East Falls Historic Society Oral History Interview

Interviewee: Ellen Kelley Sheehan (ES)

Interviewer: Wendy Moody (WM), Lyda Doyle (LD), Marie Filipponi (MF), Guy Ostertag (GO)

Interview: March 20, 2024

Transcribed by: Wendy Moody, EFHS

WM: It’s March 20, 2024. We’re in the home of Ellen Sheehan.  Lyda Doyle, Guy Ostertag, Marie Filipponi and Wendy Moody are doing an oral history with Ellen. Ellen, thank you for letting us come. So why don’t we begin by you telling us where and when you were born?  

ES: You’re welcome. Well, I was born September 4, 1940 at four o’clock in the morning. I was the fourth child and the fourth girl in our family. We lived at 3602 Indian Queen Lane.

WM: Were you born at MCP (Medical College of Pennsylvania)?

ES: No, I was born at the Jewish Hospital. No, actually, I was born at Nazareth Hospital. My three sisters were all born at what was called the Jewish Hospital, which has changed his name since. I forget what it’s called now (Note: Einstein)

LD: Where was it?

ES: Nazareth Hospital was up in the far northeast, so my mother went there at 4:00 AM in a car and it was pouring rain. The hospital was brand new. I was one of the first babies born there. So she went in a cab and she said “It’s down that road.” And the driver said “I’m not going down that road! It’s full of mud and I’m not getting all stuck in the mud! There’s nothing down there.” “There is! There’s a hospital down there!” “No, there’s nothing down there.” So they asked a policeman. He said “Yes, I think there’s a hospital down there.” So thank God I was not born in a dirt road!

WM: So where did you live when you were little?

ES: Well, we lived at 3602 Indian Queen Lane.  My parents, when they were married, lived down above the 5 & 10 and the drug store at Ridge and Midvale in those Riverside apartments. Then they saw that these new homes were being built up the street (on Indian Queen) and they walked up and said “Oh here’s a nice house. Brand new. We’ll live here.” So they moved to 3602 Indian Queen Lane.

WM: What year was that?

ES: 1930. So my mother said she would never move because when she was a child, she had moved 23 different times and she said “Once I’m in a home, I will not move from that house. I’m going to stay there.”  So we were there her whole life.

WM: Let’s go back to your parents. What were their names? And were they both from East Falls?

ES: Well, my mother’s name was Ellen Waldron and she was from Kensington.  She had six brothers and two sisters, and there were twins in the family.  She was the youngest of a large family.

WM: And your father?

ES: My father was always an East Fallser – Joseph P Kelley. He came from a long line of Fallsers who came here originally because of the cemeteries. The first cemetery was founded in Boston in 1834. In 1836, Laurel Hill was founded, so Irish people who didn’t have skill came here because they knew they could get work in the cemeteries. So the cemetery company also gave them housing on 35th Street and eventually they bought the house on 35th St – my grandparents. It was a large house. It was wider than a row house. Big, three story.

WM: Do you remember the address?

ES: 35 something – I don’t know. I was only in there once. It was down by 35^th and Allegheny.  And it belonged to the Laurel Hill Company, and eventually they purchased the house and that’s where my grandparents live.

WM: Do you remember anything about your grandparents?

ES: No, they died before I was born. My grandfather Kelley was head of the Business Association in East Falls. And so he, Patrick Kelley, would lead the 4th of July parade up and down every street in East Falls.

He led the parade on July 4th, and by August he had died of leukemia. And he was a big, strapping man, I understand, but he died of leukemia.

WM: And he worked in the cemetery?

ES: Well, he was a florist. He had founded a florist business. So yes, they worked in the cemetery. There was something called Perpetual Care. You know what that is? So Perpetual Care was a way for them to get extra income.  And then they had the flower shop across the street.

WM: Tell us about the flower shop and about your dad’s career.

ES: Well, his father had founded the flower shop, and he worked with him there.  We all worked there actually, because when holidays came – like Christmas and Easter and Mother’s Day – we were all involved. My parents would be working day and night for the week before the holiday.

WM: What was the location?

ES: 3903 Ridge Avenue.  It was between Allegheny and Clearfield.

WM: What was the name of it?

ES: P. J. Kelley Florist. Original, right??  So, as a family, we all worked there. When it was busy I would make corsages. My mother was sick when I was young – she had tuberculosis – and my sisters were in school, so I was always with my father. He would take me to the store, to the cemetery or whatever. We always made ribbons for the corsages, and we had to wire the stems of the flowers so my father could put them into arrangements. And you know, you just did whatever you did and keep yourself busy.

WM: Was there any competition? Another florist in town?

ES: No, no, no.

WM: So Lupinacci wasn’t there yet?

ES: Don’t mention that name! (laughter)They came later.  But my Uncle Bill, by that time, had the flower shop at 29th and Allegheny, across from Corpus Christi parish. Then he moved up to Roxborough.

LD: Now that’s the florist I remember.

WM: Tell us about your parents’ involvement in East Falls besides the florist. What else did your dad get involved in?

ES: Well, later on, I remember he founded the Senior Citizens group.

WM: He founded it?

ES: He and Bill Streckfuss founded it.  He was going to found a historical society and he had all this history of the neighborhood. But then he was so involved with the East Falls Senior Citizens. At that time their membership was 235 people – they had a large group. Nothing happened in East Falls without the permission of the seniors. You know, if you were a developer, you had to go before the seniors….

WM: But this wasn’t exclusively for St. Bridget, it was for everyone?

ES: Oh, no, absolutely. They were very clear about that. But they met at St. Bridget’s because they had the capacity.  But, no, they were very clear that they were East Falls Senior Citizens.  So he and Bill Streckfuss founded the seniors instead of the historical society.

WM: So interesting. And what did the seniors do back then?

ES: Everything.  Honestly, we were all involved.  They had parties all the time. It was all social. They went on trips. Alice Ostertag would arrange all the trips.

GO: She was the treasurer.

ES: Yes, she was the treasurer, and they would go on a lot of trips and parties all the time. So if they had a party, we were all involved. My sisters and I were the hostesses; we would greet the people.  My nieces and nephews, and the grandkids would be the coat check people.

WM: And were these usually held at the Church?

ES: They were in the auditorium in Saint Bridget. And then the men in the family, the son in laws, they were the bartenders.  So everybody was involved in helping my parents.

WM: And did it attract other than the Catholics?

ES: Certainly, certainly. Do you remember that, Guy? I couldn’t name who there was, but you know, there were other people. Yes, of course.

MF: So when you took trips, were they by bus?  Like Atlantic City or something?

ES: When the seniors took trips? I don’t remember. I think they went on cruises. I mean, they did it up big. They did take trips to Atlantic City and places like that – bus trips – but I remember my parents went on a lot of cruises and they enjoyed their retirement.

GO: The trips to Atlantic City were very popular because they would give them $10.

WM: A voucher?

GO: Most people didn’t go into the casino so they saved the $10.

LD: In those days, they didn’t do vouchers. They actually gave you a roll of quarters.

WM: And that attendance diminished over the years, didn’t it?

ES: It did.

WM: And what else were your parents involved in?  Was your dad involved in the church?

ES: I wouldn’t say to any extent that he was involved with the church. I mean, they went to church.  He loved the library.

LD: How about church holidays?

ES: The thing I remember about the flowers was the May Procession.  When we were kids walking in the May Procession, every girl carried a big mum. And my father donated all the mums for them to carry, and then he found out that the nuns charged a dollar a mum and he said “I would hire them helping with my business!”  He just laughed about it.

MF: So you dad donated them and then the nuns charged the girls…

LD: That’s no small feat because when I was in the May Procession, there were 300 kids.

WM: Wow, that’s very, very generous.  Tell us about your early years on Indian Queen Lane. Who were your friends and what did you do?

ES: Well, I played with Carol Fitzpatrick; she moved in. She was three houses up, and Carol and I were best friends forever. Her parents went to the Baptist Church, so I was always at the Baptist Church down there and I saw her baptized. They had baptism by immersion. They had a pool underneath the dais there. My other friend was Carol Hawes, who was the daughter of the Methodist minister up the street. He was a great big man.  We used to run through the house screaming and he’d come out and said “Carol! Stop the running! I’m trying to write my sermon!” Then we’d go running, screaming, and Mrs. Hawes would come out – she was a tiny little woman. “Carol, stop running! Your father’s running a sermon.” “Yes, Mrs. Hawes.” We were scared to death of her and did whatever she said, but paid no attention to him.

WM: Was Plush Hill across from you?

ES:  Plush Hill was there. You know why it was called Plush Hill?  Because at one time Dobson Mills made their fortune through making blankets for the Civil War, and then when the Civil War was over, they went into making carpets. But they needed plush workers to know how to do the plush that you find in your carpet.  So they imported people from England who knew how to do plush and they put them up into housing their apartments in what used to be the William Smith estate.  We always called it Plush Hill because the people who worked in plush lived there.

LD: That’s where the name came from!

WM: Was the actual house there when you were little?

ES: The actual house was there.  William Smith was the first Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and he had this house, and they called it Smith’s Folly because he lived in the city – he was President of Penn. You know, in England, if you had an estate, a person would go out on the estate, and they would have these little architectural structures built in case it rained or there was bad weather. So they called it Smith’s Folly because it was away from his house.

WM: Can you describe it?

ES: Yeah, it came out from Haywood Street and the kitchen was separate because, in those days, if there were fires in the kitchen, it might spread to the house, so that was here.  Then there was a porte-cochere where you’d come in, and the carriages would come, and the lady would get out and step down into her living room. And it was L-shaped. It was long facing the river with a long porch so that you could get the breezes from the river in the summer.  

WM: Was it a stone house or stucco?

ES: It was stucco.  No, it wasn’t stone.                                                                                                     

WM: So when you were on Indian Queen in 1940, were there many cars?     

ES: Well, we had a car because my father had the business, and he had to deliver flowers, so we always had wheels. But no, not many people had wheels. So that’s really what changed things a lot – the fact that people were able to drive.   I mean women – when I think of my mother, she never drove – so women were stuck in the house all day. It’s really sad when I think about it.  But she used to go into town on the train and you could take the train or bus or walk. They’d walk wherever they went, but because they had to walk, the neighborhood was sort of confined. You knew your vendors.  Your neighbors were the people you bought from.  Everybody had a business, and you used your neighbors for your contacts and business.

LD: So you could say East Falls was self-sufficient.

ES: It was in a lot of ways.  You know, as I said, the hardware store our neighbor’s had, and Felix the Barber was there, and Jeanette and Bernie had the pharmacy.      

WM: Which pharmacy?         

ES: The Falls Pharmacy down at the corner of Indian Queen Lane and Ridge there.

LD: Where Le Bus is now.

GO: Well, across the street.

LD: Well, part of that was the 5 & 10 on the Midvale side and the other side was the pharmacy on Indian Queen Lane at the bottom of the hill.

WM: Oh yes, I know where you mean. We’ll go back to the stores, but can you describe your house?

ES: Sure. It was a porch house and the rooms were big, really. It had a large living room and a large dining room and kitchen. And then in the backyard, we had a bottom yard that was really nice. Then you went up maybe twelve steps to a top yard that went way back to Plush Hill.  We had a little swimming pool there my father built when we were kids.  And on the slope leading up to it – I have a picture here of the slope – this is what my father did with the plants. So my father would shape the azalea bushes into different shapes, hearts and things. And here’s our pool in the backyard.

WM; Oh, an actual in-ground pool.

ES: Yeah, right.  And there was a pipe that led out to the slope where you could drain the water.

WM: Did your friends come over to swim?

ES: Yeah, everybody would come, yeah. It was a lot of fun.

WM: So let’s go back to the stores.  Tell us what you remember along Ridge, Conrad and Midvale.

ES: We did most of our shopping on Midvale. So at the bottom of the hill, on Indian Queen Lane on the left hand side was a hairdresser. On the right-hand side was the pharmacy – Jeanette and Bernie – and the   5 & 10. And right across the street was Felix’s Barber shop, and he had a red, white and blue pole outside the barber shop. And then originally there was a bank on the corner, but I don’t remember the bank, but there was a red brick bank there, and later it became a gas station.  And then as you went up Midvale, there was the 5 & 10, then Kay Jeweler – do you remember Kay Jeweler? You could buy nice jewelry there, watches and rings and such. It was next to the 5 & 10 as you went up Midvale.

LD: Was there a hairdresser there – Yolanda?

ES: Yeah…. Wasn’t she the one at the corner of Indian Queen or was she up further? Is she on Midvale?

LD: She may have been in a couple locations. She started out in my grandparent’s storefront on Ridge, and then, I thought, Midvale, but maybe she went there first.

WM: What else was on Midvale?            

ES: There were some houses and then there was a market and a dry cleaner.

WM: Now, what was the market called? Was that Stubblebine’s?

ES: Oh, yeah, Stubblebine’s – that sounds familiar.  Mrs. Stubblebine was – you’ve heard of Leroy Shronk?  Well, Mrs. Stubblebine was his sister. Leroy was the meanest man ever. He hated children and animals. He had an empty house next to his house, and he wouldn’t rent it. His house was up the street from ours on Indian Queen Lane, so it would be at 3584 where he lived.  So 3586 was empty, but he wouldn’t rent to anyone with children or animals.  He hated them.  And if he an animal came on his pavement, he had steps and then there was like a ledge that went out and he would stand there and pour water on them from his watering can.  And you’d see him going down to the river with a bag full of kittens that he would drop in the Schuylkill.  So he was known as the meanest man, but his wife Connie was so nice. She was lovely. I don’t know if you remember, Connie, but she was sweet.

WM: So what else was on Midvale?  Were there restaurants?

ES: There were bars, as I remember, Pete’s and McGill’s. You remember those up from the Major?  There were a couple of bars and then there was my dentist, Doctor Doriye (sp.?). You know where the steps go up?   There’s a flight of steps that go up on the St. Bridget side and that was my dentist, Doctor Doriye. And then there were just houses, weren’t there? I think there were just houses.

WM: And then what about McIlvaine’s Funeral Home?          

LD: It was the Young Men’s Literary Society.

WM: Literary Institute.

GO: On this side of Frederick was the supermarket at one time. By the time I moved in, it was closed.

LD: Midvale Market?

GO: I think it was an Acme.

WM: What year are you talking about, Guy?

GO: Well, I moved in here in 1948, so it was before that.

WM: So what about on Ridge? Majors, apparently, was a pharmacy and kind of a hangout?

ES: It was. We girls would tell our parents we were going to Sodality on Tuesday night.  You know, Sodality was the prayer group for girls.  We would tell our parents we were going to Sodality and then we’d go to Major Drug.  In the back they had booths, and you would put the money in the jukebox for your tunes and sit there and do that, you know, and then come home and say you were praying.    

WM: And what else was along Ridge?

LD: Sam the butcher?                                                                                     

ES: Oh, Sam’s. We never went there. Guilderman had the pharmacy.

WM: Not Fiedler’s?

ES: I don’t remember Fiedler’s when I was young.

WM: But you said you remembered a restaurant, the Anchorage, further up?

ES: Oh the Anchorage was wonderful – that was on East River Drive, not on Ridge.  And it was a place where you could have events – like my aunt had her wedding reception there. You could have affairs there. We liked it because it was right there by the river, and you could sit by the river.

LD: Another historic building that was demolished.

ES: We would go there for dinner.

WM: And then going in the opposite direction on Ridge towards Dobson’s Mills was your father’s florist. What year did your dad’s store close?

ES: My father had the store, and then he had Perpetual Care. And so in 1915, Laurel Hill Cemetery said “We’re going to take over the Perpetual Care part from the independent contractors. And my grandfather said, “Oh no” and he hired a lawyer and the lawyer won the case for him. His name was Owen J. Roberts. Owen J. Roberts later became Chief Judge of the Pennsylvania Court, Laurel Hill did the same thing in 1950. They said “We’re going to take over from the independent contractors. The independents weren’t organized, and they didn’t have money for a lawyer, so they lost their Perpetual Care and that put my father out of business. because with just the store he couldn’t manage.

WM: What year was that?

ES: 1950.

WM: Do you remember other stores around his store?

ES: Next door to him was a bar, but Roscioli’s Bar was on the corner. And then there were houses.

LD: There was a bar at Scott Lane and Ridge.

GO: There was a well-known bakery there between Scott and Allegheny.

LD: Was that Haas’s Bakery?

GO: That sounds familiar.

WM: Did you ever go to stores on Conrad?                                                                                         

ES: We didn’t go to Conrad. We didn’t. There was a shoemaker there.

WM: Do you remember the old Falls Tavern? Had you been in it?

ES: Yes.  It had been in continual use from 1700…whatever. I used to go there to collect for the school debt. Remember we used to have chances and every Monday night you collected for the school debt, for St. Bridget’s? And I used to go there because Jules Starrett (?) always took a chance and she worked there. And, yeah, they were still serving dinners and having parties and doing things there. And then. all of a sudden. they said we’re going to tear it down, which was horrible. I can remember standing at the corner of Indian Queen Lane with my dad. He recorded it and he was so sad.

WM: So this was in the 60s?

LD: Yeah, because my first Holy Communion party was there, and that was in the 1950s.

ES: They said in the basement of the old Falls Tavern there were prison cells for the Hessian soldiers. They said that was true. I mean Jules Starretttold me that was true because we used to think, oh, well, that’s just talk.

LD: Do you remember Helen’s Store? So that was on Ridge just below Indian Queen Lane. It was a grocery store.  The cookie place is there now, where the State Store was.

WM: So, Ellen, tell us about school. You went to Saint Bridget? Can you tell us your memories from there?  Teachers you had, and what you did there?                                                                                                             

ES: Well, originally, we were in the old school, weren’t we? We were in the building where my father graduated from school.  It was so crowded in our time. There were so many kids, remember? 

GO: Half days.       

ES: Yeah. So we did all kinds of things. We were in the old school which was really depressing. It was this old stone building and what I always hated were the bathrooms. If you had to go to the bathroom, you had to go down into the basement and it was dank and dark and scary.

WM: I had heard that the lower grades started on the bottom floor and then as you got older, you would go up a floor for each grade?

ES: Remember that ramp that came down when we were in the 1st grade and 2nd grade. 3rd grade was in the convent.

GO: In the Music Room.                                                                                                                         

WM: How many children are we talking about in each class?

ES; I don’t know.

GO: Forty to fifty?

WM: And there were more than one class of each grade?

GO: There were two classes of each grade.

LD: When I was there, there were three. The one first grade was in the basement, Sister Walter Anise, and then I had Sister Mary Campion and the other first grade. The 2nd floor was second grade.

WM: Who were some of your teachers, Ellen?

ES: Sister Peter Damian taught first grade.  Sister St. Urban, was second grade. Sister Robert Michael was 4th grade. 3rd grade was Patricia Marie – oh, my God; we were scared to death of her! She was so scary. That was 4th grade. But I didn’t have her. 

WM: Why were you scared of the third-grade teacher?

ES: Because, first of all, we were in the convent. And Sister Patricia Marie had arthritis or something, and she was always in pain and yelling at us. And, oh, she was so mean! And then if she wanted to leave, to take a break, Sister Saint Anthony would come in.  Now, she was 101 and she was all bent over. She was very kindly, but we were scared to death of her because she was so old and scary looking.

GO: She would tell us all the time her age was due to drinking eight full glasses of water every day. (laughter)

WM: So what do you remember doing in school? Did you have assemblies?

ES: No, I don’t think so.

GO: Not at that time because we didn’t have the facility.

WM: Any special events?

ES: We had the carnivals.  Remember the carnivals at Saint Bridget? They raised a lot of money.  They were a lot of fun.  Remember you would spin the wheel and then you’d win something? You’d win a stuffed animal or doll or something.

WM: Was it in the parking lot?

ES: Yes, the parking lot or the playground.

GO: Ours was right on our street, Calumet.

ES: Yeah, and they had games and it was a lot of fun.

WM: This was once a year in the spring?

ES: In the summer.  It raised money for the parish so that was good – to pay off the new school.

WM: Tell us about the May Procession.

ES: Well, the girls wore white and paraded around and said the Rosary, I think, as we were going around. 

LD: Didn’t somebody get to put a crown of flowers on the statue?

ES: Yes. And my friends used to come, Carol and Carol, who were the Protestants, and they were like “We learned a new prayer! We learned the Hail Mary.”  And we would say “You don’t know the Hail Mary??  What is wrong with you people!”  It was fun in a way because we always talked about religion. We were all different religions, but we always shared what we knew about each other’s religions. You know, make comments and make fun….

WM: Did you ever go into their churches?

ES: Oh yeah, and then I found out that was absolutely forbidden! We were never to go into a Protestant church! I was always in their churches, you know?

WM: What about Woodside? Did you have an annual trip?

ES: Yes. And we would walk through the woods on the last day of school, remember? And over through the park or something.   And that was a lot of fun; that was great.

WM: Did you have favorite rides or things to do there?

GO: The Wildcat – we were afraid to go on that. We were young…

LD: Boat rides…

ES:  Well, Crystal Pool was nearby, too – there was Woodside, and then Crystal Pool was a pool where you could join and go in the summer to swim.  That was nice.  It was like a big lake.  Really nice.

So, yeah, in the summer we would go swimming.

WM: Where’d you go swimming?

ES: Well, Carol was a Baptist and the Eastern Baptist Seminary, which was somewhere on City Line, I think, had a pool, so we joined up – a Catholic, going to the Eastern Baptist Seminary. But it was a lot of fun. I was a teenager then.                                                                                                                            

WM: Did you go to the Bathey?

ES: The Bathey! Oh my God! Yeah. I think I went once and never again.

WM: What was your experience there?

ES: Well, there were all these stories that somebody stepped on broken glass in the bottom of the pool and cut their foot and there was bleeding and blood…. there were terrible stories about the Bathey. And then in the wintertime, they would freeze it over. I remember my sister saying “We’re going ice skating, so they took me down there.”

WM: Are you talking about Gustine Lake?

ES: Oh, yes, that’s Gustine Lake.  The Bathey was something different.

WM: The Bathey was on Ferry Road. Did you go to the swimming pool there?

ES: I think I went once.  It had a big brick wall around it.

GO: It was between Ridge and East River Drive, where the café is.

WM: Joe Petrone said all the guys used to jump over the wall at night. Tell us about ice skating at Gustine Lake.

ES: Well, my sisters took me down. They said “We’re going to ice skate.” So they took me down and they got on their ice skates, and we got all skated up, and I stood up and I said “I’m cold, I’m going home!” I threw my ice skates down and started walking up Ridge. They were like, “Come back! Come back!” I was like “I’m not going back! I’m cold!” So that was my last experience with ice skating at Gustine.

WM: And when did Gustine Lake disappear?

LD: I know my kids skated there, and my nephew, my sisters.

WM: And that was in the 70s?

LD: Late 70s.

ES: But why did they fill it in?

LD: They filled it in when they built that whole tennis center thing there.  But there was a swimming pool there for a while because Zach Burns ran the pool. He also was at McDevitt prior to that.

WM: So, Ellen, tell us what you did as a kid for fun. Where did you play?

ES: Where did I play? Played at my father’s store and in the cemetery.

WM: What do you do in the cemetery?

ES: I don’t know. I just ran around.  There were beautiful mausoleums there and every grave was defined by cement, so you couldn’t really do what they do now – run a lawnmower – you had to sickle it and do it all by hand. So I would just be running around in the cemetery playing.

WM: With your sisters?

ES: No, my sisters were in school.

WM: Right. Did you go to the library as a kid?

ES: I don’t remember going to the library as a kid. Oh yeah, I do. My mother would take us there every week, and my mother would have a big satchel. And she would get all her books. And so, we read when we were really young. I think I read before I went to school because my sisters had books and we were reading all the time with the library books. Yeah, we did spend time there. My mother liked to read.

WM: What were your memories of Old Academy? You were involved with that later – tell us about that.

ES: I was. I joined Old Academy because of the building, not because of acting. I never acted in the show, but I was worried about what would happen to the building. I didn’t want to see it disappear, so I went down there and it was kind of dreary and drab and falling apart, and didn’t have a lot of good acting. People didn’t go there. But anyway, I started painting it. I started painting the walls.  Upstairs they had the Social Room where you would go during intermission and whatever. So it was horrible. It was so ugly. They had these drapes that were so old they were petrified. They would just stand on their own if you stood them up. And so I asked ”Does anybody mind if I work on this?” And they were like, “No, go to it!” Everybody down there was like “Do whatever you want.” So I started. I took down all those old drapes and I got my neighbors involved – Marianne Veneziale and Barbara Cashman.  And we went down there and we painted.  Marianne put stenciling around. We got new tablecloths. We really made it so nice, and build it up and changed it around.

LD: Were you able to do away with the drapes?

ES: Yes, yes, I think it was Marianne who made the drapes, and we did it all in Navy blue and burgundy. And there was some guy who was working on a show, or in a show, and he said, “Oh, I have a carpet company. I’ll put a new carpeting.” And he put in this beautiful plush orange carpeting. And then there was some guy who was working on the show who said. “Oh, I have a curtain that matches the orange carpets.” And he got this beautiful valour curtain for us. It was gorgeous by the time we finished, it really looked nice!

WM: So your involvement was mostly with the physical building.

ES: I was afraid it was going to deteriorate and go down because the people who were acting could not care less about the building and anything involved with it. They were actors but I wanted to be there because actors are always “up” – they’re always excited about something and I just like being around them. They were a lot of fun.

WM: Were there any actors that made an impression on you or anyone famous that you encountered?

ES: Well, yeah. Well, you know, Grace Kelly’s sister, Lizanne, lives in town, and her husband, Don Levine, they always were in shows down there. They were very faithful to Old Academy, and they put a lot of money into it. And she sent me draperies for it because there was a building across the street – the Carfax building, where they kept all the props and costumes and other things and it had these great big windows. Lizanne was good. She said “Here are some curtains for the Carfax building – we’re downsizing our home.” So she and Don were always very faithful and very much involved.

WM: Did you have any other involvement with the Kelly’s?

ES: Well, Lizanne and Don LeVine were always active at the Playhouse, so I knew Lizanne. Then eventually I wrote to Prince Albert, asking him if he would like to buy the house his grandfather built, where his mother grew up, where his father proposed to his mother, where he spent time as a little boy looking out the window watching the cars go by on Henry Avenue. He wrote back right away – it was like a week – and he said “Yes, I’m interested.”  I think he had already made up his mind that he was going to buy the house. So I met him – they invited me to the family reunion the Kellys always had.  They would meet down at a hotel in Center City.  Also, I worked with Meg Davis, who was Peggy Kelly’s daughter, so she was Grace’s niece.  And there were Meg and Mary Lee – I taught Mary Lee’s kids – they worked with me at Gladwyn Montessori School. Meg worked there as an assistant in the classroom because she and her husband ran some kind of a camp – soccer, I think. So I got to know her and they invited me to the Kelly House Opening.  I said to Meg “Would you introduce me to Albert?” She took me up and introduced me to Albert and he knew who I was and he said, “You know, I didn’t need any persuasion to buy this house.  I really wanted it and this will be the place for our family reunions and that kind of thing.

WM: It’s a great legacy. It’s so great you did that.

ES: Well, they may have… they would have found a way to get it eventually anyway.

WM: So let’s go back to. Saint Bridget. What changes did you see in the church itself over the years?

ES: In the building itself?

WM: The building, the service, the attendance….  when you think of it back then, Ellen, and thinking of it now, what was your experience?

ES: I just remember making my sacraments there, you know. I made Confirmation. I’m trying to think – yeah, I think it was confirmation. 4th grade, and the nuns told me “You know, all the students came down after Confirmation because the bishop is there.” This was a whole big pageantry. So the nun said to me “Now you are going to lead students down this aisle.” So I did, but my parents had a heart attack because they thought I did something wrong and I’d messed up the whole thing in front of the Bishop!  But that’s what the nuns told me to do.

WM: When the service changed after Vatican II, did that have an impact on you?

ES: I like the changes they made. I think we were ready for those changes. They brought us into the present and I think it was a good thing that Vatican II happened, don’t you think? I’m trying to think of some of the things that have changed…

WM: It wasn’t in Latin anymore, was that one change?

ES: Well, that’s right. I mean, you didn’t know what they were saying. If you were an altar boy, you probably had to memorize all that Latin, you know?   

WM: And Lyda was saying that the priest faced a different direction?

ES: Well, we used to sing the songs in Latin and all.  You know, why do that? Why have Latin when we people didn’t understand most of what they were hearing? So it was a good thing when we went into the vernacular of the people who were involved.  And, yeah, they changed it so that the priest, instead of having his back to you, he would face you.

GO: The whole sanctuary was changed. I mean that that was the biggest mechanical or constructive change because the altar originally was against the thing with all the steps going up, so that whole thing was changed completely.

WM: How did you feel when the school closed? Did that have an impact on you?

ES: Oh well, I think it impacted everyone because with the school closing, that meant…well, the reason I think it closed was because there weren’t enough nuns anymore. People weren’t going into the convent and they had to hire people to teach at a bigger expense than what they were paying the Sisters. So I think that the decline in the convents, and maybe the enrollment too.

     But I think it changes the nature of the community because if you have a school there where parents move in because they know they have a school where their children can go, and suddenly the school isn’t there, they think about going to another neighborhood. So I think it changed the neighborhood in that sense that you didn’t have as many young families moving in.

WM: Did any of the priests make a special impression on you? Do you remember all the different ones at the church?

ES: Father Cartin was there forever, remember? In fact, he went to Grace Kelly’s wedding. He was on the altar for her wedding and was part of the entourage that the Kellys had going to Monaco for the wedding.  He came back and said “Now if any of you marry a Prince, I have experience. I can do it.” (laughter)

WM: Did any of the priests make a particular impact on the church or on you?

ES: Father Cartin was there forever.

GO: Well before him was Father Allen.

ES: Yes, Father Allen, when we were really young.

GO: He died because he was so worried about the debt for the school. Really. he was a nervous wreck.

WM: When I came to East Falls, it was Father Murphy.

ES: Father Murphy. Yeah. Well, Father Murphy had something to do with Penn, didn’t he?  He used to write these sermons like he was giving a class.  We’re all like, “What did you say???”

MF: Oh, I agree with you.

WM: There’s a few more things I want to cover. One of them is. Raven Hill.  Tell us about your working there and the actual building.

ES: Well Raven Hill was a great place. I loved it there. I went there because there was a nun who was going to teach a class in training teachers for the Montessori Method.  I had read about the Montessori Method and I loved it.  And this nun, Mother Isabel, knew Maria Montessori.  She was one of her first students. She was 75 when she opened the class I was in, but as a young nun of 20, she knew Maria Montessori from the time she was a little child, and she took the Montessori course. And so I thought I’ll be hearing this Method from someone who really knows a lot about it.  So I enrolled in the course.  It was Mother Isabel, and I think there were nine of us in the first class, including Marianne Moore – she was the niece of Marianne Craig Moore, the poet. And you know, we’d be sitting in class and Mother Isabel is saying something and then Marianne would say, “No, Mother, that’s not right! Now, this is what you do!” And they would stand there and argue all the time.  Marianne would catch her on any little point, but Mother Isabel was amazing. She was just an amazing person to listen to in her experiences.  So anyway, I took the course and then I was hired to teach there in Primary Montessori, from ages 2 ½ to 7. So that was preschool, really. And then so I taught that for several years.  And then the person who was teaching elementary, she was a nun who left the convent.  So they asked if I would do the elementary.  I said yes. I wanted to see what happened after all this training that I put into these kids when they were little – how it showed later on. So I said, “Well, I’d like to teach it, but I don’t know about the training.” The training went from 2 1/2 to 7. She said “I’ll help you. Don’t worry about it.” So Mother Isabel, helped me with that class and she was wonderful.

WM: Can you tell us about the physical building and how that configuration worked into the classes?

ES: Well, speaking of configuration, there were three different parts of Raven Hill. One was the Montessori, which was very, very lucrative. It was thriving. The thing was, you could have 25 children with a teacher and an aide. What happened was that we were always coed in Montessori. But then there was the Junior School and the Senior. School, and they were all girls. So what would happen was that half the class of Montessori people would leave to go to Norwood, or the boys would go, and then parents would say, “Well, gee, I have a son and a daughter; why make two stops? I’ll send my daughter to Norwood.” So we were losing a lot of would-be potential students by not going coed.  But the nuns, you know, had many meetings, and there were many meetings, and they dragged their feet, and they couldn’t decide.  They just kept it all girls, which I think was really the downfall. So then the Junior School had hardly anybody – they had nine or eleven kids in the Junior School classes. And then you had the Senior School, which was graduating maybe 25 girls a year instead of 100, which there could have been. And they were paying all these different teachers – an English teacher, math teachers.  So Montessori was thriving, making a lot of money, but then it was all being drained out through the upper class.

WM: That’s so interesting.  Do you know about what year it closed and what years you worked there?

ES: Well, I guess my kids were there.  I guess it was in the 70s, 80s.

WM: And were you in all those little classrooms in the old building, each with a unique fireplace?

ES: Yes, let me think.  The fireplaces all had a picture of – an image of a child, or whoever occupied that room.  There was a fireplace in the bedrooms.

WM: I remember someone telling me every fireplace was different and there was one in every room.

ES: Yes, and they all had an image.

WM: So the classes were in each of those rooms?

ES: Well, no, I think they were mainly bedrooms. See the nuns lived there.

WM: Oh I didn’t know that.

ES: Oh yeah, they lived there, and the school was in a certain section. But then there was that big arcade, you know, that ran the length of the building, and the cafeteria was above that. And then the sisters lived on the upper floors.

LD: When I was there in 3rd and 4th grade, there was that gray stone building.  It was long.

ES: Oh well, was that the newer building? Yeah, well, that was built for the Junior School. That was the high school when I was there.

WM: Who were some of your famous alumni there? I mean, Grace Kelly went there, didn’t she?

ES: To Ravenhill, yes, but I don’t know of any other.

WM: Wasn’t the family von Trapp there?

ES: Oh, oh yeah. When the von Trapp’s came, you know, they had to escape Europe. And they came through the convents because the mother Von Trapp had been a nun, so the nuns helped them to escape through their convents. And they came to New York and Ravenhill got a call from Bishop Sheen from New York and he said, “Do you have a house on your property that could house this family?” And they said, “Yes, we do.” So they had these structures – I don’t know what they were used for – but anyway they said, “Yes, we have a house.” so the von Trapps came and they lived there on the property, and Eleanor and Rosemary went to school there. They were the girls who were school age. Then the City came in and condemned the house they were living in, saying there was some kind of gases escaping from the basement, so they had to move out. They went to Alden Park, I guess.

WM: Was this a house on the campus?

ES: Yes, they were there for a while. But the two girls did go to school there.  Whenever the von Trapps came to sing – they would come every year to sing at the Academy of Music – the nuns would go down and they would have a great reunion. He would pick up the nuns and swing them around and hug them.

WM: So moving forward in time, you were one of the charter members of the Board of the Friends of the Falls Library.

ES: Is that right? That sounds very impressive! (laughs)

WM: You were in charge of the photos.

ES: Oh, yes, the photos! My family had a lot of photos.  How did this work?  Did people give us photos? Or did you get me involved somehow with that like you did with most people?

WM: I might have. Cynthia Kishinchand started the group – she might have approached you. I don’t remember, but can you tell us a little bit about that collection?

ES: Well, there were already photos there, right?

WM: There were some, yeah.

ES: There were some there. People would give photos, and I had all these family photos, so I took an interest in trying to categorize them into buildings, businesses, sports, churches.  So, yeah, I did maintain that for a while.

WM: And you made them into notecards. 

ES: Oh yeah, we raised money. Yeah, we had the photos made into notecards. I think I have somewhere around here, and by selling them, we raised money for the Friends Group.

WM: You have a lot of achievements, Ellen.   Tell us about being one of the three founders of the East Falls Historical Society.

ES: Yes. Wendy (laughing), do you know the other two? Who could they be?

WM: Well, just for the record, OK. Katy Hineline and me, but you were the one who, I believe, got Phil Steinberg to incorporate us, or give us the 501C3.  Can you talk about your role?  You were our long- time president – tell us a bit about your tenure and what you achieved?

ES: Well. It was you and Katy and me.  You were librarian at Falls Library, Katy had been a longtime social studies teacher at Germantown Friends School and was respected very greatly.  I didn’t know Katy too well before that.

WM: But neither of us grew up in East Falls and that’s why you joined the triumvirate.  By approaching you, we had someone local.  We were delighted you said yes to being one of the three founders.  You helped get us started and you were president how long?

ES: Eight years. 

WM:   Tell us about some of the things that happened during your tenure.                                                                     

ES: OK, so when we found that the Historical Society, the first thing was to set up communities. So we had an Archival Committee, we had a Membership Committee, we had a Finance Committee or Treasurers Committee, Oral History, Reference, Acquisitions.  As soon as we were able to find people who were good at that particular thing, they just went with their strength.

WM: And that was a good way to organize it, because everyone worked independently.

MF: What year did you found the Historical Society?

WM: 2004, when I retired. Tell us about the Grace Kelly Gallery and the achievements of the East Falls Historical Society.

ES: Old Academy had a 50th Anniversary and a lot of the people who had acted in the shows were coming, including Grace’s sister Lizanne and her husband Don LeVine, who acted in a lot of shows there. So Gene London heard about it and he had a collection of Grace Kelly dresses. He had six of her dresses – one was actually a copy of her wedding dress. But the others were – when she was in films, they would make a copy of each outfit in case something happened to an outfit, like it got dirty or something – so he would buy up these extra clothes that that were made from her films. So he had six dresses from her films. Well, five, and then the one was a copy of her wedding dress. So he heard about the event at Old Academy and he came with the dresses. And so I got to know Gene London. In fact he has a storeroom here in Reading somewhere where he would keep all these dresses that he had from other actresses, too, in addition to Grace Kelly’s.

WM: And he displayed them for our Historical Society at Medical College, didn’t he?

ES:  Was it Medical College? I forgot. So, anyway, that was Gene London, and now he died. But I think his friend John still has the dresses.

WM: Wouldn’t that be a nice acquisition for us! And then you helped plan the Grace Kelly Tea that we had – was that the same event as the dresses? Maybe it was.  And how did we acquire all those other Grace Kelly items?

ES: Nicholas and Elizabeth Barranca.  This woman from Hinesburg, Maryland, got in touch with me. She had every single thing she could possibly find on eBay about Grace Kelly. She loved Grace Kelly. Anything she could possibly find, she would collect. So she heard about our gallery and said that she could donate items for us to display, which was very nice.

WM: And what kind of items did we get?

ES: She lent us a copy of Grace’s wedding dress that she had made.

WM: Yes, we displayed that at an event at “Textile.”

ES: It was all the stuff that we have at the at the gallery – posters, cups and saucers, dishes, commemorative plates, movie posters, linen table clothes.

WM: How about those dolls? Did she give us the dolls wearing Grace’s costumes?

ES: Yeah, we have one cabinet with Grace’s acting outfits and one with her Princess/personal outfits.

MF: And they came from the Barrancas? I always assumed they did.

LD: Remember the Christmas cards from the Palace?

ES: Those came from Ruth Emmert.

WM: Did you ever meet Grace?

ES: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I was ever in her presence.

WM: Did you meet anyone besides Albert? Well, you met Lizanne.

ES: JB Kelly III – he’s a wonderful, wonderful person (note: Jack Kelly’s son). He took me through the Kelly house when they brought the Kelly house. The dog lady lived there. Yes. And the dog lady had lots of dogs who ruined all the wood in the house.

LD: She was the cat lady.

ES: Both. She had dogs and cats.  And she said people used to leave them there in a box or at the back door. “And what was I to do?” Well anyway, all the woodwork was ruined from, you know, the cats and dogs scratching and peeing on it. And it was just horrible.

WM: I remember when we first went in, the house really smelled for a while.

ES: So JB took me through the house. At some point, he said “I want you to come over at your convenience, you know, set a time, and let us know how we’re doing.”

WM: And he was Jack’s (“Kell”) son?

ES: Yes. And he’s the nicest guy.  One thing about the Kelly’s – all of them – Grace, all of them, is their courtesy. Mrs. Kelly was a real taskmaster German, and she had them writing thank you notes for everything and they had to do this.  They were very, very polite people, and very courteous, and I think that stood out in who they were. So yes, he invited me to come and go through the house and let them know how they were doing. So he took me all the way up to the top floor, all the way down, and they were doing pretty good. He found a tile in the kitchen floor that he said was original and he was going to have it mounted in the kitchen someplace.  So he has very much on the history. Recognized that it was a historic place.

WM: And that beautiful basement, that brick….

ES: Amazing. Mr. Kelly had built that during the Prohibition.  He had an escape route out the back door somewhere in case they were raided.  He was a great entertainer.  It was a great basement down there.

WM: So you helped move the Kelly items to New Courtland and set up the whole gallery for us?

ES: Yeah, well New Courtland was very kind. I just asked the manager, whose name was John Unger; I just asked him. They had this big, beautiful foyer there when which was empty. And so I just approached him and said. “You know, what would you think of having a Grace Kelly exhibit in this nice venue?” And he said yes; he liked the idea. So there it was.  We put it in there.

WM:  It’s very popular. And then you did a tour for WHYY? For PBS Channel 12, remember?

ES: Yeah, I remember part of it. I think it went well.

WM: You were great.  Before we conclude, I wanted to ask you about the Alden. I forgot to ask you, did you used to go there?

ES: Every Saturday. Oh my gosh.

WM: Can you describe that?

ES: Carol and I went every Saturday to the Alden, and it was bedlam, right? The guy, kids screaming, yelling, you know, throwing popcorn.  It was a wild place and Benny, remember Benny? And George. Benny Goldberg was the owner and George was his brother.  They were always outside. And you would pay – I think if you were 12, you had to pay more to get in.

WM: Was it about a dime or quarter?

ES: Yeah, it was cheap.

GO: It was 25 cents – sixteen for the movie and nine for popcorn. (laughter)

ES: OK, that’s really detailed there!

LD: They have the newsreels first.

ES: Oh yeah, you saw everything – they had the comics and newsreel, some kind of cartoon; everything. And then the movie. You got your money’s worth.

WM: Were you ever kicked out?

ES: Oh no!

MF: You said you went to Chestnut Hill College? 

ES: Yes, and Sister Dorothy was a Novice there.  We would see her walking from one building to the other, and she would be up there waving and doing all this stuff, and we would say “If they ever saw her!”

WM: What are some of the changes you’ve seen in East Falls over the years and, when you think of East Falls, way back, what do you think of?

ES: Well, I think we said before, it was self-contained.  Your neighbors were the people that you did business with and I don’t think that’s true anymore so much. I don’t know that there are many. Are there many businesses in The Falls right now that are run by actual Fallsers?

WM: Not practical things, like shoemakers.

MF: Well, Murphy’s is still there.

ES: Oh Murphy’s!  Well, of course, you don’t do away with Murphy’s easily! We did something with Murphy’s. Murphy’s was struggling, so we arranged to have our EFHS meetings there, didn’t we?

WM: That’s right. That’s right.

ES: Let’s go to Murphy’s! Let’s go to Murphy’s on Friday night. He was hurting for business and we said “Let’s give him some business” and we would eat there. We have our meetings there and, you know, I think we did help there.  And people started going there again, like Phil Steinberg.  He’d say, “I didn’t know this place was here” and then he started going with Doris. And, you know, it picked up.

WM: Was East Falls a good place to grow up?

ES: I think so. You know, it was more colloquial.  Everybody kind of knew each other and, as an example, did I tell you I was hit by a bus coming home from school?

WM: No! You didn’t tell us. How old were you?

ES: Six years old. Well, the nuns would lead you in certain lines – if you went in the “upstreet” line, you went here, and another place for the “downstreet” line. So I lived on Indian Queen, so if I came down Frederick Street from school, I would have to go down, cross at the light, go up Midvale. So my parents always wanted me to cross at the light, but I never did because I would cut off and go up to Indian Queen Lane.  There was a trolley stop there. And I was coming out from that when the bus hit me – pfoom! So anyway, they took me to the hospital. Well, anyway, the police came and George the cop – remember George, the cop? He was the patrol cop. He was the walk-around cop in the Falls. So he’s in the car and they’re taking me. That’s when he says “You’re Joe Kelley’s daughter, right?” And I didn’t answer – I was like, “Oh, my God, he’s going to tell my father! My father’s going to find out!”  So next thing you know I’m on a gurney in the hospital and my father’s looking down at me.  My mother said my father called and said Ellen was hit by a bus and that she’s perfectly all right.  So my mother sat there by the phone and she thought, “How could anybody be hit by a bus and be perfectly alright?” They didn’t know me!

LD: Did you get a broken arm or anything?

ES: I had a bloody nose, because I was trying to get away from the driver.  He was holding me and I was trying to get away and said “I want to go home! Let me go!” And he said “No, your nose is bleeding.” And I said “No, it’s not!”  And I looked in the chrome of a car, and it was. I was like, “Oh darn.”

WM: So, any other special memories that you’d like to share?

ES: You can’t beat that story.                                                                                                                     

 LD: Did you watch the fireworks from Woodside on Friday nights?                                                       

ES: Well, that was only certain times, like 4th of July. Was it every Friday night in the summer?     

LD: Well, I’m eight years younger than you, so it could have changed.

ES: I don’t remember. (to Guy) Do you remember the fireworks?

GO: I remember the fireworks, but I thought that, like you, it was just on 4th of July and other holidays.

LD:  At that time, the park was open. By the time I was watching them, the park was closed, and they would have it on Friday nights.

MF: I’d like to ask, from what I hear from different people, were there any racial tensions, ethnic tensions, social tensions when you grew up?

ES: Well, I don’t think there were any blacks in East Falls.  Maybe later on when the projects came in there were, but I was out of there by then.

MF: The Irish?

ES: Oh, yeah. The Italians lived on Calumet, the Irish went to Ainslie Street. I mean, you didn’t mix the Italians and the Irish!

WM: But they all mixed at St. Bridget?

LD: Not necessarily. The Italians went to church up at Saint Lucy’s in Manayunk for a long time.

MF: Somebody told me if you were Italian, you couldn’t go to church at Saint Bridgets. Is that true?

ES: Well, there were a lot of ethnic parishes, there was Saint Lucy’s.

LD: Yeah, that was in Manayunk.

ES: What was that?

LD: That was Italian. St. John’s was Irish, St. Mary’s was German.

MF: So St. Bridget was mostly Irish, then?

LD: It was built with Irish money.

ES: But did I tell you the spelling of Saint Bridget’s is Swedish? The Swedes actually founded East Falls.

They came here because of religious persecution. I don’t know anything about the Swedish except that the spelling of Saint Bridget B-r-i-d-g-e-t is Swedish. The Irish version is B-R-I-D-G-I-D.  So wasn’t named after the Irish St. Bridgid; it was named after the Swedish St. Bridget.

GO: Well, that’s interesting because at one time they didn’t know.  We asked Father – who was the one before Father Kelly?

MF: Devlin?

GO: No, the one that used to give these long, boring sermons.

ES: That was Murphy.

GO: No, the tall one.

MF: York?

GO: Father York.  Because we donated a statue when my mother passed away for Saint Bridget.

ES: It’s between the church and the rectory, and it’s beautiful. That was wonderful.

MF: So that St. Bridget’s statue was from your family?

GO: Yeah, but it’s actually the Irish St. Bridget. But that’s interesting because Father York says it didn’t matter. We could have both Saints.

LD: I thought it was named for Father Saint John Newman’s mother – her first name was Bridget.

GO: That could well be because he was the bishop when it was founded.

LD: Yes, they went to him and asked to have a parish.

WM: I forgot to ask you, Ellen, if you have any special memories of holidays, any traditions in the neighborhood?

ES: Well, sure. 4th of July, we had a parade.

WM: Can you describe that?  Where did Saint Bridget go?

ES: We always went to McMichael Park. The other churches went to their own grounds – Lutherans had their picnic at their church and Presbyterians at their church, but we always went to McMichael Park.

LD: Memorial Day?

GO: We had bands all the time – the VFW Band – they were on Frederick Street and and Stanton there, and as kids we would march behind the bands, you know, and they would go up and down all the streets around East Falls playing, and the kids would join in the back.  They would end up in McMichael Park and they have a ceremony Memorial Day, 4th of July, any kind of national holiday.

LD: All the churches had bands, but not St. Bridget.

MF: No St. Patty’s Day with all these Irish?

GO: Oh it was a big event, but I don’t remember if they had bands then.

ES: Well, we always followed the Methodist Church; they had a great band. The Circle Society has their drum. So I always followed them. I would run up the street and wait for the Methodists to come out with their Drum and Bugle Corps – they were the musical people. They were the singers. They went around at night, at Christmas time, during the night and sang carols at their parishioners’ homes and our next-door neighbors were Methodist.

GO: That was great fun. I joined them one year. It ended like at 4:00 in the morning, right?

ES: Oh yeah, they come around in the middle of the night and. Sometimes they would hand out cookies or invite you in for stuff.

WM: Well, Ellen, thank you so much. If you think of anything else, we’ll add to it.

ES: Thank you.