My great aunt Gene was my mother's, mother's sister. She was the oldest of seven children born to Glenn Pressey Clinger and Elmina Marsh Clinger. The family lived in the Erie, Pennsylvania area. Gene Clinger had been a twin, but one baby died in the womb. Aunt Gene wrote a series of 'chapters' about her and her family growing up in the 1920's and 30's organized by the addresses where they lived. For posterity, I am providing them here. They are edited for flow and clarity.
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Just what time of year it was when dad, mother, Carolyn and I moved, I do not know but I think it was the late summer. Ted was born September 27, 1926. Carolyn and Ted are just 16 months apart. My father and mother decided on William Theodore after my grandfather, William Tell Clinger and rather than have him called Billy, they called him by his middle name.
September 27th, 1926 was an Indian summer morning and I can still see my mother lying in bed haven just given birth to her first son.
We lived on the Franklin school side of the street so I went to kindergarten there. The last I knew the building still standing but not used as a school. I remember a program we had in kindergarten but the play was put on Academy Highschool. I was a fairy with gossamer wings with a net suit and recited the following:
a pint of milk a day I drink & plenty of water whenever I think no gloomy maids will I then see & you'll have pink cheeks and smile like me.
Imagine, I must have been five years old as a remember dad taking me down to Besse Barton Wingers to start elocution lessons. Dad went out and bought me a red two wheeler bike, bribing me even then. I did not want to go into the studio but he was going to make me. Eventually, he got me to go and I learned several poems and recited them. I think that was the start of wanting to perform in the theater. My mother had taken lessons also and I must have taken them for over a year. Taking elocution lessons was something everyone did. I can also remember mother singing at Simpson Church and how she loved that. I remember what a beautiful voice mother had and how she liked to sing.
Another memory is of my father's Durant coupe burning up in a garage to which my dad had taken it for a tune up. I don't remember the particulars but it was brought home and parked in the yard. He took the axles and make a merry-go-round out of it. We also had a red milk wagon behind the garage we called a play house.
I remember mother and dad planting those trees in front of the house. Some sixty years later they are big trees. (Note: As of 2024 they are gone. However, google maps shows two new saplings in their place.)
Corky, another brother came along June 29th, 1928 some 16 months after Ted. Corky was named Glenn Pressey Clinger after my father but mother and father called him Corky as he was supposed to be the last child. Carolyn, Ted and Corky were so close together that mother did not have time for me. I was about eight years old then. I was pushed out of the nest so she had me making cookies and things like that to keep busy. I also remember taking the streetcar down town Erie with Carolyn, who was only six, for her eyes. We would go to father's office at 7th and State and walk to the Doctors office at 12th and State for her treatment.
We had a dog named "Rags" who hit and killed by a streetcar. Mother took a child's wagon to here he was killed on Peach Street and we brought him home for burying in our back yard.
I remember I used to go to Vetter's meat market and get meat for the family. A pound of round steak cut thick for swiss steak was on my dad's favorites. Mother braised the steak, added carrots and simmered it for hours. She served it with mashed potatoes and it was oh so good.
Sophie Reed used to live with us. She was a school teacher and taught at Irving school but there was so many of us she had to leave. Then there was Mr. Ellis. I remember him rummaging through the linens in our buffet when mother and dad were outside. He always said that he was looking for cards and they believed him but I didn't.
We lived for five years at Cochran Street. It was the nicest house we lived in. I can remember how hot it was and someone saying you could fry eggs on the sidewalk. On Sunday evening we would go over to our grandparents house and have onion sandwiches and then walk home. There weren't cars then like there is today.
The house was stucco and there was a porch on it. It also had a sleeping porch with two huge sliding windows. On the left, as you walked into the living room were stairs that went to the second floor. There was a fireplace and mantle as one looked straight ahead upon entering the living room.
Behind the living room was the dining room and kitchen. The fireplace had a stove in it and reached up to the master bedroom. The stairs to the attic were on the right hand side of the master bedroom. Out of the master bedroom was the sleeping porch that stretched across the front of the house. There were two halls on down between the bedrooms. Carolyn and I slept in the first bedroom. Sophia had the back bedroom on the left. The bathroom was down the hall and straight back. Sophia had to move when Ted was born for mother and dad needed the bedroom for Ted and eventually Corky. That is where mother used to read to us.
I don't remember my mother and father quarreling here but I do remember he called her Betty in their love letters. It was here they got rid of their love letter. I remember they burned them. I still have the box that mother kept them in. It was lined with pink satin.
I was 10 when we moved from here to 403 Willis in Oil City.
Douglas was born. Douglas was named for the doctor who delivered him, Dr. Douglas Farrel. Doug was born February 10th, 1931, ten years after me, and he was mother's hardest delivery.
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