My mother, Doris Priscilla Adams (1923-2008), told me that, as a child, she moved constantly because was grandfather, Vernon Tarbox Adams, worked for western Union and was frequently transferred because of his job.

Four years ago, I created a timeline and tried to document that addresses at which the Adams clan lived.

Recently, I reread A Grandparents’ Book, by Milton Kamen, which my mother filled in during the January 1996 Eastern seaboard blizzard and found a handwritten doubled-sided page of notes that Mom compiled as she recorded her memories. Here is one half of one side.

This list wouldn’t mean much to many people, but Mom was born in 1923 and, knowing some of the places where she lived, I recognized this as a list of all the towns she could remember and the years in which she lived there.

Because of this list, I can update some of my previous entries.

1921 – My grandparents lived at 30 Mead Street, Everett, Middlesex, Massachusetts when my Aunt Barbara was born.

1922 – Living at 30 Meade Street, Everett, Middlesex, Massachusetts

1923 – Mom was born in Calais, Maine on 7 June 1923. However, the family was visiting relatives when she was born and I believe my grandparents were living in Massachusetts at the time. [Now, I’m not sure if they were visiting or had already moved to Milltown.] My aunt was born in 1921 in Malden, Massachusetts. I don’t know if they were still there in 1923.

1924 – Milltown, Washington, Maine – Milltown is part of the city of Calais. However, there are no surviving city directories for 1924 or 1925 so I have no way of verifying a street address.

1925 – Living in Calais, Washington, Maine

2. Bangor Daily News reports that Vernon Adams and family are moving to Boston, 13 October 1925.

3. In December 1926, they were living somewhere in Bangor, Maine as the Bangor Daily News reported that Vernon’s grandmother, Nellie Adams, had visited the family over the holidays. No street address was given.

1927 – Living at 74 Wing Street, Bangor, Penobscot, Maine

4. By 1928, the Adamses were still in Bangor, Maine, where they lived at 31 Wing Street, as found in the Bangor City Directory.

1929 – Living in Bangor, Penobscot, Maine

1930 – Lived for a very short time in Jamaica, Queens, New York

5. They weren’t there for very long because the 1930 census shows them enumerated at 90 Mellen Street, Portland, Maine. It was a multi-family dwelling with Mary Torrey, owner, and one other family besides Mom’s living there.

6. However, they lived on Mellen Street for a very short time because the 1931 Portland City Directory gives their home address as 318 Stevens Avenue. They were still there in 1932.

1932 – Living at 318 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Cumberland, Maine

7. The 1933 Portland City Directory gives the new family address as 145 Brentwood Street. Later that year, they lived at 164 Falmouth Street, Portland, Cumberland, Maine.

1934 – My aunt was born in Portland in November.

1935 – The 1940 census of Ridgewood, Bergen, New Jersey shows the family living in Portland, Maine five years previously.

1936 – Living at 28 Rosemont Avenue, Portland, Maine and then possibly living in Floral Park, Nassau, New York later that year.

1936 – June – My aunt was promoted from Lynbrook Grammar School to the high school in June.

8. The 1937 Portland City Directory notes “move to New York City.” However, their exact address isn’t mentioned.

9. Mom mentioned that before the family lived in Ridgewood, New Jersey, they lived for a short time in nearby Tenafly, New Jersey, but she didn’t remember the address.

1936 – Living in Tenafly, Bergen, New Jersey

1937 – Living in Tenafly, Bergen, New Jersey. My Aunt Barbara received her “Certificate of Admission” to the Tenafly Senior High School on 17 June 1937.

1938 – Living in Tenafly, Bergen, New Jersey

[A telephone call to the Tenafly Public Library confirmed that they don’t have any city directories or phone books for these years. The Englewood, NJ directories sometimes included Tenafly, but I had no success finding directories there, either.]

1939 – The family moved to 630 Wyndemere Avenue, Ridgewood, Bergen, New Jersey.

1940 – My grandparents last lived in New Jersey at 630 Wyndemere Avenue in Ridgewood.

Ridgewood is where the family lived at least from 1940 (as shown in the census that year) until Grandmother, Grandfather and my two aunts made the final family move to Massachusetts in 1947. My parents married in 1947, so Mom didn’t go with them.

Mom really did move a LOT and since they rented and the Depression meant many fewer city directories printed, I probably won’t ever be able to identify all the houses in which she lived. She said every time she and my aunt made some friends and got settled in school, they had to move some place else. She hated it.