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Hello world. Welcome to something a little bit different, a special addition of the in my footsteps podcast. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund. This is episode 20, although it's gonna be a little bit different here. It's a little short walk, I guess you could say, it's gonna be a tribute to my hero, my mentor, my role model, my Grampa. This will air on the two year anniversary of his passing May 15th, 2019. I thought what better way to honor him and to introduce some of you to him than by having a special episode all his own, because he definitely deserves his own episode. So what I'm gonna do here is dive into a little bit of the backstory of who my grandfather, John Sullivan was his life in general. I'm also gonna jump into the behind the scenes of Sullivan's Donut Shop, which was open in Hyannis, Massachusetts for about 20 years. There were also Sullivan Donut Shops located in Fitchburg, Massachusetts; Brockton, Massachusetts, and Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. That was through other members of the Sullivan family, great Gramparents, great uncles.
We're gonna take a special road trip to my grandfather's hometown of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I will share some of exactly what makes my Grampa my hero as we get towards the end. And we're gonna close with an original song of his, because my Grampa was among other things, a jazz singer, and I'm lucky enough to have access to an actual CD that he made back in 2006. I know I usually do three weeks on and one week off, but this somber bittersweet anniversary I thought was kind of a perfect time to give some uplifting content because everyone's got heroes and role models. And if you're lucky, like I was, hopefully their members of your family that you have access to.
I was lucky because my Grampa was more than just my hero. He was a larger than life figure, and I'm gonna share some of that right now. So this is special episode 20 of the, in my footsteps podcast, dedicated to my Grampa John Sullivan. And let's go take a little short walk through his life.
So my Grampa was born October 16th, 1925 in the city of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He was the son of John B. Sullivan and Blanche Sutton. He was absolutely Irish, John Sullivan. You can't get much more Irish than that, but he also had a big chunk of French Canadian in him. In episode 12 of the podcast, I went over my Ancestry DNA results. And I had mentioned that I was surprised by how much French blood I had in me. I believe it was 19%. And that comes from my Grampa’s side of the family. He had family that came down from Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland that area of Eastern Canada through Maine and settled, obviously down here also in Massachusetts.
John Sullivan went to Springfield High school, and then while he was in high school, his family moved to Brockton and he finished off at Brockton high school graduating in 1943. Known as Sully my Grampa excelled in football, but more than that, he excelled in track and swimming to the point where he was an elite sprinter and an elite swimmer so much so that he had an option to go and be in the Olympics. Unfortunately, some circumstances, namely World War II canceled the 1944 summer Olympics. And my Grampa ended up getting drafted into the United States Navy. He was stationed at Quonset Point the US air national guard base that was also used by the Navy in world war II in North Kingstown Rhode Island on one of his leaves.
He met Rosemarie. They met when he was 18 and she was 15. And after being married in 1945, they would spend 73 years as husband and wife, Rosemarie and Sully built their life in Brockton. Among the people that he knew in Brockton were boxing icon, Rocky Marcano, and they became close friends, including Rocky Marciano name-dropping my Grampa in his biography. By this point in his early to mid 20’s, my Grampa, he was already a people person and this combined with his parents running a donut shop in Hampton beach, New Hampshire led to him opening his own Sullivan's donut shop on Warren avenue in Brockton.
This donut shop led to a lot of opportunities for Sully, including becoming a personal swimming coach. Since he couldn't go to the Olympics, it was a way to use his talents. One of his students that he became a swimming coach for was actor, Cesar Romero. He's best known as being the Joker on the Batman TV show in the 1960s. His love of training people like that, led to his being kind of like an unofficial mayor of Brockton. Being a people person, a successful business owner, his greatest success was that of being a husband and father to his five children. My uncle John and uncle Steve, my aunt Kelly and aunt Amy and my mother Laurie, his dedication to being a businessman and a hard worker were dwarfed by the love for his family.
A lot of that opportunity was due to the fact that my Nina Rosemarie was such a strong woman and she held the family and the house together, allowing my Grampa to be that larger than of character. In 1971, the Sullivan family moved down to Cape Cod. Grampa started working at a place called Sugar n Spice donut shop in south Yarmouth. That is now a Dunkin donuts, which is right next to a McDonald's on route 28.
1975 was when he opened Sullivan's donut shop. We're gonna get way more into that. But for nearly 20 years, it was a local hangout where everyone went to. So it made him another unofficial mayor of Hyannis that area. In addition to that, he was known as a jazz singer, jazz lover. He sing at iconic establishments like the Paddock, the Mill Hill Club, and more on Cape Cod. He shared the stage at different points with Cape Cod jazz luminaries, like Dave McKenna, Lou Colombo, Dick Johnson and others. They all became his close friends. As he got into his 60’s and 70’s, even after the donut shop closed, he never lost that work ethic. The drive to be the best man he could be.
As he got older, he got nine grandchildren, including me. I was the oldest, my sister, Kate, my brother, Matt, my sisters, Lindsay and Ashley, and my cousin, Sarah, Keith, Kathleen and David. My Grampa worked at C lab, which was a medical delivery company. Worked there until he was, I believe, 90 years old. 90, and he was still working because he wanted to keep his body and his mind active. And near the end, he became a great-grandfather my nieces and nephews, Kaleigh, Emma, Liam, Landon, Lucas, and Sylvie. All of, of us carry on his legacy.
We all have parts of him in us. And that's a little of who he was in life. He passed away. Like I said, two years ago, this day, May 15th, 2019 after battling with Alzheimer's for the last year, plus I would say of his life.
Any of you that are Cape Cod or anyone that visited Cape Cod from the 70’s to the early to mid 90’s, you may have visited Sullivan's donut shop. So let me give you a little bit more about one of Sully’s biggest claims to fame. So Sully was working in Brockton at his own Sullivan's donut shop when he decided to move his family down to Cape Cod. As I said, he worked at the Sugar n Spice donut shop for a few years, but eventually he wanted to be on his own again.
The way that that came about was he purchased some equipment from a closing Jack in the box restaurant in Hyannis. I find it funny that we had those down here. When I think today, the nearest ones are like North Carolina and Ohio. Sullivan’s donuts opened in 1975 and it was an immediate hit. My Grampa made the donuts, the old fashioned way, the large vats of oil, and he would use the sticks. They looked like drumstick to flip the donuts when they were in the hot oil. These were they're heavy, heavier, and sat in stomach. If you've ever been to Hole in One donut shop in Eastham and Orleans or Back Door donuts over an Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, that's very much the same. They had all the classic varieties, honey dipped, chocolate frosted, and jelly filled. There were crullers, coffee rolls, donut holes, which Dunkin’ donuts calls munchkins. And of course he had muffins. His blueberry muffins were very popular with Jacqueline Kennedy. In fact, longtime Kennedy chauffeur, Tommy Roderick would often be in the donut shop, picking up blue blue muffins to bring down to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis port for Jackie.
My Grampa's love of music and jazz music was on display there also. There was a piano located in the corner of the shop and the piano would be played by Barnstable high school English teacher, Ed Milk, and every now and then it would also be played by Dave McKenna legendary Cape Cod jazz man. Dave McKenna lived behind my Grandparents in south Yarmouth. He and Lou Colombo. They would sometimes come over. I had no idea who they were growing up. Only when I got older did I know and appreciate who my Grandparents were. You know, as far as who they knew. Long time, Boston Bruins announcer Fred Cusick would always pop in during the 70’s and 80’s, you would get people that were performing at the Melody Tent would sometimes stop in, sit at the counter and grab a cup of coffee.
Another unique part of Sullivan's donuts that I remember as a kid was this meticulous hand painted mural of the mid-cape area on the wall of the donut shop, kind of leading to the bathroom area. If you ever went there, you'd remember it. I have no idea who painted it. I have no idea where it went once the donut shop closed. And I wish I did. I couldn't even find photos of it going through hundreds upon hundreds of photos that my Grandparents had. I couldn't find any of that mural.
So Sullivan's donut shop was so much a gathering place in Hyannis that the Barnstable police once remarked to my grandfather, that if they were ever looking for a suspect in Hyannis, they would simply stake out Sullivan's because whoever they were looking for would end up there eventually. And his kindness extended beyond giving food to homeless people that he would allow them to sleep behind the donut shop. Because he'd have to go into work at 2, 3:00 AM to get started, to be open at like 5 or 5:30. And he would give donuts to these people just out of the goodness of his heart.
Sullivan's thrived into the nineties. But by this point at the donut shop, it had to move into the next door building of this little strip mall where it was on Bearse’s way. So it was a smaller location. Then there was some construction going on in the area. So it made it even harder for people to get there. By early 1993, the writing was on the wall and the donut shop, Sullivan's donuts, had to close. Ironically, I was going to work there that summer, but things just weren't meant to be.
So it's been nearly 30 years since it closed. Most of his equipment. When my Grampa closed Sullivan's donuts was bought by the Hole in one donut shop. As I mentioned before in Eastham and Orleans. So if you go to either of those locations, it's like, you're going to Sullivan's. That would be one thing. If you didn't know my Grampa, John Sullivan, you might know Sullivan's donuts shop. Any long time. Cape Codders would know it, but other people might know Sullivan's donuts from Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And that's where we're gonna take a little bit of a road trip to.
Fitchburg where my Grampa was born is one hour west of Boston. It's like out a little past the Worcester Hills. As of 2019, it has a population of 40,702. I will tell you when I say it's hilly, when I went out there to visit my Grampa's childhood home, my mother kind of gave me a heads up, watch out for the Hills of Fitchburg. And I say, yeah, right, only when I went through these Hills and I realize it's, it's like driving up a traffic cone in some places, my great-Grandparents ran a donut shop there in the 1940s and 1950s. In addition to Hampton beach, New Hampshire. For anyone that's ever been to Fitchburg, my Grampa grew up on Salem street. If that helps anyone.
Fitchburg is noted for its old mills, that line the Nashua river. And like I said, the hilly topography, it really is. If you drive through there, you'll see those Hills. There's a lot of parks and a lot of tightly knit neighborhoods that seemed to hearken back to a hundred years ago. The time when my great Grandparents would've lived there. Those heavy industries in Fitchburg, like I said, with the mills that attracted a lot of European immigrants, including the Irish, like the Sullivan family, as far as looking for attractions, things to see and do there. There's Coggshall park. There's the Fitchburg art museum, River Styx brewing, the great Wolf lodge. And it's also home to Fitchburg State university. If you wanna learn a little more about Fitchburg the city and its history, check out ci.fitchburg.ma.us. That's a lot of dots, but that'll give you a lot of the info where I went to research to give you some of where my Grampa came from.
When I think of my Grampa, I think of Fitchburg. I think of Brockton and I think of Yarmouth slash Hyannis. So I wanted to pick one of those to kind of elaborate on a little bit more. And when I speak of my Grampa and his influence and the inspiration he had on my life, I can't go on without also mentioning the same qualities that he had for my sister, Kate. And when I want to talk about where your wish her clothing [00:14:30] and apparel company, that's been going strong now for almost two months, since it's launch the end of February, she has sold out of a lot of stuff. So if you've gone to wear your wishes.com and looked over the great products that she has besides clothing and apparel, she's got mugs, hats, stickers, totes all with the great logos, Wear your Wish with the 1111, make a wish. The dandelions that you blow to make a wish. All of the clothing and accessories and everything is made with the highest quality. She even released a Sully coffee mug with the Irish clovers on it, dedicated to our Grampa. So his influence on her is plain to see not only in the products, but in the work ethic, the attention to detail, the desire to do the best you can with what you've got in life. It's all there in Kate and at Wear Your Wishes.com find them on facebook and on instagram and wearyourwishes.com. Tell her that you heard about it on the, in my footsteps podcast. I'm sure she'll appreciate that, but go and check them out is definitely worth it Wear your wishes.com.
So I've told you all about my Grampa, John Sullivan, his life, who he was, what he did, but I want to end with what makes him my hero and my role model, what he meant to me. And this is the most important part of the podcast, as far as I'm concerned, because you can be a successful business owner and you can have these accolades. You can be good at sports, all this stuff, but as Jackie Robinson said, a life is only as important as the effect that it has on other lives. And that's where I go.
I'm looking right now. I have a piece of paper that my Grampa wrote on, and it's a quote by George Elliot. And it says, it's never too late to be what you might have been. And he gave me that it's in his handwriting and I cherish it forever. But this was many years ago when I was having one of my many crisis's of confidence. And he always took the time to make me feel like maybe that I wasn't on the right path, but that I had it in me to be something more than what I thought I could be.
What I think of about my Grampa is first of all, the integrity, the man, the type of person that he was. He was married to my Nina for 73 years. And he knew her before that, that's the kind of thing you don't see that often anymore. A man that stays with the same woman for that long. And he are so hard all the time to make sure that my Nina and their children had the best lives they could. And that's the kind of thing it's sacrifice. It's self-sacrifice for the betterment of those you love. I've heard so much about that world war II, great depression, era generation being the greatest ever. As I got older and the more I got to be around my grandfather as an adult myself, the more I got to see that it's true. He fought for America in world war II and he missed out on a chance to be, he could have been an Olympic hero, Olympic swimmer, an Olympic sprinter, but it never crossed his mind. Oh, look at poor me. I couldn't go to the Olympics because I had to go to war. No. He decided that wasn't his path, that whatever he missed out on not to dwell on it and to always keep looking forward, moving forward, trying to be the best you could each day. And that mindset led him to be a successful businessman.
You can't run your own business, let alone several in different cities. If you don't have that work ethic, because I'm sure that going into a donut shop at 3:00 AM every day for me, sounds excruciating But when you love what you do and he loved that it's not work to him. I find that in my own life with things that I love to do, I love doing this podcast. I love writing. I love the videos I do on YouTube. The content creation, my personal training endeavors, where I'm always trying to do more with that because my Grampa followed his passions.
He loved what he did, and he never complained when life dealt him a bad hand when he had to close the donut shop. When he had to work at C lab, when he was in his late 80’s, these are things that would've made a normal man, a normal person lose their mind, but he just looked at it as he made the best of everything. And it's that kind of strength and dignity that I pray that I have even a shred of. I told him many times that he was my hero. I told him many times that if I could end up, when I die, that I was half the man that my Grampa was, then I will consider my life a success, but he left a huge legacy, a huge footprint, a huge shadow. I could never be him, but the best I can do is honor him by being the best me I can be.
I think that goes for any of you out there that have heroes in your family, that you look up to, you may never be them or follow in their footsteps, but if you do the best you can with what you've got, you have done all. You can to honor them and honor their legacy and honor what they meant to you.
I definitely don't want to talk about the end the last year, when Alzheimer's really took the strength that my grandfather had from him. I will do a segment on that in a future podcast because I wanted this to be more positive and uplifting and not be something sad and depressing at the end because that's what life can be at the end. All of the good qualities. I feel that I have came in some way from my Grampa, and I'm not gonna stand in here and say all these things that I am, Ooh, I have this and that and this and that. That's not up to me to say that's up to others to say if I have those qualities, but one of the greatest compliments and I'll kind of leave it off with this, cuz I said, I wanted this to be a shorter podcast. And I hope that you've enjoyed it. Send me an email. Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You know, if you enjoyed this special dedication to my Grampa.
I'll leave it with this. The greatest compliment I felt I received was when my mother told me you are your grandfather's grandson. And that stuck to me because that's what I'm aiming to be is to be even half the man he was. And join me again next week for episode 21, which will be a regular podcast episode, all the bells and whistles that I normally bring. But until then, you all for checking out this special podcast. I hope that all of you have had, or do have someone in your life that you feel about the way that I feel and felt about my hero, my role model, my Grampa, and what better way to leave off than sharing some of his jazz singing chops.
So here's my Grampa, and I'll talk to you all again soon.