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Next to the Blumer home, was the Laphams with two sons, William and Beverly, the latter my age. I think Mr. Lapham was in the insurance business and doing well. William was the Junior, a big herk of a boy, and we called him either Junior or "Cooney", the latter inexplicable. Beverly was smaller in build and a very handsome blond; they were both prep school and Ivy League material--if fact, most of the boys in the neighborhood fell into these two categories. I knew Beverly, in particular, pretty well but never got to be a bosom pal of him and when Virginia Kingsbury moved across the street from the Laphams, I was just plain jealous of him. 

Next and on the corner of Highland and Oak Street, came the Pierces, who lived in a big, brown-shingled home and exuded prosperity. They had a son, Spencer, or "Penny", who became a good friend of mine. And it was the Pierces' fate to be the family who gave me my first realization that we weren't living in a world of continuous and inevitable prosperity. Mr. Pierce was one of the family in Pierce, Butler & Pierce, a firm which manufactured plumbing equipment and bathroom fixtures, an old line Syracuse concern with a good reputation and presumably prosperous. But they got into financial difficulties and finally went into bankruptcy with the result that Penny Pierce's family sold their big house on Highland Avenue and moved into a small house on an inconsequential street on the outskirts of a town near Greenways, a mile or more from their former residence. I went out there a few times to play with Penny but even in my extreme youth, I was impressed that something quite undesirable had happened to the Pierces. Fortunately I didn't know that in a few short years, something much worse would happen to me.

That covers our block on Highland Avenue but there were other families scattered around the immediate vicinity which should be covered but I'll touch base on them more or less at random. Next to the Halsteds on DeWitt Street, the Durstons built a home or perhaps bought it from Dr. Halsted. While it was being erected, the kids nearby would play around in the place, it being my initiation into enjoying fooling around in "new houses." Fortunately I never got hurt in this pastime, which was potentially dangerous. Mr. Durston was a lawyer, I think, and they had a couple of small girls who never meant much to me; Jane, the elder, was about my age but the chemistry wasn't right although she was a very pretty child as I recall her.

Then a family named Seiter, in the hat manufacturing business in town, built a house next to the Durstons. There were three children, Elizabeth, Marian and Jack. The girls were older than I but I got quite chummy with Jack, who was inclined to be a little wild and daring, maybe to overcome an inferiority complex occasioned by his two older sisters. A path behind the old Halsted barn gave convenient access to Seiters from us.