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Memories of Lynnfield with Papa’s Bus

Memories of Lynnfield with Papa’s Bus

LYNNFIELD – Lisa Daly remembers her father, longtime Lynnfield Public Schools bus driver Phillip Buttliglieri, in a children’s book she wrote earlier this year.

Daly said she came up with the idea to write “Papa Cannoli and His Zany Italian School Bus” shortly after her father died in October 2015.

She works as a technical writer but said she always wanted to write a children’s book after reading the books to her daughters, Mia and Elizabeth Daly, as they were growing up.

Buttliglieri was the son of two Italian immigrants who raised his three children, Phillip Buttliglieri Jr., Lisa Daly and Gina Swansburg, in Wakefield. He worked as a truck driver for Cardinal Health in Peabody and as a school bus driver for Wakefield and Lynnfield.

The book follows Papa Cannoli as he sings and explains Italian culture to his bus passengers.

“When he died, I kept thinking about his singing and was constantly reminded that he was a bus driver,” said Lisa Daly.

All of the students on Papa Cannoli’s school bus are from her own family, including her daughters, her husband Graham Daly, and nieces and nephews, she said.

Mia Daly, a Lynnfield High School graduate, said her grandfather drove her and her sister to school when they attended Huckleberry Hill Elementary School.

“Having him as a bus driver was almost like being a celebrity,” she said.

“It was always a nice way to start the day,” said Mia Daly. “Sometimes he was the cool bus driver.”

“It was very special for him to pick up the girls,” said Lisa Daly.

Mia Daly, an early childhood education major at Salem State University, says that unlike her, many of her students have relatives who are teachers, but she feels a connection to Huckleberry Hill because of her relationship with her grandfather.

“Having him as a bus driver was definitely motivating. I mean, I was a celebrity at school,” she said. “Riding the bus with my grandfather every day… It just made me feel so safe.”

Lisa Daly said she read the draft of the book to her mother, Katherine Buttliglieri, before she died in March 2020. “I love my parents. They’re both dead. That makes me love my father even more.”

The children’s book is part of her father’s legacy, said Lisa Daly.

She said writing the book taught her a lot about herself as a writer and helped her remember her parents.

“For me, it’s like a little piece of him is still out there and it makes me feel good,” Lisa Daly said.

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