| #329 p. 42 variegated panax hedge is visible between #2415 Ala Wai Boulevard, which Barrett family rented for $95 per month from Walter Glockner, who spent war years brewing beer in Stevens Point,Wisconsin, after being interned December 8, l941 by FBI because of his birth in Germany.Walter Glockner wrote the Barretts friendly letters, and Sophie tried to help him with minor problems. He returned after the war and wanted to use his upstairs apartment, but a Samoan lady with two young children Tommy and a small baby resisted his eviction effort in court and still lived upstairs when the Barrett family left Waikiki June 4, l947 for their summer tour of western national parks and return to Jack's old home aty 640 E.ast Seventh Street, South Boston.NEW YORK chapter HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE August 1939 to June 1941 and departure for Hawaii about July 10, 1941. [follows TRINITY chapter] TEXT: AUGUST 1939 We had a three week visit in South Boston with Jack's eighty-four year old father and his sister Mollie in very hot August weather. The three weeks John and I spent in South Boston in August 1939 [while Jack was househunting in New York and Brooklyn] were the longest opportunity for John and his grandfather to become acquainted. Grandpa Barrett had visited Norfolk {Virginia] in [May] 1936 and [Bala Cynwyd] Philadelphia in 1937 and 1938 when John was a baby, and saw him again briefly in June 1941 juat before we left for Hawaii. John sent carefully lettered cards to him from Hawaii when he was six years old, and Jack took countless picutres of us to send to Grandpa and Mollie to keep their spirits high. A very large batch of pictures were sent to him from Hawaii in June, l942. Grandpa saw and enjoyed them before he died two months later [August 21, l942 less than] four months before his eighty-eighth birthday. The old house at 640 East Seventh Street was not an ideal place for an active three year old boy in the August heat. Grandpa wanted to keep all the doors shut, but John and I felt the need of fresh air. He also thought that John should get more sleep, but John was not accustomed to going to bed right after supper in broad daylight, and I thought it would be cruel to put him to bed so early, especially when he always had an afternoon nap. Mollie even brought down from the attic some of the kindergarten supplies -wooden pegs and puzzles,- which her brother Bill's first wife Catherine Miley used in teaching her kindergarten classes in New York in the 1920s. [Catherine married Bill Barrett in 1923, died of cancer February 1931 while we were in Tientsin, China.]= Grandpa thought they should occupy John for days on end.[end p. 189, notebook Two] [p. 259 Notebook Four]--Plagued by the heat and fatigue, Jack reported to Captain Baggaley at the Naval Hydrographic Office, then in New York Customs House, and found a temporary furnished apartment for himself in Brooklyn. We remained at 640 East Seventh Street [South Boston] as the guests of Grandpa and Aunt Mollie, who did all they could for our comfort that stifling hot summer. ett in her teaching days. SEPTEMBER 1939 The war in Europe was about to begin September 3, 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland. The New York Branch Hydrographic Office would be an important and sensitve center for the Navy to receive reports of mine, blockade, and submarine hazards as well as the usual weather, ice, and water depth reports. Finally with the help of his Fordham Law School friend John Papp, Jack found an unfurnished apartment at 9615 Shore Road in Brooklyn,-Apartment 2A on the second floor - arranged the furniture which had arrived from storage in San Diego,-found a garage where he left his car,came to Boston for us, - and Jack, John and I traveled by train to the Grand Central Station, then took a taxi to the apartment in Brooklyn. There was a central long corridor, an excellent view,two large bedrooms,a large living room, a good sized kitchen, and plenty of room for all our Chinese rugs and other furnishings. John was three and a half years old then and still remembers that apartment, thirty years later. The rent was very reasonable.The very large apartment house [six floors] belonged to the State of New York, which kept in excellent repair with a capable superintendant, two hall boys in the large entrance hall, and an exterminator who came frequently to inquire about roaches or other bugs. The area across Shore Road was a mixture of tall grass, trees, sand, shrubs, and flowers, - unfortunately sacrificed only a few years later to build vast expanses of paved highways. But when we lived there, Jack and John enjoyed many happy hours picking wild grasses, buttercups, daisies, and dandelions for my bouquets, and they took many excellent snapshots of John's toy animals there. John loved that apartment and vicinity. His crib was in our bedroom, but John had his own play room, and had his father with him every evening and weekend.The play room faced on New York Harbor- we could see the ships coming and going in and out of New York. Jack raised and photographed flowers in pots in the room- flowers that John liked very much, - amaryllis, ranunculus, tuberous begonias, anemones and other potted plants. Jack had no luck with freesias. He used three toothpicks in a triangle to suspend the stones from avocadoes over water in glass milk bottles, and the avocadoes would sprout several feet with big leaves. There was a large Chinese ancient kassu rug on the play room floor, - building blocks, Tinkertoys,a small and a large rocking chair, and a blackboard on the wall. There was also a solidly built writing table, on which Jack had cut off the legs to make the writing surface about two feet from the floor, and a small straight chair to fit the table. The room had many child's books including a Koala book from Australia- all the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit series books - Uncle Bill's gift of French Becassine books he purchased in Europe on his 1938 honeymoon- - "The Little Engine That Could" and |
No comments:
Post a Comment