I just got finished reading an article from a man who went back home to Pittsburgh for his father's funeral and while there, visited his childhood home. He also talked of his brother and the people he met that were from there. It's funny how many people I, myself have met who were from there. One thing we all have in common, we're proud to say that we're from "the Burgh."
I'm lucky, I get to visit my childhood home as often as I want since my oldest sister and her husband live there. Their children also grew up there. Even with the addition they added, it still isn't a very big house, it makes me wonder how all of us managed to fit in it. Back then it had only two bedrooms and one bath. It's actually an old company house, houses built for the coal miners and their families to live in while they mined the coal in the area. I'm sure, aside from our family, that house has a lot of stories to tell, you know, if walls could talk? My mom and dad bought the house from my grandmother for $1.00.
My grandmother used to live in one of the biggest houses in our town south of Pittsburgh. She ran a boarding house out of it to make ends meet. My grandfather, before they divorced and he remarried and moved to Florida, was the Constable. I never met him. He was long gone before I came into the picture. However, my oldest sister did when she and my dad went to Florida one year. Unfortunately he passed away while they were there.
I took several pictures of my grandmother's house the last time I went back home. There's another family living in it now and it's still the grandest house on that street. I've thought of stopping by and knocking on the door and telling the people who I am, maybe they'll invite me in to look around like the owner of the author's childhood home did. That would be such a treat, to see how the house has changed since I was last in it as a child. I had fun at that house. I still remember my grandmother's parlor, the typical Victorian parlor. Maybe that's the reason I have a love for Victorians and other homes of that era.
My grandmother used to speak her native Polish at times and I now wish I would have asked her to teach it to me. I know a phrase or two, but that's it. I also wish I would have asked her about her life before she came to America. I'll never get that chance now and it saddens me.
Unfortunately I never knew my mother's side of the family, except her brother and his wife and family. I only saw them once, when my siblings and I went to stay with them. They seemed nice. The rest of my mom's family, she was estranged from, for what reason, I never found out and didn't ask. I did find the names of siblings she had that we never knew about when I was doing a genealogy search. My sister asked her about them. She had a tough life growing up. Her father moved back to Italy, I think to fight in WWI and her mother died when she was four and she was raised by an older sister and her husband. She also quit school in the 10th grade to go to work.
My father passed away when I was 20 at the age of 55. I'll be that on my next birthday in another week. It's kind of scary thinking about it, but his mom lived to be 95 and my mom is still alive at almost 84, so I'm not too worried. Plus both of my sisters made it past that age, so the odds are in my favor. One thing he did teach me before he died though was to be proud of where I came from and I'm proud to be from Pittsburgh.
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