U is for Union Street

Cleages, Family History Through the Alphabet, Houses
Pearl, mother, Kris

This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge. Back to Springfield, Massachusetts for 643 Union Street.  During the first 4 years of my life, my father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr, was pastor of the St. John’s Congregational church in Springfield, Massachusetts.  After my father convinced the church to sell the parsonage to pay debts, we lived in the back of the church community house. Rooms upstairs were rented out. The church offices were in the front of the building down a long hall.  When I was 22 we went back to visit. Everything seemed so much smaller.

The house as it looks today on Google Maps.

Memories:
Laying on a blanket in the yard looking up at the clouds with my mother.  Holding my sister, Pearl, on the way home from the hospital.  Sitting on the basement steps while my grandmother washed newborn Pearl’s diapers.  Making Halloween cupcakes with orange icing.  Looking at the clearing evening sky after rain.  Going to the ice cream parlor down the street with my sister and parents.  Leafless trees against the winter sky.  Huge statues going past the house in a religious procession.  Yellow leaves on fall trees, a stream and a dog in the park.  Watching the milkman and his horse from my bedroom window.  Watching my mother being taken to the hospital on a stretcher down the long hall.  A friend of my mother cutting her hair. Ribbon candy at Christmas.

Cousins visit – Dee Dee, me, Barbara, Pearl.  Is Pearl holding a little book?
Me looking a lot like Pearl in the snow. I remember once the snow came to the top of the porch steps.
Pearl and Kris listening to a little plastic record.
Me in front of the house.

Other posts about life on Union street
The Thief of Baghdad and A Negative
Moving – Springfield to Detroit
Past is Present – Springfield, Massachusetts
Subject and Photographer
Wordless Wednesday – Christmas 1950
Sepia Saturday – Winter 1949

8 thoughts on “U is for Union Street”

  2. I’m continuing to enjoy your street posts Kristin and I especially like the little memories word snapshots…very evocative. Didn’t like the sound of your mother being carried down the hall though.

    1. I’m not sure what was wrong but it was a short illness. There is nobody left to ask. I remember standing there watching though.

  3. Thanks for another enjoyable post Kristin. Great photos!!! Especially love the one of you in the snow and also you and Pearl with the radio-gramme, which sure brought back some memories… not that our’s looked exactly like that 🙂 Cheers

  4. Wonderful memories, and beautiful photos. The idea of cupcakes with orange icing sounds awesome. And I really love the pikki of you in the snow. I’ve never even seen snow like that before. My part of Australia gets snow maybe once every 50 or years (if we’re lucky), and when we do it’s is little sprinkles on the ground, huge mounds like that.

    1. We use to get snow that fell all winter and lasted on the ground into the spring. When we moved south 5 years ago the winters had changed so that we still got the snow but it was mixed with warmer weather that would melt the snow and then it would get cold and freeze it and then more snow on top. A big mess to drive on.

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