Small Houses, Big Families

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 – one bed her older brothers shared, and the other she shared with her parents.

Alzada’s father Louis passed away in 1944 when Alzada was 17, and soon after, Alzada’s brother Frank married her best friend Betty and moved back into the Weaver family home, where they had two daughters, Susan Irene and Cynthia Ann, by the end of 1950. Alzada’s brother Joe also moved in with his wife Johanna and their little daughter Joan in the late 1940s, and their son Robert was born while they lived there.

This was not a big house, so the living room was converted into a bedroom for Frank and Betty; Joe and Johanna took one of the bedrooms; and Alzada, who never slept alone, continued sharing the other bedroom with her mother Susan. Joe and his family lived there until Frank officially bought the Weaver home in the early 1950s.

Three days before their wedding in February 1950, Alzada and Irving rented an apartment on the third floor of a house on Durfee Street. There were times early in their marriage when they would put two weeks’ rent down on an apartment with no idea where they’d get the next two weeks’ rent, but Alzada and Irving never felt deprived because there was so much joy in their house from the beginning, so much activity and laughter.

Alzada was pregnant and quickly grew tired of climbing three flights of stairs, so they moved in with Irving’s parents, where their very first child, Steven Thomas Cross, was born in October 1950.

Irving, an electrician by trade, had to go where the work was, so their small but growing family moved around a lot in the beginning. He was on a job in Connecticut when their second child – me – Deborah Ann Cross – was born in January of 1952. We moved in with Alzada’s mother, Susan, our Nana, while Irving found us a place to live in Connecticut, and almost as soon as the job ended and we’d moved back to Fall River, Irving found his next job – in New Jersey.

“And I moved to New Jersey with the two babies!” Alzada said. “I felt like, where he goes, I go. Wherever his work takes him, then that’s where I’ll be.”

Alzada and Irving’s third child, Pamela Jean Cross, was born in July 1954, and their fourth, David Alan Cross, in October 1958.

When David was one, Irving and Alzada purchased what would become the Cross Family “forever home” on Little Neck Island in Swansea, Massachusetts. Their fifth child, Brian Jay Cross, arrived in 1960, followed by their sixth and last child, Dana Bradford Cross, in October 1962.

“We had six kids and only one bathroom! I never pushed Irving that we needed a bigger house. We stayed in the house that we could afford,” Alzada said. “It’s a small house, but to us, it didn’t feel small.”

Alzada still lives in the Cross Family home.

Alzada (pregnant with Pamela), Deborah & Steven

Alzada's Best Friend Betty

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!

However, if it weren’t for World War II, Betty might’ve married a different brother. You see, Betty first went on a few dates with Joe, the middle Weaver child, who then joined the service, and while he was gone, Betty and Frank, the eldest Weaver child, happened to fall in love.

Don’t worry about Joe, though – he married a Scottish girl named Johanna Kelly after the war.

Soon after Betty and Frank were married, they moved into the Weaver family home with Susan and Alzada (and at one point, Joe and Johanna, too!) – where both of their children were born – Susan Irene and Cynthia Ann.

At Alzada and Irving’s small church parlor wedding on February 17, 1950, Frank was Irving’s best man and Betty was Alzada’s maid of honor.

Betty and Alzada remained close friends until Betty passed away at age 55 in 1981.

Lipstick

My Nana, Susan, was a strict and protective mother, and her only daughter Alzada was forbidden to date or wear makeup until long after her friends had begun to do so.

As a teenager in the mid 1940s, Alzada worked at the corner drug store behind the soda fountain, and ALL of the other girls wore lipstick back then.

But Alzada had to be sneaky, and she would put on her lipstick only after she had left the house.

Nana caught on one day when she arrived at the drugstore to escort Alzada home and discovered that her daughter was wearing bright-red lipstick.

“You wipe that right off,” she demanded angrily, but Alzada got up her courage and adamantly refused.

At home, Susan complained loudly to her oldest son, Alzada’s brother Frank, whose opinions she valued.

“Just look at her, your sister! She has makeup on her face!”

Frank caught his sister’s eye for one millisecond and then crowed to his mother, “Well, fine! It’s about time!”

And that was the end of that – Nana never again scolded Alzada for wearing makeup.

Conflagration

My mother Alzada’s earliest and most vivid memory goes back to when she was just 18 months old.

On the record-freezing night of February 2, 1928, she huddled in her mother Susan’s arms in their Durfee Street home, gagging on thick smoke, crying in terror, as the Great Fire of Fall River ravaged the city.

The fire began in the Pocasset Mills and rapidly roared into a widespread inferno. Toxic fumes blanketed the city, and howling winds hampered all efforts.

In just eight hours the conflagration demolished five city blocks, leveled 36 buildings, and most of its businesses, including its five banks, three theatres, three hotels, two newspaper plants, the Post office, and twelve office buildings – all this at a time when the economy was already struggling.

“I could feel my mother trembling,” Alzada said, recalling how she clung to her mother, while her older brothers, William (age 5) and Frank (age 10) stood close, fearful as they watched the disaster blazing around them.

What a traumatizing moment that must have been for a toddler, to palpably feel the terror of her mother as her whole world was engulfed in smoke and flames. I wonder if this early trauma in part influenced my mother’s intuitively protective nature.

Throughout our lives, all six of us Cross children have always had an inner knowing that we were protected from harm, and I will always be grateful for the safety and comfort she surrounded us with.