Pittsburgh Grandma’s House, Part 1
We visited my Grandma Bird in Pennsylvania whenever we could. 
We always called her Pittsburgh Grandma, although she lived just outside of Pittsburgh in Bellevue. I thought the drive took about 5 hours, but Google maps thinks we could get there in 3 1/2. We took toll roads most of the way. This meant that for most of the drive, there wasn’t much along the road except the occasional rest stop. Some of the rest stops had eating establishments. It seems like the most familiar rest stop had both a Popeye’s Chicken and a Dunkin Donuts. Usually we didn’t buy food. We’d go in to use the bathroom and eat the snacks my parents packed in the car. Sometimes my dad would buy a side of red beans and rice at Popeye’s. As we got closer, we’d each try to pick out landmarks that told us that we were getting close. The most distinctive one I can remember was a big hill where you could see a trail of red lights climbing up one side and white lights coming down the other. We all tried to find one that was far enough away that we knew we were almost there first.
Grandma lived in a three story house with a basement on a red brick road. The house was located halfway up a fairly steep hill. Grandma lived on the second story and had an elevator chair to help her up the steep stairs. Sometimes she’d let us ride the chair with her. We were not allowed to joy ride on it, but I can remember sending luggage up and down it when we were loading or unloading the car.
She owned the building, but rented out the top and bottom. On the bottom floor lived an elderly lady whose name I can’t remember at the moment. She was a kind old lady who welcomed us into her house. I remember putting on a little recital of sorts for her in her living room. I think my older sister played the violin which was so stylish and check it out here to find more about it. I don’t actually remember anyone who lived in the top floor. I remember it being vacant sometimes and when it was we got to sleep up there.
Grandma’s house was full of antique furniture. 
When you entered the house, the first room you encountered was her living room. I don’t remember the bright blue walls, but from pictures I can see that the living room and dining room were this bright shade of blue. If you walked straight you would walk past a big entry way that led into the dinning room and along the wall directly in front of you would be an antique couch with a fuzzy blue and white wall hanging above it and end tables on either side with lamps on them. She had built-in book shelves with neatly arranged books on either
side of a fireplace along the back wall and a ledge above the fireplace and bookshelves. The coffee table in front of the couch was the perfect place to play cards because you could put your cards in the crack between the wood and marble sections and it would hold your cards up for you.The only TV she ever had was on a small entertainment center in front of one of the bookshelves. I say entertainment center, but it was really a small end-table-sized piece of furniture with a 
door on the front that opened. The door had a crisscrossed pattern that I’m fairly sure either my siblings or I damaged at some point. She kept a few toys in the cupboard under the TV. For all the time we spent at grandma’s house, I can hardly ever remember watching TV. She didn’t have cable and she never had a VCR (I actually remember after we bought our first VCR she said that we must be rich to have a VCR). The only time I can remember watching TV was on New Years Eve. I have a vision of us wearing PJs and sitting up in sleeping bags watching the ball drop. We tore up little pieces of paper as we waited for midnight. At midnight we threw up our paper, then went to bed.
Just past the television was 
another large entryway into a sitting room of sorts. I remember it had a fancy old living room set one one side of the room and a single bed on the other. If you circled back through the living room you’d pass a big leather chair and a rocking chair before you were back at the door. In the picture you can see the wall that divided the rooms and a dark colored door that led to a large closet. I remember cleaning out the closet after she died, but I never remember even noticing the closet while she was alive.
The dining room was the next room. 
Along the wall to the right as you entered the room was a long glass display case where grandma kept mostly decorative Lithuanian items. The thing I remember most from that case were her elaborately decorated marble eggs. She had a large mirror on the wall above the display case. At the far end of the room she had a clock that chimed on the hour and played a little song. I don’t know the name of the song, but I instantly remember my grandmother each time I hear it. Above the clock was a deer head with glass eyes and big antlers. I was always afraid of it, but I remember dad would hold Krista up to pet the deer. I 
remember thinking how brave she was. Most of the room was taken up by the table and chairs. She had more built in display cases in the dinning room.
If you walked straight through the dinning room you would come to a small kitchen where if memory serves, she had a small table with a light fixture than hung down. I picture the light fixture with a little witch decoration hanging down from it, but then I also picture that decoration hanging down from a light fixture upstairs so my memory here is flawed. I know the sink was under the window on the same side as the windows in the picture of the dinning room, but I can’t really remember what the kitchen looked like.
There was a porch and a set of stairs on the
back side of the house off of the kitchen. We used to enjoy sending a basket down on a string into the back yard where a sibling would wait to send items up in the basket.
If you walked back into the dinning room from the kitchen you could turn left into a small hallway. The bathroom was directly across the hall. Grandma had the most distinctive bathtub. It must have been made for sitting up in. There was a square section of the tub surrounding the drain that took up half of the tub. The other half was elevated and was also square in shape. I remember bathing exclusively in the smaller, lower square. Grandma used to take us to her bed and put baby powder and baby oil on us after our baths. She called it “Salt and Pepper.” I liked the baby oil, but she would rub the powder in with little pats that stung a little. Some of my siblings were less sensitive and laughed as she patted the powder in. The bathtub was on the left side of the room as you entered with a short wall behind the tub. Behind the wall was the toilet and directly across from the toilet was the sink. I can’t think what was on the wall across from the bathtub, maybe that’s where the door opened in.
If you turned right down the hall you would come to my grandmother’s bedroom. She had two single beds in her room. My sister Barbara often slept in the other bed as my grandfather had died when my father was a child. Grandma had a large dresser with a mirror above it directly across from the bed and a jewelry box on the dresser. Her closet was on the far side of that wall. After she died we found boxes of dolls in her closet with certificates of authenticity with my name on them. They were wedding dolls from a variety of cultures.
On the other end of the hall was another bedroom. This room had at least two dressers in it, a hide-a-bed couch and a few beds. This is where most of the family slept (someone also slept on the bed off of the living room). I remember a tall dark colored dresser in this room where grandma kept wooden Lithuanian toys that if you moved them just right they would come alive. She had a bear that would saw wood and chickens that would peck at the floor.
This post is already long enough so I will write about the upstairs apartment, the basement, and the yard in another post.
So, I was only 5 when she passed away, but the smell of laundry reminds me of Grandma Barb because she had a laundry vent just outside her kitchen door which lead outside.
I distinctly remember my lack of fear for strangers because one day Krista and I were walking to Grandma’s from the park because Krista knew the way. This van pulled over and offered us a ride, I really wanted to accept. Krista told me to run. I remember we had umbrellas so I think it was raining and I didn’t know why we were running. I’m glad Krista was smart about strangers.
I also remember one day we were having dinner with the Lithuanians. I wanted to ask for everything in Lithuanian so I asked dad how to ask for the peas in Lithuanian. I think I believed it was necessary to talk to them in Lithuanian even though they spoke to me in English.
I remember that playground too. It astounds me sometimes to think about walking to the playground, grandma’s office, or exploring across from our house and to remember that we did these things alone. I wonder how old we were when we started exploring places alone. I don’t even let my kids go out the the van without me! The world is changing in scary ways.
Thanks for posting these things. I really wish I remembered more about Pittsburgh Grandma. There were parts of her house (like the sitting room with a bed) that don’t even sound familiar!
Anyway, I remember that the bedroom that we stayed in had a big picture of Grandma’s mother. I also remember watching Mom hide Easter eggs from the window. I can remember the area rug that grandma had either in her kitchen or living room. I can also distinctly remember watching a bunch of Lithuanians making krugalis in the kitchen (which may have been yellow). Also, was the bathroom floor black and white checkered?
Anyway, I wish I remembered Grandma’s house better. I think the 3rd floor had lots of seafoam green vinal. . . Someday I want to return to Pittsburgh and try tp remember more.
By the way, do Little Debbie’s “Star Crunch” cookies remind you of Grandma? Do you remember “vitamins” before bed that were really fruit snacks?
Hi Kathleen,
I just wanted to let you know that we’ve moved our blog to http://www.ourlittleazblog.blogspot.com. So you’ll want to update your links. Also, if you have us linked on your website, please don’t use our last name. Thanks so much!
Star Crunch cookies do not remind me of grandma and I don’t remember fruit snack vitamins.
I can’t remember a washer and dryer in grandma’s house, surely she had one. Barb–do you remember??
I remember singing songs and playing games on the way to grandma’s house, like “over the river and thru the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…” And if we happened to be sleeping and miss the big hill with the lights, we were sure to wake up when we got to grandma’s house, because of the rumbling noise the car made going over the red brick road. I think Dad and Kath are the only ones who liked the Red eyed beans and rice, and I remember that being what dad would get when he stopped.strange that there was no meat!
In the early years, grandma had two big cement lions on either side of the entryway (on the cement slabs), but at some point, these were stolen. Grandma first had a big blue car (don’t remember what kind), Grandma took me to McDonalds once- I think I overate, so I ended up throwing up vanilla milkshake and chicken mcnuggets all over her backseat. Later she got a brown 1980 Cadillac (probably new) with power everything, cb radio, 8-track. She parked in the garage and would back this huge car down the narrow driveway, with inches on either side. That later became my car for a while in high school. It was very long and got about 5 mi/gallon.
At the top of the stairs, outside her 2nd floor apt. she had a dark wooden bureau. At Christmas She would always put out a singing snowman that had flashing lights. We loved to wind it up.
The neatly arranged books Kathy is talking about were the World Book collection and our favorites, the Beatrix Potter collection- They were little children’s books with porcelain animals from the books. There was Peter Rabbit, a fox, a goose, mice, and several others.
When we stayed at grandma’s house, I would sleep in the spare bed in grandma’s bedroom (I think that spot was reserved for me). Grandma snored, so I sometimes had trouble sleeping, but I know she liked to have me there. I think the bedspreads were brightly colored orange, purple and red flowers. I would often wake up to the whistling sound of her tea kettle. She would always have a cup of instant coffee (Sanka). Once she wanted me to taste it. I sniffed the cup, but didn’t want any.
Mrs Spieth lived on the ground floor. She was older than grandma and was thin with white hair. We would visit her and tried not to make too much noise so we wouldn’t disturb her. We would also bring her treats sometimes (when we made something special). One of us would call her “Speith” in a low voice– I can’t remember who, but I’m sure Dad would remember that.
That big closet was a storage room- grandma kept a crib in there for all of mom’s babies ;) and holiday decorations and wrapping paper.
There was a rocking chair in front of it, and grandma’s big green chair (that was HERS and you had to let her sit in it if she was there!).
We played cards with grandma a lot- she taught us to play casino, and we played war a lot. When we stayed in the attic apartment we would play cards for hours. (by the way, there was a doorway that opened to the bedroom, and the bathroom was located just off of the bedroom, on the left). I remember feeling a bit cramped up there because of the low ceilings (it was an attic!).
To get to the attic, we went up the back stairs, behind the kitchen. the washer and dryer were stacked, by the stairwell, outside of the kitchen. We would go through this stairwell to get to the balcony too. The witch was usually hanging in the kitchen from the lamp, but it may have been upstairs for a little while. I don’t remember.
I remember fighting over that bottom square in the bathtub, but we liked baths at grandma’s. Yep, Kris, her bathroom tiles were black/white checkered. Across from the bathtub was a towel rack.
In the back bedroom (which was dad’s bedroom when he was a kid) there was a big oval picture of a somber-looking lady. Dad says it is grandma’s grandma (her mother’s mother), Victoria Christus. That’s who Krista’s named after, I think.
you can see a sepia-colored 8×10 framed photo above in the picture where 3 of us are making cupcakes. That is a picture of grandma’s mother Sophia.
I always got in trouble at dinner for picking apart my meat. I didn’t like finding chewy pieces of fat, or especially veins, and grandma told me she couldn’t take me to a restaurant if I was going to eat like that. She would tell stories of how they used to chew on fat because there was no chewing gum, and things like that, to make me feel bad for picking apart my food. I was also reprimanded a bit for using too much salt… I guess some things never change!
I remember when I first saw grandma making homemade sausage and I found out what the casings were made of. I peeled my sausage for several years after that, and grandma would say “you don’t know what good is”.
another couple of grandma zingers:
I like bananas cuz they have no bones
Dinner will be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail
Thanks for the comments Barb! It’s good to remember. I thought I’d better write my history before I forget it all! I do remember liking the red beans and rice. I don’t remember the lions, mom mentioned them to me as well. I remember grandma’s big brown Cadillac with it’s cream colored leather seats. I always wanted to try the CB radio and the armrest that came down in the middle of the back seats was always intriguing to me as well.
I remember some of Grandma’s Christmas decorations, like the tall ceramic Christmas tree with lights that stuck out and the ceramic/glass snowman that sang “frosty.”
I also remember grandma telling me to eat my potato skins because they would make my hair curl–it never worked.