Sunday, January 13, 2008

Drove to Santori's yesterday morning to stock up on fresh veggies and feta. On impulse, I continued on down the parkway to Ventnor. Checked the outside of Betty's house and picked up some blown papers on the lawn. The house looks fine, though, with no changes I could see.
Then I went to Rosborough Avenue and parked across from the big, gracious house where we grew up. Rosborough is one of a handful of double-wide streets in Ventnor and I think that was a taken-for-granted, but significant factor in our childhood. You can see the ocean from the wide porch and, when we lived there, we had a big lawn on one side and a vacant lot on the other. Now there are four houses on those spaces.
Our house, 15 South, has been painted a hideous blue (it's supposed to be green and white), but aside from that, looks about the same.
The Osborne's house next to ours is long gone, but across the street, the Bluth's, the Campbell's, the Wheaton's, the Ottenberg's, and the Gordon's are still there and relatively unchanged. Of course, no members of those families have lived there for years and many no longer live at all.
I remember walking home from a friend's one April day and having somebody--maybe Stevie Ottenberg--tell me, "The president's dead." That was Roosevelt, of course (no, not Teddy!), and I said, "Frankly, I don't believe you."
I was nine years old and had recently heard the word "frankly." I thought my response was the height of casual sophistication--guess I blew that Stevie Ottenberg away.
I stayed only a short time. Was going to check out St. James--to be called "Holy Family" after the merger, I understand, so that will be gone with the undertow, too--but changed my mind and drove home.
Sometimes, it seems my life went straight from hopelessly constricted and inhibition-laced childhood to free-thinking old ladyness without the Ewing decades in between.

7 comments:

iloveac said...

Rosemary,
My brother Frank thinks you lived on Newport Ave....did your family live there at one time with a German grandmother, or has he gotten you mixed up with another family from whom he collected milk money? My Dad was a milkman and Frank collected for him. He keeps saying the Steele family lived nearby too.
*********
Please tell me St James church will still keep it's name. I was baptized there when we lived on Fulton Avenue. Hopefully, it's just the new school that will be called Holy Family?

Mimi said...

Now, Patti, listen to your big brother! We did live in a ground floor apartment on Newport Avenue when Betty and I were born. Our parents bought the house on Rosborough when we were 2 or 3. I don't remember much about Newport, but I have pictures of us there as babies.
However, we never lived with a grandmother, German or otherwise. Betty and I never had any grandparents--they all had died by the time we came along.
I don't know if "St. James" will still be used for the church, but that's a good question. Hope so, but it would seem peculiar to have them side by side and essentially the same parish and have different names. Have you heard of any precedent for this?

iloveac said...

Rosemary,
I haven't heard anything about the merger other than what I read in the online AC press.
I just checked the Catholic Star Herald online and didn't see anything about it.
On your next sojourn to Ventnor, maybe you could stop by the rectory or parish hall or whatever they call it, and find out for those of us who are interested.

Mimi said...

Rectory? They tore that down a few years ago. Will see if I can get the info elsewhere.

EBJ said...

I bet the old lady Pat's brother is referring to was Aunt Maggie. Pat-she was my fathers aunt and was very close to our family.
One day when I was nine years old I was at my friend, Jeanne Connors house, we were playing outside and I looked in their kitchen window and saw her mother crying. I asked why and Jeanne said,"she is crying because the president died today". I went right home.

iloveac said...

I called my brother Frank....my Dad (Wilson's Milkman) didn't serve Rosborough, but they did serve your family on Newport Ave.
Betty, my brother was remembering a German woman....your Dad was Irish but maybe my brother thought she was German....I guess we'll never know. Small world with many connections i.e. my Dad being your family's milkman.

EBJ said...

It is indeed a small world out there.

Wednesday

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