Backyard adventure of a Levittown five-year old

By LESLIE SANDS BELL

Class of 1968

In 1955 most of the homes on Carnation Road in Levittown had backyard fences made from cyclone fencing, white pickets or logs. They were always between three and four feet high, making it easy to converse over them with the neighbors on either side and behind.

One summer day I was playing in our backyard when I heard a dog yelping in pain. I stood on the lower rung of our log fence and saw the neighbor diagonally behind us beating a puppy as she dangled it from its collar. I was five-years old and my sense of outrage was enormous. I yelled out “You put that dog down you mean lady.” She stopped, and in a shocked voice asked me, “WHAT did you say?!’’ I repeated myself and added, “You’re mean and when you die I’m not sending you an “I'm Sorry card.”

She dropped the puppy and began to run toward the corner where the fences of four backyards met, and straight for me. I took off and blew into the kitchen of our Cape Cod where I literally hid behind my mother’s skirt as she was stirring something on the stove. The neighbor entered our kitchen without knocking about five seconds later.

The neighbor was livid about my behavior and the puppy’s who had chewed her brand new couch- something that you had to save up and pay for in cash in those days. My mother understood her plight, but defended my sense of injustice. The puppy found a new home and although I wasn’t reprimanded, my mother told me to get an adult to intervene in the future.

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From Jim Urban, class of 1961

Frank, welcome back. These are some of the things I have noticed about your blog through the years: 1. The writing is, generally, excellent. 2. There are very few spelling or grammatical errors in the posts. 3. There are very few posters who have a negative remembrance of growing up in Levittown; almost all remember their childhood with exceptional fondness. I'm not certain that this is common. 4. There is an unusual commonality evident in the memories of those of us who grew up in Levittown. How can it be that such a diverse group of people, from such diverse backgrounds, socio-economic strata, religions, goals and experiences, all feel similarly about their childhood years? Must have been a very special place indeed.

MY TALENTED LEVITTOWN MOTHER, OUT OF NECESSITY, STARTED A BUSINESS AT HOME

By Leslie Sands Bell

Class of 1968

The concept of working or starting a business at home is touted as the latest idea, born of necessity in today’s difficult economic times. There’s nothing new about it. My grandfather was doing it in the 1920’s, and so were many Levittown residents in the 1950’s and 1960’s when I was growing up there.

In those days, very few women with children worked outside of the home. My mother, Elinor Sands (Malis) was raising two children under the age of six and keeping house in

our newly purchased Cape Cod in the mid-1950‘s when my father hit tough financial times. She used her considerable courage and talent to supplement his income with her first home-based business. She decorated vinegar and oil cruet sets at our kitchen table and sold them to as many housewives in the neighborhood as she could walk to.

Then she bought a home party kit from Sarah Coventry and sold costume jewelry at customers’ homes while my father babysat. My sister and I helped her prepare her kit after dinner while she got dressed to go out to work. She prepared paperwork and made business phone calls from home during the day.

By 1958, she decided that she needed a more lucrative way to earn money and stay at home. She sent me off to my third grade Show and Tell Day with strict instructions to write her name and our phone number on the blackboard and to tell my classmates that she was giving piano lessons after school at our house on Carnation Road. Her first students came from that Show and Tell.

She hung a shingle on the signpost on the front lawn that simply stated “Piano Lessons” and our phone number. Her roster grew and her students’ addresses spread geographically. In 1960 she bought a used car and drove to their homes all over Levittown, Hicksville, Westbury, Wantagh, the Merricks, East Meadow and later, to the North Shore’s Gold Coast. She taught a number of siblings in several families as they came of age (seven years), and later taught their mothers who finally had time for themselves.

My sister and I became adept at taking students’ messages and referrals over our home phone. She showed us how to start simple dinner preparations and left a daily prep list for us to follow. We became two of the earliest latchkey kids of the 1960‘s. She was always home to complete and eat dinner with the family. She taught piano for more than 40 years, long after money was no longer an issue, because she had fallen in love with her career.

My mother was encouraged to start teaching piano by Celso Ferrari, an accomplished accordianist who lived in our neighborhood and supported his family by playing in a house band at a dinner and dancing club at night, and teaching the instrument in the afternoons at his home.

There were many more home businesses that I remember in just my immediate Levittown neighborhood in the 1950-1960’s. Levittowners were true pioneers - brave, resourceful, and in my opinion, examples of The Greatest Generation.

Modest Levittown capes and ranches still rule among the McMansions

Marilyn Monsrud Frese's neighbor's big house on Furrow Lane

click on photos to enlarge

By MARILYN MONSRUD FRESE

Class of 1963

I must tell you that although some homes are gigantic, most in Levittown are not. You can still see those little ranches and capes inside of modest expansions. But knowing some people who do own these big houses (one of those posted above is my neighbors' across the street on Furrow Lane), their desire to own a larger home had them looking at other towns, ones with larger plots of land.

However, their desire to stay in Levittown, for a multitude of reasons, led them instead to expand their little capes and ranches rather than moving out of town.

My husband Don and I also looked at other homes about 10 years ago when he began thinking of retirement, but the feeling we have for Levittown, along with a block of wonderful neighbors, kept us here. We ended up pushing the back of the house out, along with extending the garage in the back to make more room for his three motorcycles.

We also made the extended rooms with cathedral ceilings. The high ceilings made the room so bright and open and we have nine-foot tall glass windows and doors across the back of the room which sort of brings the outside in. We still have only one bathroom for the two of us. If we managed with one bathroom while the kids grew up here, we can surely manage with one now.

From the front of our house, you cannot see the expansion at all. People walk in and are surprised to see so much room. We still have our fireplace between the kitchen and living room, as most of the ranches do. I don't know of any homes that still have the black tile floors and the radiant heat in them or their oil tanks still buried in the front lawns. That is long gone. Those warm floors on a cold morning were great though, remember that? No cold feet. We could go barefoot all year in the house. Yes, the small Levitt homes still rule the streets of Levittown.

A REPLY TO MARILYN

Leslie Sands Bell

Class of 1968

Marilyn, it sounds like your extension is tasteful and kept your house looking like your house, unlike the others. If I were to ever move back to Levittown, I'd be looking for a simple house, one that retains the look across the front with surprises in the back and/or inside.

I do have a deep appreciation of your love for that wonderful town and your neighbors. I think that the changes are harder to see for those of us who've moved away, and didn't have a chance to adjust with the times as the years went by and you continued to live there. We did move to a much bigger house in East Meadow and it was not a good experience.

I missed everything about Levittown, but I was a kid and had to go with my parents, although I begged to live with my mother's best friend and her daughter who was my best friend until graduation.

COMMENTS ON PREVIOUS STORY: LEVITTOWN HOUSES ALL GROWN UP

Dave Cahn, early Levittowner. Around here (Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC), we call these McMansions. Although they appear nice in well-cropped photos, they are too big for their lots and look ridiculous in real life. They scream of new money poorly spent. We're not in Levittown any more, Toto!

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Photos by Marilyn Monsrud Frese