What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?

What Do You See Outside YOUR Open Window Today?
Remember: "When God closes a door, He always opens a window!" You never know what might be out there waiting for you!

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Christmas on Elmwood Street- Part One -Reposted again ...Enjoy!

UPDATED DECEMBER 2018....2020 for my Wednesday Treasures post...

This is a true story that I wrote about my Dad, written from his own perspective.   In 2011 the story became even more precious, because my Dad passed away earlier in that year...so I am reprinting this series again in honor and loving memory of my Dad, William F. "Billy" Mursch.  The story is in three parts, so I will add the next chapter later, and so on until it is complete.  I hope you will enjoy this little blast from Christmas Past... (there are links to the other chapters at the end of this post).


Original Post, December 2010:
I originally wrote this story  for my father's Christmas card several years ago, which was sent to all of his family and friends for Christmas.  I will add a little more each day until it is complete. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into the life of my Dad, "Billy Mursch", when he was about 10 years old.  (written from his perspective)
The Home of "Billy Mursch"
Elmwood Street, Crafton, PA



Billy Mursch, with partial
views of his sister Marion (top right,
and his brother Paul (rt.)

A Chapter in the Life of “Billy” Mursch

Crafton, Pennsylvania
Circa 1929


As a young boy growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s in a small suburb of the big city of Pittsburgh, I would say that I was very typical for the time. Of course, the fact that I had a head full of bright auburn hair made my life a bit more interesting, and created opportunities for others to attach various knicknames to me like “Red-headed Billy Goat”, which resulted in great chases on the school yard. My friend “Brinkie” (Ralph Brinkman) and I could take care of the bullies all right.


Elva and Bill Mursch
(Billy's parents)
My family moved to our brand new home on Elmwood Street right about the time of the beginning of The Great Depression in 1929. My Dad had our house built from a kit that he purchased through the Lumber Yard in Crafton. It was a Craftsman style one story and a half bungalow, with a big front porch, walk up attic, and a basement. 

I immediately claimed the attic for my special museum where I kept my treasures of rocks, fossils and shells from our trips to Lake Erie. My Uncle Jack also brought me some interesting fossils and shells from his travels in Bermuda, which made my museum even more unique. I later expanded the museum to the basement, using a large refrigerator carton as my display cabinet for other artifacts, such as the small pieces of a crashed airplane that we discovered over at the County Airport. 

As any young budding archeologist might do, I once was attempting to reconstruct the skeleton of an old Airedale dog that had been buried in the woods for about a year by one of our neighbors. Everything was just fine until my mother smelled the peculiar stench of old bones boiling in a kettle on the laundry boiler wafting up from the basement and permeating the house above. That particular artifact had to be removed from the museum and re-buried in the woods post-haste! I was only trying to get the skeleton nice and clean for the museum. So much for my career in archeology!


L to R: Paul, Billy, Ruth, Marion, and neighbor boy Bobby Scott.

Christmas was a wonderful time, even during The Great Depression. Although my father had a good job at U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh, money was still very tight for our large family. You see, besides my parents and myself, there were my three siblings: my older sister Marion, my younger brother Paul, and our baby sister Ruth. Being typical kids, we each had our own little lists of what we hoped Santa would bring us, and we’d start dropping hints several weeks before the big day. My particular desire was for the latest edition of The Boy Ranchers series of books. I couldn’t wait to find out what the “Boy Ranchers” would be doing next. Some of the intriguing titles of those books were: The Boy Ranchers in Camp; The Boy Ranchers on the Trail; The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians; The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River; and The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley, to name a few of my favorites. It was awfully difficult for a young boy to have to wait a whole year to get the next edition of his favorite book, but it was always well worth the wait!

(Book cover copied from internet...wish I could buy them, but they are quite expensive now) 



The other item that we could usually expect to receive for Christmas was a new pair of shoes. These shoes had to last all year, as they were the only pair we could hope to receive, so it was imperative that I learned how to take good care of them. The shoes I remember most were my leather high top boots that had a little pocket on the side for my Boy Scout pocketknife! No boy in that era would be caught dead without his trusty pocketknife always ready to whittle some stick or cut a trail through the woods or build a fort. The high tops looked really sharp with the knickers we still had to wear. The only thing better would have been to finally be able to wear long pants!

Sometimes before Christmas we would take a ride downtown on the streetcar to Pittsburgh and walk through the streets of the city and look in all the department store windows. Kaufmanns and The Joseph Horne Co. always had elaborate displays of toys and electric trains and all the newest and best things any little boy or girl could wish for. However, for many children, with the depression looming over our nation, that was pretty much all it was…a wish.




Back to the future:  I will post these next two chapters of this story on the next two days, but you are welcome to look ahead at those links if you just can't wait! Thank you for following along on this little look into the past with me.

26 comments:

  1. I can just hear Daddy telling this story!
    I miss him so much!

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    1. Me too. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to really listen as he shared these stories from his childhood. These memories are real treasures. I wish I'd listened and remembered MORE of his stories! He had some good ones!!
      Love ya, sis!!!

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  2. Thank you Pam, for re-sharing this interesting story about your dad's youth.

    Blessings!

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    1. Thank you Kim. I am so glad you enjoyed it. It was such a special time when my dad shared these stories with me. I am so happy that I took the time to write it all down. A precious part of history!

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  3. Fabulous story so far, Pamela! I'm looking forward to more installments, that's for sure.
    Blessings!

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    1. Thank you Martha Jane! I am so glad you enjoyed this little story. It was fun writing it, especially while my Dad was still living and he gave me these details. I am so happy I saved it.

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  4. Awww...what a delight to hear of your dad as he tells a story of his youth.
    My dad was a great one for telling stories about his youth too. I miss those times with him and hearing more of his life. So happy that I took the time to listen and tuck it all away in my heart.

    I look forward to the continuation.

    Have a blessed evening~~

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    1. Thank you Debbie. I am glad that you are a kindred spirit about appreciating the stories and lives of our parents/grandparents...someday WE will be the ones trying to tell our grandchildren about our lives...I hope they will listen too! That is why I try to write so much...hoping it will be passed down from generation to generation...

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  5. Pam, thank you for re-posting this! I loved it and will look forward to the other parts as you post them! Pittsburgh PA is only about 1 1/2 to 2 hours away from where we live so it was easy for me to picture these scenes in my mind. What a treasure that you have this history of your dad's family. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

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    1. Thank you, Dianna. I am glad you were able to read and identify with this story. I am so glad that I took the time to sit and listen to my Dad as he shared these stories with me. It was fascinating to hear him telling it from his memory...when he was about 90 years old!! I just wish I had asked about more of his life. He had lots of stories to tell.

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  6. So pleasurable to visit your family history once again, Pamela! I'll look forward to the next chapter.
    Blessings, my friend!

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    1. Thank you, Martha...oh, this was in 2018...LOL. I hope you read it by now!

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  7. GREAT stories, Pam! That dog bone story, oh my!!! The house from a kit was wonderful! A walk-up attic -- my parents rented a house in the Chicago area many years ago that had one of those. It was very neat!

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    1. Wow, hard to believe you made this comment exactly 2 years ago, Barbara. I am thinking about you today and praying for you, and hoping you are doing okay. I know this is a difficult day for you. (((hugs))).

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  8. Question...did his mom reuse the pot after the boiling incident? I would imagine it was a big ticket item then and they would be unlikely to jolt out and buy a new one. But...ick... ;-)

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    1. Ha Ha! I have no idea, Sandi! I guess since it was for boiling the laundry, the soap used would help make it really clean I would imagine...and the bones were OLD.

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  9. Okay, so I got in on this a little late, but when I saw part 3, I knew I had to come back to part 1. Boiling dog bones in the basement?? Oh my!! And a house built from a kit?? How wonderful that you captured these stories from your dad. How I wish I had listened with such detail. I look forward to reading part 2 tomorrow.

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    1. I think it is sad how many of us missed out on great stories by not taking the time to listen to our grandparents and our parents. I wish I'd known my grandparents better...I still have a lot of questions that I will never know the answer to until heaven, if it even matters then.

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  10. {{{grin}}} thank you Pamela for the many smiles you bring.

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    1. Oh, bless you, Linda. That is comforting to know. There are many days that I think I leave people scratching their heads and wondering what on earth am I thinking or doing now? LOL. I often ask myself the same thing...LOL.

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  11. What wonderful memories! I love hearing older folks talk about the old days and their memories. I heard a saying that is so true...Every time a senior dies, it's like a whole library burns down. I love the glimpse into days gone by. Oh, how I remember the trips to Pittsburgh when I was a little girl to see the windows at Kaufman's and Horne's. Kaufman's was the last to go. My aunt was the one who had always taken me to things like that so when I heard it was Kaufman's last Christmas we loaded up her and the kids (both were still at home) and we went to see the windows one last time. They were done up with the story of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." She wanted to have lunch in the cafe on the top floor, too, but it had already closed. We settled for ice cream at a little snack bar they had.

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    1. Oh, so sad to see those grand old downtown department stores closed and gone forever. When we used to go to Ohio to see my other Grandparents, my Aunt, my mother and my cousin and I went downtown Columbus to the Lazarus store and we went up to the top cafe where they had models modeling outfits come by your table while you ate lunch. We ordered the lunch special, which was turkey and gravy over dressing, or something like that. To me it was very elegant! I was about 10. Loved riding the escalator. If I ever went downtown Pittsburgh, I don't remember because I was too young when we used to go there before we moved to Florida in 1956. But my grandmother always shopped there at those stores before they retired and moved to Florida too. She always talked about never finding any store in Florida that could compare to Joseph Horne's or Kaufman's. Thank you for sharing your memories of those special shopping trips too. "Those were the days my friend...we thought they'd never end..."

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  12. I'm so glad you are publishing this series again, Pamela. Hearing your father's experiences growing up reminds me of my own dad's. Although he was a tad younger, he did live through the depression, and came out on the other side with a positive attitude that he carried for the rest of his life.
    Blessings!

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    1. Thank you for joining in again Martha! I love telling this story again as so many have not heard it yet, and we need to remember the way it was back in the day of our parents and grandparents. It was a whole different world. They all turned out to be strong, solid American citizens, ready to fight for our country's freedoms in WWII and beyond. We still have some strong patriots today, but I fear they are dwindling in number and fervor. We need to pray for our country like never before.

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  13. I love your father's easy, authentic voice. (But oh my word on those boiling Airedale bones!). 'Was going to say that about seniors being a living library, but I see Stacy beat me to it. So glad you're preserving his memories!

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    1. thank you, Myra. I just wish I'd asked more questions sooner...but glad I got what I did before it was too late. He was full of stories.

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