82e-Home Ownership: Emily and Frank buy a house, 1953

Introduction

We are at a point in the narrative of our immediate family history—that of Josie, Sam, Emily Leatrice, Uncle Sammy and I—where the telling begins to take on some aspects of a memoir.  This is partly due to the limitations on access to Federal Census records after 1940.  The legal requirements for release of a census record is 75 years after it is recorded.  Although phone directories are presented as a census substitute they cannot be relied upon completely.  A person may have decided to have a private listing.  So, they may have been living in the same neighborhood a year or two earlier but a year or two later went private and are no longer listed.  That their name does not appear is not a reliable indicator that the person moved to a new location or passed away.

Newspaper coverage offers confirmation of what was going on in the bigger picture of society as a whole.  Key events always impact our lives in one way or another.  And while we each think of our family story as unique, we also share common bonds through being members of a neighborhood, community, city, state, region and country.  For this reason, Uncle Sammy and I will alternate news coverage and factual information from credible, respected online sources as a reference point whenever possible.  Thus for those postings that veer more towards memoir there will be integrated news coverage from that point in time so that the reader can pinpoint not only the time and place, but how we were impacted and influenced.

There will also be a shift as we focus more on sharing our personal experiences, as well as the people, places and milestones that we hope will help our readers link to similar forces and events in their own lives.  As such there will not be the kind of detailed focus on every single family member and the telling of their stories, too.  This is not possible because the forces of assimilation have led to a dispersal of the family network that existed in the earlier generations.  Cultural changes and lifestyle choices have also resulted in more individuality and a going of separate ways.  This is especially true for what we now know as the decades of divorce starting in the late 1970s.  During this time some family ties ended and remarriages or new living arrangements came together.  Divorces permanently alter the dynamics in such a way that relationships are released from the ties that tradition once dictated must be held because of the blood ties and family name.  As the third and fourth generation continues to mature, they develop a new outlook that causes them to look at their childhood relationships differently.  Who to maintain relationships with becomes complex and not always to everyone’s liking.  For this reason, relationships slipped into the past as the years went by.  We will do likewise as the narrative moves forward.  For the purpose of keeping a cohesive focus we remain committed to share the lessons learned from our family in a positive light and also out of a respect for the privacy of all with whom we have related some family members shall recede and no longer be included in the narrative.  It is impossible to follow the whereabouts once the family assimilates and disperses.  It is also impossible to get permissions to use the narratives and photos of family members we are no longer in contact with.

This posting features a family story Mom never tired of telling me since depending on the lesson she wanted me to learn.  The emphasis was on a different aspect of the event which transpired when she was pregnant to me and pressure from her in-laws to buy a house made inroads to the plans she and Dad had carefully considered but were swayed to give up.

82e1-Dyker Heights in the 1920s: From a farming to residential community

Introduction:  The Dyker Heights of long ago

I was a typical child of the late 1950s.  I loved watching TV with my parents and grandparents.  Shows like “I married Joan”, “The Loretta Young Show”, and “Private Secretary” played a big part in forming my inner world of day dreams and future plans.  I dreamt of having a dress shop that sold gowns as lovely as those Loretta wore.  If that wasn’t possible I could always be a secretary to an important executive like Susie McNamara was.  My best and closest friend would be as fun-loving and humorous as Joan.

Dad used to engage me in conversations before I went to bed as a way to get my attention away from the TV.  As I made my way to my room he’d reminisce about how Brooklyn had been when he was a boy.  He said what he loved was that you could see the sky anywhere you were.  In Manhattan there were too many buildings and you were forced to look only in front of you or to the sides.  You looked up but the sun wasn’t always in view.  I think now that he did that as a way to keep me focused on the present.  I had a way of talking about how I’d be happier when I grew up and could live in a high rise with a terrace on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Next door to us was a very large, old fashioned house that was at odds with the rest of the street we lived on.  It was a frame house with a large, peaked roof covered with tiles.  There was an attic with round windows and all around the house lots of land.  Not only was there a large back yard but a large front yard, too.  There were even large trees in that front yard that towered over the roof.  This house seemed to me like it was transported from a country village and dropped into the lot next to our house.

Dad explained to me that the wife of our neighbor inherited that house from her father.  Before the coming of the row houses in which we lived, Dad continued, there might have been much more property around it.  He told me that even before he was born there had been working farms in Dyker Heights.  There were brooks and green meadows everywhere along with many, many trees.  There were fruit trees, ponds, even sheep.

Our community was once a desireable place for the wealthy to live in.  Dad explained to me that the way we looked at Long Island as a great place to live, once upon a time people from Manhattan looked to Dyker Heights as a great place to live.  They wanted to move freely, be in a place less crowded.  They wanted to look up and see the sky and watch the clouds, listen to the birds.

That was all very enchanting.  I went to sleep thinking maybe I’d stay in Brooklyn when I grew up.  Then the next morning when I went out to play on the stoop I’d look at the row house we lived in.  Then I’d look at the row houses up the block, across the street, and more row houses down the block.  I wondered what happened.  Then I’d quickly forget as I went off with any of the children who stopped by the gate to our stoop to invite me to see some amazing and new discovery they had made or be part of a game they wanted to play.

—EmilyAnn Frances May

Local History as a participant in the family history narrative

The way we live, shop, interact, play and socialize in a community provides a backdrop to our family histories.  The locale is also a participant in that it plays a role in structuring those interactions and influencing our lives.

In this posting Uncle Sammy and I share the discoveries we made while reviewing news coverage featured in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the years of the real estate boom of the mid-to late 1920s in Dyker Heights.  We could immediately connect to the way in which the community was presented to prospective home buyers back in the 1920s because many of the same qualities are used promoted in today’s real estate ads. 

The Appeal and Attractions of Dyker Heights in 1926

Our research began casually as we browsed through the search results at the Brooklyn Public Library’s database for the old Brooklyn newspapers.  The Sunday, October 17^th, 1926 edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle featured ads for homes on the blocks where Uncle Sammy and I grew up.  What a surprise to see photos and illustrations of newly built homes in the mid 60 and 70 numbered streets that are the very same houses we saw as children! 

What caught our eye was one ad for homes on 72^nd Street between 11^th and 12^th Avenue.  The area was described as Jonas Gardens.  That did not sound right to us.  The area always has been called Dyker Heights!  Curiosity made us read on. 

Ad for homes in Jonas Gardens by the Jonas Heights Corp. in the Sunday, October 17^th, 1926 edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  Developer Max Jonas succeeded in building a residential community but his name has faded and is forgotten as the name Dyker Heights still remains in place.

The ad for the 2 family home in Jonas Gardens included an illustration of a 2 family home.  Those features of the area were highlighted:

–Accessible to Manhattan from the Sea Beach line Fort Hamilton Station. 
–Accessible to Manhattan from the West End Line (71st or 79th street and New Utrecht Avenue). 
–Several elementary and junior high schools were in walking distance. 
–High School is about 4 blocks away.
–Convenient shopping district running along 13th Avenue from 83 through 65th Street. 

These very same features were in place when Uncle Sammy and I were growing up in the 1940s through 1950s and continue into this day!  What struck us as we continued to search through the archives was the concerted effort the developer Max Jonas made to not only develop Dyker Heights but to place his name upon it.