81f-Emily and Frank-Hobbies and Leisure Time Activities 1950s style

Introduction

In the early years of the 1950s, Americans began to focus on traditional values and gender roles as the lifestyle of the WWII years receded into the past.  Emphasis was given to conformity and adherence to traditional norms. WWII veterans benefitted from the G.I. Bill that helped pay for further education and job training.  Now, more than in previous decades, it was possible for a young man to attend college and graduate with a degree.  This ideal motivated many young men towards successful careers in their chosen fields.  Men were encouraged to define themselves in terms of their occupations and ability to provide the material comforts and security of a middle class lifestyle for their wives and children.

Along with this upward mobility came more leisure time than previous generations enjoyed.  Manufacturers began creating products for the hobbyist which were eagerly taken up by the mainstream.  Book clubs and magazine subscriptions were also promoted as a sign of a home occupied by well informed and aware family members.  Advertisements featuring photos or illustrations of livingrooms often showed large coffee tables and end tables in a living room with magazines and books neatly arranged next to vases of flowers, bowls of snack food or a cup of coffee.  These small details reinforced the emphasis that a well rounded family life included time for personal development and creative expression by means of reading and hobbies.

In this posting we will look at Frank and Emily’s hobbies and interests during the years 1950-1953.  Then in the discussion of our research findings, Uncle Sammy and I will consider how these trends influenced ourselves and the larger family network.

Relationship Notes

Emily L. Serrapede was the daughter of Sam and Josie (nee Muro) Serrapede.  She was born in 1931 and grew up in the Italian-American section of Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, NY.  Emily attended Bay Ridge High School and graduated with a Commercial Diploma.  She continued to work as a legal secretary after her marriage in 1950.  Emily’s younger brother Sammy, born in 1943, was in elementary school in 1950.

Frank J. Terry* was the son of Al and Blanche (nee Flashenberg) Terry*.  Frank had a very strong desire to serve our country during WWII.  Blanche and Al gave their permission for him to enlist in the Navy one month short of his high school graduation.  Upon his return to civilian life, Frank went to work at the leather importing firm where Al also was employed.  Frank loved his new nephew Sammy very much and spent time with him building model airplanes.  Frank was born in 1927 and grew up in the section of Dyker Heights bordering on Bensonhurst.  His siblings were Alfred, Robert and Maureen.

*See Note about surname before Resources section.

Family Story:  Book Clubs and Paint-by-Number Kits

Emily had a brand new Singer sewing machine that Josie bought for her after Frank and Emily celebrated their first wedding anniversary.  It came in a mahogony cabinet along with a small seat which fit under the cabinet when not in use.  Emily used the sewing machine to reinforce seams on pillow cases or fix trim on her slips where the stitching came loose.  She did not have Josie’s enthusiasm for sewing and lacked any motivation to make clothes for herself or curtains for the apartment.  Within a few months the sewing machine cabinet had a crocheted doily on top of it and a small bowl with artificial fruit in it.  That doily was one of the hand made gifts Emily got for her bridal shower from the wife of a paesano.

Hobbies were not something Emily cared for since she considered them a form of work.  Instead of knitting, crocheting or even baking, she preferred to engage her mind and imagination in pursuits that took her outside of the present time and space.  She considered a good book, a short story, even a well-written magazine article a journey into another world.  Emily loved having a cup of coffee and curling up on the little sofa and focusing with all her heart, mind and spirit on what she was readying.  This is why joining a book club appealed to her.  She did not consider her book club memberships as a hobby because reading was not a means to pass the time.  It was part of the ongoing improvement one makes to become more aware, educated and hopefully a better person.

81e-Serrapede Family 1947-1950: Sabatucch from Sea Beach (Part 2)

Introduction

Sam supported his family throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s and all during the WWII years of the 1940s by working as a boot black and all around person at a local barber shop.  Towards the end of WWII and before the early 1950s set in, Sam no longer worked there.  Despite the numerous family stories in which the barber shop is mentioned the name of the shop and the name of the owner never came up. 

In this posting Uncle Sammy and I share how we found the barber that may have been Sam’s employer.  We started off with a wide net that yielded several possibilities.  During the initial review, a very strong impression came to Uncle Sammy about one particular barber shop he remembered from his childhood.  While we still do not have hard facts to confirm if our findings based on this memory are correct we are putting the results online.  There is always the chance the descendants of this barber will find the post and if they are doing their own family history may have some details to share with us to help finalize whether or not we located the correct barber and barber shop.

Relationship Notes

Sam Serrapede was born in 1900 in Agropoli, a seaside town on the Cilento Coast of Italy.  He emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1920s and married Josie Muro in 1930.  Josie and Sam settled in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn.  Sam worked in a local barber shop as a boot black during the 1930s through the mid to late 1940s. 

Junior (a/k/a Sabbatino) is Sam and Josie’s son.  Today the family calls him Sammy.  He is EmilyAnn’s maternal Uncle.

Gennaro “Jerry” Cardinale was a barber who owned his own barbershop in the neighborhood where the Serrapede family lived.  We think he may have been Sam’s employer.  This posting explores the process which led us to finding Gennaro.  In the Discussion which concludes the posting we consider the reasons that may have prompted Sam to make a change of jobs at mid-life.

Searching for the barbershop

There were no online business directories like Trow’s available for Brooklyn, NY in the 1930s and 1940s. The 1940 Brooklyn Phone Directory at the New York Public Library’s DirectMe! website did not prove helpful, either.  This is because it is strictly an alphabetical listing. 

Sam and Josie Serrapede’s listing in the 1933 Brooklyn City Directory.

At Ancestry we knew that there were digitized City Directories that predated the Phone Books were proved very helpful in the past.  The City Directories were used in the days before the telephone became common to find out the following details about the persons listed:

• Full Name
• Address of home (res)
• Address of business (if owned)
• Spouse’s name (appeared in parenthesis)
• Names of older children who were employed and living at home – sometimes listed
• Marital status (widow)or (widower)
• Profession

At the back of each City Directory is an alphabetized list of businesses by category in the borough the directory is for.  The 1933 Brooklyn City Directory was the only one available for the time period we needed.  Since family stories related that Sam began to work in the barbershop early in his marriage, and before his daughter Emily was born in 1931, the 1933 Brooklyn City Directory was a good place to start.

Defining our search territory

Google map of modern day neighborhood where the Serrapede family lived during the 1930s.  Many of the old buildings, such as the apartment house where the family lived during the 1930s and the shop where Gennaro Cardinale had his business, are still in use.  The apartment house where the Serrapede family lived in the 1930s was 1075 66^th Street. We have marked off the apartment house, the barber shop and the blocks between them with yellow highlighter.

We know that Sam walked every place he had to go to in the area.  It makes sense to us that the barber shop was close by. Neighbors, family and paesani from Agropoli also lived close by.  With the extensive social network available there were many opportunities to be recommended or introduced to an employer who lived in the same neighborhood.

For these reasons we narrowed our search to barbers and barbershops within an area that Sam could easily walk to from the apartment where he lived on 66th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues.

The barber shops we added to our list were located between 60th to 70th Streets between 10th to 13th Avenues.