52 Ancestors Week 13: Home Sweet Home

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 13:

The theme for Week 13 is “Home Sweet Home.” What ancestor makes you think of home or when you picture them, you think of their home? Or maybe you had an ancestor who homesteaded? This is a good week to write about them.

While I was taking this pic, a small dog who thought
he was a big dog was barking at me....

    There are sadly not many houses I can associate with an ancestor. My maternal grandparents spent most of their time in Florida and at their house in Raymond, New Hampshire. Naturally, I  can also picture the house I grew up in and one day I might write about the place when the prompt comes up again. Whenever I look at my grandma Ollie's picture, I picture her house on Washington Street in Haverhill, Mass. The house now looks like a bachelor pad. I'm not joking. They have a swimming pool in the backyard and everything! Thankfully, I wrote about her house last year and many memories came back to me during the writing process. Check it out here.

    This time around, I decided to go one step above grandma Ollie and talk about her parents' house on nearby Bartlett Street. Whenever I see their picture, I think of that house. The home of Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione was a hub of activity up until the death of my great-aunt Louise in 2010. That's quite a long history and I was fortunate to have been to the house many, many times growing up.

Be it ever so humble....

    I'm not sure if I've talked about the house before. I might have and that's okay because it bears repeating! It's a great house to talk about and I have a lot of memories going there. When I was a kid, I was told that Giuseppe and Clementina's house was spot to be for the Carrabs clan. Giuseppe's brothers, Rocco and Pasquale always went there with their families.

    I'm not exactly sure about the origins of the house to tell you the truth. The answer must lie in Haverhill City Hall. A quick look at Whitepages reveals that the house was built in 1910. This makes a lot of sense because at the time of the 1920 census Giuseppe and his family was living there!

    Sometime between 1910 and 1920, my great-grandfather bought the house and it's been in the family ever since. The house has three apartments and at one point in time Giuseppe and Clementina lived on one floor while two of the daughters lived on another floor. That's a pretty tidy arrangement, isn't it? And it is remarkable how the family stayed in that house for almost a century!

    When I came around, it was just Aunt Louise and her husband Arnold Villanucci living there.  Grandma Ollie had long since moved to Washington Street and the other sisters were nearby. The distance didn't seem to matter because no matter where they were, they all ended up at either Ollie's house or Louise's house. I remember my parents and I going to grandma's house only to find she wasn't there. This was before cellphones so we had no way to contact her if we were on the road. We went over to Louise's and she was there chatting with her sisters. It was a 50/50 shot where grandma would be most of the time. Sometimes she'd be at her house and sometimes she was at Auntie Louise's.

    Aunt Louise's house was not really much different from my grandmother's if I'm going to be honest. Like my grandmother, she had a big round table in the kitchen. The only difference was that it was against the wall and not in the center of the room. The hall to the left led to her bedroom and bathroom and straight ahead was the living room.

    It was there that I first saw a picture of my great-grandparents. Louise had many pictures around the house and many of them were in the living room. There was a nice picture of Rocco by the television as well and I remember asking all kinds of questions about him.

    Naturally, my great-aunt was a lot like my grandmother in that she also liked to tell stories. Though, sometimes they had a humorous flair to them.

    I remember one time we were at the house at they were talking about the family who lived upstairs around the time of the 1950 census. The family of Alessio Schena lived upstairs and for a long time the sisters wondered if they were related to him because a Schena married one of their Penta relatives. A woman named Antoinetta Penta married a man named Rocco Schena. Sadly, I haven't found any connection to that Schena since Rocco and Antonetta had four children together and none of them were named Alessio. Still, Alessio could've been a brother to Rocco. I'll have to dig into this one once they've found a way to create more hours in a day!

I wish I knew where this
pic came from.

    Anyway, the house is special to me because Ollie and her sisters told me about what it was like growing up there with their parents. They told me about Giuseppe's garden in the back which was very much like the garden we have at our house today. He also grew tomatoes, peppers and just like any other Italian he had his own wine. The stuff was strong. But, not as strong as Rocco's, apparently. I heard it could be used to peel paint off of wood.

    Yes, we've actually had debates over which brother's wine was the strongest. After much deliberation it was agreed that Rocco's was the strongest. Who knows what he put in the stuff to make it that way!

    I digress. The house on Bartlett street was the place where I learned all about my great-grandparents and being there made them seem more real than just photos standing on a mantle. It was easy to see Louise and her sisters growing up there as the place seemed so inviting like the house on Washington street.

  Things may have changed since the days my great-grandparents lived there. However, the stories of the house and the people who lived there endure to this day and I had a great time visiting the house every time we went there. 

    Out of all the houses I've been to in Haverhill, it's the second one I associate with an ancestor. The first, of course, would be my grandmother's house. Though, that house was my great-grandfather Vincenzo's house first.  For the story on that one, check out the other house tour! I am immensely grateful that I got to see grandma's house and the house on Bartlett street. Both places have a place in my heart and I'll always think of my ancestors whenever we go by there. Just....no one better turn them into swinging bachelor pads. That's all I ask.

See ya next time!

Pic of 26 Bartlett Street is courtesy of Google Earth.