Location:
McKeesport
Date:
1963
This photograph was taken in my Grandma and Grandad Hilpert's yard on Palm Street. I'm the little girl in the middle. My grandparents moved from West Virginia where they both grew up. Grandad wanted a better paying job working at the steel mill and Grandma was a school teacher. Grandad thought it was special that he married an educated woman. I remember him being tall and quiet. They had three sons, my dad Edward and my two uncles. My dad and one uncle passed away years ago. One uncle lives out of state and is retired from the Army. My grandparents made a good living with their paychecks back in those days. They had a yard as big as a small park. Grandma started teaching in a one room school house in the West Virginia mountains. She told me the story of when she and her students were surrounded by a forest fire. It was one of the scariest times in her life! She and her students had to dig a ditch all around the school and fill it with water from the well. They had to stay in the school house till the fire burned itself out. She didn't know if she could keep her students safe but they made it through the frightening ordeal. She retired as a Kindergarten teacher from the McKeesport School District. Grandma passed away before Granddad. They left me with good childhood memories. I think about them often.