Person:William Costello (10)

_FSFTID: LVQJ-7X6

_FSLINK: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LVQJ-7X6

_HASHTAG: GenealogyBank Note: Obituary is located at Genealogy Bank

Bill, or "Sonny", as he was called when a boy, grew up in Nashua, NH. His parents were divorced when he was seven years old, and he and his mother went to live on Bennett street with her parents. There weren't enough bedrooms on Bennett st for everyone, so Sonny slept in the attic. The attic wasn't heated and had a set of pull-down stairs. Once he retired for the evening, the stairs were retracted for the night. He had his own radio up there and would listen to spooky tales on it before going to sleep.

{Check with Dad on details of his car story with Gaga} «u» Memories of My Father «/u» One of the most remarkable qualities that come to mind when I think of my father is his sense of fairness and generosity. He has always been there when any of us needed him, and has always given us encouragement.

Some of my childhood memories of my father:

When I was very small, I'd say about three or four years old, I had what we called a "butterfly chair". It was a green canvas material shaped like a butterfly with four pockets in the corner that covered a frame that was made of rod iron and collapsed for storage. Anyway, my father had one of these, and I had one (in my size) just like it. Well I thought I was the 'cat's meow' with that chair. We lived in a second floor apartment on Gilman St. in Nashua then. The chairs were out on our porch, and when there was a thunder storm, he and I would sit out on the porch in our Butterfly chairs and watch the storm, and count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. This is probably how I learned to count.

When I learned to ride a bike, we lived in Hudson on Ledge Rd. My father was holding the seat of the bike and running behind me, and telling me how great I was doing. I told him not to let go, and he said that he was still there. I kept peddaling, said something to him again, and he didn't answer. I looked back to see him, and saw that I had left him way behind. I panicked and fell. He told me I was riding all by myself for all that time. I could ride by myself and didn't need him to be there. After that, I rode my bike by myself.

When the song, "The Purple People Eater", was popular, my Dad painted his rendition of the 'purple people eater' on our cellar door. I brought all the neighbor kids over to see it. They were very impressed, and I knew I had the 'coolest' Dad in the neighborhood.

One of the greatest disciplinary lessons learned from my father was when we lived in Hudson. We were getting ready to go to the drive-in theater. We had a station wagon then, so when we went to the drive-in, my Dad would take one of the mattresses off of our beds and put it in the back of the station wagon. My Mom would pop corn and pack a cooler with drinks. We would get our pajamas on and get our pillows and blankets. The mattress was in the car and we were in our pajamas. We were just waiting for my Mom to finish popping the corn. While we were waiting, we were talking to the neighbor kids next door to us. My Dad came out of the door to tell us to get into the car just in time to hear us say "We're going to the drive-in movie, and you're not" (or something along those lines). Instead of going to the movie, we were told to go get our blankets and pillows and go to bed "Now". Well, I guess you know, we 'never' bragged about having a better circumstance than somebody else again.

We didn't go on vacation very often, in fact, I don't really recall ever going on vacation, but my Dad bought houses in resort areas figuring that was our vacation, 365 days a year. We moved from Hudson to Baboosic Lake in Amherst and lived on Clark's Island. It wasn't really an island except in the spring, when the roads flooded. My parents bought hip boots and would have to leave early enough in the morning to be able to carry us from one end of the flooded area to the other so we could get the bus to go to school. There were three of us then, so it was more than one trip. They kept the car parked on the mainland side. Once we got through the flood, it was another mile or so to where the bus came to pick us up.

My father was working at the tracking station in New Boston when we lived at the lake. He used to work rotating shifts: two weeks on each. One night, after finishing his second shift, he got a flat tire on the way home on Walnut Hill Rd. This is a very steep road. He was trying to change the tire, the jack slipped, the car came down on top of him and broke his leg. In the spring, he still had the cast on but wanted to go sailing. He took one of the sunfish. Sunfish are small and easily cap-sized, as it did. He was in the water with a full cast on his leg in April or May. Luckily, our neighbor's son, Wally Hayward, was visiting and saw him with his binoculars. He set off on a rescue mission with his motor boat and saved him from drowning or hypothermia.

My Dad had a little section of our cellar that he used to tinker in. He invented a device to talk underwater. He wanted to try to market it, but my Mom didn't want to take the chance of incurring the debt involved in doing that if it didn't pan out. A few years later, someone else invented a device to talk underwater and did market it.

My Dad got transferred from the Boston Tracking station to Vandenburg, California. Instead of flying us out there, we took a road trip across country and stopped at many of the interesting sites along the way. On the way out there, we took a northern route and stopped at Niagra Falls, went through Canada, through Detroit where we saw a lot of the car manufacturers, stopped at the Great Salt Lake where we went swimming, went through the Rocky Mountains where there were no guard rails and steep drops off the side of the mountains and saw giant redwood trees at Yosemite National Park. When driving through the Rocky Mountains, we came upon a place where water was running off the mountain across the road about 10 inches to a foot deep. My Dad stopped the car and got out to check it out. We were towing another car or a trailer with our stuff in it (I can't remember which). Another car came along the outside of the road and just drove right on through without ever stopping. My Dad figured it must be OK, so he went on through very slo-o-o-wly. It was scary. Years later, I spoke to him about it and he said he was scared too.

We lived in Santa Maria while we were in California. My Dad got really sick while we were there, and his fever was so high, he was delirious. I don't know what he had, but he was talking in his sleep, which was a bad thing, since he had a job that was classified as 'top secret'. I was only ten, so if he said anything that was 'classified', I didn't recognize it as being such.

We moved to West Dover, Vermont when I was 13 years old. My Dad bought a house and converted the aboveground basement to motel rooms. He then got a loan from the bank to build a restaurant. He designed it and hired a contractor to build it. The contractor started the job, and after receiving about two thirds of the money, took off for parts unknown, leaving all the vendors unpaid. They all put liens on the building, and my Dad had to borrow twice as much money from the bank to pay off the vendors and finish the building. With twice as much debt and a couple years of weather that wasn't exactly great for the skiing business, he sold the restaurant, and went back to work with Lockheed.

One of the cooks we had at the restaurant, we called him "Big John", got into an argument with my father one night and threw a big butcher knife at him. Luckily, he missed.

When I was a teenager, I was complaining one day about having pimples. My father told me if everyone was perfect, we would all look the same. I should be proud of my pimples. They make me unique from other people. It didn't make me feel any better about having pimples, but I thought it was pretty sweet of him to try.

I stayed with my Dad in the early 90's at his house at Dover Point in New Hampshire. He had a house in Cocoa Beach that he stayed at most of the year, and spent summers at Dover. We would stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking just about every night. ....«i»Brenda E. Costello«/i»

Some other places that Bill lived were Laconia, NH (1950-51), Hudson, NH (1957-1961), Santa Maria, CA (1961-62), Amherst, NH (1962-1965), West Dover, VT (1965-68)Groton, CT, Kittery, ME, Rye, NH (1968-69), Newport News, VA (1969), Cocoa Beach, FL (1969-1971, 1990-), Hawaii, Goose Creek, SC, and Dover, NH.

1. ↑ New Hampshire, United States. New Hampshire Birth Records, Early to 1900. (New Hampshire Division of Vital Records Administration)
   Certificate of Live Birth (1951), Brenda Elaine Costello, 29 Mar 2009.

   Brenda Elaine Costello, f, b. 29 Aug 1951, Laconia, Belknap, New Hampshire
   f. William Barron Costello, age 20, b. NH, occ. private in Marine Corps
   m. Genevieve Lillian Morrissette, age 23, b. NH
   recorded 26 Sep 1951 Laconia, NH

   photocopy on file

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 New Hampshire, United States. New Hampshire Birth Records, Early to 1900. (New Hampshire Division of Vital Records Administration)
   birth certificate (1930), William Barron Costello, 27 Apr 2009.
3. ↑ Personal knowledge of Brenda Costello, (ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE)\.
   Daughter., 27 Apr 2009.
4. ↑ New Hampshire. Nashua.  \i The Nashua Telegraph\i0
   "Nashua High School Graduation Program Class of 1949," 6/25/1949, p. 2, col. 3., 11 May 2009.
5. ↑ New Hampshire, United States. New Hampshire Marriage Records, 1637-1947. (New Hampshire Division of Vital Records Administration)
   marriage certificate 50-6890 (1950), Costello-Morrissette, 27 Apr 2009.
6. ↑ State of New Hampshire. Birth record of Barrie Lynn Costello. (recorded 4 December 1960, Nashua, New Hampshire).

   Quality: 4 Verified: YES

7. ↑ New Hampshire, United States. New Hampshire Birth Records, Early to 1900. (New Hampshire Division of Vital Records Administration)
   birth certificate (1960), Barrie Lynn Costello, 27 Apr 2009.
8. ↑ The University of the State of New York. Associate in Science of conferred upon William Barron Costello. (23 January 1980).

   Quality: 4 Verified: YES

9. ↑ Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Bachelor of Science degree (Occupational Education). (8 October 1980).

   Quality: 4 Verified: YES

10. ↑ National Archives and Records Administration. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. (Washington, D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration)
    accessed 2 Jun 2018), entry for William "Bill" Barron Costello, person ID LVQJ-7X6.

    Contributor

    Brenda Costello, [email protected]

11. ↑ Engineer - (Avco) & Lockheed
12. ↑ Medium build, height abt 5' 7", dark brown hair, hazel (green) eyes.
13. ↑ Marine
14. ↑ Mr and Mrs William B Costello, Clark's Island, Baboosic lake, were hosts to a family reunion and cook-out Sunday afternoon. A double birthday was also observed for Costello's parents. Mr and Mrs Leo Champagne, Cornell rd Nashua. Other out of town guests were Mr and Mrs Raymond Barron and seven children, Exeter; Mr and Mrs Ernest E. Johnson, Linda Johnson, Beverly Chisholm, Mr and Mrs Everett E. Johnson sr. Mr and Mrs Everett E. Johnson jr. and four boys; Mr and Mrs Glenn Johnson and baby; Mrs Gregory Johnson; and Mrs David Doray, all of Nashua; Terry Barlow, Litchfield; and from Amherst, Mr and Mrs Richard Crocker and two boys and Mr and Mrs Donald Davis, Betsey Davis and Peggy Davis.
15. ↑ The University Of The State Of New York