MAY 13, 2024 – To conclude series, The Neighbors, I now reminisce about the Moores, whose expansive river lot faced the Rathbuns’ house and our yard. Moore’s elegant home had been designed by an architect with pleasing sensibilities. Three well-proportioned second floor dormers faced the street, as did the two windows with shutters on the side of the double-car garage attached to the west end of the house. Even as a kid racing around on my bicycle up and down our end of Rice Street, I appreciated the architect’s rotation of Moores’ garage so that it appeared as part of the house proper, not the usual stable for motor vehicles with a driveway running unimaginatively straight out to the street—as ours did, as did all the other driveways in the neighborhood. The Moore’s driveway curved around to the street from what appeared to be the end of the house, not from a garage. Thus, from the street, passersby saw nothing of a garage and only a driveway with pleasing curvature and largely hidden from view by landscaping.
The other features of the house I liked were the steep pitch of the roof, the choice of thick cedar shake shingles, the asymmetry of its front elevation (aside from the three second-floor dormers), the mix of well-proportioned window dimensions, and the landscaping that surrounded it.
Ruth and Fred Moore were my parents’ closest friends among our neighbors, and the superior elegance of their house, inside and out, probably explained why we—Mother, Dad, Jenny, and I—were frequent visitors at Moores, not the other way around.
Hot and humid evenings were the best for visiting Ruth and Fred, since they had central air-conditioning, and we didn’t. Plus, you could count on a generous serving of ice cream on top of a freshly baked pie and seconds if you wanted, which I always did. Though the grown-ups chatted intensely about one thing or another—usually the deteriorating state of the country—as Jenny and I grew older, both Fred and Ruth were good and genuine about including us in conversation. If nothing else, we got to sit on nice furniture and admire the furniture we weren’t sitting on—such as the grand piano so well placed and angled off to the side of the living room.
Always striking in appearance, even in her older years, Ruth displayed refined tastes in interior design. On a regular basis, it seemed, she ordered new high-end replacement furniture, always from Richard’s. Ruth was a close friend of Margaret Benzian down the street, and perhaps it was by way of that connection that the Moores seemed to keep Dick Benzian’s furniture store in business (See 4/22/24 post). A Richard’s truck never pulled up to our house—nor did a delivery vehicle from any other furniture store. Our house was stuck with the same living room and dining room furniture that my New Jersey grandparents had given my parents as a wedding present. There was nothing wrong with these well-crafted maple furnishings, but to my perennial despair they were a reminder that my parents—particularly my mother—didn’t assign much priority to interior design[1].
The Moores’ dining room was appointed elegantly enough for royalty, I thought, if royalty should ever happen to visit our neighborhood. I fantasized about being introduced to the king and queen from . . . exactly where, I wasn’t certain, but I hoped it would be Sweden . . . as the son of friends of the hosts, which disclosure would win me a place at the dark mahogany table with its matching chairs on a dark oriental carpet, all under a chandelier and lined up with the large multi-pane window offering a diagonal view of our house (and, unfortunately, a more direct view of the Rathbun jungle directly across the street).
Ruth’s appearance was striking all the way into old age. In her youth she was chosen as the 1933 Miss Anoka. Her refined tastes extended to her attire. Even her gardening clothes were stylish. I remember best her two-toned leather shoes, which looked suitable for fancy settings far beyond the rich black earth of her well-tended flower gardens.
During the summer Ruth had a rich bronze tan, enhanced by lying on her chaise lounge inside the confines of a large silver tanning box in the backyard overlooking the river. The reason given for Ruth’s devotion to the sun was that she suffered from a skin disease that “required her to be tan all the time.” There was never any mention of skin cancer, and however many run-ins she might’ve had with a dermatologist as a result of all the exposure to ultra-violet rays, she managed to live all the way to 91.
Ruth had inherited longevity genes from her father, Mr. Herbold, who could often be seen riding a bicycle near his home up by Franklin Elementary well into his 90s. Because Dad was a daily walker and Mother wasn’t, when Dad was in his late 70s and Ruth was in her early 80s, she’d accompany Dad on his mile-long evening walk. One time when I joined Dad (without Ruth), he demonstrated for a few paces how fast Ruth walked. “She walks at a gallop,” he said, “and I can barely keep up with her.”
Ruth came from a religious family. One of her sisters was a missionary in Africa and exchanged letters frequently with both Ruth and Mother, who then traded the latest news from “Eunie.” (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] One rainy summer day when I was home alone—Mother was out in New Jersey tending to my grandparents; my sisters were away at summer music camps/festivals—I took it upon myself to “clean house”—or at least three rooms of it: den, living room, dining room. I was surprised by how much I had to work with once I pulled various decorative furnishings out from their dusty corners. Also, I did away with the plastic table cloth over the dining room table, exposing its beautiful finish, dropped the large leaves, and scared up (and polished) some silver candlesticks buried deep in the matching buffet, all of which gave the room surprising elegance much as a gown replacing rags had for Cinderella. When Dad came home from work that evening, he was shocked—and delighted—by what I’d done; so delighted, he took me out to dinner! During the meal, he repeatedly expressed his grand approval. For the next week Dad and I got to enjoy the “new look” I’d achieved. When Mother returned from New Jersey, I was excited to show her the transformation. Normally encouraging, she poured ice water on everything I’d done. By the next morning everything was back to its haphazard state. The gem-bedecked carriage had turned back into a pumpkin.
