Homes ... Pine Street

Dad worked in an Alabama munitions factory during the war.  When my folks moved back home to New Jersey afterward they lived with my Nana in her apartment.

Mom told the story of locking herself out while I slept upstairs and calling the firemen to help her get in the house.

Wall to wall furniture helped make me an early walker.  I still have the horse Dad made for Christmas.  No wonder I like to ride!

 

Then we moved to our first house, a rental on Pine Street.  It is the first house I remember.  As best as I can recall this was the layout.  There was a scary heat register in the floor between the living and dining rooms.  It ate the first tooth I lost.  (But the tooth fairy still came.)  I still avoid sidewalk grates.

Small, but my parents, Nana, Aunt Jean on week-ends, and later my baby sister, my cousin and me were all under the one roof.  Some of the few pictures:  Mom on the sofa by the front window, and on the front steps.

My new sandbox out back.

My best friend and neighbor Marilyn Dodd lived next door.  The folks in the house before her had a pet ground hog named Harry.  (Maybe for Truman?)  He lived mostly in the basement.  One day the garbage men picked him up ... hoping for a meal.  I remember the panic as mom and Pearl ran down the street after the truck to rescue Harry.

 

My friend Marilyn and my cousin Jimmy as Hansel, Witch and Gretel on Halloween.  (Her house is in the background. Checking real estate records I was amazed that Marilyn's family had the house until 1989 when it sold for $197,500.)

My cousin Ken came to  lived with us when he was two.  I remember the night he climbed out of his crib and was found asleep under a bed.  What an uproar!  We thought he'd been kidnapped.

Way in the back was the Victory Garden.  (Just added this great sign I saw at the DC Flea.)

Dad planted and weeded with a big wheeled cultivator. My family had no money, but they still had a lot of parties in the backyard by the grape arbor.

Aunt Jean standing in the center with our friend Al, Nana sitting in the second row.  She had long blond hair all her life and wore it in a crown of braids.

 We rented the house till I was in kindergarten.  Can you believe the prices?

We moved half way through the year and I was so sad to leave my classroom with a fireplace (!) and a teacher I loved.  What a surprise...her identical twin taught my new class!  I was  really confused.

I wish they had taken more pictures of the house.  It looks like the trees have grown.  The building that was the ice house next door seems to still be there.  I climbed the wall to visit the icemen all the time ... probably no one would not let a little kid to that these days.