The Gray family liked posing for
photos on their roof top. Their
Victorian era home had a mansard roof.

This is my grandmother Edith Gray above.
Brr! Someone took this picture in the
winter. My granddmother is holding her
bible. She was a Sunday School
teacher at her local church.

My great-grandmother Anna loved flowers.
Up on the roof she planted annuals like
morning glories which were planted in
buckets and strung up on the roof chimneys.

My grandmother Edith liked to tell my Mom
stories from her childhood. One of her childhood
stories concerned her brother Chester and the
roof chimneys.

Chester was assigned the task of cleaning out
the chimneys. He had to put all of the sooty
ashes into a coal bucket to be dumped outside
at ground level. The house was three stories high.

My grandmother Edith came running up the stairway
to get to the roof. Chester was coming down the
stairs as my grandmother Edith was running up.
Needless to say, she bumped into Chester while
he was carrying the ashes. The bucket flew up and
landed on Chester who became covered with all of the
soot. Grandmother Edith laughed and said, "Is that
you Chester?"

My grandmother never told my Mom what
Chester answered. LOL.

My great-grandfather William Gray liked posing
on the roof in his trolley uniform.
Before he was a trolley driver he worked as a
butcher for twenty years at Howland's on
Washington Street. His older brother Charles
also worked at Howland's as a butcher.

Aunt Edna dressed in her "Sunday Best"

This white dress looks like the one that Edna wore
when she married Wilbur Small in Maine. Edna was
thirty-nine when she married Wilbur. Edna's father
William moved to Maine with Wilbur and Edna. He was retired
from driving trolley in Boston.

Lee dressed in her Girl Scout Uniform
and her great-uncle Milford Somes,
half-brother of William Gray.

My grandmother Edith told my Mom another story
about the hallway stairs leading up to the roof.
The children were playing hide and seek in the
hallways. Edith climbed into a wicker baby carriage
in the hallway. She covered up with the baby blanket
and got stuck in the carriage. She was found
eventually, but the children had to lift her out
of the carriage.

Thank you for visiting Up On The Roof. Please vist
the Gray Family of Roxbury next.