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The
Anderson's - One of Brookline's Pioneer Families
Above is a view of the Anderson Farm
in East Brookline, between Brookline Boulevard and Breining Street, in the late
1930s. This is now the site of Brookline Memorial Park, but from the mid-1800s through the 1940s,
this was the home of one of Brookline's pioneer families.
Turning back the clock to the 19th
century, we see Brookline, once part of West Liberty Borough in lower St. Clair Township, as mainly farmland.
The rolling hills were part of the breadbasket that fed the needs of the growing
population of the city of Pittsburgh. This continued until the early 1900s, when
residential development began to creep into the area.
The Anderson's were one of the families
that worked these fields and their contributions to Brookline's heritage, and
it's future, stretch far beyond the borders of the 20-acre Anderson
Farm.
The Anderson Family story begins in 1849.
James Anderson was born in a log house on Oakridge Street, then known as Ormond
Street. Back in those days, farm fields in East Brookline stretched all the way
from Breining Street across the ravine to the hills on the other side of Brookline
Boulevard, where streets like Bellaire Place and Milan Avenue now sit.
Young James and his family grew up working
these fields. In 1874, at age 25, he married Anna Mary Fischer. The Fischer family owned a farm on Edgebrook Avenue. The new couple purchased the
20 acres of farmland on the south side of Brookline Boulevard, from
the ravine to Breining Street. The newlyweds set about raising a family and farming
the fields on the newly christened Anderson Farm, known locally as Anderson's
Acres.
During their first 20 years together, James
and Mary lived in a log cabin they erected on the property. As the family grew,
eleven children in all, the need for more living space led to the building of
a large farmhouse, with
a couple of outlying structures to house their chickens and farm animals. The home
was built in 1895.
On their farm, the
Anderson's grew
corn, tomatos, beans and turnips. They had an orchard where they grew strawberries
and grapes, and there were rows of fruit trees that produced sickle pears, bartlett
pears and apples. They also had chickens for fresh eggs and cows for
milk.
James and Mary Anderson had seven sons,
Phillip, George, James, Albert, Charles, Wallace and William. There were also four
daughters, Mary (Mayme), Sara (Sadie), Emma and Mabel, youngest of the
eleven. The children attended school during the day and tended to the fields
when at home. It was a hard life, but one quite typical for families of that
era.
Mary Fisher Anderson stands in the back
of the farmhouse
with her children Sarah, Mabel, Emma and Wallace.
Ruth Smith, daughter of Mabel Anderson,
shared many of her mother's reminiscences of life on the farm.
While most of the family flock tended
to the fields, Mr. Anderson and son Phillip would harness the horses to their
wagon and head off through the streets of Brookline to sell their produce to the
residents of the community. Their biggest seller was fresh corn.
One day a week, they would take their
produce to the city, where large crowds gathered by the wharf to sample
the fresh products at the Farmer's Market. They would make the trip up Brookline
Boulevard and down Pioneer Avenue to one of the inclines on Warrington. From there
it was up to Mount Washington and down an incline on the other side. Then they
crossed the Smithfield Bridge to the wharf area, where many of the local farmers
gathered to sell their goods. At the end of the day they would make the long and
arduous journey back to Brookline.
Back on the farm, life was no simpler.
The children worked the fields and made several homemade
products like butter,
apple butter, ketchup and grape pies for sale at the local stores. Sadie was an
accomplished tailor, making most of the clothes for the family, and the girls
also excelled at making quilts. The men handled much of the back-breaking chores
like hitching the horses to plow and clearing land for more space. Phillip was
the family horseman, and he spent most of his time caring for his special
friends.
The family subsisted mainly on their crops
and the products they made. The women were excellent cooks and the men would
hunt small game and deer on the property and in the outlying woods. Mabel and
the ladies were not too fond of preparing the meat, but they reluctantly
complied. When the weather was foul, the kids would gather to play games
like checkers, and to put together puzzles. Matriarch Mary was not fond of
card playing, but the kids would sneak in an occassional game.
Also, on snowy mornings, the kids would
get a special ride to school by Phillip, who harnessed the horses to a sleigh
and would make the trip to Fairhaven School in Overbrook. The children had a great
time and their fellow students would get quite a thrill seeing this unique
mode of transportation. Like all kids, they loved the horses!
The farm was a family enterprise, and
everyone was paid a wage for their efforts. The standard pay was $1 a day, or
$365 per year. The family prospered.
James Anderson passed away in 1907,
and Mary took over as leader of the clan. Throughout the next 30 years,
life on the farm continued much the same as it always had. As time passed the
children grew to adulthood and married. Some stayed in the family home and others
settled near the farm in the Brookline area.
Emma married
Adolph Schulze and settled
in the home right at the entrance to the farm on Breining Street. Adolph was
a Spanish-American War veteran and in the late-1930s became a Pittsburgh policeman,
walking the beat in the Lawrenceville area. William married Margaret Bertha Schulze
in 1926 and they settled in the farmhouse.
As the family continued to grow and
multiply, the siblings would still gather every day at the farm for the
daily rituals of farm life. Ruth remembers Mabel speaking of the day that
she lost her engagement ring while picking strawberrys, and could never find
it. It's probably still out there somewhere! While the Anderson's farming life proceeded
with daily regularity, the community of Brookline began to grow rapidly around
them. The local population boomed in the 1920s. Residential
development in East
Brookline engulfed the hills and surrounded the farm. The many grandchildren of
James and Mary now went to the modern Brookline School. The family became members of the newly
built United Presbyterian Church on Brookline Boulevard, of which Emma was an active member of
the Women's Bible Class. Trolleys passed by
regularly on the northern edge of the farm and cars buzzed by constantly on the
southern edge, but in between it seemed as if time stood still.
Most of the other family farms in the
Brookline area were sold off for commercial and residential lots. The Fleming
Farm, Knowlson's Farm and the old Hayes Farm in East Brookline, of which
Anderson's Acres were once a part, were all but a distant memory. Soon, only
the Anderson Farm remained. It became like a part of rural America right in
the middle of a bustling metropolitan community, and Brookliners reaped the
benefits of this unusual situation.
Phillip, who make his living with his horses, made his daily rounds through the Brookline streets.
The residents would gather to sample the fresh produce and this became a neighborhood
ritual. As the march of time brought motorized transport to the world, Phillip stuck
to his precious horses, and the clippity-clop of the hooves on the cobblestone
streets would be a beacon to the residents that the sweet corn and strawberries
were on the way. The kids also got a special treat, coming out to gaze at the
beautiful draft horses.
Doris Anderson Morrison, the granddaughter
of William Anderson recalls how William had an aversion to automobiles, refering
to them as "machines" and resisting the call of industrialization. Eventually,
in 1936, Emma's husband Adolph broke down and purchased a white pickup
truck. The horses would not have to tackle the hills of Brookline any longer,
but the people of Brookline lost one of their last great links to the
past.
Mary Fischer Anderson passed away in
1936. By now the march of time was catching up with the family, and for the first
time they considered selling the property and retiring from the farm life.
As the decade of the 1940s began, the
family prepared to close down the farm, after nearly 70 years, and settle down
to raise their respective families. Sadie handled the sale of the property,
and in 1945 decided to accept an offer from the Community Center Association of
Brookline, which was looking for a large tract of land to develop into a
recreation area and park for the community. The Anderson's held the key to
that dream, and they passed on those keys for a sale price of a little under
$20,000.
The entire 20 acres were sold. William
left the family home and settled in the Brookline area. The rest of the Anderson's
were dispersed throughout the Overbrook, Brookline and Bethel areas. Only
Wallace, the third youngest of the eleven children, continued in the
farming business. He and wife Gertrude purchased a farm in Cochraton,
Pennsylvania.
Sadie had two homes built on Oakridge
Street and Emma continued to live on Breining until her death in the late 1970s.
William bought one of those homes on Oakridge and settled in for his retirement
years. He and Margaret helped raise their granddaughter Doris, who along with her
cousin Ruth are the source of this fascinating story.
While the members of the Anderson
family went about their new lives away from the farm, the land, now refered to
as the Brookline Memorial Community Center, was developed slowly over the next twenty years.
In 1951 a baseball
field was constructed.
The Brookline Little League began play the following season. The aging farmhouse was renovated
and used as a community gathering place and recreation hall. In 1961
a Pony League baseball field was built. The fields to the right of the house were
leveled to the treeline and carnivals were held yearly. In 1965 the first new
recreation building was
erected and in the winter there was an ice skating
rink.
Then, in
1966, in an unprecedented move,
the land was sold by the Community Center Association to the city of Pittsburgh
for $1, with the promise that it would be developed into a park and recreational
facility.
Over the next 35 years the city did just
that, spending millions of dollars to develop Brookline
Memorial Park into one
of the city's showcase community parks. And through it all, most of the members
of the Anderson family were just a stones throw away, watching with wonder
and amazement as their home was transformed beyond their wildest
imaginations.
The only downside to the whole story
occured in 1971, when the original farmhouse burned down. Poor Emma, who
practically lived next door, was in tears, as was the entire Anderson clan.
That was not only a sad day for the Anderson's, but for the community of
Brookline as a whole. One of our historic landmarks was gone, but it would
never be forgotten, especially by the family that had made it their home
for half a century.
As time passed, the original eleven
children of James and Mary Anderson moved on to more heavenly pastures, with
baby Mabel being the last to part at the ripe old age of ninety-nine.
Today, the many descendants of
James and Mary can look on with pride as the children of Brookline play
Little League baseball, or swim in the pool, or pursue their dreams of
basketball stardom on the gym floor in the Brookline
Memorial Recreation Center building. They do so with the full realization that had it not been for
their family and the land that they had toiled over for so long, these kids would
have had nowhere to play. In some small way, the Anderson's have touched the
lives of generations of Brookline youngsters who have passed through the many
programs offered at the Community Center. |
