The Patsy Anne Shop was a ladies’ hat shop on Madison Street in South Easton, Pennsylvania. Madison Street overlooked the downtown area as well as the cliffs that were at the edge of the West Ward section of Easton, home to the sort of ethnic neighborhood we don’t find today in the Sterile suburbs that have grownup at the outer edges of so many inner cities.
The house where it was located is an oddity in itself for that area. While many of the houses in South Easton were either doubles (duplexes in current vernacular) or unpretentious singles, 136 West Madison Street is a 3 story brick Queen Anne, with all the turrets and gingerbread trim characteristic of that building style. The builder, who had been a brick mason and the father of the 4 sisters who called it home, had built it as either an advertisement of his trade, or as a statement that he had progressed enough in his skills and business to be able to afford such a stately house. He had obviously a large family too, so the need for space was surely a driving force in its sizing.
There was a large open porch on the front of the house, reachable by climbing a short set of concrete steps from the front sidewalk. The rest of the property was mercifully level, essential for the people, myself and my father, who cut the grass. The rear yard, which was 90% of the property, was tastefully landscaped, and contained a tool shed, old house that had been moved from where the brick house was built, and a large barn used as a garage by the 4 sisters who lived there.
In the early days there had been a tenant in the old house but it really wasn’t a good idea for anyone to live there. It had no running water and what must have been the last outhouse in south Easton, the interior walls of which were covered with the cover pages from Sunday newspaper magazine sections. That old house gave me the willies to be near it and one time when the sisters wanted dad to clean up the inside, I refused to go into it.
As I said the yard was well landscaped, so that while the yard itself was large, the area where grass had to be cut was not. I usually cut the grass while Dad did the trimming and weeding. I think I can close my eyes at this pointing my life, more than 40 year after I last set foot in that yard, and still walk every inch of it.