Rose Avenue

I have the prettiest name…21 Rose Avenue. If you add my village, I am even more lovely…Valley Stream. (see Robertson Family - Bessie Spence and Joseph Robertson Descendant Chart, Spence Family - Phoebe Rushton and William Spence Descendant Chart, Rushton Family - Eva Spence and Wilfred Rushton Descendant Chart)

I am a really nice house, if I do say so myself. I have a living room and a dining room! My kitchen is big enough for a stove, ice box, a really big sink with hot and cold running water, and a bunch of cupboards. I have a table with drawers that’s big enough to roll out dough and the family to sit around for supper.1 I’ve got a little bedroom off my kitchen.2 Upstairs I have 4 bedrooms and an indoor bathroom with a modern bathtub. Plus a big front porch, a yard big enough for a garden, lots of grass, and a garage in the back!3

Daddy and Frank on my front steps in 1942

I was built in 19264 for a big family in a land of small farms. All of us houses were so excited! Almost every day we welcomed newcomers. One by one, farmers sold strips off their land for big houses meant for just one family. Fields became streets divided into the square lots of a tic-tac-toe board.5 All of us houses had kids! Boys and girls ran down our stairs and zoomed up and down the sidewalks on bicycles or roller skates strapped to their shoes.6 All the men walked by us in their fedoras on their way to the train station.7 Women shortened their dresses in their sewing rooms, rocked their babies in their nurseries, and curled their hair in their kitchens. Until one October, while the mamas sewed costumes and the kids tried on their daddies’ top hats and mamas’ feathers, the Crash came. After that, kids went trick-or-treating in bedsheets calling themselves ghosts, or their fathers’ patched-up clothes and holey shoes calling themselves hoboes.8

New houses stopped being built, men stopped walking to the train station, and there were no new bikes or skates. Some of us houses lost our families and stood empty. Some of us got for-sale signs, but no one moved in. I lost my family. I was really lonely till the Robertsons arrived.9

There were a lot of them! Daddy had a job; he drove a garbage truck and plowed snow in winter;10 his name was Joe. Mumma11 ran the house and sewed everyone’s clothes;12 her name was Bessie. Junior, Anne, and Frank walked to school; when they came home, they did their homework. Then Junior read books, Anne played the piano, and Frank played ball.13 Jean was too little to go to school; she played in my backyard and “helped” Mumma in the kitchen. Mumma’s sisters Helena and Connie lived with us too; they got jobs with the new telephone company, even tho we didn’t have one.14

4th of July party in my side yard, 1936. From left, Mumma with Jean, Daddy, Cousin Basil’s wife Leona, Cousin Evelyn, Mumma’s sister Eva with her son Denzil

Pretty soon my five bedrooms were full. Mumma’s sister and brothers-in-law moved in to build the new high school because there was no work at home. Daddy’s brother and his wife lived across town; they were always visiting. She was a grand lady but strict; they had more money because they had no children, so she took Anne on day trips to the city every Saturday.15

Every Friday night after the kids were upstairs in bed, Mumma and Daddy would sit at my kitchen table and lay out the money: so many dollars for the mortgage, so many for heating oil. Some dollars and cents went for electricity and water, some for food. The aunts and uncles added their money to the pile. What was needed that week? Did the car tires need patching? Had a kid grown out of their shoes? Was there money to buy gas for the car? After all the figuring, there wasn’t even a nickel left over to buy a Coke.16

After Mumma and the aunts washed the dishes and put the kids to bed, there was time to sit in my living room and listen to my radio. The Shadow always scared me with its evil music. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow KNOWS!” The radio crackled; the volume would soar and then whisper. Upstairs, the kids strained to listen but didn’t dare let on they were awake.17 Daddy and Uncle smoked cigarettes, which always made my nose itch, and Mumma and Aunts crocheted scarves or embroidered pretty pictures.

Everything went quiet when Junior got sick. He lay in my little bedroom off my kitchen.18 Mumma spent most of her time feeding him soup and medicine. He went away, but everyone still looked worried. Now the Friday evenings at my kitchen table saw most of the money go to something called a sanitarium. After the mortgage, every dime could be moved around: less heating oil, less food. No new shoes or clothes. Anne worked after school as a mother’s helper and did Junior’s paper route. Frank had one too: all their dimes and nickels went into the pile.19

When Junior came home, it was even worse: he was something called “dead.” He lay in my living room in a thing like a bed, but called a casket. Every one of my rooms was filled with people who came from all over to see him.20 Everybody hugged and cried. Men came to take Junior away and everybody left. Mumma cried all the time after that.

My favorites were Mumma’s sisters Connie and Helena! They were young and a barrel of laughs, always talking about boys, clothes, and dieting!21

Jean and Helena on my front steps

One day Connie came home from her job at the phone company crying. Mumma asked her what was wrong. Connie just sat in my kitchen shaking her head and blubbering. “I can’t tell you,” she finally got out. Mumma sat down next to her, very serious. “You have to tell me.” “I got fired,” Connie managed to say. Even I knew that was very bad! My house friends had told me those were the words that usually came before families moved out.

Mumma looked incredulous. “What happened?” Connie bawled even more. “Mr. Boss kissed me.” Then Mumma looked mad. “What? How? When? What did you do?” “I got away from him and I yelled at him to leave me alone. Then he said if I didn’t kiss him, I’d be fired. I still said I wasn’t doing it, he could fire me if he liked, and he did. Oh, I never should have said that!”

Mumma stood up, and she was really mad. “It’s not your fault at all. You did the right thing. Don’t worry. I’ll tell Joe when he gets home.” Mumma wiped Connie’s face and gave her a piece of cake. Then Mumma sent Connie to my bedroom.

When Daddy got home, Mumma told him in my kitchen. He was just as mad. “I’ll take care of it.” He turned right around and went back out. When he got home, he called Connie to my kitchen. “You’ll go back to work tomorrow, and you won’t be working for Mr. Boss either.” “What did you do?” Connie whispered. “I punched him,” Daddy answered, “and then I told him you’d be back at work, and you’d be nowhere near him.” And that’s what happened.22

One day Jean and the neighbor boy decided it would be fun to fly. If they climbed into my garage attic, they figured, that would be a good place to jump out the window, flap their arms, and take off. I knew this wouldn’t work, so I moved a pile of straw under the window. They did jump out and flap their arms, but they didn’t fly. They just landed in that pile of straw. They didn’t break any bones, but got some skinned knees and hands, and, of course, straw all over their hair and overalls. They came in my kitchen to get patched up, and that’s when Mumma started scolding, “What were you thinking? You are not allowed in the garage attic!” “How did you know we were in there?” Jean asked. “A little bird told me,” said Mumma.23

Everybody grew older, but I was just as full. Relatives moved in to find work, lived in me for a while, and moved out when they had enough money for their own places. Helena and Connie got married and moved out. Anne went off to college on a scholarship and Frank joined the Army.24 I had plenty of room in my bedrooms, so Mumma and Daddy brought home children, who they called foster children. They were a lot of fun. There were 2 sets of sisters, two little boys, and a baby.25

on my front steps in 1942; front row: Frank, Jean, Cousin Meda with our foster son Leonard, Meda’s husband Harold. Bottom step: Anne. Second step: Cousin Denzil, Cousin Betty’s husband Russ. Next step: our foster daughter Lola. Top step: Daddy

One day Leonard climbed on top of one of my doors. That was fun! I swung back and forth. Ronnie, who couldn’t play much due to asthma,26 sat at the bottom helping me swing the door while Leonard tried to balance on top. Mumma heard the commotion and came yelling, “What are you up to now?” But they looked so funny she had to duck back into the kitchen to hide her laughter. Then she came back to scold them.27  Three of those foster kids lived there their whole lives. Marjorie’s bridal shower was held in my living room.28

Jean got married and moved out too. When she was pregnant, she was so sick she was too weak to get out of bed. So she came back to live in my little bedroom off my kitchen. Mumma tried to get her to keep crackers and oranges down, and her husband came to visit every day.29 Finally she was well enough to go home. That baby girl she had stayed with Nana and Pop-Pop many weekends.

At last everyone was gone except Mumma and Daddy. Holidays and even just weekends still filled me with relatives and good-smelling food, but I wasn’t doing very well. Daddy wasn’t putting my storm windows up in Fall and taking them off in Spring. My paint was peeling. Not everything that broke got fixed. So one sad day, Mumma and Daddy packed up all my furniture, Mumma’s beautiful china tea cups, and the big rug in my living room, and moved in with Anne and her husband.30

The new people built another house where my garden used to be. They took all the windows out of my front porch and turned them into walls. It is a lot warmer, but I miss the view. They turned half my porch into a second bathroom, and I guess that was a good idea.31 But the new people are off at work or school all day, and they don’t have many visitors. They don’t cook in my kitchen as much. The family is smaller so each person can spread out into a different room. I miss the conversation and the comings-and-goings. It’s just not the same.

1 The table and sink lived in the cellar laundry room of the house where I grew up, where Joe (Daddy) and Bessie (Mumma), my grandparents, moved in their old age.

2 According to Jean, that was her bedroom; it was very cold, which she liked.

3 The bedrooms and bathroom location are a guess; Anne often spoke of having one bathroom. Bessie often spoke of her garden. Anne spoke of a driveway so crooked it was difficult to maneuver the car into the garage. Pictures show the front porch, yard and grass.

4 According to Zillow https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/21-Rose-Ave-Valley-Stream-NY-11580/31228100_zpid/

5 My mother, Anne, often spoke of how our area of Nassau County had been farms before becoming a suburb. I could never picture it until, as an adult, I saw it happening in my suburb of Richmond, Virginia. I have seen farm owners sell plots on the edge of their farmland and houses are built. I have seen big plots of land split into small plots with a street created in the center.

6 Anne often spoke of roller skating in the neighborhood and described skates that attached to the wearer’s shoes.

7 The Valley Stream train station is .2 miles from the house.

8 Anne spoke of trick-or-treating as ghosts and hoboes; her photo collection includes pictures of it from the 1920s.

9 The Robertsons moved to Rose Avenue when Jean was 3, so 1930 or 1931. They had not moved there by the census of 21 April 1930. I don’t know when exactly, who they bought the house from, or when the previous family moved out. Anne spoke of their previous house, which they rented. The previous house was “on the parkway.” It was condemned when the state purchased the land to build a parkway; the house was located on the future exit or entrance ramp. Anne said that Bessie and Joe were able to save for a house purchase because they lived in the condemned house rent-free for six months.

10 Joe worked for the Village of Valley Stream sanitation department; his job title in the 1930 census was schoefer (chauffeur). Jean spoke of missing him during the winter, when he left home to plow streets and didn’t return until all the streets were plowed.

11 Jean called her mother a name pronounced Mumma; I don’t know how she spelled it. Anne called their mother Mom. Bessie and her sisters called their mother Mumma also. I would guess they spelled it Mama. They called Joe Daddy, but with a vowel sound like the a in candy, not the a in caddy.

12 Anne spoke often of the clothes Bessie made for the family, including the foster children.

13 According to Anne, Junior was the smartest of the siblings and not athletic; Frank was athletic. The family had a piano which Anne practiced regularly.

14 According to Anne and the 1930 census, Helena lived with them and worked for the telephone company. Whether or not the family owned a telephone is just a guess.

15 In the 1930 census, Bessie’s sisters Helena, Connie, Anna, and Anna’s husband Bill all lived there. Anne said and a photo confirms that Bill worked on construction of Central High School. Anne often spoke of her weekly trips to Jamaica, NY, with Joe’s brother’s wife Marion.

16 I read “I Remember Mama,” a play by John Van Druten based on the memoir by Kathryn Forbes, in which an early 1900s family gathers at the kitchen table on Friday evenings to spread out the dollars and coins that made up the family’s income for the week. The family then designates the cash to pay for that week’s needs. My grandmother Bessie often told me she budgeted so carefully that she didn’t even have a nickel left over at the end of the week to buy a Coke. That indicated to me that she was the family money manager. I put the two together to create this image. Anne often said that any money she earned went into the family total, so I guess that the aunts’ and uncles’ incomes did too.

17 Anne often spoke of listening to the radio from their upstairs bedrooms when she and her brothers were supposed to be asleep, and how the volume rose and fell. She also spoke of The Shadow radio show, altho I am not clear if that show began airing while she was a child.

18 Jean said that she only remembers her brother as being sick in bed. She did not remember him as an individual with a name and personality, just as her brother in bed. I chose to put him in the bedroom off the kitchen.

19 Anne often spoke of doing Junior’s paper route while he was sick with tuberculosis and bringing the money home to the family. The year that she had to work after school and only had one skirt and two blouses to wear coincides with the year that Junior died.

20 Junior died 18 May 1933 during an operation for a bowel obstruction. Anne remembered him being laid out at home with relatives from Boston coming.

21 Anne recalled Helena and Connie as always being on a diet. Everyone remembers them as full of jokes and laughs.

22 As told to me by Connie. The cake is a touch I added.

23 As told to me by Jean and Bessie.

24 Connie married in 1932; Anne went away to college in 1936 and returned

upon graduation in 1940; Helena married in 1937; Frank enlisted in 1941.

25 The first evidence of a foster child is a picture dated about 1933 who Jean identified as “Baby Frances from the county.” Pictures start showing foster children in 1938.

26 According to Jean.

27 As told to me by Bessie.

28 Newsday, 16 February 1942, page 15, Nassau edition.

29 As remembered by Anne and Jean. Also, found by me on a typewritten piece of paper that an apparently bored Jean wrote about whether she could keep anything down that day and how she looked forward to her husband Bob’s visit after work.

30 According to Anne, her husband Al traveled often to do house maintenance, including manage the storm windows, because Joe’s health was failing. It was decided it would be easier to combine the two households into one new house.

31 Bessie spoke about selling the side yard as a separate lot. According to Zillow, the house has two bathrooms; I don’t know where the second one is located. The rest is inferred from the Zillow picture. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/21-Rose-Ave-Valley-Stream-NY-11580/31228100_zpid/