LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - SEPTEMBER 6, 2020 by Lynne Belluscio The back porch of LeRoy House is themost tranquil place to be on a hot summer day, or in the cool of the evening. This photograph is believed to have been taken on the west end of the porch. On the left, is the three-part window of what is now the 1930s kitchen and you will notice, that it also has louvered shutters, which allowed cool air to circulate through the house through the open windows. The louvered shutters are long gone. This porch was torn off the back of the building in 1956 when the entire back wall of the house was replaced. Originally the porch was built of wood, with a wood floor, and there were windows beneath that allowed light into the basement rooms on the north side of the building. The wooden porch was replaced with a cement block foundation which now encloses a lower room beneath the porch. When the LeRoy family lived in the house, the porch was known as the “piazza” and it enclosed a paved courtyard where the children could play. This U-shaped porch is shown on the 1866 Village map. At some time, the two north extensions were removed, but the side extensions of the porch can be seen in photographs before the driveway was put in. I was told that when Mr. Spry lived in the house, he parked his car under the east part of the porch. We also know that the water supply for the house - the well - - was under the porch on the west side. That well is now in the middle of the herb garden under a manhole cover. Several years ago, the Historical Society purchased several sets of white wicker furniture and visitors enjoy sitting on the back porch to hear the orientation talk. There are also three benches that look like they are church pews, but it is believed that they were the seats inside the old Ingham lecture hall across the street. You’ll also notice the large bird cage in the photo. A few years ago, I purchased a modern Victorian bird cage and stuck a small stuffed parrot inside. (If we had $5 for every visitor who asks if it’s a real bird, I could pay the water bill.) Imagine, what it was like, in the middle of summer, with petticoats and corsets and high button collars, to sit in the cool shade of the back porch, enjoying a glass of lemonade and reading your favorite book. Or to have supper on the porch, as the sun went down. One of my favorite stories is about a picnic that was held in the back yard to raise money for the library (not the Woodward Library, but an earlier one.) The setting was to mimic the exotic setting of “Alhambra.” While musicians played, young men blew soap bubbles into the air. (Many years ago, I bought a bubble machine, but have never used it. It’s still on the shelf. Figured I could never find a couple of young men who would spend the afternoon blowing bubbles.) The Victorian summer porch was quite common in the south, but eventually its popularity came north, and huge porches that wrapped around the house, became very common. Families would gather in the evening to escape the heat inside the house. On hot summer days, children could play on the porch, within the safety of the railings. Games were designed to be played on the porch steps. Some houses were designed with “sleeping porches off the second floor, and beds could be moved outside for more comfortable sleeping arrangements. By the 1880s, porches could be “screened” with wire screens to keep out flies and mosquitoes, and part of the spring and fall routine, would be to put up and take down the porch and window screens. Porch furniture was usually a light weight type of furniture. Wicker was available in the 1800s and could easily be moved around. Imagine the long rows of Windsor chairs on the porch of Wa s h i n g t o n ’ s Mount Vernon. Or the chairs along the long porch of Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island. The Adirondack Chair, was introduced in 1903, in Westport, New York, by Thomas Lee. A hunting friend of his, patented the design, and started production. The early Adirondack chair had a straight back, but a later version, manufactured in New Jersey, had the curved back design that is more popular today. The popularity of metal porch furniture came after World War II with porch gliders and metal chairs. I remember well, a red cushioned porch glider on our front porch. It took up almost half of the front porch, and survived a bevy of girlfriends who crowded onto the glider, and kicked it back and forth, often hitting the wall behind it. It also survived a couple of years of boyfriends who came courting. The one game that I remember playing on the porch was called “Teacher.” All the kids would sit on the lowest step of the porch, and the “teacher” would hold out their hands and in one would be a pebble. Each kid in turn would guess which hand had the pebble and couldmove up a step, if the hand chosen had the pebble. The “students” had to go up and back down the steps in this fashion, and the first student to return to the bottom step then became the teacher. On rainy days, my mother would bring out the glass milk bottles filled with water and little bottles of food coloring. It was a bit like chemistry, The Piazza The back porches on the "new academic institute. Today the LeRoy House.