Category Archives: Things

The old car that belonged to the woman next door

Emotions, Memories, Things,

I found two photos of an old car among photographs from our earlier days. I immediately assumed it was the car that belonged to our neighbor in Pittsburgh but Dean didn’t remember taking a photo of it. I just showed him the photos and he said that’s what it must be. This story is less about the car and more about the guilt I still carry about not doing something when I saw mail piling up on the neighbor’s front porch.

Dean and I lived in Pittsburgh from September 1982 through June 1985 while Dean earned a PhD in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. We lived on the 3rd floor of a 3-flat on College Street in the Shadyside area. The home next door was occupied by a woman who’d lived there for decades. We spoke to her occasionally and I even gave her our phone number to call if she needed anything. Dean probably spoke to her even more, because one day she told him that she still had her old car in the small garage in her backyard but since her husband died no one drove it. I don’t know if she showed it to him or if he peeked in through the windows, but he must have taken photos of it because I found them among our photographs from our Pittsburgh days.

Old rusted car
Old rusted car with tools on running board

Dean thought it was a Model T, but I see now that it was a Chevrolet, so probably a 490 touring series, according to The National Museum of Transportation.

Our houses were very close to each other, and about the same height. Our living room window looked into a window of her house that might have been a bedroom at one time, or perhaps it was an attic. I don’t know if the woman ever went up to that room because the view we had never changed. It was always of a box of cat food. Purina, if I recall correctly.

One day when I returned from work I noticed that mail was sticking out of the mailbox. For the next few days that mail piled up. I knew I should probably call the police or something, but I thought that should be up to the mail carrier. I don’t know how long this went on, but one day emergency vehicles were in front of her house, police, fire trucks, ambulance. I didn’t stick around to see what happened, but went to my apartment and tried to not think about it. Not long afterward the house was sold and remodeled. It is now a duplex.

I should have called the police as soon as I noticed the mail piling up. It’s as simple as that.

On another note, I have gone down a rabbit hole looking at street views of our old apartment building. That’ll have to wait for another post.

Grandpa’s Chair

Family, Memories, Things, ,

My grandparents had a child’s rocking chair when they lived in Elgin. Generations of children sat on it and I really wanted to own it someday for my own children. It went to my Aunt Ginny, the only of my mom’s siblings who didn’t have children. I think I did ask her for it when Clare was born, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. After she died it sat in storage until last April when Dean and I picked it up in Mississippi. So while I have no photos of my kids in the chair, I do have some of my granddaughter in it.

I don’t think there are any photos of my grandfather in the chair, but here he is as a child in the arms of his mother, Jessie, and standing next to her mother, Nettie McCornack.

My aunt Ginny was photographed sitting in the chair, however, in this photo taken on the porch of 501 Raymond in Elgin. L-R: Uncle Dick, Aunt Nancy, Grandpa Green, Grandma Green, Mom, Uncle Bud, and Aunt Ginny in the rocking chair.

We celebrated Mother’s Day in Bethesda shortly after returning from Mississippi and had Lassen try out the chair. She wasn’t impressed.

A few months later she liked it better.

I love this chair and its history. Hopefully it will be used by more generations.

Irish Girl and Little Jack Horner

Family, Things,

When my kids were young, probably in elementary school, my mother gave them each a china doll. Andrew was given Little Jack Horner, complete with pie and stool (although those are missing). Clare received an Irish girl that sported red hair and a tartan skirt. They were supposed to be kept until they didn’t want them anymore, then, because they were destined to be collectors’ items, sold for a small fortune. Sounds familiar, right?

Well, these Ashton Drake dolls are maybe worth up to $50 right now and that is probably not going to change for the better. Neither Clare nor Andrew want their dolls, not even to try to sell. I don’t have a strong attachment to Little Jack Horner, although he resembles Andrew as a boy a bit with the blond, blond hair. I do like the Irish girl doll and will probably keep her for a while.

I don’t think that hat is actually his
She may have come with a hat