As long as I'm taking the
melancholy trip down memory lane I may as well make a few other stops while I'm at it. When I recently visited my grandparent's neighborhood on Detroit's west side, I also stopped to photograph the property where their first house stood, where their second (and only other) house stood, where the kindergarten/public school stood, and where their church once stood. Yes, each and every one of those building is gone now...
When my grandparents first bought the little neighborhood bakery, before it expanded to become a "baking company", there was a small apartment above the bakery. That's where they lived initially and where my mother was born. Mom was their second child and after she came along things got a little crowded in the apartment. So when a small house went up for sale kitty-corner (southwest) and one house (to the south) down from the bakery (and directly across from Sill School) they bought it. That would have been late 1918 or some time in 1919. This is the vacant property where that house once stood.
Then, in 1920, my grandparents sponsored two of my grandmother's sisters, Mary and Helen, to come to America from Poland. The little house was a tight fit for everyone and when my grandmother got pregnant again, well, it very quickly became too small. So at that point my grandparents bought a bigger house that came up for sale on the same street as the bakery just a few houses north of it. The two sisters stayed in the smaller house and my grandparents and the kids moved to the bigger house in 1921. Mary married in 1922 and moved a few blocks away. Helen married in 1924 and she and her husband lived in that little house for several hears. If I close my eyes and try really hard I can picture Helen and her children there in that house...
The larger house that my grandparents moved to wasn't all that large but it did have a second story and was big enough for the family of five. This is the house I remember visiting my grandmother at when I was a child. Here is the vacant property where that house once stood, between the garbage cans to the right of the house that's still standing...
If I close my eyes and try really hard I can picture the house and the family sitting out on the porch on a warm Sunday afternoon...
My mom went to Sill School for kindergarten. It was the Detroit Public School just across the street (to the south) from the bakery and (to the east) from my grandparent's first house. It's a large vacant lot now with a small playground on it.
But I can remember the school in all it's glory!
After kindergarten my mom attended Assumption parish school for grades 1-8. Assumption BVM Church, on Lovett Street, was the church the family attended. Mom had lots of happy memories from her years at Assumption. After she graduated from high school she sang in the choir at Assumption and was in their Young Ladies Sodality too. She was married at Assumption in 1944. My grandfather's funeral Mass was at Assumption in 1956 and so was my Grandmother's in 1970. The Archdiocese of Detroit closed Assumption parish in 1989. The church, school, rectory, and nun's residence have since been torn down. There is a new church standing there now, a Baptist church...
The heartbeat of their old west side Detroit Polish neighborhood was Assumption Church (parish founded in 1911, church/school built in 1912). It was a much larger and grander building than the Baptist church, and the other parish buildings were right next door. If I close my eyes and try really hard I can imagine it in its glory days...
Oh how it pains me to see this once lovely neighborhood in such decrepit, shabby condition. I can't go down there very often for that reason. The sadness overwhelms me and sometimes makes me angry. I know that things can't always stay the same but when I think of the churches and villages in Europe that were built centuries ago and are still standing I know that this neighborhood could still be charming and vital too. It hasn't even been a hundred years since my grandparents first came to America! Heck, the city of Detroit is just over 300 years old!
All these other sites in my grandparent's neighborhood make me melancholy too.
