FROG HOLLOW
HartfordBooks
HartfordBooks is a book series that seeks to rediscover Hartford’s philosophies, people large and small, history, and culture. The series is supported by the University of Hartford, Wesleyan University Press, and Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
SUSAN CAMPBELL
Frog Hollow
STORIES FROM AN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD
Wesleyan University Press | Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
© 2019 Susan Campbell
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill
Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro
This book is part of HartfordBooks, a series developed through a partnership of Wesleyan University Press and the University of Hartford, and supported by Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
wesleyan.edu/wespress/hartfordbooks
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Campbell, Susan, 1959– author.
Title: Frog Hollow: stories from an American neighborhood / Susan Campbell.
Description: Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018033857 (print) | LCCN 2018034562 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819578556 (ebook) | ISBN 9780819576200 (cloth: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—History—Anecdotes. | Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—Social life and customs—Anecdotes. | Frog Hollow (Hartford, Conn.)—Biography—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—History—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—Social life and customs—Anecdotes. | Hartford (Conn.)—Biography—Anecdotes.
Classification: LCC F104.H3 (ebook) | LCC F104.H3 C27 2019 (print) | DDC 974.6/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033857
5 4 3 2 1
Title page image: Zion Street at Russ Street. April 6, 1996. Tony DeBonee Collection, Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library
Dedication page image: Family portrait of Constance Schiavone
Front cover illustration: Zion Street at Russ Street, April 6, 1996, by Tony DeBonee, courtesy of Hartford History Center.
FOR CONSTANCE HARTNETT SCHIAVONE, a beautiful Irish colleen—and my mother-in-law—who told the best Hartford stories, ever
Contents
AUTHOR’s NOTE | In Which the Author Explains, Why Write a Book? | ix
INTRODUCTION | In Which the Author Explains, Why Frog Hollow? | xi
1. THE DIFFICULT DREAM | The Babcocks Dig a Well and Launch a Newspaper | 1
3. A DREAM OF SOCIAL ORDER | The Government Segregates a Neighborhood | 39
5. TO BE RECOGNIZED | The Children of Frog Hollow Find Champions, and the Newsies Fight Back | 93
6. EACH MAN AND WOMAN | The Reverend Pennington Is Free | 115
7. GROWING WEARY AND MISTRUSTFUL | The Neighborhood Gets an Orphanage | 135
Author’s Note
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS, WHY WRITE A BOOK?
In 1986 I moved to Connecticut to work for the Hartford Courant, America’s oldest continuously published newspaper—a phrase that still forms itself as one word in my head, even seven years after leaving that job. At the time, Hartford’s better days were behind it, or so I was told. Drug and gang wars held the city by the throat. Schools were struggling. The go-go ’80s appeared to be passing the capital city by.
But Hartford was so much more than gangs and crime and troubled schools. I know because I was there, and when I was occasionally asked to give speeches in suburban libraries or small-town schools, invariably someone would raise a hand to ask if I went into the big, scary city every day.
“Only on days I want to be paid,” I would answer, thinking I was giving their tremulous concern just the right amount of disdain.
I see now how insufferable I was. The