Presenting Mozzer family photos spanning late 1940s to 1980s. Our years living in Maryland in the 1950s. My years growing up in the Governor Mifflin School District of Pennsylvania, 1960s-1970s. My short stint living in Glastonbury, Connecticut, mid 1970s. My world of comics fandom in the 1970s.

 

Alexander J. Mozzer & Anna May Kuczynski (my parents) married in two churches, out of respect for the respective faiths of each of their families. The first church was St. Valentine’s Polish National Catholic Church in my mother's hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1948. The second church was SS. Peter & Paul Church in Cumberland, Maryland, where my parents ended of living because of my father's work, on December 23, 1951. I am the caretaker of the film negatives of their photos going back to 1948. Therefore, this Flickr site covers a date range starting with that period.

 

My father, an M.D., worked as the physician and resident surgeon at Western Maryland Railway during the decade that my sister Alanna and I were born. Alanna was born in March 1952, and I was born in April 1956. In November 1952, my dad purchased our home at 527 Williams Street in Cumberland, Maryland. I spent the earliest years of my life, too young to retain memories, living at our Williams Street home, as my dad continued his years at Western Maryland Railway.

 

We lived in a big house in polluted Sparrows Point, Maryland, when my dad started working as the Plant Physician at Bethlehem Steel. I loved the trains running behind our back yard, and I was old enough to retain such memories. Although we lived there for only six months, from January to July 1959, my sister and I blame our current asthmatic symptoms on our time in Sparrows Point. Fortunately, we breathed better air, living at 3540 Milford Mill Road in Rockdale, a suburb of Baltimore, while my dad worked at B&O Railroad the following twelve months.

 

In July 1960, I woke from sleep during an interstate car trip with my family, soon after the car became motionless. My dad and Alanna were in the car with me. We were parked at Food Fair at the Shillington Shopping Center, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. "Mom's getting some groceries," my dad told me. "She'll be back soon". My dad's new job as Medical Officer at Reading Railroad had brought us to the greater Reading, Pennsylvania area, where we would live for the next thirteen years.

 

We lived at 516 Jefferson Boulevard in Lincoln Park for our first year in Reading, Pennsylvania. My sister went to school in the Wilson School District, but I was too young to start school. In July 1961, we left Lincoln Park, because my dad didn't want to pay a tax for new sewers that were going to be installed in the neighborhood, especially considering he didn't own the house. We moved to another house that my dad rented, at 109 West Lancaster Avenue, in Shillington. I started going to school across the street, at the Shillington Elementary School, part of the Governor Mifflin School District.

 

I spent the majority of my growing up years living in Mifflin Park, a development of single family homes in Cumru Township, near Shillington. The original architect and builder was W. Marshall Hughes & Son, Inc. In early 1963, my father purchased a contract for a Debonnaire Model, to be built on a lot at the end of Elkins Avenue. After we moved into the completed home in September 1963, it remained one of the last homes to be built in Mifflin Park for many years. My friends and I had undeveloped land behind my backyard as our playground, until additional homes were eventually built on the land. Now, I feel like my deepest roots are in this Governor Mifflin region of Pennsylvania.

 

During my later years in Mifflin Park, I become an avid comic book fan, and went outside my peers to find friends with mutual interests. Meanwhile, my exposure to rock music came primarily through Alanna, who played hit singles on her record player in her room, up the steps from me, and classic rock albums on my dad's Grundig mono HiFi system, in the living room. Basically, I was part of the Hippie era, but really too young for it. I escaped being drafted, because Nixon abolished the draft in the nick of time for me. I was a nerd before being a nerd became fashionable.

 

In 1973, my dad was forced into early retirement from his job as Medical Director at the New Holland Machine Company. He wanted to move back to his home state, Connecticut. My mother was perfectly happy about moving closer to her home state, Massachusetts. On June 19, 1973, we moved to Glastonbury, Connecticut, though I had one more year of high school to go. My parents' rationale for not waiting for me to finish high school at Governor Mifflin was the opportunity for me to make new friends in Glastonbury, so I would have friends to see when returning to the area in later years.

 

Well, here on Flickr, these photos would benefit from being organized into Maryland years, Pennsylvania years, and Connecticut years, and a special section for my world of comic book fandom. I would need at least two levels of hierarchy for this organization. Flickr's Collections feature would be perfect for it, but unfortunately Collections is no longer supported very well. At the very least, please go to Albums (previously called Sets) when viewing my images for the first time, for meaningful organization. Please ignore the Photostream, which shows you a blob of recent uploads in no meaningful order.

 

For more of my family oriented stuff, please see:

 

Mozzer and Kuczynski Family Tree:

www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/3437604

 

My dad's silent, regular 8mm family films, starting in 1952:

www.youtube.com/mozzermemories

 

My 1950s-60s-70s ephemera presented as audio:

soundcloud.com/mozzermemories

 

For my other life, please see:

 

My 1980s-90s photos on SmugMug:

jamworks.smugmug.com/