One More Move

Baba's house on left

In late 1945, the house my parents rented was sold.  Housing was scarce in post-war America.  A temporary solution was to move in with my father’s mother, Baba.  Mitzi and Dorothy went to live with relatives.  Mitzi went to live with Tete.  (Tete, in Croation, is an aunt who is a sister of your father.  Over the years we came to refer to only our Aunt Mary as Tete Mary.  This later shortened to Tete.)  In later years it was often said that Mitzi never got over being spoiled during the time spent at Tete’s.

Dorothy lived with Aunt Helen.  (We always referred to the households of the extended family by the name of my father’s sibling who was part of that marriage.  It was never Uncle Joe’s house, it was Aunt Annie’s, but it was Uncle Frank’s and not Aunt Bertha’s.) My brother Emil and I slept in the living room of Baba’s house. (house on the left, above)

The move from Braddock Avenue to Buena Vista Street was 147 steps.  Some of the heavier items were loaded onto a trailer hitched to the car and driven from one house to the other.  Many items were simply carried up the 147 steps.  I remember my grandfather carrying a chest of drawers; he showed off for the children by carrying it high over his head, with both arms extended. 

My second grade teacher was an elderly woman who had taught most all of my cousins, and even my Uncle Joe.  I told her we were moving and she said she was sorry to see the family go.  When I came back to school the next Monday she was surprised.  When I told her where we had moved, she laughed and said she was glad we were staying in the neighborhood.

These living arrangements were short lived.  Emil was able to rent the house next to his mother’s and our  family was back together again.  Emil and Mary were to live next door to Baba until her death.  In many ways it would have seemed a good situation.  It wasn’t, especially for my mother.  A stormy relationship had developed between the Mary Beggs, and between my mother and some of my dad’s sisters.

When we moved next door, I again, told my teacher we were moving.  This time she asked “where?”  I responded, “next door.”  For the rest of the year she was wary of any personal information I offered.

My parents would live in that house until 1968; I would live there until 1964.