Early Grade School Home

Fern's early childhood years were spent in this home at 523 Dodge Street. She lived here from the time she was six until she turned nine years old.

She asked me to take this picture as she wanted to see the back yard and kitchen entrance. There used to be a beautiful grape arbor in the back by the alley, and Mom remarked that "the yard had seemed huge to me." The "grocery boy" came though that kitchen door with deliveries several times a week as did the ice man. She wrote:

The grocery boy may have been 50+, but he was always the grocery boy!  In those days almost all the neighborhood groceries (and they were all neighborhood -- no chains and megastores then!) delivered.  Mother would phone in an order several times a week, and the grocery boy would come into our kitchen and unload on the kitchen table.  I don't remember that she bought meat that way, and of course all dairy products were also delivered to the "milk box" on the back porch.  Grandpa would drive her to the grocery regularly so she could pick out staples.  Lux & Humphries in the Village and a store across from what is now the field house (don't remember its name) were her usual sources.