June Bugs
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Plum Thickets and Field Daisies
Peddlers
MANY PEOPLE OF FOREIGN BIRTH walked the Brooklyn streets daily. People called them peddlers. Mr. Harry Golden has written an interesting history of Jewish peddlers in one of his recent books. Perhaps some of these peddlers who came to Brooklyn were Jews.
We could never differentiate between peddlers as far as their nationalities were concerned, but we thought them to be mainly Italians and Syrians. Most of them had swarthy complexions, straight black hair and could have been easily mistaken for some types of colored people.
A Great Tenor - Mr. Oscar Jackson
EVERYBODY SEEMED TO LOVE Mr. Oscar. Oscar, as almost everyone called him, was a remarkable man and the possessor of a remarkable talent. Few people who heard his magnificent tenor voice in action whether he was singing the Episcopal church hymns he loved so well, the tenor notes in a quartet, or the touching strains of “Deep River” would deny this. His was an extraordinary talent which he used freely to sing God’s praise and to give other people joy.
I Remember Brooklyn
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Transportation
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE STREETCARS, most people who were early settlers in Brooklyn walked wherever they wanted to go, especially to and from work. Later, a very few people had automobiles, but most of them who were able to afford riding used a horse and a carriage.
Old Myers Street School
A RAMBLING WOODEN, two-story building known as Myers Street School was the hubcap in the spoke wheel of Brooklyn. This enormous, ungainly structure with several large shade trees surrounding it was in the middle of a square plot of land fronting on Myers Street. Reports from various sources say that the school was named in honor of Mr. Myers who sold the land to the city for a school for colored children in 1887. At one time, it was the only school in the city they could attend.
Homes and Their Surroundings
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Our Laundry Man
MY MEMORY OF BROOKLYN would be incomplete without some space being given to our laundry man. He was very fair, tall, lanky, raw-boned and angular. If dressed in buckskins, he would have looked quite the type that one would imagine a frontiersman to have been. Courage showed in his every action, and one could readily see that he feared no man. He moved in every street and alley in Brooklyn and carried a large amount of money in his leather bag, but I never heard of him being molested. Every week, he came for our laundry and brought it back on time.
A Terrible Fire
ONE OF THE MOST exciting and disastrous events that ever occurred in Brooklyn was the big fire of 1917. The day was a pleasant one, and most of our family was at home pursuing various duties and engaging in bits of homey conversation when we heard that there was a fire on a nearby street.