch out for everybody swimming there,” said Marie, about her neighbor that Millie’s Steps down to the water were named after. “Get off that rope, that’s not your boat, don’t touch it, and don’t dive off of here, the water isn’t deep enough, you’re gonna hurt yourself. So Millie was like a mother hen… and she really took care of you.”
Marie believes that this kind of tightknit community is becoming hard to find. “I feel like these days there’s not really that sense of community. Like nobody really knows the people that are living around them. Neighbors don’t talk like they used to.”
Marie shared her advice for high schoolers of today. “Be nice. Be patient. And just try to understand that everyone has their opinions. I think that you have to be open to listen and be accepting. And slow down.”