Tuesday, June 06, 2006



this was my grandparent's house.

i posted it for Q, who asked about my parent's

wedding photo. it was taken in the garden of this house.

i loved this house. i loved my grandparents.

they sold this house and moved off of the hill

because neither drove and it was easier to walk

on the flat of the town.

this house was bulldozed

when i was a junior in high school.

it was in perfect condition, but it was sold to a man

that put up one of those tacky 6 apartment buildings

with the tiny concrete slab decks and iron railings!

my mother cried watching her childhood home

being torn into pieces. one of the few times

she ever cried over anything. s

5 comments:

QUASAR9 said...

Pity, if I had my way i'd be building, or designing, or watching others build houses like that. Yes we need 'space' and more homes for more people, but I'm sometimes taken aback by what does get knocked down to create 'space'

QUASAR9 said...

PS - mind if I take a copy of the photo? Laters ... Q

Sherry Pasquarello said...

no, go right ahead. : )

Amos_thePokerCat said...

Neat house, too bad it is still not around.

My grandfather lost his house, and vineyard at the end of WWII when the communists toke over Hungary. We were not concidered Hungarian enough because my ancestors toke a raft down the Danube 200 years earlier from Bavaria to settle in the far east "Turkish" frontier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is just north over the border (which changed after every war) where the current day borders of Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia meet Hungary.

My grandfather was in his earlier 50's when he lost everything. They spent a couple years in a refuge camp in Austria until they were allowed to come to the US. He started work again in the original skill he was apprenticed as a young boy. He worked as a tailor in East Liberty until he was in his late 70's.

Sherry Pasquarello said...

that is an amazing family you have there!!! you are well proud of them.
i loved my grandparent's first house. it was right next door to me and i felt safe and loved there.
my grandfather came from a farm in calabria. he worked 1 year on the railroad, 50 in a steel mill, but he could grow anything. he had roses and a plum tree a pear tree and a big cherry tree and blackberry bushes. the neighbors across the alley had grape vines and currant bushes and a peach tree.
the house was beautiful, even at a young age i recognized that. it has cut glass french doors, stained glass, 2 clawfoot tubs two fireplaces, one, in the big bedroom was black marble. it had a galley kitchen with those wood framed glass kitchen cabinets a big wrap around porch that went part ways round the whole house and that neat turrent. it always magical to me.
they sold it to a lady that loved it as much as they did, but she died young, in her early 40's and the bank was the executor of her will. they sold it and it was bulldozed.
i keep the photo on my mantle to remind me of my early youth, when things were not so complicated.