550 Warder Ave. and the Neighborhood

Frank and Ruth will be referred to as Dad and Mother from now on. The house was a 2 story brick with 3 bedrooms and one bath on the second floor. A large bedroom for the little people, all 3, a medium size for Mother and Dad and a small room for Clellie. The first floor had a living room with a fireplace, nice size dining room, large kitchen with a pocelain sink with the radiator under it. There was a half bath and closet in a little hall by the front door. Basement door was in the kitchen and the one car garage was in the basement and opened into the alley next to the house.
(Edit by Gus 7/4/11 - here's a photo of 550 Warder Ave. from Google Maps. It's the house on the left (as we Philpotts know). To enlarge it, click on the picture; then click on the Back button on your browser to come back here.)
The folks added 2 screen porches, one off the dining room and the other above it off of the little people's room. Mother and Dad had a small fan in their bedroom, there was no air-conditioning so in the summer, Dad would sleep on the downstairs porch and I, Clellie, would sleep on the upstairs porch. If it stormed, Mother would make everyone go sit in the livingroom because her house had been struck by lightning when she was a child.
Delmar Blvd. was about 200 ft from our house. It was a 4 lane road and the bus ran on that road. It went all the way to downtown St. Louis and to the river, about 10 miles. That is how  the maid got to work. We had one car so Mother would take the bus, all dressed up in her hat and white gloves, to go to the symphony downtown and then take it a little farther to go to the Missouri Athletic Club to meet Dad for drinks and maybe dinner and then she would ride home with him.
 Demar had nice large 2 family apartments on each side. The ones on our side had their garages behind them and  they opened onto our alley. The alley was only used  by the residents and the milkman who came everyday and put the milk in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Oh yes, the groceryman came  to deliver the grocerys . Mother did not go to the store, she called and ordered her grocerys every day.
Gagy and Dan lived on the other side of Delmar so when I was little, I would walk down and  holler and one of  them would walk across and help me across the street. I loved to go to their apartment. They had a nice tea cart with big wheels and I would climb in it and push it around the apartment.
There was a lady that lived down the alley and she had beautiful roses, Mother called her Mrs. Vigaro. After Betsy grew up,got married and moved to Atlanta and her husband, Pat, bought Vigaro to fertilize his roses did Betsy realize that was not the lady's real name.
After we got older, Mother would come out in the alley and jump rope with us. She also had chalk so we could draw the lines and play hopscotch.
Our house was at the bottom of a hill so we would go to the next street and walk up and cut through the Birks and the Steingrabers yards and roller skate down the hill and into the alley. That was wild.
This was the 40s. We did not have TV,Ipods,Cell Phones. We just had fun. Dark brought us home.