Manheim St. today 2010 - filched from Google maps, of course. I see no indication of a red brick sidewalk. ;)

Opa Meyer laid that driveway by himself. He dug down 3 feet, laid gravel, mixed and poured the concrete. At some point an inspector got in the mix. It seems father didn't know about inspectors. They had a chat and the inspector gave the driveway a clean bill of health. Father was fond of repeating the story and telling how the inspector told him that he (father) had gone above and beyond. That driveway, the inspector said, wasn't just for cars, but would qualify and could be rated for a loaded tractor trailer. I guess coming from a place with harsh winters and no inspectors, a little common sense goes a long way to knowing about stuff like building below the freeze line.

Father and the neighbor on the left (as viewed from street) didn't get along. It seems the woman kept digging the dirt on her side straight down, instead of letting it slope. The fence was leaning and that made father unhappy. He wasn't just afraid for the fence but worried that eventually her digging would affect or undermine the foundation of the house. It seemed like a common sense thing to me that you wouldn't dig the dirt away like that. Even if the house wasn't going to fall over, you shouldn't mess with people's fences. They were in a perpetual war. She was of the opinion that any dirt on her side she could do with whatever she wanted because she owned it - it was her dirt. Soon enough she'd sneak some dirt away and when father found out, he'd see red. Then life calmed down for everyone for a while - until next time. It's nice to see from the picture that her digging didn't bring the house down. :o) I do notice, though, that there is no fence anymore. hmmm... And, where the car is, that used to be a flower bed. I guess she's long gone and someone else wanted more parking space.

It was a great old house with hidey-holes and secret places. There was a huge closet under the stairs and I fell in love with the window seats in the bays that we liked to use for storage.

The attic had two bedrooms, one facing the street and the other looking into the back yard with a bathroom in between at the top of the stairs. The second floor had a bathroom and four bedrooms. I had the privilege of being able to call each one of those six rooms my bedroom over the course of the years we lived there. The main floor you entered through a huge Dutch door into the large foyer. To the left the stairs went up, straight ahead was the kitchen. On the right was the living room that Oma and Opa converted to their bedroom and behind that, to the right of the kitchen was the dining room which we used for a living room as well. The dining room, in addition to the bay, had a great niche towards the back that mother used to let the philodendron grow and grow and grow. To the left of the niche, behind the dining room and to the right of the kitchen, was a huge pantry where the refrigerator was also. Behind the kitchen was a sort of odds and ends room. When we moved in, mother used to boil our laundry on the stove. Walter bought her a wringer washer and that went in that room. One year father decided it was a good idea to have, if not a full bathroom, then at least a toilet on the main floor, and he built a room for that onto the back on the right. Then there was the basement. Chock full of all manner of handy-man stuff and great fun for me growing up. I was sure to find whatever I needed when I wanted to tinker with wood. Because it was built of stone, the house stayed cool into June and warm into October. And, that wonderful backyard. It was a far cry from the sweltering row homes in the city.

Walter also bought us our first television set. Father, till the day he died, was fond of saying that he believed television would be the stupefication of humanity.

I remember giving a hobo a meal in Germantown and that was in the 1960s! I remember asking people why he put an X on the walk in front of the house and someone said it was a mark for other hobos. No one else came around asking for a meal. He was the only one - he came two years and never again.