So, went looking some more and found pictures of the front of the housing area. I don't even remember a front gate and I thought Western Avenue was a big freeway, it's not, just a big road-lol. Funny how kids see things and remember them. The cemetery is still across that big road.

We also walked to school, through several different housing areas, the Naval one, an apartment complex we called the Cracker Jack houses because they were shaped like a Cracker Jack box on it's side and then regular houses.

We also spent a lot of summers with the neighborhood kids playing hide and seek at night. Baseball at the ball park down our road and over to, I guess Western Avenue. There was a dairy farm near there and a place that sold ice cream bars. Sometimes my brothers and I would walk to that store and get ice cream in the summer.

Oh, forgot to mention, that some company has bought the land and is planning on tearing down the old housing and building new housing.

My husband's family moved to San Pedro from Long Island when Hubs was 9 years old. He grew up on Warmouth Street. The other side of the backyard property line was the Pacific Ocean. A few years ago everyone was back in Pedro for the funeral of an old family friend and the brothers (Hubs is one of 5 boys) decided to go to the house. Hubs' family had sold the house in the early 70s and it's been sold again at least a couple of times since then. Apparently, the current owner decided to totally remodel and expand the house and it had been gutted down to the studs. Kind of a shocking sight for the boys. Don't know what it looks like now.

We'll be in Long Beach to attend a nephew's wedding on the Queen Mary this summer. I'm willing to bet the brothers will want to make another trip to the old homestead.

Every time Hubs and I have been to San Pedro since we've been together (which has been since 1981), he points out different things and says, "that's changed... that's changed... that's new," etc.

Kath, at least you have the memories left. Maybe some photos?

Just about all the schools I attended have been torn down.

Kindergarten was a converted house, torn down in early 50's.
Grade school was torn down about 30 years ago.
High school burned down my freshman year.
High school that replaced it is STILL STANDING
Community College was torn down.

All my schools are still standing and in use. Grammar School in Buffalo NY is now a pre-school center, junior and senior highs are still in use, and my college State of New York Geneseo NY is considered a "hidden gem" among colleges.

Lindsey, your post reminded me about making the Queen Mary in first grade, out of wood. Made a tug boat too. I don't think I ever actually went on it but I do remember seeing it from afar...the real one. My dad's Naval group (not sure what you call them) had a birthday party for my brother Bill right after we moved there. He had 3 birthday parties that year! We moved from Virginia and visited my dad's family in Alabama, who threw him a party. Then we went to visit my dad's old friend in San Diego and they threw him a party and gave him Snoopy, our dog. Then the party on the submarine my dad was newly stationed on. So unfair. LOL! He was always the favorite child.

I posted some pictures on my facebook page of what the neighborhood and my house used to look like. Will try and post here:

Found another picture, of the baseball field, which was up the street, I think off of Western Avenue. I spent a lot of wonderful,hot summer days there, watching my brothers play baseball. When my dad wasn't "out to sea" and in Vietnam, part of this time, he was coaching their teams.

A friend of mine and I when I got a little older did the score keeping too. This place always reminds me of Winner Suckers. Grape and Cherry flavored with stickers on the back of some of them that said 'winner', if you got one you got a free sucker. No one but me remembers these.

I am the one standing in the blue shirt with the awful hair cut.

Lindsey, we may even know some people in common, there is extended family (DH's) in San Pedro among that Croatian fishing community. Many years back when they were immigrating, some settled in Gig Harbor WA and fished north to Alaska, others in San Pedro. We overnight expressed razor clams to a household there last week :); they used to be able to send us the best cevapcici sausages, but apparently that meat market has closed within the last few years.

My own grade school was torn down while I was attending. I remember how angry my father was, we had moved here the year before and he'd chosen the home with the school in mind. Third grade, and instead of riding my bike mornings, I was bussed into town to attend school that year in the old junior college building (we couldn't reach the coat hooks, shelves, or drinking fountains) while the grade school was demolished, replaced.

My junior high was new, a contemporary (relatively speaking) three wing building - but built on fill and the 7th grade end settled like crazy. I can remember we could pass notes under the wall of my homeroom to the class room next door through the gap along the floor. My homeroom teacher was blind, and could hear like an owl, we always got caught if out of our seats.

My 93 yr old high school burned 12 years ago - arson. It was rebuilt about 1 1/2 blocks away from the original location with none of the charm, none of the memories.

Hubs' father was born in Germany, and to our knowledge, his paternal side is all from Germany. His mother's side is from England.

I'm honestly not sure why Hubs' father decided to move the family to California; but they were the only ones to do so. Everyone else stayed in New York and New Jersey.

I definitely remember Winner suckers. I won often which always amazed my playmates. We bought them at Speedee Mart, which was like a 7-11.Speedee Mart also had wonderful frozen chocolate malts for a dime.

Deeby, I think you're the first person who I know that remembers them too! Even my brothers don't remember them.

The memories that I posted about my grade school days are just that: memories and nothing more. The last time I saw the building standing was at least 15 years ago and at that time, the windows had been broken out and it was used as a temporary corn storage. I was back 3 years ago and there was no trace of it, not even the two cinder paths leading to the outhouses. The well had been abandoned, filled, and smoothed over. It would have taken a skilled archeogolist to locate the foundation outline of the building.

I do have two class photos that I have scanned to my genealogy folder.

I loved Winner suckers ! They were really big and weren't they heart shaped? I'm always hoping to find someone who remembers a banana scented all purpose cleaner called Blotto. My Mom used it on floors. That was about 1962-1967.

Deeby, don't think they were heart-shaped. They were oblong, flat on the back and bumpy on the other side. That's the way I remember them anyway...but then my memory of the old neighborhood wasn't too good either....