VINTAGE RYE: Mrs. Kirby’s Heirloom Tomatoes:
There are some childhood memories that are never far from my thoughts. They seem mundane at first, but they remain truly profound. Mrs. Kirby’s tomatoes are one such memory.
By Karen T. Butler
There are some childhood memories that are never far from my thoughts. They seem mundane at first, but they remain truly profound. Mrs. Kirby’s tomatoes are one such memory.
For a period of time I lived in “Trubin’s Alley,” as my folks affectionately called our neighborhood. Bernie Trubin, and his strikingly beautiful wife, lived downstairs from my grandmother. Bernie built Manursing Lodge and many homes on Milton Point near the grammar school. Far and away his most colorful neighborhood, although more modest, was Trubin’s Alley. Fred Allen, a comedian on old-time radio in the ’40s, had a popular segment about “Allen’s Alley,” a fictitious neighborhood full of lovable characters. Thus, the name for our neighborhood — the Brookside and Colebrook apartments, separated by a bumpy gravel alleyway (Laurel Street) that straddles Orchard and Central avenues. It was a haven for kids, and Orchard Avenue was our playground.
Summers back then were very busy. Actually, we were busy all year round, but especially so in the summer, in a self-fashioned way. Life — at least for girls — consisted of a jump rope, a tennis ball, and roller skates. With pride I wore the key, hanging on a string around my neck, to tighten my mother’s hand-me-down roller skates. We could skate up the Orchard Avenue hill and come down at lightening speed. The majestic maple trees that created a beautiful canopy also created substantial heaves in the sidewalk. That did not stop us. We knew every bump and crack.
We also knew every neighbor on the street. I can still recite many of their names, almost in order, mind you. At the bottom of Orchard were the Kirwans, Walkers, Kirbys, Capozzis, and the Talentos. At the top of the hill were the McGees and the Macks. Across from the Walkers lived the Draught family. I know I’ve missed a few.
I remember talking at length with each of them. They often had treats for us; nothing big, a cookie, a lollipop. We never asked for something that would be presumptuous. The bottom line was they were like an extended family.
Mrs. Walker would let us put “shows” on in her backyard. We pinned old blankets and sheets on her clothesline (pre-clothes dryers) to create the stage and lined up benches and chairs for our audience to sit on. My sister Lynn and I did a marionette show influenced by the “Peningo Puppeteers,” who had just performed in Rye for the benefit of United Hospital. Honey had a dog named Spot whose great talent was to stand on his hind legs and walk. Spot was a big hit. Audiences loved us. They had to, as they mostly consisted of our mothers and those children too young to be in the show.
The apartment houses now on Walnut and Chestnut streets did not exist, but were what we called “the woods.” Somehow, we came up with the idea of building a swimming pool in the woods, digging a somewhat deep hole for our pool. After the running back and forth to our homes for bucket after bucket of water, we realized it was to no avail. A sleeping hut in the woods was our next project. That didn’t materialize either —sleeping in the woods, that is.
On the west side of Walnut was a building that we claimed was haunted; it housed a small airplane that we could see through the windows. A rite of passage was to be brave enough to climb into the window of this garage-like building to investigate. We spent a lot of time daring each other, but none of us was ever that brave.
A highlight of the summer, which dates back to before the 1920s, was when large canvas sheets were put up around the YMCA baseball field (now their parking lot) and along the backyards of the Orchard Avenue houses to keep non-paying customers (us kids among them) out of the baseball games. The star-studded Rye Y Pioneers competed against the archrival Port Chester Arnold’s All Stars (the Arnold’s Bakery team) and also played a half-dozen other teams from neighboring towns. The crowds were large and sometimes noisy, as best we could tell through the tears in the canvas tarps.
Another rite of passage for me that summer was to go to the Kirby’s house for my very first coed party for their daughter Joan’s sixth-grade graduation party. I was five years younger and thrilled to be included. They played Spin the Bottle in Mrs. Kirby’s living room. It was my first experience playing that “grown-up” game, and I thought that party was the cat’s meow. Shortly after the party, my mother and I met Mrs. Kirby on the street. You know how parents talk in front of you and about you as if you are invisible. They did, chuckling together about how I really took to the coed party thing. I remember feeling a bit embarrassed at the time … but I got over it.
How we dreamed up of our summer fun, I will never know. We had so much to do, and kept conjuring up new ideas. Mrs. Kirby let us use her daughter Joan’s confirmation dress to play dress-up. I was the bride wearing her dress, which hit the ground on me and even had a train. Kyle, down the street, had been a ring bearer so he had a child’s tuxedo, which qualified him to be the groom. Barbara, Joan, and my sister Lynn were bridesmaids, and Ronnie was an usher. Somehow we were short on boys; they were not into the wedding thing. We carried wild flowers picked in the woods on Orchard Avenue. Traipsing from door to door, we would ring doorbells and line up outside neighbor’s houses. When the door opened, we would say in unison: “Want to see a wedding?” It never occurred to us that some of our neighbors would say “No.”
The ladies of Trubin’s Alley, my grandmother and mother included, played a lot of bridge. I still can hear the laughter and the clinking of glasses, sipping their Scotch and soda as they played. My grandmother and her friends also liked to “play the ponies,” as my dad called it. My grandmother even had her own “bookie.” Actually, he wasn’t only hers; she shared him with a few other folks around Rye, including my mother.
My mother loved to go to Rye Beach on hot summer days. We would bring our lunch and take the bus to Middle Beach, the unmarked section of Rye Beach that Ryeites favored. The bus in those days made a loop from Rye Station around Milton Point to Playland and back. There was always one caveat. We had to be home in time to hear “the four o’clock results” from that day’s horse races. I grew up hearing names like Lincoln Downs, Hialeah, Belmont, Monmouth Park, Santa Anita, and Saratoga. I never knew where they were until I was much, much older. They would place the radio on the apartment window ledge, and go sit outside on their lawn chairs to hear the results.
One time, my grandmother bet two dollars on the daily double and won. When her bookie refused to pay her the full amount of her winnings, she boycotted him and thus ended her gambling career. Years later, from time to time I would run into the son of my grandmother’s bookie. I always had the urge to say: “You know your dad was my grandmother’s bookie.” I never quite had the nerve, but seeing him always made me smile inwardly.
Dr. David Wilson lived in Trubin’s Alley for a while. The day he got his spiffy new 1947 Ford coupe filled the neighborhood with great excitement. Having recently returned from World War II, he was given priority status to get a car because he was a doctor. Cars were just not available. Factories were slowly unraveling from the war effort. Our family had to finally resort to buying a Kaiser (of Kaiser-Frasier fame). My mother said it looked like a pregnant elephant. I think she was on to something. It didn’t work too well either. It spent most of its life in Pat Conlon’s auto repair shop on Second Avenue, now the Rye Grill parking lot.
We spent endless hours on Orchard Avenue jumping rope in front of the Kirby and Walker houses, pausing only to run home for money when we heard the bells of the Good Humor Man announcing his arrival. On one of those warm summer days, Mrs. Kirby nicely asked us if we would move away from the open window of her home because her husband John, a Lieutenant on the Rye Police force, was resting. We were young; we didn’t realize our chatter and laughter was that noisy. Nonetheless, we respectfully obliged. She promised us some of her homegrown tomatoes that she grew in her Victory garden if we came back later in the day. Each of us (and there were quite a few of us), equipped with our own saltshakers from home, sat on her back stoop late that afternoon as she picked and handed us her beautiful, succulent homegrown tomatoes. We devoured them.
That was a long time ago, but I can still say (and my sister will attest to it) that the best tomatoes I have ever eaten were from Mrs. Kirby’s tomato patch. Maybe they also tasted so good because they were from such a wonderful lady.
— Photos courtesy of the Kirby family and the author
