Sepia Saturday 723. H is for Hollywood Ave. in Gloversville, N.Y.: My mom’s childhood home. No. 8 of 26 posts in the April 2024 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme: My Life: The Prequel (in Snapshots) adding my parents’ stories to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey.
My mom, Peg Laurence1Laurence is anglicized from the Italian surname Di Lorenzo., was born in Gloversville, N.Y., in 1926 — and that’s where she lived until departing for college.
However, her family made a couple of stops before moving to 12 Hollywood Ave. — the first home of their own, where my mom and her younger sister Rita grew up.
A possible reason for the house hopping: Mom’s parents — Antonio and Elizabeth (Stoutner) Laurence — were next door neighbors on Wells St. in Gloversville when they fell in love and eloped to Detroit, Mich., to marry (read more about that here).
Mom’s Wells St. homes
Lisbeth’s German-American family opposed the match, so on their return, she and Tony moved in with his Italian-American parents and younger brother Joe at 12 Wells Street. That’s where my mom was born.
Soon, though, Mom’s family moved across the street to 9 Wells Street, shown above — where they were living during the 1930 US Census. By 1932, a Gloversville City Directory listed Tony’s address as 12 N Hollywood Ave., the childhood home my mom remembered.
Life on Hollywood Ave.
When Mom’s family moved to the N. Hollywood Ave. house, they finally had a home of their own. And that’s where Mom spent the 12 formative years of her life.
Compared to the more compact streets closer to Gloversville’s city center, Hollywood Ave. was more suburban — featuring larger single family homes with lawns, trees and landscaping. I remember it having a spacious feel when I stopped there with Mom to see the house during a 1992 family history road trip.
From there Mom went to school, made lifelong friends, attended music lessons, left for summer camp at Great Sacandaga Lake — and interacted with her Italian and German extended family, who lived walking distance away.
Persistent memories
Hollywood Ave. made such a lasting impression on Mom that, after the 1940 US Census went public — when she was 86 — she still remembered the neighbors when I phoned her to go over the list.
“There was someone on the street with a high government job,” she recalled as I read her the family names house to house. Sure enough, I looked further down the census page and one of the neighbors was the County Treasurer!
Of all the activities Mom engaged in while living on Hollywood Ave., music was the one that became her life calling. More on that in the next post.
- 1Laurence is anglicized from the Italian surname Di Lorenzo.
Up next, I is for In love with music: My mom’s vocation. Please stop back! Meanwhile, please visit the other intrepid bloggers over at Sepia Saturday.
© 2024 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
I loved your description of the Hollywood Avenue property. I was lucky to have a wealth of photographs and documents from my grandfather’s house, but how I wish now I had taken more notice , asked more questions or written their memories down. I was always told that Grandad would never talk about his experiences during the First World War – some memories remained very private.
I also wished I had interviewed my grandparents. Thank goodness, I realized my error and interviewed my folks. It was nice to learn their impressions from childhood, which I might otherwise have only guessed at.
This post is proof that we should talk to our parents and grandparents about their family life before it is too late. They know so much and if we don’t ask, it all disappears in the mists of the past.
I am always fascinated by “translated” surnames. It seems quite a step to me to do that. Almost 12 years ago I wrote a blog about the subject. If you are interested it shows many examples of people emigrating to the States and changing their surname. The URL is https://patmcast.blogspot.com/2012/06/dutch-surname-equivalents-abroad.html.
Not just relatives, either. I have also interviewed some of my parents’ friends — which added yet another dimension. Good post about surname equivalents — essential to pay attention to those variants when researching.
I’ll be looking forward to finding out how music figured into your Mom’s life as that is a love of mine! 🙂
She fell in love with piano as a girl, and by the time she graduated high school she was asked to play a duet at the graduation ceremony. There are a couple of other blog posts in this series about those events.
The amount of research you’ve put into this post (and others) just amazes me, along with the amount of memorabilia your family kept. What a gift they gave you. I sometimes wonder how I would have been shaped by different upbringings than I received (an urban childhood in the Bronx).
Thanks, Alana. I am forever grateful to my parents and grandparents for holding onto the artifacts, documents, and photos that were important to them — an incredible gift, as you note.
Wonderful post and vintage photos of family ~ so precious ~ hugs,
Wishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Thanks! I’m so glad my grandmother was a shutterbug and took/saved so many photos.
It’s funny how homes and streets can shape us. My mom told me the names of streets she’d lived on when she was a child, too, and shared memories from living there, as well. 🙂
So true, Chrys. I got together as an adult with a former neighbor I grew up with — and over dinner we “went up and down the street” discussing each house in turn 🙂 Strong memories!
A beautiful post. Family is so precious.
Thank you for joining the Happy Tuesday Blog Hop.
Have a fabulous Happy Tuesday. ♥
Thanks so much!
I had to go back to look at the elopement post. What intrigue, what mystery, what true love!
Glad you enjoyed that post! It took me years of research and interviews to piece that story together 🙂