The Old Neighborhood

By: Betsy Schein Goldman

My earliest recollection of the Edgewater area is probably my earliest recollection of anything at all! I remember playing with my brother, Egon, and other neighborhood children in front of the apartment building in which we lived at 1343-45 Rosedale Avenue. We played Mumblety-Peg, Hopscotch, May I, and One-Two-Three-O’Leary.

The neighborhood was a well-kept, quiet place and the blocks were nice and long (for bike riding on the sidewalks). We all had backyards, not so much for playing as for planting. Mrs. Rosengren (or “Busy Bee,” as we children called her) lived next door to us. She was a pleasant, older lady who loved all the children in the area.

In our building were the Touffs (Cyril, the son, is a well known musician today), the Sheridans, the Moores and two other families whose names I can’t quite recall.

People from the past whom I can picture to this day (and we are talking about 49 years ago!) are: Nellie Conklin, my 4th grade teacher at Swift School, who also taught my mother, Edith Fischmann Schein, when mom was a child; Mary Jean Ekdahl, a classmate of mine at Swift and Senn High, who is now Mary Jean Smart and lives in Florida; Ellen Lee; Mary Lena Lawrence; Karina Haritonoff; Diane Horasanian, whose grandfather owned the cobbler’s shop on Thorndale and Winthrop.

Then there was the “Cheese Lady,” who owned a little grocery store in the basement of a building near Broadway on Rosedale; Hans and Marta Fischer; the Carr family who lived next door (mother, father, Jim, Todd and Catherine - who was and still is my friend, although she has lived in the East since we were very young children); teachers from Swift - Mrs. Hook, Miss McConnell, Miss Greek, Miss Kenedy, Mrs. Segal, Miss Moore, Mrs. Zimmerman and Miss Tinker.

I remember a bakery on Thorndale near Winthrop, next door to the shoemaker’s shop and, although I can no longer recall the owners’ names, I shall never forget the delicious goodies I bought there. Those yummies probably led to the weight problem I’ve had to cope with over the past 50 years! Mrs. Kramer’s chocolate sodas at the drugstore on the corner of Granville and Broadway didn’t help my figure any either!

Fond memories exist of my childhood years in Edgewater and it will always be HOME to me. Your organization and fine publication bring it all back to me (I read my mother’s copies, as she lives with us in Chesterfield, MO now). Keep up the great work!