Thanks for the wonderful webpage!

I was born in Astoria, Queens in 1941 and after the war my dad found work in the city. Times were tough so for many years we lived with my grandparents - at least until my father was able to save up enough money for his little family to move out into a place of our own.

From the time I remember, my mother's parents rented a summer bungalow out in Rockaway Beach - actually the stucco cottage was (as I later found out) located on Beach 24th Street very close to the boardwalk and the ocean. Every June "Diddi" and "Dotti" and my mother (and I) would trek out to the beach and clean up the bungalow and get it ready for our summer retreat. I say "summer" because back in those days, I was not yet in school so this was no vacation for me. I think the surrounding homes were mostly rented by Jewish people - or so it seemed I remember the heavy accents, the clothing, and the Kosher cooking. My grandparents took the same place each year so after a while, I started to get to know the other tenants of the small surrounding homes. I also made many childhood friends with their children. I was probably the youngest in the small group; I remember most of the other kids being a few years older than I - at least they were already in school and I had not yet entered first grade.

During the war it was difficult for my father to manage a summer furlough (thank goodness, he was state-bound and was not overseas). However, he did manage to spend a few summers with us and I remember those days as being very happy ones. I knew my parents were very excited about vacationing in the Rockaways and my dad told us it was his dream to someday live close to the beach. So after the war was over and my father returned home, he saved his coins and promised my mom that we would shortly be able to move out of her folk's home and get our own place.

I don't know how it happened but sometime in 1947, right before I was supposed to be entered into first grade in a public school my mother told me that we were moving to Far Rockaway on a full-time basis. I was elated! It seems that some clever bungalow owner had developed a way of turning a few of his summer rentals into full-time living homes. The place we got was only a few bungalows away from a major street -Seagirt Avenue- and there was a small food store close-by where mother could stock up on groceries. We had no car; my father took the Long Island Rail Road train into the city each day - I remember he had to walk to the station.

We moved into our new place right after the summer exodus of 1947 and my father enrolled me in a large brick school house about ten short blocks west - Public School 106 in Edgemere. I remember my first grade teacher was Mrs. Block - but I don't remember the names of the teachers I had over the next few years.

I don't think any of the other bungalows near us were rented after the season - and for awhile I had no children to play with until I made friends at the "new" school and went over to visit with these children after classes. On occasion, a few of my friends would come home to visit with me in our (converted) bungalow. Most of these other children lived in large-sized homes - most of those houses were on the other side (north) of Seagirt.

One of the biggest advantages I had (as a child) living in that seemingly deserted summer bungalow colony during the "off season" was that my friends and I had so many places to explore, things to see, places to go. It was like the beach was there strictly at our own personal disposal. Those were really happy times! Sometimes we would play for hours and not see an adult -except if we played near the boardwalk - there were usually some people walking "up" there. But certainly, there were no crowds in the month of December.

I remember when my father told me some developer was going to build a major building project to our immediate east - the project which would become known as Wavecrest Gardens.

Prior to the building of that large grouping of buildings, the area was mostly sand dunes littered with scrub brush and a wide assortment of cast-a-way junk. There were also a few summer homes on that property but I remember them as being quite "run-down" and eventually the builder would simply demolish rather than move them away.

Sometime shortly after New Years day of 1950, my father announced he had saved up enough money for us to purchase a real house. I guess by that time, the novelty of living on the beach had worn very thin - with very cold winters and often shortages of essentials; during the winter, we really were "cut off' from so many of our friends. It seems my mother and father had decided to move back to Astoria - my mom really wanted to live closer to her own mother and dad really did need to move closer to his employment in the city. Often times in the middle of winter during a snow storm, the trains were undependable and a few times dad was not able to even get into work for a day or two.

I hated to move away from Rockaway but that is exactly what we did. Shortly before the summer of 1951, my family packed up and moved us back into the heart of Queens.

Even while we were living in Far Rockaway, my grandparents had continued to rent that summer bungalow on Beach 24th Street and my mother promised me we would still spend our summer months on the peninsula. However, it -was not really the same. In April of 1952, "Diddi" (my grandfather) suddenly died at the young age of 58. It was a shock to all of us for he had never really been sick (or if he had, he had never complained). I was quite surprised when my father suggested that his mother-in-law and my mother should continue to rent that same summer bungalow and again we spent another glorious vacation at the Rockaway shore.

The following year, "Dotti" (my grandmother) decided to move to Jacksonville (Florida) to live with my aunt. I guess she was tired or frightened (or both) of living alone anymore so she sold the house in Astoria and moved south. With the relocation of this beloved relative, my family would no longer rent that wonderful bungalow in Far Rockaway. Oh, the memories lost!
By 1958, my dad's firm offered him a transfer out of state and we moved in July of that year. New Jersey has its own beach of memories but to me, Asbury Park was NO Far Rockaway. I attended Jersey schools and later on (Ryder) college (outside of Trenton) and I even eventually married a New Jersey boy. But I still so fondly remember my youth in the Rockaways.

A friend referred me to your site. Of course I don't know that much about so many of the areas you feature in your vast collection of articles and postcard books. Actually, it is the postcard books that brought me to write this letter to you. I was going through some of the things I collected when I was a child and I came across this old postcard which indicates "Edgemere" I went to school on 35th Street for so many years and I walked to and from that school building every day. This postcard I send to you looks so very much like what I remember our summer rental (on Beach 24th Street) to look like. I look at this card and I can still see and remember those precious summers of my own youth. Perhaps the caption on the card is incorrect. Of course from the days I remember, the vehicles looked a lot newer (more modern for the late 1940s) but other than that, this is exactly the scene I remember. I guess a lot of the bungalow colonies located between Far Rockaway and Beach 35th Street looked the same - that certainly would make sense!

Thank you for allowing me to share a few of my own memories with you. And please continue to maintain this wonderful website. I look forward to seeing what others write - especially when it comes to the sharing of their own personal memories.
When you have the opportunity, please return the postcard to me. I have enclosed a self-addressed and stamped envelope. A very Happy Holiday to you and all of your members.

Rosemary Cohen-Curtiss