Greensburg, Pa. Memories: College Avenue

 

Walter Kowinski and Flora Severini Kowinski had married in August 1945, and moved into an apartment at 437 College Avenue in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Christmas 1948

 At first I thought it was called “Collie Javenue.” But my first home for my first three years and change was an attic or loft apartment on College Avenue. Up on the hill directly opposite was Seton Hill College.  (Oddly or not, years later I lived in attic rooms during all four of my college years.) 

 The building on College Avenue no longer exists.  It was set back from the street and appears to have been a prosperous residence at one time.  In the late 1940s, it was probably a duplex with two apartments on each of two floors, and perhaps two attic apartments.

 

Since I was their first child, there are a lot of photos from my first few years.  I recognize some kitchen objects and some furniture in photos taken in the apartment—the upholstered sofa and matching chair that were dark blue, for instance—but only from their transfer to our next home. 

  In some photos there are books lined on a shelf behind the sofa, with a pair of golden lions head bookends that remained in our homes to the end, along with bookshelves and books.  Books and bookshelves were rare in homes of anyone we knew. 

Another bookend from College Avenue was my bronzed baby shoe. Bronzing baby shoes became popular in the 1930s, and there was one company (in Columbus, Ohio) that usually did the job.  Now mine, in the form of a heavy bookend, sits on one of my bookshelves.

 My mother had the complete 12 volume set of Book House books, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller, which I also still have. (These may have been a gift from my Aunt Toni.)  These books of excerpts from world literatures for children as they grew up, from infancy to early adolescence, were important in the childhoods of some distinguished writers-- as well as Mr. Rogers.

 

The set includes a parents guide which suggests first that parents read to their children—and I remember my mother doing so, out of the first volume or two of these books.  It also suggests that parents keep their own books in the house for children to see and get used to as objects, so they will be encouraged to read. I don’t think that’s the only reason my mother had books on display, but it probably was one of them.

Inside the first volume of the Bookhouse

 

  My only certain memory of College Avenue was a moment: I was perched on my father’s shoulders on the landing outside our apartment door in dim light, after walking up the long flights of stairs.  I might have been a little scared but mostly thrilled at being that high.

 

I don't remember the kitchen but the cannisters,
the cupboard and the owl salt shaker etc.
would move with us to Lincoln Avenue.

My Uncle Carl Severini, then a teenager, had a part time job at a drug store in downtown Greensburg, and he would come by for lunch, he told me.  The apartment was unusual in that the front door opened onto the bedroom.

 

Evidently the apartment was large enough for my 2nd birthday
party. I've obviously just made a remark, probably in Italian.
I'm looking towards Angeline M. above right. My grandmother
Severini is laughing right behind me. On the left is my Uncle
Bugs (Frank) Kowinski.  That folding table migrated from
Youngwood to College Ave., and then to Lincoln Ave.

My mother told one story about my first year there.  She and my Aunt Toni were talking when they noticed I was no longer to be seen. They called me but I didn’t answer.  My mother saw that a window was slightly opened.  She said she thought immediately of the Lindbergh kidnapping.  Eventually they found me. I’d crawled under the bed and fallen asleep. 

 There are photos taken when I was 20 months old, playing in the snow in the big yard in front of the building.  My mother is making me a snowman.