Great sadness comes to 56½ Goddard St.

My life began in the north end of Providence. My grandparents owned two three-family tenement houses, one behind the other. The address on the front house was 56 Goddard St. The address on the back house was 56½ Goddard St. On most of the street, there were front and back houses.

In the front house, on the first floor, were the Rev. and Mrs. Pressman. On the second floor were my bubbe and zayde and my Aunt Esther. On the third floor was an Armenian family, with a daughter about my age. Her name was Veggie.

In the back house, on the first floor, were my Aunt Frances and her husband Al, and their three children, Richard, Beverly and Marilyn. On second floor was the Berkowitz family: Ethel and Jack and their daughter Charlotte. We lived on the third floor: Lulu and Nate Sarenson, their children May-Ronny and Barry, and Lulu’s brother Abe Abrevaya.

In the early days, there was some grass and a few trees on the side of the front house, and fences to keep children in the yard. My Aunt Esther was developmentally delayed. Esther was a fierce watchdog. She was told by my Aunt Frances and my mother to watch the “babies,” and that is what she did. You could hardly move without Esther saying her version of no, no. And we listened.

My cousin Beverly had kidney disease and was in a wheelchair. At that time, very little was known about kidney disease. I remember pushing the wheelchair that held the smiling girl. She was a few months older than I. Beverly died when she was 6 years old.

We now live in a time when everyone has a telephone in his purse or pocket. But when I was 6, many people still did not have a phone in their home, and many more people had “party lines,” a line shared with other families. Each line had its own special ring. Stories about party  lines could fill a whole book.

Well, my Aunt Frances did not have a phone, and when the call came from the hospital, my mother had to run down two flights of stairs to get my aunt. I remember standing in the living room when my aunt was told that Beverly had died. Way back in my memory I can see her sitting on the ottoman crying in deep pain. I didn’t really know what death was, but I saw that it made you really sad. I also knew that I was never going to see Beverly again.

MAY-RONNY ZEIDMAN is the executive director of the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence.