Waz Kid: Memories of a Grand Hotel

Teresa Vatcher grew up in Swampscott during the Great Depression.

Her family’s house was close to where she and her husband, Howard, live now, on Pleasant Street.

When she was about 11 years old, Teresa and her friends would go to the movies.

There was no money for theater admission so the kids improvised.

The , a grand hotel by Whale Beach, showed movies to its guests on Sundays.

The films played on a big screen in a common room, and veranda windows were thrown open to let in an ocean breeze.

Swampscott kids saw an opportunity in those open windows.

They stole up to the veranda, sat on the floor and watched movies through the open windows.

“It didn’t cost anything,” she said.

“That was depression entertainment — free,” her husband said.

So long as the kids were quiet no one ran them off.

The kids would watch movies such as Kitty Foyle starring Ginger Rogers.

That was one of Teresa’s favorites.

It came out in 1940.

The funny thing about their movie watching was the kids use to get dressed up for the occasion.

They would sneak peaks of the movies from the veranda floor in their best clothes.

One day, years later, Teresa was out walking in Swampscott by the New Ocean House and saw Lucille Ball sitting out of the sun.

Lucille Ball had performed in movies in the 1940s and, later, on television.

Teresa asked her why she was out of the sun.

“Because when you do technicolor movies, they don’t want you to get a tan,” the actress told her.

Years later, in 1969, the hotel was destroyed by fire.

Teresa remembered that her mother, who was born in Swampscott in 1902, told her that the New Ocean House was built on land that years before had been a town dump.

After the burned hotel had been demolished and cleared Teresa use to dig on the grounds.

She found beautiful antique glass bottles.

After the fire she salvaged some spindles from the bath house roof railing and donated one to the .

Teresa still has a baluster, a remnant of a hotel with a strong connection to Swampscott and the memories of Swampscott residents.