Viewing page 46 of 207

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

28

When we moved to Highland Avenue in 1908, Annie, our Indian cook, came with us and stayed with us for several years more. She was succeeded by Nellie McDermott, a buxom,immigrant Irish girl in her twenties who stayed with us until Mother had to let her go after my father died. Nellie had quite a brogue and was full of fun and was very good to me. She loved to joke with me about her boyfriend, Dennis Muldoon, although I doubt such a one existed. I can still see the kitchen there, with the big coal stove and the coal scuttle and fire tools, and the sink and drain board, and the table by the window and the closet where the cookie tin was kept, not to mention the alternate batches of sugar and ginger cookies that Nellie made every few days. In the back hall near the back door was the refrigerator with a top-opening door to the ice compartment which was served by the iceman every day during the warm weather. Between the kitchen and the dining room, was a butler's pantry which was lined with cupboards where the dishes were kept and also had a neat metal sink with a tall, skinny water pipe to feed it. Over this sink was a window giving onto the backyard. The yard and sidewalks were looked after by Mr. Harp, a pleasant pro at this work, who took care of a number of place sin the vicinity; he also took care of the furnace along with the ash and trash barrels. Our laundress, who came in once a week, was Tracy Perkowski, a very nice, motherly Polish woman whom I was quite fond of. Mother would order her meat and groceries by phone each morning from John Morrissey at Andrews Grocery downtown and they would be delivered promptly. And in season, Charlie Desamone was the source of fresh fruit and vegetables. Looking back at it, I feel almost sure that the food in those days tasted better than the stuff we get today. Eggs came from Brezee's farm in Eastwood.

It seems as though I had quite a few illnesses but actually I guess they were primarily the usual children's diseases plus a bad cold now and then. I remember having trained nurses two or three times, in particular Miss Culkins (or Calkins) and Miss Morris, and of getting quite a crush on the latter. My worst affliction was an acute attack of appendicitis which required a fast trip to the hospital and immediate surgery but all went well. This occurred just after my father died and before we'd moved from Highland Avenue to Douglas Street. I was in St. Joseph's Hospital for two weeks in a private room and because the Sisters who ran the hospital, on whose staff my father was, thought so much of him, they refused to take a penny of compensation from Mother. Of course, the surgeon, Dr. Flaherty, who was a friend of my father's, also performed gratis. My father was on the staffs of St.Joseph's, Womens and Childrens, and the Hospital of the Good Shepherd, besides serving at the Free Dispensery, and teaching a course or so at the Syracuse College of Medicine. He drove himself hard and he had very little time to relax. He would have lived longer if he hadn't tried to do so much, of that I am sure.