If you discount the lawn-mowing, and snow-shoveling seasonal gigs, and my 4 summers as a volunteer teacher aid in the old Head Start program, the very first real job I ever had was working for this man.
Joe, and the immigrants surrounding him (us) reinforced a work ethic presented by my old man. He was supporting his young and growing family on a high school diploma, working swing shift in the factory and a second job at a gas station, while putting himself through school. Joe, and his people fought just as hard, usually harder because it was the Sixties and they were “Portagees”. Yeah, my old man’s collar was blue, and that put us all in the same league.
I went to work for Joe in 1972 as a bag boy. Stuck with him through a wildcat strike, met the man, learned lessons about responsibility and duty, and so much more. By the time I left Joe in 1976 to pursue my radio dreams I was a cashier (”checker” in Left Coast Lingo), an old-timer with a feeling of personal responsibility for my store. To this day I cannot walk down a supermarket aisle and pass a fallen item without stopping to place it back on the shelf. Holly has come to accept it the way one accommodates an only slightly daft aunt.
Joe was never too big to be one of us and very few who worked for him ever missed out on occasional invitations to his family home in Norton, Massachusetts. At one point a crowd of us all participated in Joe’s first attempt at television advertising, and appeared in the commercial. I still have the check for $1.00 which I keep in an old scrap book, along with a personal note from Joe thanking me for sticking with him during that wildcat strike.
When last I heard of my co-workers; one is a chief of police in that city; another is an officer in the fire department…there is a professor out there too and the rest I have lost contact with. But we all worked for Joe and were part of the family… all “Portagees”…. and there was plenty an Irishman included in that description!
Joe Fernandes was one hell of a “Portagee”. God bless him.
Hello Mark,
I dont know if I know you, although I did go to AHS till 1980 with a David Williams, but regarding Joe Fernandes: my Dad Freddy Bosh worked for him too. He was a maintenence man, doing what ever needed doing: pipes, asphalt, and a proud “Portugee” too, as I am. It was nice to read your memories. I was only 12 when my Dad died in 1974. Joe’s markets were ‘tha bomb’ back them, eh? Thank you for writing in to the GB.
Terry Bosh
Sterling, VA
Thanks Terry… That David Williams you went to school with was probably my brother, he and his family live in Michigan now. You, your late dad and I probably do know each other. I worked the Attleboro store from early 1972 until early 1976 (graduated AHS in 1974).
Fernandes Supermarkets were like a big family. I can still remember the celebration at our store the first day we cracked 100k in sales. LOL! The Safeway and Raley’s we shop at now here probably do that just in the15-items or less aisle alone.
Good to hear from you Terry!
Mark Williams
Mark, what a fantastic blog you posted. I am the granddaughter of Rose (and the late) Egidio Fernandes, and a cousin of now the late Joe Fernandes. Its so touching to see that the news of his passing has affected technically those across the United States. Although I was young when Fernandes Supermarket was sold, I think I too have that innate sense in me to pick things up when I see them lying on the floor of a store. I still drive by what was the Fernandes supermarket (now Ashmont Hardware) in Norton and reminisce.
Sincerely,
Melissa Fernandes
North Attleboro, MA
Thanks Melissa. Holly & I send our condolences and prayers to you and the entire Fernandes family. I am proud to have worked for Joe Fernandes and to this day tell stories on the radio of his, and the Portuguese work ethic and family values that I grew up with but did not truly appreciate until much later in life.
To this day that work and family ethic is the yardstick by which I measure myself, someday I hope to meet the standard set.
All my best,
Mark Williams
I started working for Joe as a bag boy when I was 16 years old in the 1960s.
My greatest memory of Joe was when he went out all alone to mingle with a large group of striking employees that had gathered in front of his corporate offices in Norton during a long and very bitter strike
he spoke the truth, we did not listen and I am sorry for that
r spaulding
I remember those days like they were yesterday. Jack Isbister from the Meat-cutters Union led the take over of our independent… we had a pretty healthy treasury and the guys who ran the International back in the day wanted to get their mitts on it. Dave Honey and a few others tried to stop him and some of us managed to keep some stores open during the wildcat… in fact, to picket the Attleboro Store they had to bus paid union goons in from New Bedford because we had a nearly 100% workforce….despite a strike “headquarters” set up in an RV in our parking lot.
I drove a ‘66 Buick Electra in those days. 401 cu in engine, all kinds of dents and bangs, thing weighed in like an SUV and had to be 16 feet long or better and a muffler that I kept barely legal with bondo and pieces of storm drain gutter from the house. I got a real kick out of making those guys from New Bedford scatter when they thought like I would actually stop if they blocked the parking lot. Amazing how fast a fat guy can move, with an accelerating Buick coming at them, with a crazed looking teenager behind the wheel. Left my tire marks on a couple of picket signs they lost along the way LOL!
By that big strike you mentioned hit us, the International had moved in, the Chicago Mob had our money. You might remember those “votes” led by Jack at the old Roseland Ballroom in Taunton. The ones where we “voted” to accept the “loans” from Chicago to pay for the strike they (the union) forced. The notes on those “loans” became due with typical shylock speed and effect. It was only a couple of more years before they bled us dry, and then Joe, to the point where he had to sell and, for the first time in the comapny’s history, people lost their jobs.
We didn’t know what we had.
All my best!
Mark Williams
Another day I will never forget, Do you remember the union meeting when we voted to hire Jack Isbister as our agent. Just before the vote took place a lone man got up and questioned if we realy needed a buisness agent. He was quickly shouted down by a multitude of the membership. I dont know who he was but as i look back he was the smartest man in the room. god bless him.
I left the chain in 1974, I have worked at the same non union shop for the past 33 years
Several times over the years the unions have tried to gain a foothold in our shop.
When they try I aways speak of what happened at Fernades
thanks
r spaulding
I do remember that meeting. A lot of those guys yelling him down weren’t even members of our union, or worked for Fernandes either. They were brought in to make sure that things went smoothly in the take-over..There was a lot of money at stake in our treasury.
I never did find out which family put things in place. All connected-union business in New England at the time was under the control of Raymond LS Patriarca Sr, and any other family who wanted to operate in the region had to give Ray his cut.
I never have sat down to do the research necessary to speak with any great authority on the particulars of what was going on, but one of the most definitive books on the history of the Mob and Unions is “Mobsters, Unions and the Feds” by James Jacobs. He says that the Meatcutters Union was “a branch office” for the Mob and goes on to detail connections between the union and several families.
Those guys there to back Jack were likely two things: (1) from out of the area, probably on loan from Carmine Galante (the Bonanno Family and who was taken out by the Commission via shotgun blast in 1979) (2)prepared to back him by doing a lot more than just shouting people down.
I believe that wildcat strike was the warning shot fired at Joe, who I think was probably refusing to pay his “anti-strike insurance” premiums. It also “drained” our treasury and opened the door to “help” from the International in the form of “loans”….. in otherwords, they stole our money, then shylocked us. Joe saw were things were going and sold.
Today that same union is part of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCWU).