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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 30 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: October 1992 Volume 30 Number 4, Pages 161–165 Living in Easttown Woods in its Early Years By 1950 and 1951, even the youngest World War II veterans had completed their college courses. They were getting married, starting their careers, and the great "baby boom" had begun. Young families spent their weekends visiting sample homes in outlying sections. The houses in Easttown Woods were appealing to these new families. The location, of course, was superior, with the closeness of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the anticipation of the Schuylki11 Expressway. And once on the site, the young people could appreciate the pains the architect and the builder, the Easttown Company, had taken to make an affordable home a truly fine place to live. First, instead of following the usual method of clearing the land of all obstructions and laying out streets in grids, the company left standing the large, medium-sized, and even small trees. Many of the homes were shaded by trees already fifty and seventy-five feet tall. On the south-western side of Midland Avenue had been Doyle & McDonnell's dogwood nursery. Homes there featured several full-grown dogwoods in their back yards. The streets of the development curved and straightened in a pleasing way. Houses along the little branch of Darby Creek sat low, while houses on the western side of Midland Avenue sat high. The houses were also turned in different directions to avoid a "cracker box" look, and colors were in variety and selected by the architect. The salt box type was not a typical choice in Philadelphia's suburban housing; more common at this time was the ranch house, and soon the rage would be the split-level. Most Easttown Woods houses were built with only the first floor finished. On the first floor were the living room, dining room, efficiency kitchen, two bedrooms and bath. Utilities were in the basement. The living room featured a picture window. The dining room adjoined it with no separating wall, and the kitchen opened without doors or walls to the dining room. The effect was a brightness and spaciousness uncommon in a small house. Walter K. Durham, the architect, had considered the family who would be living in the home when he designed it. He gave remarkable attention to even the small details. The open kitchen was equipped with an exhaust fan; the bathroom mirror was angled so that small members of the family could see themselves in it. While the second floor was unfinished, it was ready for expansion. Most families set about immediately to complete it. The men worked together or alone; wives helped. Some families hired contractors to raise the roof and put in a dormer and an upstairs bath. Building a house is hard work, and few were experienced at it, but they learned from one another as they went along. The first work to be done was to lay a sub-floor on the second level, as the builder had left only a "walking strip". Once the sub-floor was in place, the space for storage or play was greatly increased. Putting insulation in the walls and then putting up wall board and spackling came next. Large closets were built under the eaves. The upstairs rooms were large; one was even of "dormitory" size. The next activity was to tile the basement and seal the walls, creating a laundry and play area, or even a more structured form of recreation room. Many gatherings were held in those basement rooms after they were finished off. Those with houses with garages also found that they could, after all, put a door from the garage into the basement, greatly improving the accessibility to the house. Each house had its own advantages. The houses on the hills had garages underneath them, using a portion of the basement space. The houses along the creek had larger basements, and a dining room window looking out over the natural woodsy creek area. Most of the buyers were veterans and their families. The men were about 27 to 32 years old. Many were beginning professionals, teachers, accountants, an architect, and, the greatest in number, engineers. Most of them had one or two children when they moved in, and would have more: four children in the family was common ten years hence. It was a time of changing life style for the American family. Before the war a lifetime in the same community, with the extended family near by, was the common pattern. Now young couples set off on their own to distant places where there were no family ties. In Easttown Woods a number of people came from Michigan to work at the new Paoli center of the Burroughs company; others came from western Pennsylvania and New York, in addition to those from other suburban Philadelphia areas. The people whose quiet little village these 75 new families now also inhabited were gracious and welcoming. It was a happy, supportive place to come to. Many of these new families had come from city apartments where they had been met with indifference. The warmth of the village was immediately evident. Several widowed women , living with their families in the older village, became loving, capable baby-sitters. Most of all, the newcomers supported each other. They were sharing a very happy time of their lives together; common interests bound them closely. Home delivery men came regularly through the streets: breadmen, milkmen, an elderly gentlemen who peddled his wife's sticky buns on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and, eventually, the mailman. (During the first years of the development, when mail had to be called for at the post office, mothers trekked uptown with their strollers and walking toddlers. They "did the town" as they went along, and by the time the mail was delivered to their homes the mothers and the town were well acquainted.) The sidewalks on the west side of Midland Avenue and the east side of Easttwood at first saw heavy traffic in strollers, soon to be accompanied by tricycles and scooters. Back yards sprouted sand boxes and gym sets. Mothers gathered where the children were, to supervise. In the second summer the area experienced a gigantic invasion of inch worms. First they could be heard chomping; then they were seen as they spun fragile threads and headed for the ground, finally wiggling and hanging at ground level on these thin filaments. This was the occasion for the formation of a civic association. The Association continued to represent the community at the Supervisors' meetings, but its first activity was to hire an airplane to spray the streets and rid the homeowners of the inch worms. Later it also began an annual block party. The Supervisors, in these earlier years, met at the Red Cross building behind the Acme, at Bridge and Lancaster avenues. The residents of Easttown Woods were well treated by the Supervisors: they did not always have their needs met, but they were always heard with courtesy. One of the gains they accomplished was to have a school crossing guard placed at the intersection of Waterloo and First avenues. When more of the children were in school the township, school district and St. Monica's Church co-operated in making safer paths, out of the roadway, for the children. The shopping district was along Lancaster Avenue, and the stores on the highway closed on Wednesday afternoons. They were managed primarily by long-time local residents. Mr. Day had a small drug store near the corner of Lancaster and Main avenues; when he retired in September of 1954 William Connor, of Kennett Square, moved in and became Berwyn's pharmacist, soon expanding his store to the corner, buying the property from Josephine Latch. The Bridge Shop was just above the post office, and had a succession of owners; here were sold sodas, ice cream, snacks, and some groceries. Espenshades was a large grocery store on the highway down near Midland Avenue; they made deliveries back then. Across Main Avenue from Connor's was Harold's Department Store, managed for many years by the town's most prominent Democrat, Lou Lieberman; his merchandise was fresh, of high quality, and well displayed, and included items in great demand by the families living in Easttown Woods, name brand women's blouses, snow suits, polo shirts, and underwear for small children. A new hardware store opened, and soon had to expand. These first few years were in many ways charmed ones for these young families. Careers were moving ahead, and the growing mob of children was happy and healthy. In 1957 came the first recession, and with it a cutback at Burroughs that broke into the tranquil world of Easttown Woods. Over the next few years Burroughs was to lay off or transfer a number of of employees. Even the pet population had occasional problems. One cold day someone on Midland Avenue started the motor of his car and killed a cat that had huddled inside. It was buried across Woodside Avenue in a woodsy plot. (Incidentally, in September of 1954 hurricane Hazel had blown through, uprooting many of the trees along the branch of the Darby Creek.) Not long afterwards the bulldozers and road scrapers arrived there to start work on Berwyn Downs, starting right at the cat's grave. Soon the home owners in the new split-level homes enlarged the neighborhood's circle of friends. By now new developments were springing up everywhere. Yet the schools were remarkably adept at keeping ahead of the enrollment. In 1955 a wing with two kindergarten rooms and a cafeteria was added to the Easttown School. In 1957 Devon School was ready and the Devon children were assigned there, and the Easttown School became known as the Berwyn School. In 1961 the new Hillside School took the children from Berwyn who lived in the Contention Lane-Margo Lane-Conestoga Road area. In 1965 another group went off to the new Beaumont School. The new Easttown Township building and Library, at the southwest corner of Lancaster and Midland avenues, opened in 1958. By then a number of the children in Easttown Woods were in school, and the library was a great convenience for them. A true dedication to educational excellence was apparent in the schools, and in the community at large. At the end of five years, the first home-owners in Easttown Woods began slowly to move out. By five years after that a good number had moved on; some transferred or promoted to another, distant, city, others to larger homes nearby for their growing children. As a result, the Easttown Woods community became more diversified. For some newcomers it was a place to retire. But those who were early owners in Easttown Woods look back at those years and remember what a great place it was to start a family. The original homeowners in Easttown Woods are shown on the opposite page Eastwood Road
(west side) (east side) Woodside Avenue
(west side) (east side) Berwyn Avenue
(south side) (north side) Midland Avenue
(west side) (east side) Note: Numbers without brackets are street numbers; numbers with brackets are lot numbers Compiled by C. H. Fry |
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Page last updated: 2009-05-12 at 10:09 EST |