Surrounded by Family

 

I grew up surrounded by family.

            Sharon was settled in the valley formed by the Shenango River.  The downtown was divided by the river, and the main street crossed it in the middle of town.  The west hill led to Ohio.  The east hill led to Hickory Township—now Hermitage, Pa.—and acres of flat land that was filled with small farms.  One was the Baker farm, which stood right along the city limits on top of the east hill.  Its western border was a creek that separated Sharon from Hickory.  In the 1920s, Mr. Baker decided to sell his farm and broke it into a series of home lots on new streets.  

            My Grandmother and her brothers and sisters all bought lots on first street in the new development, which ran parallel to the creek.  Her brothers Harry and McClelland, bought lots and built houses at the bottom of the street.  Her sisters bought lots nearer the top of the street.  In some cases, their in-laws also decided to settle on the street.  Grandma and Grandpa Fry, my Aunt Gertrude’s mother-in-law, lived four houses up the street from us.  Grandpa and Grandma Eliot, my Aunt Anna’s in-laws, lived across the street and a few houses down from us.  For many years before I was born, my great-grandfather McCelland Frazier,  lived down the street with his son McClelland (who I called Uncle Cudge) and his wife Blanche.

Grandma and Grandpa bought two lots half-way down Baker Avenue from State Street.  He and his sister had inherited some property nearby from their parents and were hoping to divide it into lots, too.  His ambition was to have a big house squarely in the middle of this double lot.  He built a small one-bedroom house at the back corner of the property to serve as temporary quarters while the big house was built.  However, he lost his investment and wound up broke—and broken.  The big house was never built, and he and Grandma raised their five kids in that one-bedroom house.  

My brother and I came along in the late 1940s, and we and my mother lived there until after I had graduated from high school.  For most of that time my grandmother was also with us, as was my grandfather, until his death in 1960.  It was not easy, especially as we got older and began to understand the poverty of our situation.  That said, it was home.  And, all around us were not only our aunts, uncles, and grandparents-in-law, but eight cousins, most of whom were much older than my brother and me.  As Grandma’s younger kids grew older, one of them married a beautiful neighbor down the street, giving us yet another Grandma and two cousins by marriage who were close to my age.  

Meanwhile, other families had moved into the neighborhood, too. Several had boys of their own. The result was that my brother and I had friends up and down the street.  We all played at each other’s houses, yards, and in the creek that separated us from Sharon every season of the year.  

My nickname in the neighborhood was “Red,” which referred to a big head of red hair that I had as a boy. Some of my friends’ mothers in the neighborhood knew my only by that name.  Some of my relatives new me only as Gary.  Once, my grandmother called to a friend’s house down the street to find me for dinner.  

“Is Gary there?” she asked my friend’s mother.

“No,” she replied.  “I don’t know anyone named Gary.”

“Oh, well thank you,” Grandma replied and hung up.

My friend’s mother came out to the front porch, where we were playing a game.  “Do you guys know a boy named Gary,” she asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” I said.

“Oh, my.  Well, it’s dinner time at your house.”

And off I went.