11485.

Click the address above for a view of another early Marion homestead, this one on Christy Street in Detroit, just down the block

from the former City Airport (now Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport).  If you scroll  around and zoom in and out,

going from street view to map, you'll also see that the neighborhood is surprisingly close to Mt. Olivet Cemetery,

 where many of our O'Brien/Harrington kinfolk rest.  Other points of interest that can be found nearby:  Wilkins

Elementary and Our Lady of Good Council, where some of us got a stellar start academically.  We moved from here

some 54 years ago, though it seems like only 53 years to me.  wom

11485 Christy, Detroit, circa 1956 - This may well have been the final shot taken of the Marion kids (minus infant Mick-Mouse,

who was probably inside slobbering at the breast) in Detroit, prior to our migration to Mt. Pleasant.  Of particular note

are RJ's cowboy boots (with shorts!) and my unhappy demeanor, having just pinched my right index finger in a folding aluminum

chaise lounge chair, an accident that continues to haunt my golf swing to this day. Also, observe young Julie's

mother hen instincts emerging as she enfolds all three of us under her wings.  And JP, holding his own hand out as if

in pain, sympathetically and subconsciously wishing his wonderful older brother a speedy recovery (but more likely, mocking me, the little bastard).

 ((If I was going to mock him, I would have worn suspenders AND a belt, too - JPM))

It does look like we got out of there just in time.  The house, built in 1941, was beginning to look a bit shabby.... 

wom 

_____________________________________________ 

434.

7/19/2010 -The old homestead on N. Rosevere, Dearborn, MI, where the Marion clan lived from 1960-1976.  Hard to believe we

crammed 7 people into this casita.  Even harder to believe we boys ever bitched about having to cut that pitiful little patch of lawn.

Note that former center strip of gnarly grass has been paved over, that garage door actually seems to function,  that

there's now a fence separating our garage and the Servis's back yard, and that Dad's gas lamp remains in place 40+

years after its installation....

The hood, looking north from Myrtle St.  Our house is at the very top, the one with

the narrow back porch cobbled onto the rear.  The same back porch that gave JP a

fortuitous escape route the day I caught him wearing one of my banlon shirts and

started up the stairs after him.  He sprinted though our bedroom (shared by all four boys, btw),

and like the snake he was, slithered though the lone window just above the porch's roofline.

I watched from that window as he scrabbled on all fours over the shingles, stood up, gave me

a quick, smirking glance, leaped onto the nearby garage, hung on the gutter, and dropped to ground,

free and clear.  

 (Of course, I nailed his thieving ass later.  wom)

Ed. Note:  To sneak back into the house, JP tells us that he he climbed up on the in-ground gas grill,

hopped from there onto the garage roof, then jumped back across to the porch roof, and slithered

back through the bedroom window.   

Some facts about 434:  Built in 1941; square footage: 2200;

bathrooms: 1.5; Current approximate value:  $116,000  (as of 8/2010)