Marie Fraley, face of the Make Portuguese Count campaign, pens book on her father's life
PROVIDENCE − Marie Ray Fraley is best known for leading the national ‘Make Portuguese Count’ in the 2020 Census campaign, but now she’s adding author to her list of accomplishments.
What started as an effort to compile the writings of her father, Joseph George Ray, to pass on to his descendants, flourished into a book that gives readers a window into his life and his experience as a Portuguese-American during the Great Depression, World War II, the lacemaking industry, and his struggle with Parkinson’s Disease.
More: Marie R. Fraley to lead PALCUS' “Make Portuguese Count” campaign for the 2020 Census
“While my father was still alive, he asked if I would be able to put his writings together in some sort of binder to pass onto his grandsons,” Fraley told O Jornal. “Years after his death in 2012, I tackled the project and realized that it was important to tell the story of his life as the context of his poems and stories. There was so much more about him to tell.”
‘My Buffalo Nickel and Other Stories From a Portuguese American Life: The Life and Writings of Joseph George Ray as told by Marie Ray Fraley’ was recently released nationwide by Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc., of Tennessee.
In the book’s 200-plus pages, her father’s humor, resilience, and grit as one of the many stalwarts of The Greatest Generation stands out through his memoirs, poetry and sketches, and her eyes.
Fraley said the book took about two years to write, but the push to complete it came from realizing that the 100th anniversary of her father’s birthday would be on Jan. 29, 2024.
“I was spurred on, however, by António Fragoeiro, a researcher in Portuguese military history during World War II, who reached out to me about writing up my father’s profile as a Portuguese American serving in the U.S. Army,” she said. “He published Dad’s story in the June 2023 edition of “Revista Portuguesa de História Militar” entitled “Jorge Rei – Relato e Memórias de um Lusodescendente.”
Writing the book was an 'emotional journey'
A retired speech-language pathologist, Fraley embarked a few years ago on a research journey to the island of São Miguel, Azores, to uncover the roots of her family tree.
This ultimately led to a second career in the advocacy of Portuguese culture. She is also a retired director of the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at Rhode Island College and former managing director for the Portuguese American Leadership Council of the United States (PALCUS).
“For over 20 years, I have been conducting genealogical research about my Ray/Rei and Furtado do Couto Azorean roots, which brought me to the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional de Ponta Delgada in São Miguel in 2001,” Fraley said. “That and my father’s papers and photos were the basis of the book. While not a scholarly work, I did try to support information with research about the history of the lace trade, World War II, and the general history of West Warwick, R.I. from the West Warwick Public Library and online sources. My father also provided source material and was liberally quoted in Amby Smith’s Seniors page of the Kent County Daily Times regarding stories of the Portuguese and others in the Pawtuxet Valley that are also included in the book.”
Fraley said the journey of writing this book was far more emotional than she anticipated.
“My father and I were very close, but I came to appreciate him more as a person, not just as my father, as I dug through his boxes of papers and memorabilia. There were many tears,” she said.
“An extraordinary man who lived an ordinary life”
Born in the mill village of Lippitt, Rhode Island, to Azorean immigrants originally from Ribeirinha das Tainhas and Rabo de Peixe, São Miguel, her father grew up in West Warwick.
“My father was an extraordinary man who lived an ordinary life,” Fraley said.
At age 19, he was inducted into the U.S. Army on March 3, 1943.
“Pearl Harbor had been attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, and the war was on as well as the draft,” Fraley recalled. “Dad had applied to join the Navy, but quotas were full.”
He ended up serving as an automotive mechanic with the U.S. Army’s 623rd Light Equipment Engineering Company.
“His unit landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy in June as support after the D-Day landing and followed Patton’s Army throughout Europe in the Battle of the Bulge,” Fraley said. “It was his job with his partner, Johnny Stohm, to locate disabled vehicles in the countryside, repair them, and return them to service.”
He was honorably discharged as Tech 4 Sergeant on Oct. 25, 1945, after the war ended.
“Dad wrote some stories about his experience in the Army during WWII in Europe but ‘none of the gorey stuff,’ as he said,” Fraley pointed out.
One story shared in the book recalls the time when he was in Normandy watching a movie during a break, when the cry of “Gas! Gas!” was heard.
“The men began to scramble and run back to camp because none had thought to take their gas masks with them. Dad said that he was amazed to see men, who had posed as the models of perfect soldiers, pushing and shoving their friends out of the way as they fought for places on the trucks transporting them back to camp,” Fraley said.
“Dad stayed calm and noticed that the cows in the nearby field were unaffected,” she added. “It was a false alarm, but he said he learned a valuable lesson about human nature that day. Those who pretend to be perfect cannot necessarily be relied upon in a crisis.”
Some of her father’s most endearing and lighthearted writings shared in the book have to do with his childhood experiences and the trouble he and his older brother Alfred would regularly get into. In the poem ‘Too Young to Drive,’ he recalls how he and Alfred jumped into the front seat of a visitor’s car pretending to drive.
“When Alfred decided to jump out of the car, he accidentally released the handbrake, and the car began to roll backwards down the hill with seven-year-old George in it, stopping in a nearby field,” Fraley recounted. “No harm to the car or George, but he got scolded and Alfred was later found hiding under the bed.”
Book brings other subjects to the table
Although the book was primarily written to preserve some of the early Ray family history and capture a fuller picture of the man Fraley’s father was as part of ‘The Greatest Generation,’ it also shines a light on other issues.
“If other readers gain some insight about life growing up as a Portuguese American in the Pawtuxet Valley of Rhode Island, especially about the Portuguese in the lace trade, and if it adds to the body of knowledge about our community in Rhode Island, that would be a bonus for me,” she said.
Fraley pointed out, for example, the lacemaking industry in the Pawtuxet Valley.
“Dad was one of the first Portuguese in the Pawtuxet Valley to be hired as a lace weaver or a ‘twisthand’ because the trade was dominated by the English and the French and the Portuguese were thought not smart enough for the highly skilled job,” Fraley said. “Many Portuguese worked in the auxiliary jobs, but not in the well-paid lace weaving positions.”
Eventually, her father and his three brothers worked as lace weavers.
“Dad did his job so well he was promoted to Quality Control Manager and later was part owner and ran his own lace mill,” Fraley said. “This in spite of the discrimination they endured in not only breaking into the trade, but also being the first laid-off and last called back to work when orders were low when lace was out of fashion.”
The book also touches upon her father’s experience with Parkinson’s Disease. Diagnosed in the mid-1960s, he suffered with this progressive disease for more than 20 years until his death at the age of 88 in 2012.
“In his retirement, he took up woodcarving, making cars and carving horses for his grandsons, which they cherish to this day,” recalled Fraley. “The worsening hand tremors put an end to his woodcarving hobby, so he took up writing the poems and stories on a word processor that are included in ‘My Buffalo Nickel.’ He never let Parkinson’s Disease define him although it ultimately robbed him of two of his most cherished skills: his artistic ability that gave him beautiful penmanship and his highly articulate speech. It did not diminish his mind, however, nor his curiosity about the world.”
Official book launch slated for Jan. 29
The official book launch and signing will take place on Monday, Jan. 29 in Rhode Island College’s Gaige Hall 200, at 6 p.m. The event will also serve to commemorate her father’s 100th birthday.
Paperback copies will be available for sale at the event, with net proceeds to benefit the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies at RIC.
The book is also available on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, other online bookstores, and directly through Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.
“I always knew that my dad was honest, hardworking, and a problem solver as well as a good son, brother, husband and father,” Fraley said. “What I came to appreciate even more was how resilient and strong he was over the entire course of his life no matter what troubles or challenges he faced. He had a keen curiosity about history, science, philosophy, and how things worked to the point that he was called ‘a Renaissance man’ by some who read his works. He was my hero and I hope that I have honored him through this book.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Marie Fraley, face of the Make Portuguese Count campaign, writes book
