Lito remembers his Nana part 1

Nanna’s house Part 1. My father’s mother, my paternal grandmother, was Nanna. Nanna’s true name was Irene Henrietta Zoeller born from solid German stock at Brooklyn New York City on April 6th 1900. When I would ask Nanna how old she consistently replied “I’m as old as the year.” (like Nanna was 54 in 1954 the year I was born).

Nanna lived in a two storey wood frame suburban house at 16 McKinley Avenue in Hicksville, Nassau County, Long Island, New York. The home had a basement with a coal chute to receive coal deliveries used to feed the furnace for space heating.

Hicksville, New York was founded by and named after Valentine Hicks (1782–1850), a Quaker businessman and son-in-law of Elias Hicks. Valentine was a key figure in the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and he established the village of Hicksville when the railroad arrived in 1837. Hicksville is adjacent to Levittown where I grew up. It was only after moving away from NY did I find that use of the term “Hicksville” meant a boring place.

Nanna’s house was never boring as it was like a living museum of the 1920s. Nanna had a breadbox and electric fans with little to no safety screen protection (meaning you had to be extremely careful with your hand placement around them else your fingers could get sliced like bologna at the deli). Nanna also had a true ice box that was a non-mechanical refrigerator, like a sturdy large camping cooler, used to keep food cold in the early 20th century before electricity was connected to a house.

Uncle Fred lived upstairs at Nanna’s house. Uncle Fred’s true name was Frederick Louis Gunther and was Nanna’s bachelor cousin. The highlight of his life was being a Doughboy which is historical slang for US Army infantrymen or foot soldiers sent to Europe during World War One. Uncle Fred had another bachelor pal called Uncle Mannie. They were the first people I knew who traveled from NY to Florida to escape the winter cold and snow. They shared a cabana and loved to swim in the ocean.

Nanna’s husband died of a heart attack in 1957 at the age of 60 when I was three years old. His name was Thomas Francis Cullen and I have no direct recollection of my paternal grandfather. Nanna died in 1994 so was a widow for 37-yrs and to my knowledge the only things that changed in the house during that time was replacing the icebox with an electric refrigerator and upgrading to natural gas for heating the house.