Melody

This bike was dad’s motivation to get well! He had a picture of it at the hospital.  Growing Up in Mid-Twentieth Century America Chapter 8: Polio IntervenesThe spring of 1950 came along and with it there was excitement at our house. We received news that Uncle Arnold Prichard, wife Virginia and kids Carol Ann, Jim, Guy, and Tom would be driving cross country from their home in Sunland, CA to visit their Pennsylvania relatives. I was finishing my kindergarten year and my sister was finishing 4th grade. Great Aunt Myrtle was still with us but suffering some mental lapses. On at least one occasion she had walked across the long bridge on a trek to the kindergarten in the church basement to pick me up in the middle of a session telling Mrs. Conway that my mother wanted me at home. Actually it was Aunt Myrtle that wanted me at home and when we got there my mom was puzzled and not happy. Aunt Myrtle did not adjust well to me going to school. She had displayed some erratic behavior on our...

Growing Up in Mid-Twentieth Century America Chapter Seven: The Way It Was/The Way We Were (At time of posting I was unable to include exterior photo of the First EUB Church) Today my wife and I live in an organized California retirement community where folks mostly live in attached duplex ranch homes with garages and small front porches facing streets often devoid of sidewalks. Every house has central air conditioning so that occupants rarely go outside but stay in to communicate with others electronically. Garages in our neighborhood are attached so you drive right into your house. Outside maintenance is performed by contractors and staff paid by the HOA. The atmosphere this creates is not really conducive to becoming acquainted with your neighbors. Any social interaction with neighbors is generally more formal and seems to be planned ahead. In the cozy neighborhoods of my youth most folks lived in fairly large two story homes with large front porches facing the street and side...

Growing Up in Mid-20th Century America Chapter - Six: Family Life at 3 Tremont Street Please bear in mind that the narrative is built around photos that appear either at the beginning or end of this posting instead of interspersed throughout which would be my intention if I could figure out how to do it on Facebook but so far that has been unsuccessful. My local world was as is shown on the neighborhood map. The Allegheny River made a horseshoe shape right around the area known as “The South Side” of Warren, Pennsylvania. During mid-century America the town had more than 15,000 residents in a rural northwest Pennsylvania county that had only 40,000 inhabitants. We were surrounded by the Allegheny National Forest and the area had been developed in the 19th century on the basis of oil and lumber. Tremont Street where we lived was only two blocks back from the river. We lived at the west end of Tremont in a large size block bordered by Onondaga Avenue on the east, St. Clair Avenue to...