Found my mom's family in a tenement apartment in Milwaukee's Third Ward:
Of course, Ancestry had the name indexed wrong, but I was able to call Mom and narrow down her location in 1940 thanks to her strong memories of her neighbors. Got some great reminiscence stories while we wandered virtually around her old neighborhood... everything from being sent with a jug over to the family saloon across the street for some beer, to her first cigarette and first crush on a boy.
Mom and her mom had only arrived in the US from Italy in 1934, so nigh 6 years on, they were still very poor--but my grandfather was a hardworker, and they never lacked for food or clothes. They were, rather, comfortably poor; as Mom puts it, "we didn't realize how poor we were."
According to the census, my grandfather Salvatore (or Sam, as he called himself in the States), made about $1250 in wages in the previous year! Not bad, I guess, for a clerk at a fruit store.
Across the country, my Dad was growing up in quite different circumstances, one of two children born to a naval pilot and his wife. Stationed in Seattle, Washington at the time, they were enjoying a fine rental house on an open Seattle street, and even had a live-in "servant," bearing the memorable name of Hazel Finkbonner (who appears on the next census page):
Dad's upbringing as the son of a pilot (later a Captain) was quite different than that of my mom's. My grandfather Jones ( known as "Doc"-- why is for another post) reported wages of about $5,000 for the previous year... almost four times as much as my other grandfather!
Unfortunately, thanks to Dad's dementia, I can't ask him much about his Seattle days (they moved around a lot as a military family), but I do recall him telling me that his most notable memories of Seattle included a nearby cherry tree which captivated his 9 year-old attention. Yet another opportunity to learn more about my family robbed by a very pernicious disease.
Of course, it's been taking me a while to get around to my genealogy work. It would take you a long time, too, if you just recently bought a new house that looked like THIS inside:
Ugh! Hopefully by the time of the 2020 census, this place will look halfway decent!
Actually, about 6 weeks of ownership and the floors have all been redone, the wallpaper removed and walls decently painted, the roof redone and the windows replaced. Only 4,685 things left on the list, but it will make a good story for the kids some day... "remember how this place used to look?"
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