Where it all began...
Though taken about twenty years before VJ Day, this photo of the Boston Common shows, on the right, the Park Street subway kiosks where Charles Spataro sold newspapers. Near the ornate fountain on our left you can see a line of benches. It was on one of those benches where Spataro sat, waiting for his shift to begin on VJ Day, August 15, 1945, when a woman approached and asked him to watch her infant.
From the 1947 Boston Latin yearbook
Newsboy Charles Spataro, from his Boston Latin yearbook. Not for nothing, but Latin was a tough school, and this kid also worked. We were impressed.
Not quite yet...
The August 22, 1945 Boston Record front page featured Nurse Barbara Dayson taking Little Mister Victory's weight. However, the caption was wrong. The baby would not be transferred into state care for another five days. This was just one of many reports in the two weeks after his abandonment that were either partly - or wholly - incorrect which would send us down several dead ends.
Foster homes
In the first five years of his life Robert Harrington (as he was named by the state) lived in three foster homes. His departure from the first two were shrouded in mystery, until our research uncovered several harsh and troubling truths. Robert's last foster home was in Pembroke, where he lived with Harold and Cora Bouvier. This loving couple fostered many children from the 1930s to 1950s.
Robert's new parents
WW2 Navy veteran John Garvey and his wife, Dorothy (in the center of this picture) had been married for about ten years when they applied to adopt a child. In 1950, five year-old Robert Harrington would become Robert Garvey and begin his life in Boston.
The ad for the restaurant
Around the time they adopted Robert the couple would buy this restaurant in Melrose.
Garvey's Restaurant
Robert's first parade?
Robert's first parade?
Tina challenged us to find a picture of her family's restaurant in Melrose. Whoever found it first was promised a plate of cookies. That was all the incentive we needed! The only picture found was one featuring the building for Transitone, makers of state-of-the-art transistors in the 1950s, but which shows, across the street, the front entrance to Garveys.
Robert's first parade?
Robert's first parade?
Robert's first parade?
From his DCF file, we know that on June 17, 1950 Dorothy Garvey would take Robert to Charlestown for the Bunker Hill Day Parade 1950. It is noteworthy this picture of "The Rascal King" was placed at the top of the Boston Globe article on the parade. Though he had been voted out of office a year earlier, the loudest cheers from parade-goers still erupted when Curley passed.