In 1944, aged 17 and newly graduated from Durfee High School, Alzada went to work at the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, where she helped make gas tanks. Her schedule was rough – two weeks of day shifts followed by two weeks of night shifts –and she never got enough sleep but, somehow, she still managed an active social life (and plenty of dates).
Soon after, Alzada went to work at the real estate office of Pierre Ouelette, and just a few years later, she was working two jobs – as a sales clerk in the R.A. Wilcox stationery store and behind the soda fountain at the corner drugstore. It was in the drugstore, in 1949, at age 23, that Alzada met the man that would change her life — Irving Cecil Cross — my dad.
Alzada and Irving were married in 1950, and for almost 15 years, mom’s primary job was raising six kids.
Then, in 1964, nearly 40 years old, mom accidentally started a whole new career at Raytheon, an industrial military and commercial electronics manufacturer headquartered in Massachusetts.
“I had always talked about work,” Alzada said. “Irving worked as an electrician on construction, and he could go in one day and be laid off at any time if the job came to an end, and he could not afford to go on unemployment because we wouldn’t be able to survive with the kids.”
“I asked him if it would be helpful for me to work, [so that] if he got laid off, he could go on unemployment, and he always answered [with a] no. He didn’t want me to work.”
“But, when Dana was four years old, there was an ad in the paper, and I said – ‘Gee, Irving, can I go try to get this job? It’s working 4:30 to 11 at night. I would be with Brian and Dana all day and would be home early enough to be able to get up and take care of them the next day.’ – and he said OK.”
“He figured I wouldn’t get the job, that’s why he was so agreeable. But I went and I got the job and I worked there 20 years as a mechanical assembler.”
For 20 years my mom worked second shift so that she could watch the kids and keep up with housework during the day, and then prepare dinner for her hungry brood. I got to help her when I returned home from school in the afternoon, and then Dad would take over.
My mother said there were times early in their marriage when she and my father put two weeks’ rent down on an apartment with no idea where they would get the other two weeks’ rent. She marvels that even so, she never felt deprived because there was so much joy in our house from the beginning, so much activity and laughter.
My parents loved to be together, and my mother was amazed at what a great father and husband my dad was. Every day he was sure to tell mom how lucky she was to be married to him. He made her laugh, but it was true. They were both lucky.
Alzada’s earliest and most vivid memory is from when she was just 18 months old. On the freezing-cold night of Feb. 2, 1928, she huddled in her mother’s arms in their Durfee Street home, crying and gagging on smoke, as the Great Fire of Fall River ravaged the city.
Alzada was subjected to a daily hairdressing ordeal she grew to hate. Susan spent a lot of time fussing over her daughter’s hair, using her fingers to form big, thick banana curls that were in style at the time. This ritual took place every single morning for years.
Little Alzada much preferred her dad's fun, free-spirited Weaver relatives to her mom's more formal, proper Gifford relatives. Mom loved her aunts and uncles on both sides, but as a child, she felt most at home with her down-to-earth Weaver extended family.
Alzada has a beautiful singing voice, and when she was in elementary school, she sang a solo in front of her class, a popular song at the time called, "When I Grow Too Old to Dream." It was an odd choice for a child, as it’s very mature and emotional – for a 10-year-old, at least.
Alzada's mother Susan was strict and protective. Alzada was her only daughter, and was forbidden to date or wear makeup until long after her friends began to do so. All of the other girls wore lipstick back then, in the mid-1940s, but Alzada had to be sneaky.
We don't have a single photo of Irving before he was driving a car – no happy baby pictures, no adorably awkward school photos, no Christmas postcards with his sisters. We’re very lucky, however, to have a copy of Irving’s ninth-grade report card from Henry Ford Junior High School.
Growing up, Alzada regularly visited her Grandmother Alzada’s gravesite, and she often saw her grandmother’s beautiful face in the one treasured photo that exists – and yet, there was no denying that Alzada Estes Weaver Cross positively HATED her first name.
Alzada's BFF Betty was born Barbara Elizabeth Wise on September 26, 1926 in Fall River. Their friendship began at Durfee High School, from which they graduated in 1944, and by the end of the ‘40s, Betty would also become Alzada’s sister-in-law – and roommate!
Alzada and Irving were attracted to each other at first sight. It was 1949 and Alzada, age 23, was working the soda fountain at the corner drugstore in Fall River. One day, a handsome pinball-playing customer caught her eye, and the rest is history.
Irving and Alzada became Mr. and Mrs. Cross on Friday, February 17, 1950. It was a freezing cold day, but the temperature doesn’t matter when you’re so much in love, and you don’t need fancy proposals and expensive frills to get married.
Though she didn’t know it at the time, Alzada’s adolescence prepared her for her future role as the mother of a big family in a small house. When Alzada was growing up there were only two beds in their small Fall River home at 733 New Boston Road.
Alzada was always a reluctant but willing victim. She would try anything. Consider the first (and LAST) time she tried to ski. It was the 1960s and we were at King Pine in Madison, NH, a family-friendly ski house with all-you-can-eat bacon for breakfast.
Irving would enter us Cross kids into track meets, even though we had no formal training whatsoever. What we did have in abundance was love and encouragement from both of our parents — and the chance to shine.
Irving was the ringleader of all the fun we had together as a family — the camping trips, the road trips, the track meets, the crazy driving around in parking lots – and Alzada was always right there with us, our biggest cheerleader – most of the time.
When our youngest brother Dana was four years old, our Mom, who was approaching 40, began a whole new career as a mechanical assembler at Raytheon, working second shift for two decades, all while being a full-time wife and mother of six children.
Irving was a kind and helpful person by nature, and during the hitchhiking craze of the 1960s–70s, he gave many different folks a lift. The most memorable and oft-told instance occurred in the summer of 1966.
There we were – me in a wheelchair and Grammy moving at the same glacial pace. With family frolicking in the pool, we both took the chance. Neither of us prepared for it, we ventured in anyway, fully clothed.
A self-aware perfectionist, Irving was no stranger to poor self-esteem and overwhelming anxiety, and we're fortunate to have a copy of the 17 handwritten affirmations he often recited to himself to deal with negative thoughts and feelings.
Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022 | Good morning, everyone. We are here today to honor Alzada’s passing and to celebrate her wonderful life – a life that touched and inspired us in so many different ways.
