In Pictures: Back in the Day ...

From Alice Rice to the turkey raffle at Brown's Market, these photos from The Cricket's archive take us back to the 1960s and 70s.

Alice Rice of Floyd’s Candy on Central Street (today J. McLaughlin). She sold penny candy and comic books in her general store, so she was a legend and a rite of passage for decades of local children growing up in Manchester. Her son, Fred Rice, was an accomplished gardener, landscape designer, and the face of the North Shore Horticultural Society’s annual plant auction.

Photo: Dick Towle

This one is seasonally appropriate. The Brown brothers (Anthony, Ted, and Speros) at Brown’s Market on Beach Street, readying a live turkey for a Thanksgiving customer giveaway.

Photo: Dick Towle

The opening of the Parkhurst Garage on Summer Street (now M&T Bank) in Manchester. Second from left is George Parkhurst, Sr., and we’re told the gentleman on the far right is Ed Jasiak.

Photo: Dick Towle

Bruce Leseine, a.k.a., “Captain Dusty,” in front of his namesake fish market on Beach Street, down the street from Manchester Seafood. The shop was later purchased by Lee Gates and today it's a popular ice cream shop.

Photo: Dick Towle

Serving under General Patton in WWII, Major Thomas Hurley was one of Manchester’s most notable veterans. His father was a gardener on Coolidge Point. His brother, Bill, was a Manchester policeman. For decades, his sister, Pat Jackson, recited “In Flanders Field” every Memorial Day at Rosedale Cemetery.

Photo: John F, Hurley

Bob Flanders, proprietor of Manchester Seafoods on Central Street who ran the business with his wife, Vi. The couple taught young Pete Willwerth how to boil and pick lobsters, skin fillets, chip blocks of ice, and set up the showcase just so.

Photo: Dick Towle

At first, this image is a puzzler. But village residents in the 1960s report this gentleman was a familiar door-to-door knife sharpener!

Photo: Dick Towle

This 1974 photo of Manchester’s Norm Crombie ran as part of a Ruthanne Collinson profile in the Gloucester Daily Times.

Photo: Ruthanne Collinson

Posted Monday, February 17, 2025 12:24 pm

“Life back then” in Manchester, or anywhere one might suppose, looked a whole lot different in the 1960s and 70s. The archive of the Manchester Cricket’s newspaper has been digitized, but the photographs taken mostly by Manchester’s Richard “Dick” Towle for the paper, remain as “negatives.” (That’s “film” for those born after 1980).

Enjoy. And feel free to contact us with additional details on anyone here: news@thecricket.com