Cousins Carol and Bob Dutcher Remember "Gram"

The following are some memories of my grandmother from my cousins, Carol and Bob Dutcher.  My mother was the youngest of three sisters.  Carol and Bob are the eldest and youngest children of my mom's eldest sister Helen Heydrick Dutcher.  The Dutcher family stayed in Philadelphia while my mother's sister, Margaret Beyer, and her family moved to idyllic southern California in the late 40's and my parents followed my dad's military career to Vienna and then to Colorado where we stayed.  My Dutcher cousins grew up with my grandmother living in the upstairs apartment of their home in Northeast Philadelphia.

The Heydrick Family Home, Bridesburg, Philadelphia

Carol Dutcher Bream’s memories of

Helen Esther Eyles Heydrick and William Jacob Heydrick, her maternal grandparents

My earliest memories of my maternal grandparents date back to when I was two and returned from Seattle with my mother (Helen Eyles Heydrick) and my father (Russell Clifford Dutcher). My father had been stationed in Seattle as a captain during the Second World War. He always told us that his job at the quartermaster depot was to “supply shoe leather to the Russians”. I never really questioned him further on this, but I am pretty sure that his business degree from Drexel University qualified him for more than such simple duties. He was an accountant all his life, so I assume he was I charge of various administrative and accounting duties as a soldier. 

We came back from Seattle on the cross-country train sometime in late 1945, and my mother told me that the soldiers amused me while we were all waiting in line for meals by passing me back and forth down the line. I don't really remember this, but her description was repeated often.

In April 1946, my “widdle bwover Bwilwy” was born and I became the “big sister”. We lived at 4807 Garden Street in Bridesburg while my parents saved up to buy their first house. We moved there in 1948, I think: 4227 Princeton Avenue, Mayfair. Ours was the very middle house of a block-long row of two-story houses with brick fronts. There was one bathroom for the three bedrooms upstairs. Down in the basement was the “laundry room”, actually just the hall to the back alley, where our bikes were stored in the garage located under the kitchen and dining room. We had a wringer washer and hung our clothes on the line to dry. I can’t remember what we did in the winter!

We went to 4807 in our 1948 green Chevy every Sunday for dinner with Gram, Granddaddy and Aunt Ava. I think that Aunt Edna [ ed. note: There was no Aunt Edna, but Aunt Lizzie always lived at 4807, see Eleanor Heydrick's narrative.] was in the picture as well, but my grandfather’s two sisters seemed very old and decrepit. 4807 was a pretty large house, with a front parlor and large dining room at the front, and a smaller parlor with an upright piano just behind the front parlor. We spent many hours there singing and playing the piano, which I loved. I kind of remember a large table in the center of the room with something like an oriental rug on it, but maybe I am mistaken. The winding stairs up to the bedrooms were entered from the back parlor. I believe my father hurt a disc in his back helping to bring one of the aged aunts down those winding stairs. I believe there were three bedrooms, but there may have been four. As I say, the house was large. 

The roomy kitchen was behind the dining room. I think at that time there was an icebox, and I believe I remember the ice man arriving at the door with big blocks of ice for the icebox. I don't think it is my imagination, but I was really young! In any case the big blocks of ice impressed me. 

The back of the house had a wide porch with rocking chairs and a wonderful hammock that we kids spent lots of time in, both when we lived there and when we visited, especially in the summer. 

The back yard was wide and very deep, going back nearly to the Delaware River. At least, we could see the river from the end of the yard. Granddaddy had an amazing garden, and he did his gardening dressed in a suit, with a starched white shirt and a tie. I remember him always dressed that way, although I have seen a photo of him in a bathing suit on the beach at Ocean Grove (otherwise known by us kids as “Ocean Grave”, because life there was still as it had been a century or more earlier).

Granddaddy was a wonderfully kind man, always with a smile and a hug for us. We went to the end of the garden with him to watch the ships on the river. At dinner, he sat at the head of the table (the place closest to the front of the house) and presided over what I remember as delicious meals. Around the table were Granddaddy, the two elderly aunts, my mother and father, and Billy and me. Sometimes I think Aunt Ellie was there, too, and Aunt Margie, Uncle Andy and our cousin Richard, who was just a few days younger than my brother, Bill. I don't remember Jim McKeeman until a bit later, but I imagine he was there, too. Much of the produce on the table came from the back garden, and I particularly remember the yummy fresh corn on the cob that we helped to pick ourselves and the deep red beefsteak tomatoes that were often served on a platter heaped with delicious (but high-calorie, no doubt) mixture of chopped hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise. I think we often had a roast on Sunday, but I’m not sure. Gram and the aunts spent a lot of time in the kitchen and I tried to help – probably getting in the way more often than not. I definitely remember “helping” to make cookies in that big kitchen. I don't think we ever ate meals at the big kitchen table, as it was mostly for working on. 

My grandfather had owned a hardware store during the Depression. I have two photos of the store, whose address was 608 on some street in West Philadelphia, I believe. I learned from my mother that the store had gone bankrupt in the 30s, but that her parents had worked hard as life insurance agents and managed to pay back all their creditors. Quite a feat, while raising three daughters.

Helen E. and William J. Heydrick, c. 1948

Gram was involved in community activities in Bridesburg and elsewhere. My mother told me that she had started a “Well Baby Clinic”, getting a nurse to come once a week to check out the babies to ensure they were ok and got some medical care when necessary. I think that some people (one man in particular) ridiculed her efforts, but she totally ignored him and the clinic was a success.

Both Granddaddy and Gram were very much pillars of Bridesburg Methodist Church, which was only a couple of blocks from their house. Granddaddy was in charge of the Sunday school, I believe. We attended Bridesburg Methodist Church before we moved to Mayfair (just a bit farther north and east of Bridesburg, but a newer area without all the pollution of the chemical plants in Bridesburg). Then we went to Johnson Memorial Methodist Church.

I remember vividly the day we received a phone call telling us that Granddaddy had died of a heart attack. He was 76. Gram was 13 years younger than he and still a very vital woman. But she decided that it would be best if she sold the house on Garden Street to find a smaller place. She and my parents starting looking for a duplex that could house our growing family (Bob was born in 1950, on Princeton Avenue) and have a separate apartment for Gram. In about 1953, they pooled resources and bought 1745 Rhawn Street, in Rhawnhurst. The house was on the northwest corner of Rhawn and Frontenac. It had been built in the 1920s (more or less) and was a solid two story single family house that had been converted to two units. We lived on the main floor (three bedrooms, two baths – yippee!) and Gram lived upstairs in a cozy two-bedroom apartment. It was a great solution for all of us. We loved having Gram close by, and she had dinner with us several times a week. 

Gram was a very accomplished person, and I believe she was the Executive Secretary of the Philadelphia Council of Churches. Because of her extensive community service, she had been asked to sit on the Philadelphia Charter Commission in the late 1940s, the only woman so honoured. The Commission created the “Home Rule Charter” that would guide the development of the City for many years. 

I am not sure how this got started, but at some point, Gram was asked to give speeches to various community and church groups. One was called “The Art of Living Together”. I don't remember the other titles, but she was in great demand, probably starting in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Her speeches were funny but had a great deal of what today would be called “self-help” information. People ate them up and just loved her, as did we. 

When I was in my first or second year of college, Gram was named “Pennsylvania Mother of the Year”. I think I have a professionally-taken photo of the event that includes Gram, Helen and her family, Aunt Margaret and at least the two oldest boys (Richard and George), and Aunt Ellie, Jim and probably Joyce and Kathleen. I’ll have to dig it out (and get it scanned) to check. At the center of the photo is the portrait of Gram that was commissioned for the occasion by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We were all very proud!
[ed. note:  Helen Heydrick was actually honored in 1963 by the Philadelphia City Council for 50 years of civic service to the city of Philadelphia. Not only were the entire McKeeman family there for the event, but Margaret Heydrick Beyer came from California with 5 year old David Beyer.)

I think that would have been in either 1962 or 1963. Ellie and the family had just returned to the US mainland from Puerto Rico, where Jim had been stationed. I remember a conversation in our basement with Ellie and maybe Kathleen (or Louise), who wanted to get her ears pierced, like so many of the Puerto Rican girls. This idea horrified Aunt Ellie, and the fact that Carol (me), the oldest cousin and a paragon of virtue (no doubt!) had had her ears pierced just that year was not encouraging to her but enthralled her daughter! I don't remember the outcome for my cousin, but I sure do remember the discussion!!!

And now a word from cousin Bob Dutcher:

Gram

Gram was a talker AND a spiritual person.  Like my mother, Gram could talk a mean streak.  Only she wasn't mean.  I don't think she had a mean bone in her whole body.  She always told us not to say anything if we couldn't say something positive about somebody else.  And I can't recall her ever not honoring that rule.

Now, when I became a teenager and started arguing theology with my Sunday school teacher and with Gram, Gram did become a little irritated.  She didn't like having her faith challenged.  But challenge I did.  Both Harriet Retgers, at our church, and even Gram.  

When I argued that we can't see God, Gram told me there were unseen realities more important that the seen ones.  I remember her talking about William James' famous book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience."  She had the volume on her bookshelf in the upstairs apartment at 1745 Rhawn Street.

Gram was open to the occult, the paranormal, communication with the dead, that sort of thing.  All the possiblities which James himself was open to, and discussed in his book.  I'm sure Gram took comfort in the fact that a Harvard psychologist and philosopher like James was as open to these possibilities as they were in some sense live possibilities for Gram.

I had these talks with Gram upstairs in her apartment.  But I also saw her every night for dinner, downstairs at my parents' dining table.  And she could, and did, talk.  A lot.  As mom and I can, having come by the trait naturally, genetically, and by nurturing example from Gram and for me, from both Gram and my mom.

Gram and Mom were perfect examples of what William James in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" called the Healthy-Minded Souls.  Positive.  Energetic.  But Gram had a greater inwardness, soulfulness really, than I ever perceived in my mother.  Perhaps all the suffering she had endured, during the Depression and losing her husband in 1954, left her more pensive and reflective than Mom.

Mom would often be out for the evening at Temple University so Dad and I often had the table, and Gram, to ourselves.  This is just as well, because if Mom were there, she'd be competing for "floor time" with her own mother.

My Dad loved Gram.  What a Godsend it must have been for my father to marry into the Heydrick clan.  His family had suffered so many tragedies.  His older brother, George E. Dutcher, Jr., died in 1925 in a drowning at the shore.  The family lost a lot of property in The Crash of '29 and the Great Depression which followed.  His father was a wholesale furniture salesman.  Demand for household goods, including furniture, died during the depression.  A gas station in Upper Darby was foreclosed upon and sold at sheriff's auction. Dad's father's mother passed in 1933.  And my paternal grandfather, George E. Dutcher, Sr., gassed himself in the garage under the family's kitchen in Upper Darby in early October, 1935.  Dad and his mother found the body.  My father had just started his freshman year at Drexel University.  He withdrew for the rest of the first semester.  He took psychology (no surprise), among other subjects, in the second semester.  

So after being part of a very depressive family of origin, meeting the Granddady Heydrick, Gram, Marge, and Ellie, plus Aunt Ada and all the rest of the clan must have been quite a relief for Dad.  He really loved being with all of them.  What a sea change they were from what he was used to in family life.

Gram, Dad, and I would often sit at the dining room table after supper, before we did the dishes, and talk about all kinds of stuff.  I just took it for granted that everybody must have a grandmother like Gram.  But of course that's not true.  Gram was one of a kind.  God broke the mold, as the old saying goes, when Gram was knit together in her mother's womb.

Helen E. Heydrick: Civic Volunteer

"Helen E. Heydrick, 89, member of panel that drafted City Charter"
(Text of obituary published May, 1983 in the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Helen E. Heydrick, 89, who served on the commission that drafted Philadelphia's Home Rule Charter of 1951, died Thursday at Evangelical Manor, 8401 Roosevelt Blvd., after a long illness.
  Mrs. Heydrick, who was active in church and community affairs for 50 years, was the only woman member of the charter commission.
  In 1954, she was named Pennsylvania Mother of the Year.  She retired in 1968 as head of the community services department of the Greater Philadelphia Council of Churches.
   Mrs. Heydrick was widely known as a popular speaker on inspirational themes and estimated that she had given one talk "The Art of Living Together" more than 2,000 times.
   She was born Helen Eyles in Chicago and came to Philadelphia at the age of 6.  She was a member of the first graduating class of William Penn High School in 1912.
  Mrs. Heydrick worked as an insurance agent before joining the Council of Churches in 1947.
  She began her volunteer work with a Red Cross fund drive in 1917 during the last days of World War I.  In 1925 she helped establish a well-baby clinic in Bridesburg, the first clinic of its kind in Northeast Philadelphia.
  Mrs. Heydrick also organized and became the first president of the Home and School Council of Harding Junior High School and was president and a board member of the Women's Auxiliary of Goodwill Industries.
  She also helped organize and served on the board of the Auxiliary of the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry.
  She was named Pennsylvania Mother of the Year in 1954 by the governor and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 1966.
  In 1963, she was honored for her half century of community work with a reception attended by 400 people at Moore College of Art.
  She served in various leadership positions with a number of community organizations, including the United Fund, the Health and Welfare Council, the Crime Prevention Association, the Crime Commission, the YWCA, the Philadelphia Center for Older People and the Soroptomists International of Philadelphia.
  Mrs. Heydrick also served as secretary-treasurer of the board of hospitals and homes of the Philadelphia Conference of the United Methodist Church.
  She was a member of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Philadelphia, the World Affairs Council and the League of Women Voters.  She was an honorary member of the Temple University Women's Club.
  After retiring from the Council of Churches, she directed a program of education for engaged couples and a family-life education project for low-income areas in connection with the Marriage Council of Philadelphia.
  Mrs. Heydrick was a longtime member of Bridesburg United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday School for more than 50 years and was active in interfaith activities in Northeast Philadelphia.
  She is survived by three daughters, Helen H. Dutcher of Philadelphia, Margaret Beyer of Santa Ana, Calif. and Eleanor McKeeman of Aurora, Colo; 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
  Services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Bridesburg United Methodist Church, Kirkbride and Thompson Streets.

Important Note to Readers

This is an important reminder that these posts are meant to be read chronologically.  They build from generation to generation.
Of course, you can read them in whatever order you want, but the historical continuity is maintained by going in order.
The two posts from February 2012 explain more about who I am and a little overview of my family.


If you are interested, but lost, and would like a genealogical chart, I can produce one and email it to you.  Each page would contain about 4 generations.


I encourage my cousins and others to leave comments or send me their own tidbits of family lore so that it can be incorporated here.


Thanks for reading "Meet the Ancestors."

Eleanor Heydrick McKeeman Remembers her Parents

My mother, Eleanor Louise Heydrick McKeeman was born in the 1920's.  As I work my way down to my parent's generation in this family history project, I will devote a separate biography to my mom and dad, but here are her recollections of her parents and family.  Eleanor Heydrick grew up at 4807 Garden Street in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia.  She married Jim McKeeman September 9th, 1950.  Until she got married she lived at home and as she says, she often thought that her father thought that she'd never get married and leave home.  My father lived for a few months with my mother and my grandparents prior to their wedding.  Some of this is mentioned in here.

The tone of the following is quite conversational.  My mother was responding to a long series of prompts I had sent her and so this resulted in a nice, casual description of her parents and of growing up on Bridesburg in the 1920’s and 30’s.

March 22, 2012

Was I born at 4807?  Don’t know—nobody ever said!  Guess I was—Frankford Hospital was 2 miles away, and we had no car, so home birth was most likely.  My earliest memory (I was about 2 years old) was of falling down our spiral staircase from top to bottom.  Had a big bump on my head and a black eye but no broken bones.  It was a Sunday, I believe and as I’ve been told, I insisted on going to Sunday School in the hand-me-down dress of my sister (Helen’s.)  I must have looked pathetic.  Next recollection was in kindergarten (I was enrolled the day I turned 4 November 13, 1926) and spent 2 years there until I was old enough to go to 1^st grade.  I liked school—led the rhythm band, went on walks, heard books read, took neighborhood walks, etc.  School was not difficult for me, but not because I was so smart!  Many kids came from non-English speaking immigrant families, although we weren’t biased about that.  However, I just knew that, as “poor” as we were during the depression, many of these families were so much worse off.  Anyway, I skipped grades 3 times (once in first, once in 3^rd and then 4^th to 5^th), resulting in starting Jr. High at age 10.  Being little, I was at a disadvantage socially and felt it thru High School, when I graduated several months after turning 16. 

         Family life was good.  Aunt Lizzie (Daddy’s oldest sister) never married and lived with us until her death.  She was Sec’y for the Postmaster General (if that was his title) until she retired.  Her income sustained us during what must have been hard times financially.  Daddy had a hardware store in West Philadelphia until ’29 when he sold it.  I was told he could have filed for bankruptcy, but somehow paid off all his debts and then sold the store.  I do remember having an assortment of keys Daddy gave me and I would pretend to open and close all sorts of pretend cabinets, etc. at home.  Also, I know I was in his store at least one time and was fascinated by all the stuff.  Didn’t go often, of course, since it took a long time to get there by public transportation.  Yes, mother did break the mantles in the gas lamps at her house (they give off bright light when burned—gauze of some kind--) so she could get more at Daddy’s store.  Apparently the 16 year difference in their ages didn’t matter.  I suppose they were married at our Methodist church, but I don’t remember ever being told that.  Honeymoon?  Don’t know.  World War I was on, so times were different.  Mom moved to 4807 (She often said one of her dreams was to move to a new house with all new furniture, but ‘twasn’t to be).  I do know Daddy kept repairing the furniture we had when chair springs would break, etc.

                      William J. and Helen E. Heydrick, Wellsboro, PA 1949

         My Uncle David Little (Aunt Florence’s husband) owned a coal company and we bought coal from him. I know my folks sometimes gave people coal and/or food when they’d come asking for help, so I didn’t know we were poor.  We always had plenty to eat—steak dinners on Sat. nights & wholesome food always.

         Daddy started selling life insurance for Continental American (home office was in Wilmington, Del.) in ’29.  Mother did sew scarves and blouses for Rose Mick who had a shop in downtown Phila.) Mom was quite embarrassed when I told a teacher at school that she did that.  I was asked if my mother worked, so I told what she did!  As I said, Aunt Lizzie lived with us & she’d make crullers (a cake-like donut) & when the “holes” were cut out and cooked, they were yummy.  She & mom also made ginger cookies.  Teachers at school would be so glad to buy both the crullers and ginger cookies whenever they were available.  Both Mother and Aunt Lizzie were good cooks.  Usually, Aunt Lizzie would wash dishes after dinner and I often dried them and put them away in the dining room cupboards.  As kids, we would do chores which Mother wrote on pieces of paper & we drew one out of a dish—“dust”, “swat flies”, etc. Punishments were minimal—if I needed it I was made to sit on a chair and be quiet (and I did it!).  Once when my sisters and I were too noisy or whatever, Mother asked Daddy to settle us.  He’d come to where we were and say “There, there.”  He had a leather strap, laid it across his lap at meals, but never used it.  Conversations at meals were lively, but I don’t remember what all we talked about.  With 5 females, my Dad would raise his hand then he would announce “I’m going to bed.”  Guess we talked too much.  Poor Daddy had such a hard time getting a word in edgewise, so as Sunday School Sup’t., his prayers were lengthy and it was hard to walk thru the room to get to where the kids’ classes were because of the length of his prayers.

         I wonder what my father did when he left school at age 12 (8^th grade—where was the school anyway?) & went to work to help support the family.  At some point I believe he sold Sherwin & Williams paint to places on the east coast, but he never talked about it & I guess I never asked him.  Since his father died when he was 12, his step-mother also lived at 4807, altho’ she died before I knew her.  I think Helen remembered her. Did Marge? I don’t know.

         Anyway, at some point, Daddy took a Dale Carnegie course (I believe Carnegie authored a book called “How to Win Friends & Influence People”) But there was something about remembering names in the course—make a connection, so to speak.  Daddy said he met a Mr. Cole and called him Mr. Slaw. Oops.  Whatever—my father liked people and would walk up to a stranger and say, “Hello, my name is Bill Heydrick”, That’s the only time I heard of “Bill.”  Yes, he was civic minded and seemed to be well liked.  Daddy started a Boys Club which met in a bldg at Bridge St. and Garden St.  What they did I don’t know.  Mother said she was amazed at all the people who came to the funeral home when Daddy died, so they must have respected him.  (I was in Vienna at that time.)  Yes, I think he enjoyed having Jim to talk to when your father moved in not too long before we were married.  (That was shortly after Aunt Ada died and she moved in after he husband died—then Marge, Andy, & Richard lived in Aunt Ada’s house.)

         Daddy usually wore suits, shirts and ties and a hat.  In fact, when he joined the men from church on an ocean fishing trip once a year, which I think he enjoyed, they would kid him about his attire.  But life wasn’t easy, even if I wasn’t always aware of it.

         Growing up Helen, Marge and I entertained ourselves.  When we were little, we acted out nursery rhymes (Hickory, Dickory Dock was done on our funny stairs which were wedge shaped and went from the 2^nd floor to the first in kind of a spiral.)  Steps were not straight, but narrow on 1 side and wider by the wall.  Those are the ones I fell down—no banister!  Anyway, Helen, Marge shared one of the bedrooms and I had a room of my own.  Sometimes I was glad, at other times felt like the odd man out—jealous of their closeness.  Of course we had our differences and I wasn’t always good—I bumped Marge off the piano stool with a good hip movement, threw a knife at her in a fit of anger and who knows what else.  But still I was proud of them and who they became—time does soften memories.

         Oh yes, another Daddy memory—he hated wimpy handshakes, so I learned early on to shake hands firmly.  Liked people—never saw him angry or depressed (maybe he was, but never showed it.)

         Both parents were supportive of what we did—not necessarily with words, but by being at school functions, music recitals for Marge and me, etc.  They were also supportive of boyfriends—had them to dinner.  I do remember Mom saying of Jim, ”Best one you’ve had here.”

         Mother was active in many things.  She started a “well baby” clinic in Bridesburg.  Visiting nurses came and helped immigrant moms take care of their babies.  She also started a mothers class at Sunday School and kept it up till they were grandmothers.  Mom would also “go to bat” for us if needed at school and she was active in PTA at various times.  She graduated from William Penn High School in Philadelphia, went to business school somewhere, I think, and was a Sec’y at Brown Bros. until married.  I have no idea what Brown Bros. did! No mention of college desires, but I think her “career” was doing good works in whatever group she belonged to.  She was active in Soroptomist Club of Philadelphia—Methodist women in Phila. And The Council of Churches.  She raised money for the Senior Center downtown and for a while she had a paying job with the Council of Churches.

         Because the whole family was “wired for sound” she started giving “The Art of Living Together” speeches for no pay, but, afraid nobody would pay her if she made a charge, she was finally convinced to request a fee.  She was still asked to speak and got paid as well.  I think it was because of all the contacts she’d made over the years that she was asked to be part of the Phila Charter Commission.  As she said, “I have no political axe to grind.”  She was the only woman on the commission.  As you know, she was recognized as PA mother-of-the-year, and had so many certificates of appreciation for various things that she said she could paper a bathroom with them.  She was creative (another speech was called “Orchids in the Icebox”—the lovely among the commonplace), liberal in so many ways, spiritual, secure in her beliefs, and I could go on and on.  My parent’s values were passed on—not with lectures—but by example, and I hoped I acquired them as they intended.

Mother was asked many times for a copy of her “Art of Living”, but it was never written down.  She made it different every time depending on the audience and their reaction to it, but her talks were full of common sense and humorous anecdotes.  I heard her several times and always enjoyed listening.  She could also give a great sermon and did so at the Puerto Rican Ft. Buchanan chapel while a downpour of rain almost drowned out her voice.  She also gave sermons at Parkview (Congregational Church in Aurora, Colo.) when she came to visit us.

         Other family trivia:

         Always went to Little’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and they all came to our house for Christmas.  We never put up a tree till the day before Christmas.  And we 3 girls all went downstairs on Christmas morning (at the same time) to open stockings.  Each of us staked out a chair in the living room where our gifts were.  Oh yes—we always made out a list of what we wanted for Christmas at Little’s on Thanksgiving.  After both holiday dinners, the adults played “Rook” or “Pit”—much shouting! And we kids often played a game Uncle David bought for us.  That’s where I first played “monopoly”.  As I got older, we 3 girls also joined in the card games.  Aunt Florence and Uncle David didn’t believe in card games using regular playing cards like for Bridge, etc. but they sure got excited over Rook or Pit.  They didn’t approve of dancing, either.  Thank goodness my parents were more tolerant.

         Oh yes, Aunt Lizzie and I often played duets as I was growing up.  She’d been the church organist for 40 years, but I never remember hearing her.  We played from a book of music called The Red Book (it was red covered, of course, and had music from nursery rhymes and opera to piano duets, songs and classical stuff.) Wish I still had it.  I would play by myself and try any of it.  If it was too advanced for me, I’d skip to something else.  Remember that I began piano lessons at age 7 @ 50cents a lesson, but we could only afford lessons at 2 a month.  Did that for 3 years, then after a 4 year “rest” on my own, I started again with Dottie Miller and had 10 years with her—into my beginning teaching years.  Marge took vocal lesson from Dottie also, and we would often practice together at home—I was her accompanist. 

         Did you get the fact that Mother also sold life insurance for Penn Mutual Ins. Co under a lady named Sophie Blivens?  I know mom thought a lot of her, but selling insurance wasn’t mom’s favorite thing, although she made some good contacts and friends doing it.  Mrs. Livingston bought a policy and liked mother so well she paid for both of them to take a trip together.  It was on that trip (Tauck Tours [still in business catering to high end group tours]) that they went to the top of Mt. Washington and stayed at the Mt. Washington Hotel there and had a perfect moon at night and a great sunrise the next morning.  They were lucky.

         [And with that, my mother’s letter ran out of steam and she ended.]

My Grandmother: Helen Eyles Heydrick

As I write some posts about people who I knew personally--and that does not extend beyond my grandparents' generation--I think that each biography naturally needs to expand to fit the subject. So it is with my grandmother. Because Helen Heydrick lived in an upstairs apartment at the home of my aunt and uncle, Helen and Russ Dutcher, my cousins got to grow up with her. I've asked them for some of their recollections of our grandmother since they knew her much better than I did. I'll be putting them is some separate posts, as well as my mother's memory of growing up with her parents.

Still, I feel fortunate that as a young adult I was able to visit Philadelphia many times and spend some time with Gramma Heydrick (as we called her, or Gram, as my cousins called her). I've saved all the letters she wrote me over the years, particularly those written to me when I was going through some tough times. She was wise and loving and full of common sense. She had not a shred of self-pity and did not foster that in others at all times she was a pragmatic, practical woman. She had a deep religious faith but was quite eclectic in her beliefs and was certainly not a proselytizer.

I have plenty of photographs of Gramma Heydrick and I will include them here even though I haven't yet mastered what everyone else in the universe seems to know how to do--scan photographs. At least for the moment I am using the antediluvian procedure of photographing my photographs and then posting them. Never fear--I'm working on getting them scanned so the quality of the photos will be improving!

Helen Esther Eyles Heydrick
born in Chicago, Illinois 25 September 1893 -  died in Philadelphia 18 May 1983
married William Jacob Heydrick 14 June 1917

Anyone who knew my grandmother, Helen Eyles Heydrick, would admit that she was an extraordinary woman.  My grandfather, William J. Heydrick, had died before I was born and so I never knew him.  He was much older than my grandmother anyway and I think that only my cousin Carol Dutcher Bream--their first grandchild--has any memory of Granddaddy Heydrick.
My own memories of my grandmother are few--at least as a child.  We lived in Colorado and the cost of air travel was something out of reach of not only my parents but my grandmother as well.  The couple of times that Gramma Heydrick came to visit she arrived via Greyhound bus.  I cannot even imagine what a 2000 mile bus journey would have been like  but she seemed to pull it off.  The first time she came to visit I was three years old.  I think that my father was in Korea during that time and my mother was on her own with 4 small kids and Gramma must have arrived to help out. 

Gramma Heydrick was a lot of fun. She had a way of tieing up a regular white handkerchief so that it resembled a mouse  and then using it as a story prop.  She also entertained us with made up Pygmy and Giant stories.  “The Giants talked way down low like this; and the Pygmys talked way up high like this.”  I loved it.

           Yours truly age 3, brother Jim, 6 mos.
                    and  Gramma--1958

Later, after our family had been to Puerto Rico and back,and were resettled in Aurora, Colorado, she gave her “Art of Living Together” talk at our church.  She was an accomplished public speaker and the Art of Living Together was her best known talk although it was never written down and no recording or copy of the speech exists.  That’s a pity.
In the fall of 1963 our family had just returned to The States from Puerto Rico, my father retiring from the Army after 21 years.  I guess he was finalizing all of that at Fort Dix, New Jersey and we stayed with my grandmother and Aunt and Uncle, Helen & Russ Dutcher, at their Rhawn Street house for some period of time.  We’d also stayed there for a while on the way to Puerto Rico as well.  I loved my grandmother’s second-floor apartment.  It was cozy and had a particular “grandmotherly” smell that was soothing.  I think that my sisters and I may have slept up there on either a sofa or a cot of some kind.  In retrospect I don’t know how the Dutcher’s 3 bedroom house accommodated the 6 McKeemans in addition to the 4 Dutchers already there.  I think my cousin Carol was away at college during those stays.
It was during the stay in 1963 that my grandmother was honored by the Philadelphia City Council for her years of civic contributions to the city of Philadelphia.  There was a big official presentation and many accolades, I'm sure. My Aunt Margie came from California with cousin David who was about 5 years old. We all lined up to take a photograph a copy of which I have somewhere.

In 1966 she was named a "Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania" joining a group of women from previous years such as Pearl Buck, Grace Kelly and Mamie Dowd Eisenhower. She had also once been awarded "Pennsylvania Mother of the Year" and then “Pennsylvania’s Sweetest Mother” a title she once told me that she dismissed completely as a candy industry ploy.  

Until the very last years of her life, Helen Heydrick was always actively giving back to her community, her church and to her family. She was much loved and admired. The next posts will be remembrances of her by my mother and my cousins.