Thread: An Immigrant's Story Real American

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An Immigrant's Story

Published on 6/23/2005

Maria Da Leuz Faisca Piedade Rutty, nicknamed "Mamie," arrived in Old Saybrook from Portugal with her mother and sister in 1924; she's lived here ever since. But the story she wants to tell is one about the strength and independence of a woman, her mother, Isabel, the matriarch of the family and the first Portuguese immigrant in Old Saybrook. The Piedade family grew up in a house next to the railroad tracks across the street from Pat's Country Kitchen. Their father worked as a construction foreman, building roads around the state, coming home to Old Saybrook only on weekends once or twice a month. That left Isabel to earn her own living and manage the Piedade household by herself. As an accomplished seamstress, she made her living with a sewing business she operated out of her home. Each of her daughters also learned the trade and helped their mother while they were young by sewing buttonholes and attaching buttons and snaps; there were no zippers then, she remembers. Mamie still remembers that when she was in the Old Saybrook schools, the Town Hall Theatre was where she debuted in the school play (IT)Hansel and Gretl. "I was always picked to do this and that," she says. And at age 12, she remembers that she and her sister would sneak into the Town Hall Theatre to stand in the back and watch the famous actresses Ethel Barrymore and Norma Terris perform on stage. "We didn't have much money then," Mamie notes. She remembers, too, that the Town Hall theatre space was used for all kinds of school activities from boys' basketball to proms since the town did not have a gymnasium then. When World War II started in 1941, Isabel heeded the call to emulate Rosie the Riveter. She traded in her needle and thread for a hammer and nails and began to make wooden boxes for the war effort at a plant in Old Saybrook that was located where the McDonald's is now. To help her fellow Rosies, Isabel took on the task of altering pairs of men's dungarees to fit women, providing a practical work outfit for the local women who now discarded their dresses to work at men's jobs. By scrimping and saving the little money Isabel made from her sewing and later from making boxes, Isabel bought houses in foreclosure sales for $500 or $1,000 each. She then rented out the houses to those less fortunate than she and didn't demand payment if the family in the home couldn't pay. After a few years, Isabel owned 11 houses in town. "If a house she bought needed a new septic system, my mother dug it herself with a pick-ax. If it needed a chimney, she built it," remembers Mamie. Like many good investors, after holding these homes for a few years, Isabel then sold some of the houses for a profit. Like her mother, Mamie also began working at a young age, doing sewing alterations as a seamstress at the Sage-Allen store and later at Thurstons. At 17, she and Norm Rutty eloped to Massachusetts because Mamie's father didn't approve and wanted her to return to Portugal to live and marry. But Mamie obviously made the right choice since she has now been married to Norman for 66 years. She and her husband still remember the day in September 1938 when the hurricane hit Old Saybrook. "It was a ferocious windy day," says Norman. Mamie was working at Sage-Allen that day doing sewing alterations and remembers the whole staff using towels and rags to try to keep out the sheets of rain and water. Eventually, the manager closed the store and Mamie walked home. Norm, who was working in Ivoryton at Pratt Read then, remembers driving home from work that afternoon in his Model A by crossing through people's yards since the streets were blocked by trees and downed poles. In the early years of their marriage, Mamie and Norm operated a diner in town and then later parked their Snack Mobile at the town beach, serving as the first concessionaire for the Town Beach. The two of them also ran the Ideal Food Store on Main Street, which was open until 1969 when supermarket competition caused them to close their doors. Norm then went into construction and Mamie became a stay-at-home mom. Their only son, Skip, went through the Old Saybrook schools, too; residents probably know him best now as a member of the local band, Roger Goodnow and Friends. Today, Mamie spends at least four hours each day tending her extensive flower garden outside her home near the town center. Blooming throughout the year on her one-acre plot are many bushes of hydrangeas, rhododendrons, peonies, and spirea, mixed together with perennials like poppies and day lilies. Two years ago she dried many of her hydrangea blossoms and sold them in arrangements at the store Luxe in town. "I'm so fortunate. I love Old Saybrook. I love this country," says Mamie.

Nice story....millions like them from that era!

She "loves this country"....yep....it was pretty good to her, too, buying all those homes at foreclosure...so I wonder where those people moved to?