Frank Rego

Frank Rego, whose career as a school bus driver in Falmouth began in 1923 and lasted until 1966 and earned him the title of the students’ favorite driver, has died. Mr. Rego was 104 years old when he died on October 30 at Bourne Manor.
Mr. Rego, who was known to three generations of students, traditionally would buy his young riders ice cream on the last day of school each year, and the youngsters on his route said that he had a “heart of gold.”
When Mr. Rego first climbed behind the steering wheel of a school bus in 1923, he was 18 years old and had just obtained his operator’s license. His route was in Hatchville and there were 12 children on that route when he started. The bus was a converted truck, with a tail board, an accordion-pleated door, hook seats that folded back when not in use, and curtains on the windows.
The Hatchville route began at what is now the Coonamessett Inn, which at the time was a private home. Not all of the roads on the route were paved, and the bus often could not navigate the roads in the rain and snow. On those occasions, Mr. Rego would park the bus on the pavement, borrow a horse and buggy from Fred Cahoon’s stable on Turner Road, and transport the children from the bus stops back to the waiting bus. There were times, during the winter, when snow drifts blocked the roads, that Mr. Rego was not able to deliver the last child home until nearly midnight.
Mr. Rego was a native of North Falmouth, born on September 10, 1904, to Mary and Joseph Rego. He left school after the eighth grade to work on his parents’ vegetable farm. He would peddle produce from a horse-drawn wagon to residents of Megansett and North Falmouth.
Over the years, in addition to driving a school bus, he worked briefly as a truant officer and also as a police officer, patrolling Woods Hole, the Steamship Authority, and town beaches.
He counted among his proudest achievements that of rebuilding Boy Scout Troop 41 in Teaticket. He would remain as Scoutmaster for 14 years, during which time he developed a drum and bugle corps in the troop that performed in Worcester and elsewhere off the Cape.
In 1939, he took 18 Scouts to the World’s Fair in New York. The troop had raised money for the trip by selling blueberries they had picked. They all drove to New York, which for many, was the first time they had ever been there, in two station wagons, and camped outside the fairgrounds in the parking lot.
Over the years, he would also take his troop camping in the White Mountains, Canada, Maine, and Vermont.
His troop was honored with the American Legion trophy, and in 1941, Mr. Rego was honored with the Silver Beaver award in recognition for his service to Scouting. Indeed, his influence on the young Scouts in his charge was so strong, that 60 years later, in 1999, several of those former Scouts honored him on his 95th birthday. Those former Scouts described him as “firm but fair.”
In 1965, a fifth grader interviewed Mr. Rego for a school assignment, and there was no doubt about how the youngster felt: “Mr. Rego...has been driving the Hatchville Route since 1923. He’s even driven some of our grandparents around, too! He likes to ride horses. He has a trailer in Florida. In my opinion, Mr. Rego is a remarkable man!”
At Mr. Rego’s retirement dinner in 1966 at the Surrey Room on East Main Street, Harvey M. Martin, a longtime leader in Scouting in Falmouth and the Cape, recalled Mr. Rego’s devotion to his troop. “When Frank turned them out, they were Scouts through and through. If everyone did what Frank has done, what a wonderful community that would be,” Mr. Martin said.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, he remarked that what kept him young at heart was his years of working with children.
Mr. Rego was predeceased by his longtime companion, Alberta F. Donahue. She died in 1994.
He leaves two nephews, Edward Towers of East Falmouth and George Towers of Pocasset.
Visitation will be Sunday from 2 to 5 PM at Chapman, Cole & Gleason Funeral Home, 475 Main Street, Falmouth.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Monday at 10 AM at St. Patrick’s Church on Main Street, followed by burial in St. Anthony’s Cemetery.