Meaghan’ s questions to Grandpa continue. The next in line is: “How many people lived in the house you grew up in?” The answer has to be “it depends when.” The number constantly changed. At one point while I was in grade school I recall that Joe, John, Therese, Marge, Anne, Rosemary, Catherine Dempsey, Mom, Dad, and I were living there. That would be ten, but I believe Winnie was living there when she wasn’t away at school. I also recollect an Aunt Sally who died in our home around the same time. Later there was a cousin Eddy. He was sent away to a juvenile school after he split John’s lip in a fight over who could put what on which side of the dresser they shared. So “Who lived in 4116 Baltimore Ave while I was growing up?” depends on when you happened by.
The house became empty some time in 1951. I think in the fall while I was attending first year law school. Mother had become ill and was now being attended to by Winnie at her home on Windsor Ave. I still lived at 4116 for a while, and also at a room on Woodland Avenue near the Law School. I lived at the house alone, but would eat most of the time at Winnie’s. It was then I started to learn the piano. The piano was there, and no one could get upset with the practice. Sr. Mary came and gave me some lessons.
In the summer of ’52 I came across a great deal for renting and buying a piano. I was going to live with the newlyweds, Marge and Dan Walsh in or around Maple Shade, N.J. The newly weds were in a new home, in a new neighborhood, with many other struggling newly-weds. Thus there was a bit of eye-brow-raising when a new piano from Wurlitizer was wheeled into the sparsely furnished living room. Marge and Dan, as I recall had no strong objections to having a piece of new furniture in there. It was a rental/buy agreement. It cost $21 a month for three months. Then you had to become an owner by making higher payments or financing the purchase. It was a great deal for me since it gave me a piano for the summer. In the fall I would be moving back to 4116,or the room, etc. So when September came I canceled the agreement and advised Wurlitzer to come pick up the piano. They finally did sometime in October. When it arrived, the neighbor’s eyebrows went up again, and there was probably some clucking of tongues, with comments like…”Just as we thought those Walsh’s can’t make the payments and the piano is being repossessed!” C’est La Vie! Translated: What are brothers for?
“Houses we lived in”…sounds like a line from a poem or song…something like “The house that I lived in, the people that I met”…Or was it “the street that I lived on, or she lived on!” To borrow from the poets I remember, “Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home.” Better still I always liked Edgar Guest’s verse:
“It take a heap o’ livin’ in a house to make it home…It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’be, How much yer chairs an’ table cost, how great yer luxury. It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king, Until somehow yer soul is sort o’wrapped round everything… Ye’ve got to love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome: It takes a heap o’ living in a house t’ make it home.”
There was a heap of living in that house at 4116 and it certainly was “Home”. I’ve been fortunate to have other houses become homes, thanks to the people who filled them up and eventually left them for their own home.
Meaghan’ s book of queries ask other things like: “How did we heat it; Was there a room that scared you; Did you have friends stay over night; and, What is your fondest memory of that house??
The fondest memory some 45 years later still is the wait for the door to open to the sitting room on Christmas morning. The anticipation and expectation is still there even as I sit here and type. Many times the gifts were not always what I had expected (I always had “Great Expectations” but looking back I can’t say I was ever disappointed).
The room that we avoided was the third floor rear. In that room Aunt Sally died and in those days the Funeral Director came to the house and embalmed the body right there. She was then transported to the front room or Parlor for the viewing, or wake as it was then called. It made that room the “scariest” in the house: I also remember that my father then slept in that room, maybe just to let us know it wasn’t haunted!
I can’t really remember how it was heated but I think it was a gas furnace. I know it wasn’t coal and I don’t remember any oil being delivered. But then how it was heated wasn’t my problem when I lived there so it’s not surprising can’t recall how it was done.
We once in awhile had friends stay over but the memory of who or when is vague. The one exception, which I reported earlier, was that of being roused from bed by my brother Joe then in college to give my bed to George Senesky. It was usually very late at night. George played basketball for St. Joseph’s and later became an All American and went on to play for the Warriors, a Philadelphia Pro Basketball Team. I know later I was able to brag about giving up my bed to the “star” but I am sure when it happened I did more complaining than bragging.
The time is now later in July. We have returned from the ride around Nova Scotia, visit to Plymouth, Mass. We saw the Rock and the Mayflower, and even celebrated Linda McSorley’s Sixth Birthday. I therefore will transmit just a few thoughts of the voyage later. I have already forwarded to GOL the report written by Sean Hopkins (our grandson who travelled with us) I will include a copy for those of you not fortune enough to be on line…G(ang) O(n) L(ine).
I was sitting in a lounge of a deck of the Scotia Prince reading. We were crossing the North Atlantic for Portland, Maine. We had just finished the six days of driving around beautiful, though cold and rainy, Nova Scotia.
A young lady noticed my reading and inquired: “What are you reading?” I responded: “A biography of Abraham Lincoln. Do you know who he was?” Said our new friend: “Yes, a President a long time ago!” “Yes,” said I, “during the Civil War?” “Oh!” she beamed, “Did you know him??”
I advised that I never had the pleasure but would have enjoyed meeting him. I was able to do it with a smile since it continues to prove the point that “time is relative”, or age is in the eyes of the beholder.
Now this was not the highlight of the trip, in fact as it developed the highlight came after our return to U.S. in Plymouth, Mass. I have yet to collect my thoughts of the almost 2000 mile journey with grandsons, Sean and David, but will do so before we next address you.
A thought before I bow out: Tommy McSorley raised some questions about “lawyers” and it lead me to tell him what one of America’s best known lawyers had to say about them some 200 years ago, namely, Thomas Jefferson, speaking of the Congress meeting in 1783 at Annapolis, MD: “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers whose trade is to question everything, yield nothing and talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.” (TJ’s Autobiography, p. 53) See ya!!
P.S. Attached is a report (“Untitled” from Sean) that I thought you might enjoy regarding the trip.