My Grandmother's Desk

For many years, my grandmother's desk was in the upstairs room that had my grandfather's recliner chair and console television. There were some wooden baby cradles that served as magazine racks. My brothers and I were always welcomed to stay in this room - and if we got to rough-housing, we were told, not to do so near grandmom's desk.

My grandmother was a huge letter writer. She wrote dozens of letters every week - and many of them at this desk (the rest she wrote in idle moments at work at the family foundry where she answered the phones, did the payroll and kept the books.)


My younger brother, who seems to have been destined to go Massachusetts Institute of Technology poses proudly in his new t-shirt in front of Grandmother's desk (c. 1966).

A couple weeks ago, this desk made its way to my neice - who is now its proud owner and is now laughing at this picture of her dad. She polished it until it gleamed and while cleaning it - she noticed a bit of "funny business" inside - and said, "Unc K! What is that?" and I looked closely. It was a hidden drawer tucked away behind some fancy scrollwork. After scratching my head for a bit, I determined how it opened... and out came a stack of photographs I have never seen.


On top of the pile was this photograph of a charter bus advertising the 7th edition - 1947 Ice Capades in Atlantic City's Convention Hall. The men with the musical instruments are total mysteries to me. I looked up the Ice Capades history and found out they were formed in 1940 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. But there are no markings on this photograph and no explanation for how it came to be in my grandmother's desk.


Under the bus (so to speak) was this photograph - I got goose bumps when I saw it - for at long last, I could see what my great-grandfather - the one that had been killed by a train in 1924 - looked like - for here he is, holding my grandmother in his arms. My great-grandmother has her arms around my great-uncle William. Evidently, this photograph was taken in the backyard of their rowhome in Kensington, Philadelphia, it says, "Family of 2314 East Letterly Street" on the reverse.


I must of looked a little stunned, for my neice asked, "Unc K? you okay?" and I could only nod mutely - as I gazed upon this photograph of my great-grandparents laughing and smiling as they pose with my great-aunt Eleanor. Eleanor was the baby in the family and years later would move to Chula Vista, California where she became the town's first woman mayor.


And then I saw the next picture and my brain came to s screeching halt. This is the cottage that my great-grandfather was building when he was hit by a train at a nearby grade crossing. This photograph is dated September 7, 1924. Eleanor, my Grandmother, and William stand in front of the unfinished building. Little did the young ones suspect that fate had a very cruel twist in store for them - just two months later...

When I saw the unfinished building, a long buried memory came to me - from when I was perhaps seven or eight years old - of a cottage on the Rancocas Creek in Ewansville, New Jersey - my grandfather was given the job of selling this property - none of the children in this photograph wanted to have much to do with the cottage after War World II. My grandmother stayed there with my dad to escape the hot summer in the city and it was a place to keep my dad when he was was ill with the usual childhood contagious illnesses at the time - but outside of that - no one ever went there.

The cottage rotted away from lack of care over the years - I don't think it was actually ever finished. So anyway, my grandfather was told by my grandmother and her brother and sister to sell the place.

My memory comes of the time the place was just sold - and my dad and I went there to remove anything inside that might be of value. I recall only the while we were carrying out a dining room cabinet, I went through a spot in the floor where it had totally rotted and ended up crawling out from under the house pretty well scratched up. Try as I might, I can recall nothing else of substance of the place.


Judging from the laughter, smiles, and obvious pride he had in his family, I know I would have liked my great-grandfather. I can feel the sadness of his loss - even through the distance of time and even though I never knew him. My grandmother tucked his pictures away someday before I was born, and never spoke of him beyond some very guarded and terse phrases. I'm glad to get to "see" glimpses of him.