(from left, Kaye, Tom Steele, cousin Bob Darrah, Cousin Nancy Steele, me, brother Tom and H-Bomb)Nancy and Bob grew up in Martins Ferry, Ohio where our mother was born. The story my mother always told me was that the twins were born at home, and that she arrived first and was so scrawny they set her aside to "save the other one." But if you know my family, you know that the stories get larger and more dramatic as time goes on. As twins, they did everything together and when they first entered school, their dresses were pinned together so they would not get separated and lost on the way.
The real story I want to tell is not of the family, but of a house that looms large in my memory from childhood. Nancy and Bob grew up in "the house on 5th Street" as it is still referred to today, in downtown Martins Ferry. The town sits on the Ohio River across from Wheeling, W. Va. and is the oldest settlement in Ohio. My uncles worked in the steel mills that line the river. And it held the most amazing fascination to me and my siblings. Probably because we grew up in Kirkmere, Ohio, which was a post WWII development where houses sprang up faster than chicken pox and everything was new - including both our elementary and Jr. High schools. We lived in 1950's suburbia, so visiting Martins Ferry and the "house on 5th Street" was exotic to us.
The house was half of a very large duplex and their half had originally been a Doctor's office with patient rooms lining the second floor and the third floor (attic) had been an infirmary. The ceilings were extremely high, and there was a front wide staircase and a narrow twisting back staircase. The front porch faced the street and there was a porch swing and a glider and much time was spent sitting and swinging and playing and visiting with people that ambled by on their way to downtown, which was minutes away. I can still remember funny details of that house - like the bronzed baby shoes sitting on a front parlor table, my cousin Bob's cowboy wallpaper in his room (was it really there until he graduated?), or the large deep bathtub with Cameo soap that I can still smell in my mind.
Because of its size, the house was a bit scary also. The basement had a coal furnace in a small room on one end and in my childhood mind that room was a dark dungeon with a fire eating dragon at one end. The other end had large wooden doors leading to "the tunnel" which led to the garage on an alley and where the coal was moved by wheel barrel to the house. I was NOT allowed in the tunnel, which made it even more intriguing. I imagined it a dark, dangerous place. My cousin Bob said there was rumor of it being part of the Underground Railroad. I like to think that is true, and that runaway slaves were snuck in and out somehow, although I am not sure where they would end up - hiding in the basement? I once sat in the easy chair that faced the little TV in the room used as a living room and watched a segment of the Twilight Zone that about scared me into insanity. I was alone at the house, facing the door to that basement with the creepy back, dark, narrow stairway to my right absolutely rigid with fear and unable to get up and turn the dumb show off. I was never so happy to see my Aunt as when she returned.
Right down the street from the house was the Tidbit - a little store that probably sold drugstore type items but all I remember was the penny candy counter. And you could get a lot of candy into one of those little paper bags for not much money! People in Martins Ferry seemed larger than life. People like Mary Baton, the next door neighbor who had suffered from polio and was crippled and drove a scooter and raised chinchillas in her bedroom, and Flossie who lived there also who had wild white hair, and a big gap in her front teeth and was loud. Uncle Homer (Betty's husband) was a wonderful man, but a bit of a character himself - and had run for Mayor. He reminds me of Harry, with a bit of disregard for rules, and they got along famously. Cousin Nancy reminisced about how he took his family and my sister to Washington, DC and parked in the Senator's parking space (hey, the guy was from Ohio). He used to go to have a beer after work which was served in some one's living room converted to a bar and when I asked him where he was going, he would say he had to see a man about a horse. He loved Martins Ferry and loved to take visitors on the tour which included the cemetery with views of the river, and where Lou Groza was born. We loved Aunt Betty and Uncle Homer, like a second set of parents and they treated us royally.
All of Mom's family lived in Martins Ferry or nearby in Cadiz. No holiday went by without a huge gathering. Summers meant stays in "the house on 5th Street." Eventually my aunt and uncle moved from town and built a new home on a hill overlooking the river valley. We mourned that old house! But the gatherings continued. Many of the cousins still vacation together joining up at the Jersey Shore. Holidays are still spent together with a few who have moved away missing from the action, but not far in spirit. And, no family celebration, be it wedding or Sam's Bar Mitzvah is complete without the band or DJ spinning "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge accompanied by a hand holding circle of cousins dancing their socks off. One Uncle never quite understood us talking about Sister Sledge and thought that she was the organist at the Wheeling Arena.
