for the Prudential Insurance Company and my mother, at 19, could not have been
earning much.
Also living at Number 16 in 1920, in addition to Lorenzo, were his son William
and wife Claribel (my grandparents) and their daughter Jeanette, who had returned to
Cumberland after a brief marriage. It is possible that they moved in to fill the void
left by two recent deaths. Lorenzo's wife, Mary Catherine ("Kate"), had just died that
year. His daughter, Nellie Rohrer Neff, who had lived there with her husband Walter
Neff and son John, died in the flu epidemic of 1918.
My arrival, on April 16, 1921, helped further to people the house. Later, my
father's brother George with his wife Florence and son Pershing came to live there as
well, possibly for economic reasons. Cousins Billy and Pershing, only two and a half
years apart in age, began a lifelong, brotherly friendship.
It was fitting that my father and his little family be assigned a place of their own,
a large room on the top (third) floor. My parents were undoubtedly happy to have
their privacy, but the summer heat in a top floor in those days before air conditioning
must have been terrible. Furthermore, there was no kitchen and the bathroom was on
the floor below. Nevertheless, Mother sometimes must have cooked in the apartment,
no doubt using a hot plate, for I distinctly see myself sitting in a highchair at the table
where my parents were enjoying (of all things for me to remember) a dinner of steak
with mushrooms!
From our "penthouse" windows, I enjoyed looking into the treetops that
3
Site of the birth of Charles William Rohrer on April 16, 1921
