Whenever the subject of Mary Cafarella came up between my sister and myself, she always said that she always dreamed of being as pretty as Mary.
Mary spent many years working in the family store, and always said that she did not see much of the world when she was doing that. But, I will be willing to wager that she was well known in the neighborhood while working there. When she was older, she worked in the Malden courthouse.
I only knew Mary in her nineties. She was very gracious to me when I visited, though I had not know her all my life. She lived in one of the houses that her father, Tom(Gaetano) built on Chester Street in Malden. Her back door looked out onto another house on Sterling Street, also built by her family. Her father's brothers and sister all lived very close to each other on the present site of the stadium and on Judson Street. They all had small community stores all over the area. one right where the present Malden Center MTA station now stands.
In later years, as she was more and more confined to the house, she was often visited by her brother, and her many nipoti.
When I called my sister in the wilds of northern Maine, all she could say was, "That is the end of my dream to be as beautiful as Mary Cafarella".
