Jim and Nancy Santamaria
For decade after decade, Jim and Nancy Santamaria have quietly woven their time and talents into the fabric of our community. From working at iconic local businesses and organizations, to stealthily delivering Easter baskets in the wee hours to children’s homes in their neighborhood, to delivering Meals on Wheels and driving Wayland seniors to medical appointments, they exemplify the idea of “good neighbors.”
Jim’s family owned Benson’s Store, which for about fifty years served up coffee and conversation in the circa-1800 building that now houses Spice and Pepper Thai restaurant on Pelham Island Road. Nancy, who moved to Wayland when she was eight years old, worked at Russell’s Garden Center as a teen, and returned there in the early 1980s. She still works there today, nearly 40 years later.
Ham and Pickle Sandwiches at Benson’s
Jim – a first-generation American whose father was born in Italy -- grew up in Natick. In 1957, when he was 15, his father purchased Benson’s, which had been a general store with gas pumps out front. Some say Babe Ruth frequented the old store, buying coffee and cigars there. “My father ran it as a coffee shop and a newspaper agency,” says Jim, “and we all worked there. It was a family-run enterprise. There was a lunch counter with a coffee machine, a root beer float dispenser – my mother kept the root beer mugs in the freezer – and you could get sandwiches. My father was famous for his chopped ham and pickle sandwiches.” There were also some essential goods for sale – canned goods, chocolates, cigarettes.
Benson’s was a hub of social life and local chitchat, “where the townies went,” says Jim. But not just townies: “Rex Trailer would stop every Saturday for sandwiches on his way back from Boomtown, Father Drinan and Archibald Cox were regulars, and the actor Harold Russell, who won an Oscar for ‘The Best Years of our Lives,’” says Jim. The family sold Benson’s in 2002.
After Jim graduated from Natick High School, he went on to Bentley College of Accounting and Finance in Boston, before it moved to Waltham and became Bentley University. In 1966 – the heart of the Vietnam War era -- he was drafted, and joined the Air Force, serving until 1970. “I was stationed at Hanscom Air Field for two-and-a-half years,” he says, “and then was transferred to San Antonio, Texas.”
A Wedding Postponed
As a chaplain’s assistant, Jim was a member of the Honor Guard for soldiers who had died in Vietnam, a sobering and solemn duty. He was also responsible for meeting with new airmen when they arrived on the base, and for setting up and helping with church services on Sundays. In Texas, the chapel was built especially to accommodate different faiths. “There was a chord you could pull that would switch out the Catholic cross for the Protestant cross,” he recalls.
When he went to Texas, he didn’t exactly leave Nancy at the altar – but it was close. “The day I got my wedding dress, Jim called to say he’d been transferred to Texas,” remembers Nancy. The two had met in 1963 at Wayland’s Trinitarian Congregational Church (TCC), as members of the youth group called the Pilgrim Fellowship. They became engaged while Jim was at Hanscom, but had to postpone their wedding when Jim went to Texas. In 1970, when he returned home, they were married at TCC.
Jim took a job in MIT’s accounting department, but when his dad retired, he took over the newspaper agency at Benson’s. He and Nancy bought a house in Wayland in 1973, and their daughter Amy was born in 1976. After the store was sold, Jim would go on to work for Montgomery Rose Company, delivering flowers all over eastern Massachusetts. He was the sexton at TCC for many years and helps at Russell’s during the busy times. You might still find him working at Shep’s Gas Station on Rt. 20 from time to time and at the Transfer Station through the Town’s Tax Work-Off program. “I’ve got my father’s work ethic,” he says with a smile. Jim’s father lived to 102.
Fields of Flowers at Russell’s
When Nancy moved to Wayland as a girl, she remembers that it was “in the middle of nowhere. Our house on Glezen Lane was the last one on the street, and my playground was the woods.” She attended the old Center School and Claypit Hill, went to junior high in what is now the Town Building, and was in one of the first classes in the then-new high school (now replaced by the “new” new high school). Her grandmother lived with them.
She recalls riding her bike to get a vanilla coke at the soda fountain in Marshall’s Drug Store (now the site of Silk Veterinary) and working at Russell’s during the summers. “It was a small wholesale flower dealer back then, surrounded by fields of flowers,” she remembers. “We would go out in the morning and pick armloads of delphiniums and iris, freesia and chrysanthemums. We would cut and bunch them and they were delivered to the flower market in Boston.” The small shop sold some pots of flowers and vegetables, eggs, a few antiques, says Nancy.
She also remembers the days before there was a mechanism that uses bags of prepared soil to automatically fill all those tiny little seedling pots. “Back then, there would be a huge mound of soil, covered with tarps, and steam pipes running from the boiler to the shed and into the pile, and the steam would sterilize the soil.” And she describes with a smile how the accounting system worked. “There were no cash registers then,” she says. “In the morning, you’d go into the yellow house where Mr. and Mrs. Russell lived – these were Lew Russell’s parents – and in the big roll-top desk there was a white envelope with cash for the day. We all wore aprons, and whatever you sold, you just made change from your apron and wrote it down. At the end of the day you’d put your money back on the desk. We got paid that way, too.”
She babysat for Lew and Charlotte Russell’s three daughters, and fondly recalls the holiday pancake and sausage breakfasts that the Russells used to host in their home for all staff.
Easter Bunny Antics
After high school, Nancy went to Colby Junior College, now Colby-Sawyer College, in New Hampshire, where her mother had gone. After graduating, she went to Tufts University for a three-year program in Occupational Therapy, and went on to work at Beth Israel Hospital for several years. When their daughter Amy was born, Nancy stayed home to care for her. When Amy started school, Nancy worked part-time for a variety of employers, including a dentist and a pharmacist, before returning to Russell’s.
Jim’s work with the newspaper agency required him to rise in the pre-dawn hours to distribute papers around the region. One year, he and Nancy hatched a sneaky plan to leave Easter baskets on the doorsteps of neighborhood children before they awoke. They enlisted the help of neighbor Henry Parker, one of the founders of the Sudbury Valley Trustees. For about a decade, the baskets of goodies would mysteriously appear, and a barrel would be placed somewhere in the neighborhood to collect the empty baskets after the holiday. “We got stopped by the police once,” Jim recalls with a smile, “but they let us keep going once they saw what we were up to.” After about a decade, as the neighborhood demographics changed, the baskets stopped appearing, and a rumor spread that the Easter Bunny had moved to Florida.
Love of Nature and Family
Jim and Nancy have always loved being outdoors. “When Amy was little, we spent so much time in the woods behind our house, following trails, identifying birds, and collecting treasures,” recalls Nancy. They especially love camping. Their special place is Hermit Island in Maine, where they spend several weeks each summer sleeping under the stars. They have made some life-long friends there, and love to tell about one of their first camping trips, when a bear opened their cooler and ate all the food – except the oranges -- while they watched open-mouthed from their tent.
For Nancy, aging well is about “appreciating what you have, the beauty of nature, and finding joy in even the smallest things like seeing a bluebird or a salamander,” she says. Their family has been through some challenges, and she knows that life can be hard sometimes. “If you are grateful for everything, if you have a positive attitude and love of family, it can take you through the tough times,” she says. Jim concurs that attitude is key. “I don’t feel old,” he says. “I stay busy,” not only working, but as a volunteer delivering meals and providing rides. “I like meeting and talking with people,” he says.
They also stay busy visiting their daughter Amy and their two grandchildren in New York, or having them come to Wayland, where they can climb into the wooden swing that hangs from a tree limb in the front yard, and traipse together through the woods looking for nature’s treasures and finding life’s enduring joys.