Is Meets Was

Donna (front, center); Cathy, Leila, Pat Aronica, Mary Heilig, family friend, Richie (middle row); Gil (back, center). c. 1948 at Uncle Fred and Aunt Betty's place in Bergen Beach, NY. I can’t remember the year, or exactly how old I was.  Mary (Hanna) Heilig and I had convinced Aunt Dot to let us look inside the trunk which contained our grandmother’s belongings. Trunk shown in the Spring edition of Sear's 1906 catalog. [Our grandmother, Mary Elizabeth [Fitzgerald] Merrill  died from the Spanish flu when our parents were still young children. Her husband survived another forty-seven years, forty-seven years in which he never ceased to mourn his loss.] I can tell you that we were sworn to secrecy. We were never ever to tell “Pup” that Aunt Dot let us look inside the trunk.  The look of sheer terror on Aunt Dot’s face was enough to let us know not to breathe a word to anyone. Dorothy aka Aunt Dot (top), Mary [aka Lib & Pat's mother-to-be], ...

When I first became hooked on genealogy, I quickly focused on my mother’s side of the family.   Mom's grandparents  must have been an integral part of the first couple of years of my life. My brother and I about 1947 on East 35th St. near Flatbush Ave. I remember walking from our apartment on Flatbush Avenue to their home on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y. It was a perfect summer day, and I was feeling very happy. I was walking with my mother and brother. I remember I was wearing one of my prettier dresses and my perfect, white, Buster Brown shoes. We were passing a neighborhood park with a wrought iron fence. I forgot to watch my steps, and I smelled my mistake. I had stepped in dog poop, and my little white shoes were no longer perfect. I looked up at Mom, and I could tell she was very annoyed. I began to cry. This was not my first misadventure with dog poop. I had been repeatedly cautioned to watch my steps, but I continued to get lost in the world around me ...