Family lore says that when I was born, my father sent telegrams to the two new grandmothers (since telephones were rare then, and long-distance telephone service was not an option for the average person). They lived in the same town, a couple of blocks apart, and when they received the news, each started for the other one’s house, and met halfway between.

My parents had lived in Martins Ferry, in eastern Ohio, a residential and mill town on the Ohio River, not far from Wheeling, West Virginia.
      My mother was born in Scio, a small rural town several miles west of Martins Ferry, but as a young woman she and a partner started a millinery shop in Martins Ferry, the nearest town of moderate size. There she thrived in that business, and later her parents moved to that town.
      My father was born and raised in Martins Ferry, where his father was a house painter and glazier—that is, he sold glass and installed windows.
      After high school, my father went to Ohio State University in Columbus, but after a year or two switched to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied architecture.
      After college, he worked for a short time in Pittsburgh, selling the embossed metal ceilings that were popular for commercial establishments at the time, then as a draftsman (“draughtsman,” it was spelled then) in an architectural office.
      Before long he found a better job in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and at about the same time got married and took his bride to his new location “down South.” There I was born in due time.
      I haven’t the slightest recollection of Chattanooga, as we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, a year or so later. But I do have a memory from there. And I must have been no more than three years old, because we had come back “up North” before my sister was born, 3½ years after me.
      But to the memory, still in a Cincinnati suburb . . . one of my grandmothers was visiting, and on a Sunday afternoon, I suppose, Dad and Grandmother took me out for a walk.
      Two or three blocks from home, we came to the edge of town, where the street became a country road. A short distance farther, and the road bridged over a small stream. There, I stood on the low wall at the edge of the road, while my grandmother stood very primly beside me, and Dad took a picture of us. The picture still exists, and reinforces my memory, but other details are still in a very hazy part of my memory.
      I picture us leaving the house, walking a short distance to the end of the street, turning left, going a block or two, and turning right on the street parallel to our own, and being at the edge of town. And so to the picture, and the end of my earliest memory.

After Chattanooga we lived in Cincinnati for a year or two, but I have no memories whatsoever of that location.
      Our next move was back to the Pittsburgh district. My father had often traveled between Martins Ferry and Pittsburgh by train, and thought the Crafton area was attractive, so that’s where he and my mother looked for a house, selecting one in the neighboring town of Ingram. There my sister was born—or was it after our next move?—I’m not sure.
      My memories of that location are also very vague, except for one playmate, Tom Ross, who lived across the street. When we moved again, our mothers kept in touch for a long time, so his name at least remained in my memory. Thirty-five years or so later I found him again when I started a new job, and still visit with him now and then.
      But one detail of that move when I was about five years old remains in my mind. Our new location, in Crafton, was two or three miles from the Ingram location. I picture myself riding in the back seat of an open “touring” car, with the roof folded down back of the seat. I sat between my mother, holding her new baby, and my maternal grandmother.
 

As I recall, there was only one outlet in each room. But then, there was little need for more. At first we had only one floor lamp in the living room—a heavy wooden thing with a fancy round upright pole in a fancy round base; and two bulbs under a shade at the top.
      Extension cords in those days had screw-in plugs at the end, and the brass-plate outlets matched that—no plug-ins until later. And after a while cords became hopelessly twisted from repeatedly screwing them in and unscrewing them.
      A later development was “split plugs” with prongs that allowed them to be pulled apart. And years later, plug-in sockets replaced the screw-in style, and gave us much more convenience, as well as neater cords.
      A coal furnace furnished heat for the house. In addition, the living and dining rooms and the two larger bedrooms had fireplaces with built-in “gas fronts,” covered with sheets of asbestos perforated with rows of small holes where gas could be lit—an added comfort on cold days.
      There was a coal bin in the front of the cellar, with a short chute where coal could be shoveled in after being dumped just outside, at the edge of the alley next to our house. Dad always had the coal shoveled into the bin, but I remember him shoveling it into the furnace, and prying out the “clinkers” formed from impurities in the coal. And when I was older, those became my jobs, too.
      Years later, a more modern gas furnace was installed.