While I was growing up and my grandmother was still alive, I saw Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike several times a year when they came to Carteret, NJ on weekends.   It was quite common for my father and I to go there when they visited.  I remember many Sunday dinners in the basement of my grandparents home especially when Uncle Pat also came. 

I remember visiting Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike at their home in the Baychester section of the Bronx NY (I think it was on Bartow Avenue).  They lived close to what is now the “Co-Op City” housing development which was the Freedom Land amusement park from 1960-64.   When I was growing up, the father and I would visit a few times a year either to their house or Uncle Pat’s.  In either case, everyone would join together for dinner.  Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike had a very small back yard with a small screened gazebo that could barely fit 8 people.  We would squeeze into this garden gazebo and play games and have meals.   Uncle Mike’s mother, who we called Mrs. Peterson, lived with them, together with a large dog named Sandy.  Uncle Mike’s brother lived upstairs but we rarely saw them.   When Rose and I began dating we would take my brothers with us up to Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike’s house for a Saturday visit.  We all fondly remember this time together. 

It was great when Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike finally bought a house in Carteret.  The whole family would stop by and visit all the time.  It was the best thing that every happened to them for now they could experience the family that loved them.  In the summer we would sit on their screened patio and enjoy each others company.   Ann was a meticulous house keeper.  Everything was in its place and immaculate.  She was a great decorator (from her seamstress days) and everything was elegant.  She kept herself proper, polished with style. We bought our first house because of them.  We were just a few years married, living in an apartment in Carteret, and visited Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike.  They told us of a house like theirs around the corner for sale.  We looked at it and bought it shortly thereafter.  Now Aunt Ann and Uncle Mike were our neighbors and we loved it.