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Community Corner

One Upon a Time: Part 3

Cindy Pierson, the Turtle Lady, talks about her family history in East Riverton.

The following is Part 3 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  and Part 2 .

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When we first moved into our house, the existing kitchen was sufficient for our needs. We had moved the dining room into what had been my great-grandfather's sitting room, and were using the old dining room as a sort of family room/office for my husband. Then our daughter was born, and her high chair didn't fit if there was more than one person in the kitchen. With the old kitchen no longer practical, we decided to turn the original dining room into a new kitchen, and relegated my husband to the old kitchen.

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With most of our time and money being used for the purchase and installation of new appliances, we did nothing to the old kitchen besides removing the old appliances and putting in my husband's desk. He just made do until a few years ago when we built him a workshop/office out back. The old office was closed up and basically ignored.

In the meantime, we had finished off the basement, and I used that for an office. And then the rains came. We managed to clean up after last April, but the hurricane and subsequent heavy rains rendered the basement completely unusable. Since I refused to share my space with black mold, or risk doing all that work only to be flooded again, I decided that it was time for the old kitchen to become my office. And another round of renewal began.

When we started repairing the old walls and ripping up the floor, we expected the same sort of feelings we had gotten in the other parts of the house that had been worked on. This time, it was like opening a time capsule. We found things down inside the walls, like a Catholic School reading primer, belonging to a Sara Paige. We also found a key chain, with two keys and a metal tag that read “if found, return to Elizabeth Bell, East Riverton, NJ” and it had a picture of a single engine propeller plane. Elizabeth Bell was my Aunt Bea, and my godmother. My daughter was named for her and for my great-great grandmother Lizzie. The keys were for padlocks. I would love to know what the locks were keeping safe!

When we ripped up the layers of old floor coverings, we discovered that they had used newspapers as insulation, and the papers were in surprisingly good condition. The first one we uncovered took my breath away! It contained a column by Walter Winchell, and a rationing calendar. And it was dated June 6, 1944! D-Day! I kept looking, but didn't find any dated later than that, but we did find older items. There was an article from 1936 about Bruno Hauptman getting a stay of execution in the Lindbergh case. Some of the ads were great – a large department store was advertising “better women's dresses for $5.00” and “summer frocks for $3.00.” I scanned some of the ads and articles and included them here.

When I started refinishing the built-in cupboard, we found things that had fallen down behind the drawers. There were several of my great-grandfather's drivers licences and receipts for burial plots and property taxes. ($56.00 for the year, compared to the $1,100 I just paid for this quarter!) I love the PSE&G bill for a little more than $5.00! The best was the wallet card that had been handed out to the military, detailing what to do in case of an air burst of an atomic bomb. Check out the picture. It's amazing what the government expected people to believe!

My new office is almost done, and I can't wait to move in. It's a warm and cozy room, oozing with history and memories, and makes me feel like I really am at home.

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