Throwback Thursday

During my early years of life, my parents and I lived at my grandparents home.  My mom and dad both worked and were saving money to buy their own  Life was blissful.  I loved living there, two houses down from my little cousins.  There as always something to do.  I was pretty much devastated when, just before I turned 5, my parents announced they had bought a home in Mine Hill.

When we moved there, Mine Hill was still a mining town.  In fact, it was one of the richest sources of iron ore in the country and supplied most of the iron used in the Revolutionary War.  The mines and Picatinny Arsenal were the two main sources of employment for men in the area, and both were dangerous.   I remember sitting in the classroom and hearing the telltale rumble of a mine collapse and the fear written on my classmates faces.  My dad worked at the Arsenal which was just as dangerous.  There were many explosions recorded there during my growing up years.  The last of the mines closed during the late 1960s.

This was our first house in a newly built cookie-cutter neighborhood.  In the far left, you can see the rear of Kathleen's house.  She was my best friend from the day I moved in until about the 6th grade when her family moved away.  I can still remember the day we met like it was yesterday.  I was in my new room feeling pretty bummed out from moving out of my grandparents' home when I heard through my window, "Little girl, little girl, can you come out to play."  

Look at those bony legs.  LOL!!!

 Look at the hedges to the right.  My parents had planted them shortly after we moved in.

 My house as it stands today.  Aside from an addition, a different color, (the house was originally green) shutters and the growth of the surrounding trees, the original house still stands.  I see they removed the pine trees that my parents had planted.   

We lived in Mine Hill until my sophomore year of high school.   Then my parents bought a larger home in Berkshire Valley, NJ which is located in Jefferson Township.  It meant a new high school in Roxbury, but because Mine Hill bordered on Roxbury Township, I already knew a few kids from school so it wasn't as if I was going to be totally alone.

This was how the house looked in 1964 when we moved in.  (My parents seem to have had a thing for green houses)  When I had my daughter and son I lived in the upstairs apartments.  The room on the left was the living room and on the right was my children's room.  I paid my parents rent, of course.

This was the little bungalow that was located on the property.  A guy named Tom who drove a corvette rented from my parents when I turned 19, and I had such a crush on him.

The living room was huge.  This is two views of it from different sides.  We'd had that old piano in Mine Hill, and at one time I took lessons, but I hated to practice.  My parents never really had had time for me, so they let me quit my lessons with no problems.  Wish now that I had continued.  I can still play a few little songs, but nothing that anyone would want to listen to.

This is how the house looks today.  It's now white.  The Mine Hill house was green, then painted white, and this house was green, then painted white.  I just found it interesting.

Back home.  43 years later.  Shortly before the house was sold. So many memories.  Bittersweet moments.  Gone, but never forgotten.