Troublesome Youth

A true sign of spring, when the weather warms up all of the teenagers climb up out of cyberspace and begin to wander around, dazed in the sunlight. This can be very annoying for those who are not teenagers any more: loud music, rude observations, and just generally disrupting anything they feel like. In days gone by, some of the worst youth offenders from New York ended up here in Warwick, at the NYS Training School for Boys-- a reform school, now the site of the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility. One of the success stories to come out of the school is that of Conrad E. Mauge' Jr., or "Frenchy" as he was nicknamed then. A few years back we helped a professor from Boston University figure out who the pseudonymous "Frenchy" really was. I've copied the article I did then below, and this photo shows him in 1951.

“Frenchy” is Found

Thanks to the teamwork of several local residents and researchers, the search for “Frenchy” of WVHS in 1950 has been successful. Boston College professor Carlo Rotella was trying to find him for a project involving the book that was written about the boy, “Out of the Burning” by Ira H. Freeman, published in 1960. A pseudonym had been used, and all trace of Frenchy’s real identity had disappeared when Ira Freeman died. Frenchy’s real name was Conrad E. Mauge′, Jr.

Joanne Cheney, librarian at Warwick High School, was able to find his name. It was also verified by several local residents who remembered him. From there his life was traced by the Local History Dept. of Albert Wisner Library.

Conrad arrived at the New York State Training School for Boys here in Warwick in 1949, after a long and hard road as leader of a Brooklyn gang before he was 14.

His arrival at Warwick brought him into a completely alien environment. He had never been in the country, and recalls that he had never had an intelligent conversation until he talked with the State School librarian one day.

Having an I.Q. of 160 and with good behavior at the school, he was sent in a test program to the regular High School with another boy, William Barron. At the public High School he was initially shunned. He says there were only two other African Americans at Warwick High at that time, and even they wouldn’t talk to him because he was from the State School. After a few weeks however, a “Polish girl with an unpronounceable name” invited him to listen to records with her friends. We don’t know who she was, but her invitation was important to his adjustment to a new life and his acceptance at the school.

He excelled in Track, which was his ticket to higher education. From there he went on to finish high school in Brooklyn at the age of 16, and attended Brooklyn College and St. John’s University. He eventually achieved a Ph D.

He ran a recovery center for AIDS and substance abuse victims on his home turf of Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1980’s, and later turned to the study of African religions, publishing several books and articles. One of his hobbies was Calypso music, part of his parents’ heritage from their native Trinidad. His song “Zombie Jamboree” was recorded by the Kingston Trio. He passed away in 1998.

The book "Out of the Burning" is written in first person from extensive interviews with Conrad, and is such a gripping tale of life in Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1940’s and Conrad’s complete change of direction that it reads like a fast paced thriller. The last quarter of the book takes place in Warwick, with vivid descriptions of what daily life was like for the boys at the reform school, and local names popping up from time to time. The Albert Wisner Library has a copy of the book available for checkout--but don’t skip ahead to the Warwick part, or you will miss the true impact of his successes.