GARDEN ROAD

It was fun exploring my new surroundings, but I was used to a neighborhood full of kids - most of them around my own age. Here on Garden Road, there was a scarcity of children of any age. There were a lot of older people who had either retired or settled in the quiet life of the countryside. Raising chickens and growing vegetables to be sold to The Campbell Soup Company was the prime reason most of them located to the Southern New Jersey area. Across the street was a family that had just moved to America from Germany and spoke very broken English. My Father said they were "refugees." I didn't know what that meant. Mr. Bender was a butcher and raised sheep and other livestock. They had a baby girl named Carol who was born that summer about the same time as my baby sister. Next to them was Mrs. Mellor and her daughter, Adele, who was probably 11 or 12. We didn't see much of Adele that first summer as she spent a lot of time in North Jersey with her grandparents. Her father worked a full time job there also and was rarely at home on Garden Road. Adele later became our babysitter.

We lived near the historic Maurice (pronounced Morris) River that runs through Cumberland County to the Delaware Bay. Garden Road was not a major thoroughfare - so it didn't have major traffic either. Since Mother did not drive yet, we were pretty much stuck where we were.

Next to us was a beautiful old colonial home with white siding and stately columns along the front porch. It also sat on twelve acres of land that was once farmed but now was not in use. Huge Cedar trees lined the long driveway. I could see a boy running and playing in this driveway...and children, like magnets, are drawn to one another.

One day, I saw him standing in the middle of the narrow field alongside his house. Our field was a jumble of blackberry vines and a few sapling Sassafras trees scattered her and there. I could just make out a kind of path through the vines and I started walking through them. He said his name was Jude and he was six. During the seven years we were neighbors, Jude and I, along with my sisters became good friends and the path we started that day became a much used albeit sandy pathway to each others' houses.
To Be Continued