A Family Find

I often lament that, as most of my parents' generation has passed on, I have fewer and fewer connections to my family's history. But, indeed, every once in a blue moon, something amazing pops up from the graveyard of memories.

When I was in NY the other day, I decided to check on my grandmother's famous strong box. Somehow, I wound up being the keeper of this metal mini-file cabinet. I had not looked in it for a while, but I had an inclination to do so and check on how her wedding rings are doing.I had already gone through most of the tarnished papers in there. Lots of correspondence with the War Department following the WWII death of what would have been my uncle. He was killed in the south of France in early May, 1945...just a few days before V-E Day. But, something propelled me to open up another compartment.I found the original deed and mortgage to the Mount Vernon, New York house that my grandparents bought in 1948. This would be my first home and the place I lived up until college. My grandparents (Father's side) had lived most of the time in the Bronx on Paulding Avenue. I suppose this was their Jeffersons move. To that deluxe home to the north. The fancy shmancy suburbs. Mount Vernon when it was elite. Mount Vernon when it was clean. Mount Vernon when it was actually livable.The thing that grabbed my attention was the price of the house. $3,000! Probably a lot of jack back then, but I just spent almost that on the new plasma TV and sound system. There were also an invoice from their lawyer on the sale. For his services rendered....$29.50.But, it really wasn't the lesson in economic inflation that was the real takeaway from my afternoon's snooping. Not by a long shot. Because I discovered that the mortgage on the house was not held by a bank, but one of my grandparent's friends. In-laws twice removed. The parents of the woman that my father's other brother married. I remember them vaguely. Actually, the only true memory I have of the man was that he later would become the first person I would ever see laid out in a casket. But, I digress...I can imagine how this all unfolded. These people were pinochile buddies of my grandparents. They lived in Mount Vernon. They probably were after my grandparents to get the hell out of the Bronx...even then. I can hear my grandparents say that they did have the dough for the housing upgrade. And they probably said they wouldn't trust a bank for a mortgage, since the recovery from the crash of 1929 was still a fresh wound in their passbooks. So, the other half of the pinochile quartet said that they would front the cash. And, so it happened...Of course, there was left nothing to chance. There were extensive documents heralding this loan of $3,000. And, also in the strongbox, I found almost five years of monthly receipts that acknowledged my grandparents were paying back the loan. At the lofty clip of $ 60 per month at 4% interest. By 1953, they were done. It was amazing to see how civilized they all were about this. It truly was another time, another place, and another generation. I closed the lid of the strongbox one more time.Dinner last night: Super Dodger Dog and fries at Chavez Ravine.