A Profile of Longtime Norwood Selectman John A. “Alec” Abdallah-October 5, 1968

His Pride Is The Commonwealth’s Crown Jewel

There is an old running joke in Norwood that a resident can walk into the South End Hardware Store to buy a screwdriver and walk out with either a tool or a drink.

While the sign outside reads “hardware” and the shelves are stocked aplenty, a thriving liquor business shares a significant portion of the space. Under the very same roof lives a wonderfully preserved old-fashioned general store complete with an authentic coal scuttle and oil lamps.

The colorful proprietor of this unique institution is Norwood Selectman John A. “Alec” Abdallah. The landmark store was originally founded in 1894 by his grandfather—one of the first Syrian immigrants to settle in Norwood—and was later operated by his father, Nicholas Abdallah, who was affectionately known throughout South Norwood as its unofficial “mayor.”

A Lifelong Love Affair with Norwood

Service to the town of Norwood is an ingrained Abdallah family tradition. Though Nick Abdallah never held formal public office, stories of his influence in shaping early Norwood—particularly the vibrant Syrian community in South Norwood—are legion.

His son Alec has turned civic devotion into a lifelong career. His relationship with Norwood is a passionate, decades-long love affair. Having walked every single city and town across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (including remote outposts like Cuttyhunk), Alec admits he feels a quiet sympathy for anyone forced to live anywhere else.

He takes a fierce, proprietary pride in the town’s fieldstone Gothic municipal buildings—taking as much personal satisfaction in them as a devoted husband might take in seeing his wife wear a mink coat. To maintain architectural harmony, he has consistently pushed for new municipal structures, including a cemetery maintenance garage affectionately and irreverently dubbed the “Abdallah-Hilton,” to be constructed in matching fieldstone and Gothic styling.

Civic Leadership and the “Crown Jewel” Charter

Abdallah has served as a selectman since 1956, save for a brief hiatus between 1962 and 1964. By 1965, he quips, local voters realized things weren’t getting done without him and returned him to office, subsequently re-electing him to a three-year term in 1968.

In addition to serving on the town’s highest governing body, Abdallah’s resume of public service is staggering:

• Member of the Norwood Airport Commission
• Member of the School Housing Needs Committee
• Member of the Norwood Centennial Committee
• Member of the Committee on Industrial Development
• Member of the Metropolitan Area Planning Committee (MAPC)
• One of only four individuals to serve continuously as town meeting members since the inception of the limited town meeting form of government in 1948.

Abdallah is famously credited with coining the phrase “Crown Jewel of the Commonwealth,” which he originally used to describe Norwood’s pioneering town manager charter. Adopted in 1914, Norwood was the very first town in Massachusetts to establish a town manager form of government.

So fiercely protective is Abdallah of the historic charter that he takes immense pride in the fact that it has never once been amended. He is even known to abandon legislative projects he personally initiated if an investigation reveals that a charter amendment would be required to carry them out.

For instance, when he previously spoke in favor of expanding Norwood’s three-man Finance Commission—pointing out that comparable towns utilized five-to-nine-member boards and that a three-man panel risked deadlocking—he dropped the initiative immediately upon learning it would necessitate the charter’s first-ever amendment.

Precinct Voting Victory

Abdallah’s proudest legislative achievement for the town in 1968 was securing the adoption of precinct voting at the annual town meeting. For years, he had patiently argued before town meetings that Norwood was simply too large a municipality to continue voting at a single, centralized location. He highlighted persistent traffic congestion, parking nightmares, frustratingly long lines that caused many citizens to stay home, and severe delays in vote counting.

Year after year, his petitions were voted down. But this time, the measure passed so swiftly and with so little resistance that even Abdallah was caught by surprise.

Master of Political Maneuvering

Politically, Abdallah is recognized as a master of timed irrelevancy. Some of his most contentious political battles have been won by shifting the focus away from the core administrative argument.

When Town Manager Walter A. Blasenak advised selectmen to deny a demolition company permission to dump rubble from a fire-gutted South Norwood building at the town dump, Abdallah delivered an impassioned, colorful speech describing the hazards of children playing in burned-out ruins and the urgent need to raze the nuisance structure. While the town manager argued strictly over the municipal cost of debris disposal, Abdallah’s vivid imagery won over weary selectmen, who ultimately voted to permit use of the dump.

Though long involvement in town affairs has naturally earned him a share of critics, political observers note he never carries a grudge and invariably bounces back from defeats. Even his fiercest critics concede his dedication is genuine; during a rare absence from a town meeting caused by a back ailment, one prominent critic found the proceedings so dull he penned a published plea reading, “Alec, won’t you please come home.”

Home Life as “Lord of the Manor”

Just twenty steps away from South End Hardware sits the Abdallah family home at 1027 Washington Street, built by his father fifty years ago.

Surrounded by a custom wrought-iron fence copied from a design he admired in Charleston, South Carolina, and featuring spacious rear stables complete with historical carriages and sleighs, the estate reflects the gracious charm of his wife, Helen. While Alec jokingly introduces her as staying in the background “like a good wife and mother,” he is quick to pivot, praising her musical talents and coaxing her to the piano—frequently breaking into an accordion rendition of “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad” if she hesitates.

Public speculation often follows Abdallah, including rumors—which he neither confirms nor denies—that he is a millionaire. He does, however, acknowledge being the largest individual taxpayer in town, a status he attributes to his father, Nick, who constructed most of the multi-family three-decker apartment houses that grace South Norwood.

A Family Tradition of Public Service

Public service is deeply rooted in the next generation of the Abdallah family:

• Daughter Olga made history as the first female president of a Norwood High School senior class, served as a town meeting member, and taught at Norwood Junior High School.
• Son Nicholas serves as a trustee of the Morrill Memorial Library and studies at Massasoit College.
• Daughter Helen shares the family’s civic and academic interests.

Reflecting on his philosophy, Abdallah echoes a familiar ethos with a local twist: “My philosophy is just like John Kennedy’s. I always think of what I can do for Norwood and not what Norwood can do for me.”

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger