Grandfather James Sims, Cora's husband, died when Pete was still a toddler. Inez remained in the home with Cora and Pete after her husband Ernest Moore left, moving back to Charlottesville. I asked Pete about his memories of living in the home as a young child. He responded in an email.
After Mom (Inez) remarried, I was transferred to Nannie's bed. I was about four years old. Before long I was moved to the finished attic, which I shared with old trunks containing my grandfathers's books and stuff, a dressmaker's dummy, odds and ends typical of an attic in those days A bit unusual to have a pretty decently completed room as the attic, at least in a working-class neighborhood. Hot in summer, cold in winter. Didn't have a pot----no need at that age. I remember that I could crawl out on the roof through the rear dormer window and go directly into the cherry tree, and thence to the ground.
There was no basement ( not having a boiler we didn't need one ), just a crawl space about four feet high. There was a combination coalhouse/storage behind and near the house. It was near enough to the street that coal could be shoveled in through a special small door. There was a concrete floor, as I recall. When I was big enough it was my job to fill and bring in the coal scuttle, as well as chop the kindling. Many memories of that backyard: eating cherries and grapes, getting stung by stepping on bees under the grape arbor (discarded grape skins), trekking though the grape arbor to the johnny-house, learning at least three ways to kill a chicken.
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