Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XIX

At the extreme end of Domino Lane was the river and here were the locks of the Manayunk canal, which Mr. Giles would operate to let the boats pass. Mules pulled the boats and barges along the canal bank. Umbria Street was later cut through the end of our property leaving a persimmon grove on the far side. These trees were so tall that no one could ever climb them to get the fruit, so we waited until the ripened persimmons fell to the ground. From such a height they were consequently smashed and we usually ate them dirt and all if we wanted to taste their unusual goodness.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XVIII

We had gasoline lamps on our lane. Mornings and evenings we would see the old lamplighter carrying his ladder and torch from lamppost to lamppost, always with a happy greeting on his dark Italian face, very much like Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "The Old Lamplighter."
Sometimes we took long walks, my brothers and I, with the dog "Rover" running ahead to discover all the new and exciting scents and scenes. It was just a joy to be young and eager and explore all the goodness of the great outdoors. On the 4th of July there was a church picnic held at the foot of our farm on Umbria Street. This was always an event.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XVII

As a school girl, I was taken to my Aunt Mary and Uncle John's house in South Philadelphia for three days vacation every summer. I looked forward to this, and Mother made me new dresses because usually I was taken by my aunt to the zoo or the seashore, or visiting, so must look nice. But from the very first evening I was terribly homesick. While there, I had to sit decorously on the front marble steps, primly washed and dressed, amusing myself with a book. At home, I would have been busy racing around the yard playing games with the rest of them.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XVI

Occasionally we played in the barn. Hay was stacked high; there was an opening or chute by which the feed was thrown down to the cattle below and this formed a ladder-like structure. We could climb up this and jump in the soft straw. Of course, this was not allowed because it was dangerous but we did sneak a few hours of fun now and then.
My father would never allow tramps to spend the night in the barn as he knew of too many fires resulting from granting this privilege where the stables, barns, livestock and sometimes the houses of farmers were totally destroyed by a carelessly lighted pipe or cigarette. He would send these hoboes to the house for a hot meal and then they must be on their way.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XV

The boys minded the cows on summer afternoons. About eleven o'clock, together with one or two of the younger children, I was allowed to take them a little snack. We sat and enjoyed our picnic and could see the hill on the other side of the Schuylkill River. There we watched the railroad trains come along the track, disappear into Flat Rock Tunnel and come out the other side. As the Manayunk mills blew the noontime whistle we knew it was time to drive the cows home.
There was a swimming hole in the creek in the back pasture. The water was clear and cold. One time a city cousin spent a few weeks with us and he helped to dig the pond. He cut his toe very badly with the shovel. I was forbidden to go along with my brothers in this adventure as Mother tried very hard to make a lady of me and although I begged loudly I could never gain her consent.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XIV

There was one day every spring when we would all sit in the outer sheds cutting seed potatoes, leaving an "eye" or two in each chunk so it would sprout when planted. These pieces were dropped into holes in the ploughed field. Soon strong green plants grew. Late in the summer or early autumn, as the previous year's supply of this vegetable ran out, Mother would send one of the older boys to dig up a few matured vines and there on the roots were young "spuds." When washed thoroughly, boiled in their skins, and sprinkled with salt, they were the best eating ever.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XIII

Long walks to and from school sometimes meant breaking through a hard crust of snow, sinking knee-deep into the cold white stuff. Winters were more severe then and at times, the boys would wear spiked cleats on their shoes to enable them to walk on the ice. We wore leggings, long underwear, and I learned early to knit pulse-warmers, to wear around the wrists to keep the freezing wind from blowing up the coat sleeve.
Sldding in the winter was great: The hills of the pasture lent themselves to long rides, gaining speed until we reached the bottom. When the moon was bright and the snow crisp, my brothers laughing as we pulled our sleds to the top again, it was a thrill to be alive. Many times some of the neighbor boys would be present and when everyone was chilled and exhausted we would return to the house, make hot chocolate or tea, and possibly there were some cookies or just good bread, butter and jelly and that was a feast.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XII

Growing up on the farm was fun. In the summers the boys picked apples, blackberries and wild strawberries to be made into sauce, jelly, pies and all kinds of goodies. Mother's "roly-poly" was a combination of biscuit dough, sugar, spices and berries placed in muslin bags and boiled, served with rich milk thickened with cornstarch. Sweetened and flavored with vanilla and nutmeg, it was something to enjoy and remember by hungry children.
Tomatoes from the garden, as well as cherries, peaches and pears were preserved for the coming winter. Some apples and pears were wrapped in newspaper and buried in straw in a deep barrel. These provided good eating during the cold months Walnuts were stored to give variety to cakes or just to crack and eat. Potatoes were put in the cellar and so were onions.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: XI

Another memory of my dad in early childhood is of the treat it was in the evenings when supper was over, dishes washed and the older children busy around the table with their books and studies. The pre-school little one would climb into the big rocking chair to have Pop pull it into the kitchen beside the stove where he would sit near the lamp and read the daily paper, The Public Ledger. Mike would soon come in and together the two men would discuss the news of the day. That privilege of riding in the rocking chair was reserved for the toddler of the family only and must be relinquished when the next baby became old enough to establish claim.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: X

I must have loved my father, too, but as he was a quiet man I may have felt his silence as sternness. Although I can never remember that he scolded me, neither can I recall actually chatting with him, discussing problems or telling him my little stories of the day's events. I do remember the pleasure it gave me to be allowed to walk up the country lane a square or so, around noontime, to wait for him to come along in the yellow farm wagon. He would stop the horse, pretend to be surprised at finding me so far from home, then help me up into the seat beside him for that delightful ride back into the yard to the stable and wagon shed.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: IX

Mother's sense of humor was always present--that pleasant Irish acceptance of everyday happenings and the gift to see the funny side. What a comfort to have such a wise counselor. Her conversation was bright and she knew how to be friendly, making people feel at ease. Her life was dedicated to her husband and children. Never did she miss church on Sundays or holy days, often leaving home in the dark of early morning, trudging through deep snow to get to first Mass. Over the years, I have had people who remembered Mother with fondness say she was a saint. She herself would have laughed at this exaggeration but she was truly a warm and God-fearing gentle woman.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: VIII

Mother to me has always been the most wonderful person I ever knew. How can one describe anyone like that? In those days she had fair skin and rosy cheeks and her jet black hair fell in little ringlets around her neck as the strands escaped from the bone hairpins she used to hold the knot on the back of her her head. Occasionally she would allow me to comb her hair and curl the tendrils around my finger. Her eyes were hazel, neither brown nor green--wise and warm as she looked straight at you. She could be very firm, but always loving. More the once I felt the sting of the little switch on my legs as punishment of some naughtiness. Most often she did not need to punish as we never cared to go against her wishes. She was that kind of person.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: VII

The boys usually kept the woodbox filled and carried the scuttles of coal from the cellar for the fires. There was no heat in the house but the coal stoves, and we studied by the light of a kerosene lamp. Baths were in the large washtub placed on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, filled with hot water, then carried out and emptied after bathing. The privy was outdoors a short walk, and in the wintertime we must put on a coat to run out and back.
The kitchen always smelled good--a meal in progress or bread just baked. Mother would mix up a batch of dough almost every night just before retiring and the next day would bake it in the old coal-heated oven. She also made fresh butter from the churn smeared over a slice of still hot bread taken from the oven.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: VI

Besides the nine children and my father, there was "Mike," the Irish hired man who had come to live with us. Aunt Maggie had returned to Ireland to take care of her aging mother soon after Rose was born. We children helped with the housework and the boys did chores around the stables, milking and helping with the haying, garden work, and the chickens. I dusted on Saturday mornings; the tufted black horsehair sofa and chairs in the parlor were my greatest aversion, but it was a joy to do the big sideboard with all the glassware on it. These celery holders, relish dishes, etc., were used only for special dinners like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or christenings. As I grew older, I learned to sweep the floor with a broom, sprinkling the carpet first with a little water to keep down the dust.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: V

The stork came quite frequently to our little home on Domino Lane and often the first inkling I would have of the advent of a new brother or sister was the cry of an infant in the wee hours of the morning. Soon Frank, Rose, Edmond and Betty joined the family It was my special assignment to rock the babies or take them for a ride in the big yellow wicker coach along the paths around the stables and barns. I was almost fifteen years old when Mother's last baby was expected. It was Palm Sunday and she was very ill. The doctor had been there early in the morning and came back again in the afternoon. Babies were born at home in those days and it was usual to arrange to have a woman in for a few weeks to help out while the mother was confined. I do not know whether this woman could not come when expected or if the baby was coming ahead of time but it fell to me to take care of the house and prepare meals for the rest of the family for a few days until she did show up. After many hours, Mother's ordeal was over, but the infant lived only fifteen minutes. Our good neighbor, Mrs. Matthew Fox, who lived up the lane, came to offer her assistance and it was she who baptized our youngest brother and he was named William. The next day my father bought a burial lot and I can remember the little white casket being carried out of the house. My Aunt Mary and Uncle John were also present and accompanied the small body to Holy Sepulcher Cemetery. He was laid in one-half the grave and years later, the baby daughter of brother Jim was to be buried in the other half.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: IV

At school, the boys' play area was divided from the girls' by a high board fence. I did not like to be separated from my brothers, especially Jim, who was my champion and protector. He tried to make me understand why I could not be with him at recess time.
In the classroom, we sat two pupils to a seat and shared a desk together. There was a shelf for our slates and pencils and an inkwell on top. We children who lived far from school carried our lunches and my father would leave a small bottle of milk for me every morning, which I gave to another little girl who would drink it. I would carry home the empty bottle to be washed.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: III

Another memory is of one warm summer day making mud-pies. My brother Joe was not too interested in this pastime as he was only two or three years old and I tried to explain how he must help me. Just at this time, Dr. David Custer drove his horse and buggy down the lane and we were both called into the house to be vaccinated. Later we proudly showed off the little bandages on our arms to our older brothers when they came home from school.
It was soon after this that I started to go to school myself. It was a long walk, at least a mile to Holy Family, which at that time was just a four-room building.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: II

My personal little haven that morning was the ledge about a foot or so wide outside the fence where a retaining wall had been built separating the yard from the lower roadway. My three older brothers, Tom, John and Jim, were at school and the baby, Joe, was still too young to accompany me outdoors at play. Mother was busy in the house; after washing the breakfast dishes and putting them away, caring for the baby and making the beds, she would carefully wash her face and comb her hair. I thought she was very pretty. Her sister Maggie also lived with us at this time, but I cannot recall her too well in those early years, just my Mother.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: I

Was it March or April that early spring morning nearly seventy years ago? I played in the warm sunshine sheltered from the wind behind the picket fence outside our yard. There was a protected spot where we could sit cozily together, the big grey housecat and me. The skies were very blue, white clouds floated by, and I looked out across the road past the springhouse to the hill beyond and the distant woods. This is my oldest memory.
Our small farmhouse was surrounded by a yard enclosed with a fence, and two very large trees stood in the front towering high above the road. There had been three of those butterball trees at one time, Mother told me, but the third had ben struck by lightning and so was cut down leaving a two-foot high stump which she had hollowed out and filled with earth and planted with geraniums, petunias, or portulaca.

Aunt Mary's Memoirs: Intro

This memoir, written by my Aunt Mary (Mary Elizabeth Byrne Renz), my father's sister, is another wonderful addendum to "Uncle Frank's Farm." Aunt Mary died some years ago when she was almost 90. I remember her as a beautiful woman and she and her husband, Ed Renz, as a handsome couple. I have my grandparents' wedding picture and can see that Aunt Mary resembled her mother--my grandmother--strongly. As all my grandparents did, my grandmother died before I was born, so I never saw that sweet face. Reading Aunt Mary's loving description of her, I felt a pang of loss for the first time.
The writing styles of Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary differ and so do their points of view. One narrative complements the other and readers can ferret out little hints and clues about life on Domino Lane. I've gone to Roxborough and many of the places mentioned, including Holy Family church and school in nearby Manayunk, which the Byrne family attended. I've also visited Villanova College (now University). My father graduated from there eighty-eight years ago.
"O lost and by the wind grieved/Ghost, come back again..." Thomas Wolfe wrote that in Look Homeward, Angel, and it ran through my mind as I visited the old places. I was in search of the ghost of a way of life and my father's ghost, and maybe the legion of ghosts that made me what I am.
Rosemary Byrne Molloy, 2006

Uncle Ed's Memoirs: III

There are two houses on the farm. The lower house where we were all raised is a small, white-washed stone house. Then there's the upper house, a much larger double house to which we moved in 1921 after Aunt Rose died. The milkhouse, barn and stables stretched beyond the lower house. Then there is the barnyard and pasture, about ten acres, not nearly enough for the twenty cows we had.
This is 1929 and my name is Edmond Francis Byrne. I just graduated from Roman Catholic High School, following the footsteps of Tom, Jim and Frank. I have the world by the tail.
--End--
Reluctant to come away from my father's generation, I am going to add to this narrative my Aunt Mary's memoirs.

Uncle Ed's Memoirs: II

Up at "the Ridge" was the Adams' mansion on one corner and Edmund's on the other; down farther were the Riggle boys and then the Fox place, which by this time (1929) was occupied by the Barrs, an ever-increasing family. The oldest was Bob Barr, a couple of years my junior, who became my teenage companion.
Then, finally there was our farm which extended down to Umbria Street. Our property stretched down to the railroad but we never tried to farm that section, since it was cut off by Umbria Street.
By this time, Tom, Jim and Mary have married and moved away and poor John in in Norristown State Hospital. That left Joe, Frank, Rose and Betty, besides Mom and myself, and of course, Mike, a de facto member of the family. Pop died in 1924 and now the farm in carried on by Frank and Mike, helped now and then by Joe and myself.

Uncle Ed's Memoirs: I

Would you like to go back home, sweet home/Where the world and your friends are true/And down the lane to stroll again/Where mother waits for you?
I suppose each of us had that wish at one time or another, but that's another story. Anyhow, Domino Lane wasn't much of a lane: a rocky dirt road, maybe three quarters of a mile from Ridge Avenue down to Umbria Street. Long before my time, it ran down to the Schuylkill Canal at a place near the locks where the boatmen would gather and play dominos while waiting for the lockkeeper to let them pass through. Anyhow, that's what the older folks told me.

Afterword IV: A Short Intro

I am going to add to this narrative a memoir by Uncle Edmond, my father's and Uncle Frank's younger brother. Edmond died on June 23, 2001, three days after his and his wife's 60th anniversary. That left Frank the only Byrne sibling still living; he lived another two years, until 2003 when he was 95.

Afterword III: Judy

On September 8, 2000, Frank and Claire lost their darling daughter.
Judy was fifty-six years old.
In the last ten years of her life, I was privileged to become friends with my cousin, yet I can't possibly do justice to her unique and compelling persona.
To say she was bright is inadequate to describe her fine intelligence, her keen reason, her quick intuition. She was supremely comfortable in the world of the mind.
To say she was fun-loving doesn't capture the wit, the amused lift of her eyebrow, the radiant smile, the full-throated laugh.
To say she was spiritual trivializes her intense relationship with her God and her religion. She never displayed her piety; she simply knew herself as His handmaiden.
To say she was the rock on which her parents leaned doesn't illustrate her powers of organization, her managerial bent, her skills at planning and implementing that largely kept the household--and her own care--going.
To say she was courageous can't begin to suggest what must have been a constant struggle to rise above the despair that threatened her.
But the accident that trapped her in paralysis when she was a lovely and vibrant twenty-two was not the defining event of Judy's life.
The bond between her and her parents defined her. Her encompassing humanity defined her. How own glowing inner powers defined her.
I loved you, Judy, and I miss you so much. When I think of you, you're not immobile in your old affliction. You're walking along a shady path on a farm in the country, laughing and talking, turning this way and that, leading a little group of companions into the light.

Afterword II: Dogs and Photos

Uncle Frank doesn't mention the domestic animals that were as much a part of farm living as cows and horses. Mom remembered a dog called "Hey You, Scram" because that's what he was greeted with when he first came around. In the old Byrne photo album I have, there's a picture of a dog, but with no identification.
All the photos in the album are, of course, in black and white, and all the early snapshots (as opposed to studio pictures) are very small, about two to three inches. Many are not captioned and the people and places they depict are simply lost in time.

Afterword I: Mike Sherin

The abrupt end to these lovely reminiscences seems to illustrate Uncle Frank's down-to-earth, practical manner. For some reason or other, he was not prepared to continue the narrative, the paragraph, or even the sentence, so he simply stopped.
A few additional notes: My mother, who died in 1999 at 97, married my father, Jim Byrne, in 1923. When we were children, we were amused by her full name: Helen Eugene Cecilia Figenshu Byrne.
Mom remembered many of the people, locations, and situations mentioned by Uncle Frank--in particular, the hired man, Mike Sherin.
"Mike started working for the Byrne family on the day your father was baptized (1898)," she told me. "Daddy's mother gave Mike his meals before the family ate; he didn't sit down with them, " she said. "He had no family and yes, he used to go on benders every once in a while, but it didn't happen often. He was such a good and faithful worker when he was sober that nobody seemed to mind."
Mother was of German descent, but wasn't the tall, blonde type. She was a natural brunette with deep brown eyes; she tanned very dark as a girl. She was petite, probably no more than five feet tall when she was young. Mike noted her appearance and when she wasn't around, would say to my father, "Well, Jim, where's that little yellar gal of yours?"

The Narrative's End

So much for my nostalgia and dreams of long ago. I often think of the "Walnut Hollow" where we always, in the fall, would gather the nuts and hull them trying to keep our hands from getting stained. In later years we rented that land and put a barbed wire fence around it in order to pasture the cows there. On the level part of that property Mike plowed and planted corn. This was done the old, slow, hard way with horses. After plowing, the soil was leveled with a harrow both ways, after which it was rolled and then marked both ways so that the crop could later be cultivated both ways. After that, Joe and I would get a day off from school to do the actual planting. We dropped either three or four kernels of corn at each intersection of the marker and later covered these "hills" with a hoe by hand. Later, when the corn was big enough, it was cultivated both ways twice to each row. In the fall it was the same slow, laborious job to harvest the crop. At one time I estimated that it took us at least

*****************
The manuscript ends here.
--Mimi

Back To Manayunk

I drove down Domino Lane a few months ago and on down to Manayunk and I saw nothing that would remotely remind me of anything as I remember it in my memory. The roads are all paved and have lots of traffic. Umbria Street is completely built up with commercial type and manufacturing buildings. It is hard to think of this as the locale of the barefoot cow-minding days of my youth.
The older section of Umbria Street is pretty much unchanged except for the traffic. The houses are the same and perhaps better maintained all the way down to the end of the trolley line on Main Street. On the other direction up toward Shawmount, the buildings seem to be mostly manufacturing businesses with Shawmount Avenue pretty much as of old.

The Riggle Boys

The only other house on Domino Lane was the Riggles'. It was on a small farm that extended back as far as Paoli Avenue. Mr. Riggle was a house painter and had two sons, Frank and Lloyd. We knew these boys well and later, Frank Riggle and my brother Joe traveled to western Canada one summer to help in the wheat harvest. The following year they drove through the western and southern United States while working for a week or two here and there to pay expenses. Frank Riggle later married and ran a pig farm near Creamery, Pa. The last that I heard of Lloyd Riggle he was living at or was mayor of some seashore town in southern New Jersey.
In later years, Frank Riggle bought a farm near Perkiomenville, Pa. During his time at the Creamery farm he had worked as a guard at night at the nearby Graterford Prison. In order to keep awake in his darkened guardhouse atop the wall, he later told us, he would read by the light of a small light about six inches from the floor. What he read was always religious literature put out by the "Jehovah Witness" group. In time he became so interested he could not talk or think of anything else. I have lost track of him and the family over the last thirty years.