Constance (Britt) Catania

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Biography

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I was born in Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, on February 18, 1936. My family lived a few miles away in the borough of Norwood, Pennsylvania. I've been told that it snowed everyday during the week before my birth and my father had to keep shoveling the snow outside of the garage door so he could drive my mother to the hospital.

I was named Constance Julia Britt. My parents said that they had chosen the name Constance from a Cornell University Alumni book (my father was a Cornell graduate.) My father's mother was Julia Etta Henderson so that is where the Julia came from. I usually use the name Connie.

Norwood, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, was a small borough in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before the borough was formed the area was mostly farmland. In about the 1870s some farmland was purchased by speculators and the land was laid out in building sites. Many of the original houses were large Victorians with spacious lawns. When I was born my family lived in a duplex at 21 Leon Avenue, Norwood Pa. These duplex houses had been built after the First World War. Before the houses were built that area had been farmland and there was still some farms and undeveloped land when we lived there.

I lived at 21 Leon Avenue from 1936 to 1942. At that time there were no public pre-school programs in Pennsylvania. Children were at home until they started first grade at the age of six. I did attend a privet nursery school that two old maids held in their house. They would pick up the children by car and return them after the session. I don't remember much about what they taught but I remember that I hated going to nursery school. I am left-handed and they tried to make me right-handed. I don't remember all that they did to make me change but I do remember trying to convince my mother to stop making me go with them.

There were very few mothers who were "helicopter mothers." in those days Before I started first grade I spent a many happy years of playing outside. My mother let me run free outside at an early age. I had two good friends, Richard Chalupa and Andy Oakes. We traveled far and wide in our neighborhood. There was an alley in back of the houses on our block of Leon Avenue. On the other side of the alley was the fenced campus of Glen-Nor High School and it's athletic field. We often played in the schoolyard. Beyond the school grounds were open fields and Glenolden Park which had playgrounds with swings and a creek with a pond and waterfall,

There were lots of dare-devil things we did. Playing in the pond was one of them. I used take off my shoes and try to walk across the top of the dam which was very slimy and slippery. The water in the pond was deep enough that I could barley wiggle my toes on the bottom. There were crayfish to find under rocks at the edges of the creek and minnows and tadpoles. This was all done before I started school.

One of my memories of my preschool days was my friendship with the Atherholt family who lived up the street. Florence Atherholt and her sister and brother were in their twenties. I can't imagine why they were so kind to me. I can remember being invited to dinner sometimes. Florence taught me how to set the table and I have remembered that after all these years. It turned out that Florence Atherholt was my first grade teacher.

Quarantine

Our family moved to a big Victorian house with a spacious lawns in 1942. Our friendship lasted for many years. When I started school in 1942 one of the sisters my first grade teacher, My family moved to while was in first grade. play with paper dolls and my sister was really jealous.

My father had graduated as a chemist from Cornell University in 1929. His first job was in Copper Valley, Tennessee. By 1931 he had moved to Scott Paper Company in Chester, Pennsylvania. Scott Paper Company sent my father to the Institute of Pulp and Paper Technology in Appleton, Wisconsin for study and research. In 1936 he developed a process called "Wet Strength" which lead to the invention of paper towels and many other uses including the paper gowns used in doctor's examination rooms

In the summer 1939 he was sent to MIT for study and research. I was only three years old but I have many memories of that summer in Massachusetts. I remember seeing Plymouth Rock, watching the ceremony of blessing the ships in Gloucester Harbor and visiting the "House of Seven Gables" in Salem. Years later as a genealogist I learned that one of my ancestors, Ann Foster, one of the Salem witches. She died of exposure in the jail in the winter of 1692.

At the end of the summer, on our way home, we visited my mother,s mother in Lowville, New York and my father's parents in Sherrill, New York. The trip from there was a long drive through the mountains of Pennsylvania, During the trip I can remember that my parents listened to the radio and were worried and upset. They they were listening to the news of the Germans invading Poland and the start of the Second World War.

I was still visiting the Atherholts. The son was in the army and the girls had boyfriends in the war. I can remember when the sister, not my teacher, learned that her fiancee was killed.

Constance Julia Britt. ^[1]

Born 18 Feb 1936. Ridley Park, Delaware, Pennsylvania, USA. ^[2]

Residence Marital Status: SingleRelation to Head of House: Daughter. 1 Apr 1940. Norwood, Delaware, Pennsylvania, USA. Age: 4Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter. 1 Apr 1940. Norwood, Delaware, Pennsylvania, United States. ^[3]

Marriage 10 Feb 1962. Norwood, Delaware, Pennsylvania, United States.

"Marriage" Married to Anthony " Charles" Catania at the United Methodist Church in Norwood, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Children; William John Catania born 3 February 1964 and Kenneth Charles Catania born 5 November 1965.

• First-hand information. Entered by Constance Britt at registration.
• Source: S-1335110479 Repository: #R-2138555159 1940 United States Federal Census Ancestry.com Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627 Note:
• Repository: R-2138555159 Ancestry.com Note: