Jack’s Biography
Of Irish-English heritage, Jack T. Scully was born in in Greenwich, CT, 28 miles northwest of New York City—the true-to-life setting of the book Mianus Village.
Following service in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam era, he worked at a number of newspapers before entering the high-tech industry. He eventually co-founded a successful high-tech company, which pioneered enabling technology for new medical procedures. He is a longtime writer of short stories and poetry as well as the novel Eyewitness. In recent years, he has authored the inspirational blog, Pilgrim’s Rest, and currently with J. Chris Davala, the Website and Facebook Page Beyond Gridlock and Greed.
He lives in Vermont with his family.
Bygone Days in the Village
In the summer, everyone lived outdoors enjoying cool breezes off the river—as well as swimming, boating, and floating on inner tubes. Boys played wiffle ball and touch football in the street. Girls were always playing hopscotch and twirling hula hoops. At dusk, we played “Hide and Seek.” A nearby hillside woods was a beckoning place for climbing trees, making huts, and playing “Cowboys and Indians.” In the winter, adults and kids alike skated from late December until March.
Below is an album of photos taken in the early days of the Village.
Two vets with wives (left, unknown; right, Mary and Hook Scully) one month after the end of WWII. At the Halfway House restaurant, Stamford, CT, a bottle of whiskey was comp’d to every GI still in uniform.
The “Greatest Generation” parents (Mary and Hook) of Jackie and Dennis Scully in 1942, just before he shipped out to the European Theater for the “duration” of WWII.
1950s block party in Mianus Village. Two vets in photo. In the foreground, Hook Scully; in the background, Joe Fuscaldo.
The author at age three in front of his parents' 9-inch screen RCA Victor TV set.
Larry Lee and Mark Morano in front of their Zenith TV set. Mr Morano was an Army-Air Force vet who brought home the empty casing of a 500-lb bomb that decorated his front lawn.
Unlike today, the Mianus River froze every winter. Eleanor Antes in foreground looking at the Scully boys with their snowman.
Mary Ann Datolla’s fourth birthday party with 15 neighborhood kids. About 1951.
Unless dressed up like Dennis Scully here, village kids lived in dungarees and hightop Ked sneakers.
From left, Jackie Scully, Teddy Roberts, Dennis Scully with crutches, and Patsy Fuscaldo.
Teammates on the1958 GREENWICH GAS Little League baseball team. Photo taken in front of Joe and Lucy Fuscaldo’s house.
The photo that inspired the poem, “Halloween” in the Mianus Village ballad that uses natural speech patterns and evocative imagery to tell a ghost story. In the background, Howard Shirmer, the ghost draped in torn sheets, who once led us kids around 40 village houses for “trick or treating."
Dennis Scully and Skip Antes with their primary means of transportation on the village’s main drag—Cary Road. About 1954.
Village Girls: Marybeth MacNamee and Eleanor Antes, about 1954. The “Kittens” story in MIANUS VILLAGE was based on an event in the lives of the author and these girls.
Fishing for bony herring at the base of the Mianus Dam. It separated the river’s fresh water from the salt water of Cos Cob harbor and Long Island Sound. See the poem “Bony Herring” to learn what it was like wading into these brackish waters to snag and scoop up herring during their annual run each April.
Mickey Kalinski, the inspiration for the poem, “An Unwanted Christmas Present,” in the "Mianus Village" book. After dominating hockey games on the river as a kid, Mickey went on to be a star puckster, shown here, at St. Mary’s High School, Greenwich, VT
Aerial photo of Mianus Village houses beside the Mianus River and its dam. These houses were threatened by the Great Long Island Sound Hurricanes of the 1950s. During Hurricane Carol, village residents were evacuated when an upstream dam threaten to burst and inundate the houses.
#16 Cary Road in Mianus Village. This house has been in the Fogg family since 1947 when Bob Fogg’s parents became one of the first families to move into one of these 40 starter houses for returning WW II GIs.
Photo credit: Lynne Stewart
Mianus Village:
Then & Now
Mianus Village is a real place. After World War II, 16 million veterans came home, renewed relationships, and started families. Housing was in short supply, especially for working class vets who often could not afford a down payment, let alone a home mortgage.
The GI Bill came to the rescue. Across the country, the federal government formed partnerships with local communities to build and rent starter homes.
Mianus Village in Riverside, Connecticut, consisted of 40 matchbox houses—750 square feet each. To qualify, a vet need be a local resident, married with at least two children, and an annual income below the poverty line. The first families arrived in 1947. Monthly rent was $70.
Today, Mianus Village is alive and thriving neighborhood. While a few of the original starter houses are still there, most have been refurbished and expanded upward. It remains a tightknit community with a rich historic past.