Keeping Close, Staying Safe

For LaCourse., the concept of home was never about walls or location, but about people, safety, and connection. “What’s important is that I’m with people that I know dearly,” he said. “That’s what home is to me.”

His journey begins in the tenement buildings of Holyoke, Mass., where he was raised in a tight-knit, vibrant, and sometimes unsafe, community. His father had immigrated to the U.S. with a family of 12, and their proximity influenced Roger’s earliest formation of his concept of home.

I grew up there with my uncles; a pile of uncles and aunts. And having them in my vicinity was important to me, because we were family. And we're living in Holyoke. We were in a tenement building on the third floor.

Collier, J., photographer. (1941) Mill worker's children. Holyoke, Massachusetts. United States Holyoke Massachusetts Hampden County, 1941. Sept. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017820815/.

Gang activity made the neighborhood unsafe, and his brothers were his protectors – his heroes. Roger described how his brother kept the younger children safe as they traveled to and from school:

My brother, one up from me, was a brother that no one dared be mean to him. So he would go with us and all he had to do was stand there and their gang in that particular part of the houses wouldn't say anything because they knew my brother would not take any crap from any of them…Nobody would mess with him. So we were safe. Because in tenements, there are gangs that develop everywhere, and you're always stopped and questioned. What are you doing here? What are you doing? Yeah, you know, with him standing there that did not happen. He stood up to people. I wanted protection, I stayed close to him, that was it.

Collier, J., photographer. (1941) Workers' homes. Holyoke, Massachusetts. United States Holyoke Massachusetts Hampden County, 1941. Sept. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017820870/.

But Roger’s most salient memories involve his emotional closeness he shared with his sister—the one who walked hand-in-hand with him to church each Sunday. There were separate staircases for boys and girls, but at the top, he would always reunite with her.

She was the closest thing to me … I would meet her at the top of the stairs, and we’d walk home with my father, who’d buy us a jelly doughnut.

That doughnut became a symbol of care and routine, of being seen and loved. Even now, decades later, that ritual lives vividly in his memory.

Roger’s network of connection and safety expanded further outward. In a time of crisis, when his mother suffered a stroke, Roger was taken in by their Portuguese neighbors. He was too young to understand the implications, but he remembers the warmth: the food, the music, the generosity. Like widening ripples in a pond, this experience extended Roger’s definition of home, and grew his understanding of compassion and care.

One time my mother had a mild stroke. The people next door were Portuguese. I lived with them because they took me away from my mother until she recovered. And I would go to parties, and food, whenever they went. Because in a tenement situation people live with other people like them. I would live with the Portuguese family for a while and they would take me to their parties and their dances and their food. And I would go with them, so that was a great time for me. But when my mother recovered I went back home.

When Roger was seven, his family left the tenement community and moved to his grandfather’s farm. Roger described working on his dad’s portion of the farm – the dairy part – with his older brothers. Because he was the youngest, his responsibilities included the less glamorous aspects of milking cows such as cleaning udders and scooping manure. The sibling hierarchy provided a structure that continued to inform Roger’s concept of home. Home is family and shared community responsibility.

As he grew older, Roger carried all of these values with him. He became a school principal and a father, growing into his role as a protector and nurturer to more children. Both of these roles combined with his overarching message of encouraging togetherness and connectivity. He said, “To me, what would be important in a family is to encourage my children to pursue an education and knowing people, just knowing people.”

Today, his daughter remains the true embodiment of home for him:

“My daughter. That's what's important, that I'm with people that I know dearly, and that's what home is to me.”

An excerpt of Mr. L.'s oral housing history interview. The interview took place at Circle Center Adult Day on July 30, 2024.

Full audio

Full transcript (currently undergoing revision)