The End of An Era:Samuel’s Pharmacy to Close After Legendary History

Samuels Pharmacy, previously known as B. N. Samuels Pharmacy, Inc. Rexall Store was originally owned by Keven Brown as one of two stores owned by him in Winthrop by the same name as the one on Winthrop St. and was located diagonally across the tracks of the Narrow Gauge Railroad, Barney & Bess Samuels moved from Lynn with their young son and bought the store and his brother Charlie, also a pharmacist, went to work for him. They were living at 42 Tileston Rd when I was born. When the present building was built by Mr. Sneider, Barney moved the store and Woolworths 5 & 10 took the larger part. The alley between that building and the next one had a tailor and Fred Polsinetti (sp?) had a barber shop. Got my first haircut and subsequent ones until I left town 15 cents. Finally went up to 25 cents.About1936 they bought 114 Circuit Rd. (I was 3). Soon Sam Kane and Mike Ferrara came to work in the store. In 1938 the store was remodeled in rt deco and the homemade ice cream machine in the middle of the floor was removed. . The first A/C in the town. Water driven. Charlie had met Jess, who worked in the store and had a son, Donnie, from a previous marriage. She was to become his "Aunt Jess" and he :Cousin Donnie" when he returned from the navy after WWII. Bess ran the cosmetics department and luncheonette. In spite of being deaf, she sold so much cosmetics that companies such as Helena Rubenstein, Revlon and others sent cosmeticians to teach, by appointment, women how to apply cosmetics. They came from Winthrop, Revere, Eastie etc. In December, 1941, Gordon Fullerton called Barney and asked if he would buy the torpedo backed maroon Fleet Line Chevy from his dealership on Putnam St. a day early so he could enlist in the military the next day. Good thin, FDR stopped all auto sales that night. My teacher asked if I could arrange for her to have a ride as she had a ride in a car like that. After the war, Dad bought a Studebaker from a pop-up dealer who wanted no trades. Fortunate. Police Chief Pumphret (spelling?) need a car. I ran into his grandson recently, working at Fidelity, who told me for many years the family kept that car down the Cape and it became black. Just finally junked in the last couple of years. The old Winthrop Community Hospital had no pharmacy so rotated monthly with all the drugstores in town. 14 at one point. Became too wieldy. Trustees had a meeting and one woman on the board related a story of how her baby was teething and crying and needed a 5 cent 1 oz bottle of tincture paregoric to rub on the gums. Called Barney at home at one in the morning. He said "OK" but would not meet her at the store but at his front porch (summertime) on Tileston Rd. She got mixed up and kept looking for him on Girdlestone Rd. Finally found him waiting at 3:00 am. That story gave him the votes to become the exclusive pharmacy for the hospital. A woman named Pauline was a real estate agent who always parked he Fraser car in front of the park where the RR station used to be Drove Dad wild. Said all merchants should park on Veterans to leave customers parking.. First National was across the street. Dad's store closed a midnight except 1 am Friday and Saturday because First National and "Fibbed" closed at 12. After closing we often went to Scolly Sq. for JOE & NEMO for five cent hotdog or next to "GE" bridge in Revere for the best fried clams, French fries and fried onion rings ever. A few doors to the left of FN was a building that held Winthrop Trust on the left as you walked in and Winthrop Saving Bank on the right side. All deposits and withdrawals were done by hand and entered in your passbook. Banking commission finally said each should have their own building and the building was built to the left, I went first to the Center School, a wooden building. Then to the E. B. Newton, to the Jr. High. Playground was a dried up fish pond.Then The high school was to the left of Miler Field. Had no scoreboard for ball games until one was built with the name "B. N. SAMUELS PHARMACY on it.Last few years the store had CROSLEY cars painted white with store name, telephone number and image of a telephone number on it. I got a call at Bates college in the spring of 1952 to bring the one I had at school to bring it home as the store was being sold to Bob. Lots of other memories of Winthrop, but time to go now,
Marty Samuels