When my husband, Joe. and I attended Princeton Avenue School it was only one story high. There were two grades in each classroom. Joe and I were in each other’s room every other year since he was older than I.

Paul:  One of the things I remember is sitting with Dominic the railroad crossing guard at Atlantic Avenue and Laurel Road. When a train would come, Dominic would leave the small shack, heated by a small coal burning potbellied stove, get his stop sign that was on a 6 foot pole and stop traffic, During darkness, he would also carry an oil burning lantern with a red lens. The small shack was only big enough for two chairs and the potbellied stove, very small, and this was only manned during the day as there were no trains at night.

Judy:  Spring with its renewal of life meant garden work. Everyone had a vegetable garden. Almost everyone had animals: chickens, dogs, cats. On our block there were geese, a horse and a goat, too.

Paul:  I remember Laurel Hill, located at Laurel Road and Atlantic Avenue. At the top of the hill was a fenced area that held Smokey the horse. All the children would feed Smokey apples from the apple trees that were there. The hilt was leveled and the first housing development was built.

Judy:  Spring also meant building a stone grill or new fence or maybe a back porch. We didn’t need a permit as we had not yet been strangled with red tape.

As the ice skates and sleds were put away, the roller skates and bikes came out. Oh how great it was to zoom down the middle of the street

Bonnie: Spring evenings after our fathers had come home from work and everyone had finished eating their dinners, the neighborhood children would come outdoors. My best friend, Judy, her sister Chris, the Waters’ children, myself and sometimes Katherine and Priscilla Reed would come out and play baseball, Hide and Seek or statues, Those spring evenings almost seemed magical to us.

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The article above has been taken from an article that appeared in South Jersey Magazine in the Spring 2000 issue. The article is entitled Fond Remembrances of Stratford (1940's through mid 1950's) and was compiled by Bonnie Hoeflich McGuire. The remembrances above were contributed to the article by some residents of Stratford both past and present. The article above was scanned from a photocopy of the original so you can probably blame any typos on me.

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