Once Upon a Time: Part 2

The following is Part 2 of a three-part series about Cindy Pierson's family and the ancestral home she lives in on Pompess Avenue in the East Riverton section of Cinnaminson. She's also included some tidbits of local history.  

Pierson writes .

Check out Part 1 .

I am still amazed by the practicality that was apparent throughout the house. There was no central heat or electricity when it was built, but it still needed heat and light.

When we moved in, there was still a massive coal furnace in the basement, along with a coal bin, and one giant grate in the floor between the living room and my grandfather's sitting room from which all the heat emanated. It was right at the foot of the stairs, which had a door that was kept closed during the day, to keep the heat downstairs, and opened at night to warm the upstairs bedrooms.We still use the door to regulate the heating and cooling in the house.There was no need to worry about pipes freezing upstairs. The only plumbing in the original house was the pump in the kitchen.

Charles and Lizzie had three sons, including my great grandfather, Isaac, who lived here with his wife, Mary (nee Haines), after they were married in 1898.

I'm not sure how they managed it, but Isaac and Mary raised 13 children in this house. We thought it was crowded with just two kids! By the time I was born, the great-grandparents were gone, but my Aunt Ginny, Uncle Phil and Aunt Bea still lived here. The two aunts, my Nana, Uncle Leonard and Uncle Claude were the surviving 5 offspring of the original 13. My mother was an only child, and my father's family lived in Texas, so these aunts and uncles spoiled us rotten, and they meant the world to us.

In 1963, my mother contracted tuberculosis. She was told she could leave the hospital, but would have to go to a sanitarium for the rest of her recovery. Rather than have her shipped off to some place in North Jersey, the aunts turned the front room into a hospital room for her. They took care of her better than any hospital could have, and though we were allowed no physical contact, my siblings and I could come here and “visit” through the windows on the front porch. I remember being very jealous that my Uncle Leonard was allowed inside to visit, while the children had to stay outside.

Over the years, as we grew up, went to college, moved away, moved back, started families of our own—“down home” was the constant. When I moved in after Aunt Ginny died, I was worried that it would be too difficult and too sad for me to live here, but it was just the opposite. As soon as we got here, it was so warm, and so comforting. It often feels like the aunts and uncles are still here.

We're pretty sure Uncle Leonard hangs out in the attic, which was his bedroom when he was growing up, and usually shows up around the holidays. (I'll save the ghost stories for another time.)

Skeptics laugh at me, but there is something very special about living in a home to which you are connected. We are very lucky that lots of photographs were taken over the years, and then actually labeled and saved, making the past that much easier to visualize.

When we refurbished the front room on the first floor, it was almost unnverving to see my great-great grandfather's work. The frame of the house is pegged, not nailed, and when I would put my hand on the brick work of the original chimney, the hair on my arm would stand up.

You could almost hear the voices of the past hundred years—all of the events that had occurred: my great-great uncle Rex coming home from World War I, only to find the Army told his mother that he had been killed; my great-uncle Bobby coming in from playing in the snow and not telling his mother that he had hit his head while sledding—he died in his sleep that night from the brain injury, at the age of 13; Grampa Charles banging his cane on the floor, calling to my aunts; my mother recovering from TB in the very same room. It was almost overwhelming.

Each room that we worked on had much the same effect, but we had gotten a little more used to it and taken much of the history for granted. And then we started on the old kitchen!

Stay tuned for Part 3 Friday.