Milford Daily News
Hometown parade: Portuguese Picnic draws thousands
By Sara Withee / News Staff Writer
Monday, July 19, 2004
MILFORD — Thousands of people filled Prospect Heights this weekend to eat,
drink and be merry at the annual Portuguese Picnic.
The Portuguese Club’s two-day festival — a Milford tradition since
1918 — began Saturday afternoon with music, smoked meats and games,
thengathered again yesterday for the annual parade, where this year’s mayor,
John Derderian, saluted the masses.
“It was a wonderful experience coming up Water Street, coming down
Prospect Heights,” said Derderian, 55. “It reminded me of my childhood and
coming to the picnic with my family.”
Derderian is the 44th mayor to be elected by the Prospect Heights
Mayors Association. In this position, Derderian will organize the annual
mayors’ reunion in October and spearhead community outreach efforts.
Mayors must have lived part of their youth in the brick row houses the
former Draper Corp. of Hopedale built around 1900 for its workers and
represent one of the area’s five major nationalities: Portuguese, Armenian,
Irish, Italian or Polish.
“I was very honored to be asked,” said Derderian, who is Portuguese and
Armenian.
Yesterday’s parade left Sacred Heart Church on East Main Street at 2
p.m. Milford selectmen Chairman John Seaver and his 10-month-old daughter
Cristina rode in on one of the first floats with Miss Portuguese Community
Mara Lage, 18.
Lage, the second person to hold the title, was joined by Lisa
Goncalves, 16, first runner-up of the February pageant and second runner-up
Liliana Dafonte, 18.
Derderian and a dozen former mayors arrived at the Portuguese Club on
the parade’s last float, then began enjoying the beef stew, tripe and
sardines.
“It’s quite a celebration, a little piece of Americana,” state Rep.
Marie Parente, D-Milford, said.
“It gets better every year,” said Al Azevedo, 61, of Milford, the 1997
Prospect Heights mayor.
Azevedo, who is Portuguese, Albanian and Irish, said the two-day
festival is a chance to reunite with childhood friends with whom he played
outside and shared meals as their parents tried to get by in their new
country.
“We all took care of one another, our parents took care of one
another,” Azevedo said.
Azevedo said he always leaves the celebration with a strong feeling
about his past. “No matter where you go, the people who grew up here,
they’re always here for you,” Azevedo said.
Joseph Lopes, the 1971 Prospect Heights mayor, recalled his youth and
agreed, saying, “There was a level of trust in the community. Very few
people ever locked their doors.”
Fellow former mayor Joe Oneshuck, 70, said he never fully understood
that trust as a child and remembers questioning his father whenever he heard
him talking to a neighbor who spoke a language the family didn’t know.
“He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what they say, I know what they mean.’
They were all in the same situation. They were trying to raise a family.
They were trying to survive,” said Oneshuck, the 1975 mayor.
Oneshuck said he sees the same plight among today’s Prospect Heights’
residents.
“They’re going through the same things with their children as our
parents did,” he said. “They’re all trying to work their way up in society.”
But Lopes noted the melting pot has seen some changes.
“Milford has a lot of Brazilians and Hispanics,” Lopes said. “These
people are the new wave of immigrants. They pretty much represent what our
families did in those times.”
( Sara Withee can be reached at 508-634-7546 or [email protected] )