Monday, September 5, 2011

Memories about the House on W. 93rd Street

Gene Brueggeman sent me the following memories about the house on W. 93rd Street that I posted about here.


I remember the house from my childhood. It was still in the family's possession and was rented out as the family moved farther west into Lakewood, which is where I was born 85 years ago on Labor Day (the 6th). Dad used to collect rent and I went along. My brother Dave and I located it a few years ago; he had never seen it. It is run down considerably from what it was and is in a mixed-racial neighborhood. The Old Man built it and gave it to my grandfather on the condition that he could live in it the rest of his life. I have the legal contract that they made with each other. So my dad grew up in that house with his parents and the Old Man, his grandfather. Dad told us very little about his childhood memories, which was typical of that generation. It was sadly typical of my generation that we didn't do more to get him to talk. Dad did say that his grandfather would invite him to walk (spazieren in German) and that always meant going to the neighborhood saloon for a bucket of beer. He also told us that the Old Man had lost an eye in an accident,whichd is why the formal picture we have of him is a profile of the face with the good eye.



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