I sat down over the weekend with my Christmas card list from last year. I realized I hadn’t heard from Dessie Meyers in a few years so I googled her. I was very saddened to learn of her death. She was 94!
They lived–not right next door to us–but the next house–on Westbrook Road. I believe it was always yellow with a sloped driveway like ours was. Just not quite as steep. I’ve been trying to remember which houses were there when we moved into our house.
In 1949, we were living in an apartment in NYC. Each weekend we would go to open houses in northern NJ, Long Island–commuting distance to NYC where my dad worked for Met Life. I well remember the day FINALLY–you know how it feels as a kid to be loaded in a car every weekend and carted off to look at houses. B-o-r-i-n-g!!! The model home was the Bulkley house at the corner of Norgate and Westbrook Road. My parents chose the property because of the backyard and a stand of beautiful white birch trees at the top of the (later) rock garden.
We built the exact same house of the model home at 650 Westbrook Road. There was no road–just dirt. I had to wear galoshes to school, walking through the mud. I was so embarrassed, teachers looked perplexed! I wonder how they ever got a moving van in there!
We went to our home site every weekend while the house was being built. I remember my parents meeting Dessie on one of those visits. I can’t remember if they were already living there or not. I think they were also building their home but that’s just a guess. It was a long friendship. My parents and Dessie and Charles played bridge pretty much every Saturday night.
The first family I remember in the Silvers house was the Gresses. Sue Sitarsky and I played with Bonnie Gress. She was sweet. Do you buy the house from them?
I called Chas Myers today. He is a real font of knowledge about early Salem Ridge history. Wow! His memory is so so much better than mine. But his memories triggered lots of my own. He remembered that Westbrook Road (our end of it) plus Roslyn Road were unpaved for years. He rode his bike a lot and the gravel was awful on his tires. That’s how I remember it–that it was years–but hard to tell just how long it really was.
Did you know that right after our parents built their homes the builder went bankrupt? So lots of Salem Ridge homes sat unfinished. Too many workers went to Korea.
My parents moved into their home December 15, 1950. His parents moved into their home in January 1951. He remembers they were invited to our home before Christmas. A Christmas tree was up and fire in the fireplace. They thought it was so nice. Thus began a very long friendship!
Chas could go up street after street and name all the families!!! Incredible. I’m feeling really senile!
Oh and he babysat for you too, Margaret! He said Sue Sitarsky did all the hard work, feeding and bathing you guys, then called him to just come and sit! He, too, remembers it as a great babysitting job! You know how it takes a village ……………..
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