Here are my father and my cousin Rose Marie in 1967, standing at the edge of my grandfather's peach orchard. My grandfather, who immigrated from Sicily in 1900 and at first worked in coal mines in Western Pennsylvania, had acquired a small farm on a hill with a tavern and small grocery store part of the main house. I remember a goat but no other farm animals--what stood out for me was the peach orchard and the big juicy fruit it produced. I recall the orchard as large, over 40 trees--that sounds like a lot, but in my mind's eye it's a rectangle of at least 8 rows with 6 trees in a row. In any case, a lot of talent and labor must have been required on the part of my grandfather (my grandmother died was I was 2) to grow good peaches in a climate with harsh winters. At the near end of the orchard was a bocce court, along with an old garage that contained a rusting 1930s car, never used but fascinating to a small child. Halfway into the orchard was a large barn, where my Aunt Frances, the youngest of my father's six siblings, had her wedding reception.
Five of the seven children, including my father, moved to Cleveland for work opportunities when they were young adults, but they returned regularly for family visits. When I was a child we would drive out to PA at least three times a summer--usually over the holiday weekends or just for a Sunday, since my father worked six days a week at his grocery store/butcher shop. Most often we went the same weekend as our Cleveland uncles, aunts and cousins for a family reunion. The men would play cards at a table set up in the back yard while the women cooked or otherwise socialized, and we cousins played, got into trouble and went for long hikes down the dirt country roads.
I naturally went less often to PA after I grew up but still managed to get there once a summer, or every few summers. My grandfather died when I was in college, but my Aunt Frances and her family still lived in the house on the hill, and another uncle and aunt lived nearby. On my 1967 visit, August or Labor Day weekend, I brought my Instamatic for a few pictures which I'll share. As usual in those days I didn't try for any methodical documentation of either the farm or my relatives. But here are the pictures I did take--they're among my favorites in these early boxes of slides, both for the people and the surroundings.
Above, in another orchard scene, is my cousin Michael, today a professional bird photographer (click here to see his brilliant work). Behind him partly hidden by the vegetation, is Rose Marie's younger daughter, Michelle. Next you see three cousins standing in the vegetable garden: Michael, Aunt Frances' son Billy, and Rose Marie's son Joey.
Three more shots show cousins standing in front of, or in, the corn patch beyond the back yard. These include two more of Aunt Frances' children: Betty Rose, holding the dog; and her younger sister, Debbie, also holding the dog, or possibly a cat, or possibly the dog and a cat (zooming in only makes it more unclear); and Michael's sister Cindy in the "60" shirt. The house, a replacement for the earlier farm house, is in the background of the third shot.
Above left, more cousins, on the front porch of the house: Roseanne, Rose Marie's oldest; Cindy; and Debbie, who is now very definitely holding a cat. Above right, you see me with Michael and Billy on the dirt road near the farm.
Three remaining pictures: Rose Marie and Aunt Frances standing in the field beyond the front porch of the house; the hills beyond the farm; and four cousins unfortunately dim in the late-afternoon light. I wonder if this set of pictures conveys how much I loved visiting the folks in PA, not just that summer but from earliest childhood to now.
Back in Ohio, I took one more family photo on the Warrensville front porch--my mother and sister holding a couple of cats (no idea whose)--and then back to New York, and yet
more pet pics! My good friend and fellow graduate student Mike Bavar had gotten a German Shepherd puppy. Here they are outside his W. 115th St. apartment:
And then several other pics taken down the street in Riverside Park, including one with a seemingly oblivious squirrel and one with me squinting into the sun:
For some reason I've forgotten, this dog didn't work out, but Mike soon got a different dog, a Rhodesian ridgeback named Toby (to be seen in later photos). The only other pictures from that fall are a couple I took in the Village: a brand-new sculpture on Astor Place and the 1830s LaGrange Terrace/Collonade Row, just south on Lafayette Street, the remaining part of a long row of town houses built by the Astors:
I've always liked the first photo for its stark geometries and the ungeometric fellow staring at "Alamo," the Tony Rosenthal sculpture.
Back in Ohio for Christmas: even more pet pics! My sister had gotten a little dog, part beagle, that she named Donya--she'd gotten the name from Raskolnikov's sister in Crime and Punishment. Donya was quite a character. We thought she was part beagle, partly because she used her nose even more than most dogs: e.g., rather than fetching thrown toys she liked to sniff them out after we hid them anywhere in the house or back yard. But thanks to the combination of her super olfactory sense, her agility and her ravenous appetite, no food was safe when left on a coffee table, in a purse (e.g., a candy bar), or even on a kitchen counter, since she was capable of jumping on a kitchen chair, then the table, then the counter of the compact room. In the photos below you will recognize cousins Judi and Sue if you've been following these postings, and you'll notice another of Donya's talents, if that's the right word: the patience to hold still for photos:
The little kid with her tongue out is presumably a neighbor. I have only one pic without Donya during that snowy Christmas season:
Be warned that the next post will have even more pics of Donya, plus a summer living in Brooklyn Heights and another visit to the beach at Fieldston.
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