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My Youth

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The Baby

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Me, Mom and Dad

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Growing Up

My Own Photos - 1949

My Own Photos - 1950
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I grew up in a subdivision of Denver called "Hilltop." We lived at 45 Dahlia Street (later changed to 39 Dahlia - the house remains as I write this and is brilliantly maintained). Dad an Mom bought this house just before I was born. It was very solidly built by William Faulkenberg Construction. There were just a few home already build in the neighborhood, most from an earlier period. To the East of us, all the way to Quebec Street, there was mostly open fields. These are all photos that I took with my Baby Brownie camera about 1949 and 1950. See also.

On the left: Photo two shows the Zimmerman house on Dexter Street on the right, and on the left, in the background, is the back side of our home on Dahlia. Eddie Zimmerman and his sister Linda were my sister Leslie and my friends. The following photo shows my friend Eddie Zimmerman, and in the next photo is Linda, who is lying on her side - she had broken her leg! That's the back side of their house. Next photos (Nos. 5 and 6) were taken in front of my "girlfriend" Connie MacKenna's home. The first shows her home, the next, is of Connie with the Pate's home in the background. She lived next door to the Theodore Pates, who were my parents best friends. Their house is on the northeast corner of Eurdora Street and First Avenue. That's First Avenue that separates the Pate's home from the next one further away in the photo.

On the right: I am standing on Dexter Street looking south. 1st Avenue is behind me and Ellesworth Avenue is ahead. The white fence on the left surrounds the yard of Walter Schlegel. This was a large open area next to their house, elegantly mowed with some nicely pruned trees, as I remember. On the right, out of the picture also, was the home of Porey Robertson, who owned the Robinson Brick Company, and his wife Merbie, and daughters Kathy, Ginny and Penny, if I remember correctly. I can't remember who lived in the two-story white home on the right in this photo, but further down the street on the left, across Ellesworth Avenue, is the home of the notorious neighborhood bully Tarzie Kelly. My friend Eddie and I were terrified of him. Notice that Dexter had not yet been paved. I still remember the horse-drawn milk wagon that used to deliver milk to the Zimmerman's home, which was on the left, on Dexter, just after the Schlegel's, but out of this photo (actually, you can see the corner of the house only).

Photo No. 2 on the right: This is the Robinson's house, followed by a goggle photo of how it looks as I write this. Photo 4 was taken in our back yard. That is my Grandma Robertson taking a photo of me with her Kodak camera, while I take a photo of here. Behind here are two homes: the Robinson home pictured in the preceding photos, and the Walter Schlegel home. The little white building between them, with a weather vane on top, was what will become Walter's greenhouse, where he will grow prize-winning orchids, but at this time (about 1950) it is a gardening shed. After Mr. Schlegel built a greenhouse extending to the left and attached to the gardening shed, my dad purchased some very large willow trees and planted them in our yard, replacing the trees pictured behind my grandmother. These trees shielded my dad and mom, and their (very distinguished) guests from having to see the top of Walter's 0rchid greenhouse. The second from the last (color) photo on the right shows what the Schlegel's home on Dexter Street looks like today, from the eye of the goggle truck... something I would not have imagined when I took my photos in 1950.

The last photo on the right was taken from our sun porch, above the srceen-enclosed porch below. My camera is aimed toward the southwest. The white house on the left is that of Tarzie Kelly, the fierce neighborhood bully.The shrubbery on the right is on the periphery of the Zimmerman home.

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