Grandparents, part III

I have only vague recollections of my paternal grandmother. Her house, however, I remember well. It was a small, two story traditional house, sitting on a tiny city lot. 504 Orchard Street was the address. I didn’t think it was small back then however, because I was small too. It had an outhouse and a garden shed in the backyard. I don’t remember if it had an inside bathroom, but it probably did. What I remember best is the staircase leading up to the second floor. It had narrow, small wooden steps that spiraled around and forced anyone over 5’8” or so to bend over on their way up to avoid hitting their head on the ceiling. The walls were painted in pinks, tangerines and yellows.

My paternal grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch, and the house sat in a neighborhood consisting of other Pennsylvania Dutch people. Back then every ethnicity was segregated. Polish, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Black. Whatever they were, they each had their own neighborhood, and there were fine territory lines that were rarely crossed.

My cousin and I spent a lot of time at her house. We each had one of those little peddle cars and we would speed up and down the sidewalks for hours on end. We made “pipes” by sticking a toothpick in an acorn and then went door-to-door selling them for a penny each. After we had made a nickel or maybe a dime, we would walk down to the corner store (every neighborhood had a corner store) and blow it on candy. You could buy a bunch of candy with a dime back then. And, you didn’t have to have an adult with you when you walked down to the store.

My grandmother developed Alzheimer’s and moved to a nursing home when I was still very young. My cousin and I would accompany his mom to go visit her but I don’t remember her talking to us or anyone else for that matter. I just remember her lying silently in her bed. The house grew decrepit and was torn down some years later. Every few years I will drive over and stop in front what use to be 504 Orchard Street. I try to imagine the old house that sat on the narrow strip of land that remains but cannot fathom how any house could squeeze in there.

I have only one item from that house - a mirror, with hand painted roses, that hung on the back of one of the bedroom doors. The mirror now hangs on one of my bedroom doors where, sometimes when I look into it, I think about my grandmother and the times I spent at her house.