Great uncle Elmer Pehrson and Aunt Evelyn Ducie Pehrson lived briefly in Manhattan in the 1950's. Elmer, an expert in mining economics (google him and find some really interesting publications), after years of traveling the world for the US government assessing mineral deposits, had taken a teaching position at Columbia University. The politics of academia soon drove him away, but for two years they lived at the rather ritzy address of Sixth Avenue and 57th St, in the same building as none other than Louis Armstrong. Grandma and Aunt Debbie came to visit one year and met Mr Armstrong in the elevator, where he presented Debbie with a Hershey bar.
Dad says that years later when our family visited them in their last home in Washington DC, Evelyn produced a collection of exotic hats and trimmings from an old Afghani trunk and danced around the room in them. He says that even then, after sixty years of marriage, Elmer was clearly still besotted with his spirited and Bohemian bride.
2 comments:
Don't forget the photograph they supposedly had of themselves on the Ras Tanura beach taken in the 1930's. I really wonder about that! Above that wonderful chest, filled with those hats from around the world, and fixed to the wall was a lovely chinese silk screen. Pity we'll never know what happened to all those treasures.
What about when they lived in the tree house? Do I remember that story right?
Post a Comment