PICTURES FROM THE PAST- HOME IN
SAN ANTONIO- (PART 2)
© Copyright 2000, All Rights reserved
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(CONTINUED FROM PART 1)
The parlor furnishings at the Monumental street house in addition the the usual three piece set of a couch and two overstuffed chairs, included an additional two or three armless upholstered chairs and a large over stuffed upholstered rocking chair . The couch incidentally was rather small more the nature of a "love seat." It sold in 1991 at an estate sale liquidating effects from my mothers estate. There was also a piano that Harold Henry played rather well. It is now a fixture in one of the recreation rooms at the Chandler Memorial Home, a San Antonio nursing home. The picture shows Harold Henry at the piano. The woman is his cousin and teacher, Stella Zirkel Meier. I recognize the picture on the easel as Harold Henry's baby picture. The presence of the baby picture definitely establishes this room as the parlor at the Monumental Street house. It was a large hand colored photograph of Harold Henry as a one year old in a dress. In my time it hung in the garage where in was a favorite site of mud dauber wasps for their mud tombs. The next picture is dated, "Christmas, 1910." Fourteen year old, Harold Henry received a violin. He learned to play it, not as well as the piano, but better than the present owner, one of his grandchildren. The Christmas tree is a hill country cedar, a local variation of the eastern red cedar. The decorations don't appear to include lights. Apparently electric tree lights were not yet available and candles were deemed too dangerous. There is no alpine snow scene and no Christmas manger scene in the white cotton snow as had become customary by the 1930's. By the 1950's rather extensive large Christmas dioramas were built around the tree that included an electric train that ran on its track around the scene. In the 1970's it reached toward the absurd when the train became a missile train from which the kids launched a battery of projectiles into the room as the train whizzed around the course. The second Christmas Tree picture was taken three years later in 1913. This picture definitely shows evidence of having electric light decorations. Time and technology marches on! I recognize the table the tree sits on. Today it is in my home office. Instead of a Christmas tree, my office stereo sits atop it today. |
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The last parlor picture is entitle, "Graduation, 1914." This referred to the graduation of Harold Henry Arnold from the old Main Ave High School. The parlor table was use to display several graduation gifts. A graduation trip to Chicago and Milwaukee that followed later that summer will be featured in a later section. |
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There was no shortage of kids around the Monumental street house and the other family homes in the neighborhood. Here are two pictures. The first, though undated, almost certainly was taken about 1910 give or take a year or so. I think the taller boy in the center is Harold Henry Arnold. The 2nd boy from the right and the 4th from the left appear to be twins, establishing them as Harold's cousins, Raymond and Milford Zirkel the youngest sons of Otto and Emma Zirkel. I don't believe this lot is the Monumental Street place. Likely it is one of the other family homes in the area. The second picture of the kids also dates to about 1910. Again Harold Henry Arnold is in the picture (at the extreme right). The Zirkel twins apparently are not in the picture unless they be the 3rd and 4th from the left, the two boys who are looking away from the camera. There are indications that it is Christmas and the Indian costumes were gifts. The Arnolds moved in 1926 from Monumental Street to a new house in the suburbs on Avant Avenue about 3 miles to the South East. The Zirkels too moved from the area about the same time as did the younger generation of the Meier and Boezinger famalies. The older Meiers and Boezingers continue living in the area until near the time of their deaths in the 1960's and 1980s respectively.
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Continue: Our World |
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| Index | Foreword | The Old Folks | ||
| Times They Are Changing | Afterword | Appendix: More Pictures | ||