Jun 27th
2016THE RETURN OF AUNT CAR (2013)

A few years ago, I found a posting on a genealogical site searching for information about a person named Caroline Gill. One of the owners of my house went by that name, so my interest was piqued. I wrote and gave the poster what information I knew, hoping for an exchange.

As it turned out, that poster, Stacey Maupin Torres, had more information about Caroline than I ever did, which she began to share with me. In her reply, though, she casually mentioned some information that she didn’t know I already had.

She told me that her “Aunt Car” had lived at 738 Macon Street in Brooklyn.

As I read her message, I began to realize that I had not divulged to her that I lived in her aunt’s old house. So, imagine Stacey’s surprise when I told her that I was writing to her from that very house!

After this revelation, every email we wrote to one another seemed to be pages in length. Stacey would tell me details about her Aunt Car’s and Uncle Henry’s lives (they lived at 738 Macon Street in the 1950s and 1960s), and I would tell her what 738 Macon Street is like now, and send her pictures of the house – including invitations to come and visit.

Stacey told me that, in the 1960s, she had lived in Queens and had been to 738 Macon Street with her family many, many times. Her Aunt Car, she explained, had had large family gatherings here every year – mostly for Christmas and Easter. These family gatherings were the highlights of the year, and so Stacey had nothing but fond memories of the house.

“After Christmas supper, we would go upstairs to the large parlor, where Aunt Car had a pink (yes, pink!) Christmas tree that looked like sparkling pink champagne standing next to a Philco record player,” Stacey writes in a book about her memories, “The Bajan’s Granddaughter.”

“After watching reel after reel of home movies that Uncle Henry filmed at Carnival down in Trinidad each February,” she continued, “the adults would roll up Aunt Car’s beautiful Oriental rugs, slide open the pocket doors, making the room seem huge, and everyone danced the night away to wildly exhilarating calypso and steel band music.”

Stacey’s book is a wonderfully lush collection of memories and stories that she recalled from her girlhood – stories about the family, about their traditions, and especially about their meals.

The book, moving at times and laugh-out-loud hilarious at others, is essentially a cookbook with all varieties of Caribbean food and drink recipes that were passed down to her by her extended family.

Most interesting to us, though, is that her book is an historical document, filled with details and stories about 738 Macon Street and the people who lived there at a set point in time.

Many of these details and the pictures Stacey used in her book went into the Brownstone Detectives House History Book published last year about the history of 738 Macon Street.

More importantly, though, from meeting Stacey, we’ve been introduced to some of 738 Macon Street’s lost traditions that had one time been a part of the fabric of life within these walls. Now, 45 years later, they will soon be reintroduced in a new era, as the smell of curry and the sound of calypso music will become familiar once again at 738 Macon Street.

(See AUNT CAR – VS. – THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1917 to learn more about Caroline Gill’s history.)
Follow @BrownstoneDetec

———————————————————————————————————————–

The Brownstone Detectives

The story you just read was composed from historical research performed by The Brownstone Detectives. Allow us to do an in-depth investigation of your house and its former owners and produce your very own House History Book. Your hardbound coffee table book will include an illustrated and colorful narrative timeline that will bring the history of your house to life.