Elmwood Place and North Avenue
I was always curious about my mother's father, Leo Carroll. I’d heard that he loved opera and that trips to New York always included a visit to Saint Patrick’s to do the stations of the cross. He obviously came from a very pious Catholic family. He'd been named after a Pope who was the hero of the working Irish, not the guy we saw on the TV show, Cosmo Topper. Wasn’t his name Leo G. Carroll? I don’t recall our grandfather’s middle name, but I think that the actor and our grandfather might have been about the same age.
I don’t remember very much about the stories of the Carroll family and the Depression, except that the Depression was always mentioned. I think it was probably too painful to talk about. But a couple of things did stand out for me. Mother was Leona, and probably her father expected and wanted a boy. Instead he got mother.
Judy was always a bit more forthcoming with regard to the Depression, and Leo’s death. She said, I think, that it was a heart attack, sitting up in bed on a Sunday morning. Is that right? She adored her father, and was only about 10 years old when he died. They had moved to North Ave. Mother always talked about how much she loved Elmwood Place before the Dutch Elm Blight wiped out all the trees. I found the addresses listed for Leo Carroll in both the 1920 and the 1930 census. There was an address on Elmwood Place, and in 1920, just Leona and Catherine as dependents, but I couldn’t find the house on Google maps. Just a parking lot or a rather nondescript store, but it was pretty close to downtown Bridgeport that I recognized. The 1930 census listed an address on North Avenue, and included Julia Wilson as a dependent. I did find that address on Google maps. Not terrible actually, but a pretty run down place at least when the Google street scanning van drove by. What was more interesting to me though was looking at their neighbors. A struggling poor immigrant community, I would guess. The family next door were Jews who’d just arrived from the Ukraine I think. I didn’t save the link, but I did send it to Julie.
I was always amazed that dad married mother and her family. I don’t remember much about Nanna except that I didn’t much like her and I don’t remember her liking me. She died the year before Julie was born, or was it the year after? Early 50’s. I opened the door for Father Halloran when he came to give her the last rites. I think he was the only person who ever used the front door on Huntington Turnpike except the mailman.
I do remember the green living room. Terrible color, way too dark for a small room with hardly any light after the addition eliminated the window facing the Aderwalls. I don’t remember being thrown against the wall, but I do remember some horrible bearings from mother. She wasn’t a modern parent, was she? Sorry to hear that her last 7 years were so difficult for you. If she hadn’t been such a stubborn woman and allowed dad to move them into assisted living, you would have been spared so much burden, pain and drama, but alas, that didn’t happen.
Nice to hear that your daughter Julie and family have a nice place in Sofia. Another interesting place. What an amazing young life for those kids. I did like their place in La Paz. Great family. They are close to Turkey, an amazing country, and a war zone, but not sure if Bulgaria is receiving refugees and might be a transit point for Ukrainians who are fleeing that horrible war. Lots of Russians here in India, and they were not my favorite foreigners even before the Putin invasion. Way too many entitled and ill behaved drunks in the traveling middle class. Vietnam is overrun with them. There are even special drunk hotels. But then in the 60’s the world was talking about the ugly American and we didn’t have a great reputation. Now I just see sloppy American tourists who are casually offensive and oblivious to local customs. The other day I was with my Kashmiri friends in their store up on Temple Road. Some American Buddhists came by after a teaching by HH. Upper middle class from southern California. We chatted, where you from, etc. They were like, oh we’ve been practicing with the Dalai Lama for almost 50 years, but then they treated Mustafa and Aqib like shit. I really had to restrain myself.
Oh. I’m becoming a curmudgeon. India is a very hard place not to offend someone. I try very hard but sometimes I just use the wrong hand when at dinner with Indians. Oh well.
Enjoy the new place. It sounds lovely.
Regards to Charlie.
I don’t remember very much about the stories of the Carroll family and the Depression, except that the Depression was always mentioned. I think it was probably too painful to talk about. But a couple of things did stand out for me. Mother was Leona, and probably her father expected and wanted a boy. Instead he got mother.
Judy was always a bit more forthcoming with regard to the Depression, and Leo’s death. She said, I think, that it was a heart attack, sitting up in bed on a Sunday morning. Is that right? She adored her father, and was only about 10 years old when he died. They had moved to North Ave. Mother always talked about how much she loved Elmwood Place before the Dutch Elm Blight wiped out all the trees. I found the addresses listed for Leo Carroll in both the 1920 and the 1930 census. There was an address on Elmwood Place, and in 1920, just Leona and Catherine as dependents, but I couldn’t find the house on Google maps. Just a parking lot or a rather nondescript store, but it was pretty close to downtown Bridgeport that I recognized. The 1930 census listed an address on North Avenue, and included Julia Wilson as a dependent. I did find that address on Google maps. Not terrible actually, but a pretty run down place at least when the Google street scanning van drove by. What was more interesting to me though was looking at their neighbors. A struggling poor immigrant community, I would guess. The family next door were Jews who’d just arrived from the Ukraine I think. I didn’t save the link, but I did send it to Julie.
I was always amazed that dad married mother and her family. I don’t remember much about Nanna except that I didn’t much like her and I don’t remember her liking me. She died the year before Julie was born, or was it the year after? Early 50’s. I opened the door for Father Halloran when he came to give her the last rites. I think he was the only person who ever used the front door on Huntington Turnpike except the mailman.
I do remember the green living room. Terrible color, way too dark for a small room with hardly any light after the addition eliminated the window facing the Aderwalls. I don’t remember being thrown against the wall, but I do remember some horrible bearings from mother. She wasn’t a modern parent, was she? Sorry to hear that her last 7 years were so difficult for you. If she hadn’t been such a stubborn woman and allowed dad to move them into assisted living, you would have been spared so much burden, pain and drama, but alas, that didn’t happen.
Nice to hear that your daughter Julie and family have a nice place in Sofia. Another interesting place. What an amazing young life for those kids. I did like their place in La Paz. Great family. They are close to Turkey, an amazing country, and a war zone, but not sure if Bulgaria is receiving refugees and might be a transit point for Ukrainians who are fleeing that horrible war. Lots of Russians here in India, and they were not my favorite foreigners even before the Putin invasion. Way too many entitled and ill behaved drunks in the traveling middle class. Vietnam is overrun with them. There are even special drunk hotels. But then in the 60’s the world was talking about the ugly American and we didn’t have a great reputation. Now I just see sloppy American tourists who are casually offensive and oblivious to local customs. The other day I was with my Kashmiri friends in their store up on Temple Road. Some American Buddhists came by after a teaching by HH. Upper middle class from southern California. We chatted, where you from, etc. They were like, oh we’ve been practicing with the Dalai Lama for almost 50 years, but then they treated Mustafa and Aqib like shit. I really had to restrain myself.
Oh. I’m becoming a curmudgeon. India is a very hard place not to offend someone. I try very hard but sometimes I just use the wrong hand when at dinner with Indians. Oh well.
Enjoy the new place. It sounds lovely.
Regards to Charlie.
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