I Write - Hiraeth (Hi er ayth)

Bethlehem Steel mills and housing (mid right)

Hiraeth (Hi er ayth)

In the mid-20^th century, Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point plant was the world’s largest steel mill, positioned at a deep tidewater area of the Patapsco River, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay.

Coming in the main road you passed the Bungalows where some of the workers lived. As the road curved left, the monstrous black furnaces loomed in the sky ahead while long gray buildings and train tracks lined the roadside. Once you approached town, Dr. Farber’s big house and offices opened the way down “D” Street, lined with stores, churches, and schools. Lettered and numbered streets were laid in neat grid with a variety of houses on the streets beyond. This company town was a planned community providing everything the workers might need to stay close to work. This place was my home for thirteen years. So many memories of growing up.

Beechwood Rd Bungalows

All the men in my family worked at the mill and my relatives lived in the Bungalows or in town, known as the Point. When I was three, my family moved into a bungalow of three rooms-a large living space and two bedrooms on Beechwood Road. The kitchen was a corner with a stove, refrigerator,  sink, and a large oil-burner furnace that sat along the wall. Although there was no bathroom, there was a closet with a tankless toilet off the back porch.

The backyard was fenced, and I played with Dusty, our cocker spaniel there. Joyce lived two doors down, Kathy across the street, and Rosemary on the corner. We would meet and go exploring in the woods beyond the alley. Then there was jump rope, hopscotch, and, on the one level block of sidewalk near the big tree, we  played jacks. We were in and out of each other’s houses and enjoyed a hot chocolate made with Hershey’s syrup while huddled around the furnace in winter and spit watermelon seeds from the front steps in late summer.

Me 1953                 Mom, Aunt & Uncle

The pony man came to the Bungalows. Mom put me in my best dress and I was carefully lifted up to the saddle. My feet didn’t reach the stirrups. I was a bit afraid. The man put on a cowboy hat and made funny faces while Mom kept saying “just smile.” It was a family tradition.  

                                    

As our family grew, we moved one street over to Forest Road where the bungalow had an indoor bathroom with toilet and tub and the back porch held the washing machine. My friends were just a few blocks away and both sets of grandparents lived down the street. Here, Katie, Debbie, and Patty added more friends. All of us walked to elementary school and had to cross the highway where Officer Tolbert, a company policeman, would get us safely across. He later became my stepfather.

There was a large, fenced playground with jungle gyms, swings, see-saws, and the “Stop I’m going to throw up” spinning merry-go-round. We would pick long vines of honeysuckle from the fence and wind it into a crown for whoever was queen for the day, often the one who had a candy necklace or bracelet from the newsstand candy bin.

Birthday parties were few and far between at that time. For my eighth birthday, I went to my grandmother’s house, and she had a gift for me, a pretty Sunday school dress. I put it on, my aunt fixed my hair, and I headed home to show off. When I got there the backyard picnic table held a cake and was decorated. All my friends were dressed up, too. A surprise party!

"D" Street house-right side of the duplex

As our family grew, now five children, we moved from the Bungalows to the Point and a much bigger house. It was at the far end of “D” Street where there were five blocks of houses that ended at the parking lot next to the open hearth and furnace. Debbie, Patty, and Kathleen had already moved to “E” Street, and I found that some of my school friends- Cindy, Susan, Ruth, and Barbara – lived nearby. There was roller skating on the flat asphalt at the elementary school, jump rope, and more. 

We were old enough to be outside playing until the streetlights came on. There were other activities such as the October 30^th “moving night” when we roamed the alleyways and moved things. No destructive pranks, just moving plants or trash cans from one house to another.

We were  always welcome at Cindy’s house. We would sit in her third-floor room and pick different names to be called. Mine was Daphne. And every school day morning we would meet at the corner and wait for the school bus. 

Then there was the time I took two cigarettes from my father’s Kools pack. It was getting dark, so Kathleen and I went to the field behind some of the “C” Street houses. We didn’t like smoking and were glad the streetlights came on. As soon as I got home (the same for Kathleen), my mother already knew what we were doing. It was a small town. It was my hometown.

There were times, when I had moved away and was working, I would drive through the old neighborhoods, remembering who lived where, seeing changes – some big, some small. The cars parked there were newer models. The store windows had up-to-date clothes or signs for the newest, best products. The bank was converted to a café with tables by the window. Home had changed.

The dictionary states that home is a place, a residence, a dwelling. But home is much more.

How, and what, we remember of our experiences in life is a significant part of our identity. And our physical home is an integral part of that identity.

There is a saying, based on a Thomas Wolfe book, that you can't go home again. Within the context of that story, it means that when you go home, things are different, changed. Therefore, it isn't the home you know.

In 1973, the Bethlehem Steel mill closed. All the businesses closed. All the residents moved to nearby communities. Bulldozers came in and the company town was demolished.

Hiraeth (Hi er ayth)  means a nostalgic longing for a place which can never be revisited. 

I can never go home again.