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Janet lists this as being December 1964. Bill's high school picture is in the background, and this is at 234 Washington. Now my question is - exactly wherer do those two windows look out to? My guess is that the right-hand one looks out onto the fron part of Grammy's back porch. But then the left-hand window would look out onto the narrow way between 234 and the big red brick wall of the next house down, and I don't remember any windows facing that direction.
5 comments:
I would say this is the middle room and the windows are as you say. I have no direct memory of 234 but that is how 232 was laid out. The front living room only had windows to the front of the house. When 232/234 were built, the brick wall didn't exist; it was a stable or some such building. This photo was used by Janet as the basis for a painting where Joe is replaced by Grammy Ludwig. mick..........
it's funny how little of 234 any of us remember. your Mom and I had a nice discussion via e-mails trying to remember how the kitchen/dining table of 234 looked.
i think now that there was this one window that looked out onto the side-alley at 234.
you're right about the two front windows. i don't remember anything about what chairs might have been in the very fron of 234. but i think there was a very cool desk, near the front, and along the same side-wall as shown here.
now the question is - what was between the desk and what you see in this photo. my recollection is that there was at least one long "sofa", and that it kind of resembled Grandpa's miniature furniture sofas. a wooden back, a long bench with some pillows on it, i think.
further, i think that there was some sort of walk-in closet behind that sofa, again along this wall.
but i'm quite fuzzy on all of this. maybe your Mom will set us straight on all this.
I know the desk you speak of. It ended up at one of my brothers' house after being cleaned up by my dad. It has book cases with curved glass doors on either side with beveled, leaded glass at the top. The center portion has drawers below, a fold down desk surface, and then a small doored shelf above. It is very heavy.
I also remember the sofa. There were cushions and usually one of the colorful afgan knit blankets on it. I have a vague recollection of the closet(s); I think it spanned the room divider between the front and middle rooms and the two sections had separate access doors. If I remember the one toward the middle room held the vacuum cleaner, which got exercise when the Barr kids came over and dropped cookies (Sand Tarts!) on the rug and floor. mick...........
as a kid, i loved that desk. there seemed to be an infinite number of drawers, pigeon-holes, and shelves in it; all crammed full with paper, letters, stamps, pencils, pens, etc. then there were those trés cool glass doors you mentioned.
of course, in adult terms, that translates into being one heavy mother of a desk.
Since you are so interested in the layout of that double livingroom, here goes. At the two front windows were two overstuffed chairs. If you were facing the front, to the left was the sofa. To the right was a desk, but more about that later. To the right at the intersection between the two sections of the room was that closet, just as you remembered. It was narrow, with a door on each end. Along its wall was the wooden settee, which indeed resembled the miniature furniture Grandpa used to make. Ellen has that settee now. In the back part of the double room (a corner of it in this picture) was a table, a china closet, and a chair or two. In the center of the room they would set up the card table, directly under a ceiling light.
As for the desk that Mick described, I'm pretty sure it belonged to YOUR family, Terry. Grammy had a desk called a "secretary," which had a drop-down surface and pigeon-holes, etc., but not those two glass doors. As I remember it, when your folks moved to Riverview Park or left for the far west, they sold us the desk with the curved glass doors, and a library table. So could your memory of that desk be from your own house instead of Grammy's? I don't recall it ever being in her house. She did, however, have a similar "bookcase desk" with a glass door on ONE side only, upstairs in one of the bedrooms.
The window to the left in this picture did look out to the side yard, which was concrete, with a brick wall facing. I remember a basketball hoop somewhere out there, and my uncles playing a very restricted game of hoops out there.
They probably were told to close the shutters so as not to break Grammy's window. Yes, the house had working shutters, and Grammy used them - especially in the summer to keep the house cool. Tho she minded the heat, she never had an air conditioner. Shutters and fans, and getting all her work done early in the morning, is how she coped.
Janet
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